THE BRAVO BILLIONAIRE Page 2

  But evidently, his mother had decided to give him a reason.

  She'd known his one weakness, the weakness she herself had created by adopting the sprite. His weakness was Mandy. And Blythe had used Mandy – just as this dog groomer from Texas had used her.

  "Ambrose," Jonas said. "Thank you for answering my questions. Now, I have a few things to say to Ms. Hewitt. Leave us."

  Ambrose hesitated. Jonas knew why. The lawyer thought it unwise to leave the little Texan alone with him right then. After all, one could never be sure what the Bravo Billionaire might do when provoked.

  In the past, when he'd been younger and less disciplined and his people did not do what he asked them to do, Jonas sometimes threw things. Expensive, very breakable things always worked best. Things that shattered satisfyingly on impact. Once, he'd thrown a Ming vase through a stained-glass window. And on another occasion, he'd tossed a Tiffany bowl at a marble fireplace. He had also, during what he thought of as his Great White Hunter phase – a short phase, really, though the scandal sheets liked to make much of it – stood his ground to bring down a charging rhinoceros. Beyond the rhino, the rumor mill had it that he'd wrestled alligators and won, and that he'd gone at a grizzly bear with only a hunting knife for a weapon.

  He never denied such rumors. Why should he? Being considered fearless and unpredictable had always worked in his favor.

  "Ambrose," he said, making a warning of the name. The lawyer shifted nervously in his chair and turned his worried gaze on the dog groomer. "Er, Ms. Hewitt. Perhaps you have some questions?"

  And, right then, for the first time since Jonas had entered the room, the dog groomer spoke.

  "It's all right, Mr. McAllister." Her voice was a honeyed Texas drawl. It crept along Jonas's nerve endings, setting off little flares of annoying heat right below the surface of his skin. He found himself staring at the tiny mole, low down on her right cheek, midway between her pert nose and her soft lips.

  "You go on now," she said. "I'll talk to Mr. Bravo alone."

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  «^»

  Emma Lynn Hewitt could see that the lawyer was worried for her. And maybe he had good reason to be. It was probably plain crazy for her to volunteer to be alone with Blythe's scary, overbearing son right then.

  But come on. What could the man do to her, really? If looks could kill, she'd have keeled over stone dead when he walked in the room and spotted her sitting there.

  He was probably going to say some ugly things. He might even throw something – that big crystal water pitcher on the credenza over there, or maybe even a swivel chair or two. She had heard he sometimes threw things. But to the best of her recollection, she hadn't heard that he threw things at people.

  No. She didn't believe he would do anything to physically hurt her. He would just use words to try to beat her into submission. Well, sticks and stones, as her aunt Cass used to tell her all the time. Words, even the mean, hard words of Blythe's big, scary son, could not hurt her unless she allowed them to.

  This was not her fault, whatever Jonas Bravo chose to believe.

  The lawyer coughed. "Ms. Hewitt. Are you certain about this?"

  Emma reached out and gave the lawyer's sleeve a nice little pat. "I'll be just fine. Don't you worry 'bout me."

  "Well. If you're positive…"

  She beamed him a giant-sized smile. "I am."

  Mr. McAllister picked up his glasses and stood. Emma watched the tall, kind-faced lawyer walk down the length of the big conference table and go out through the double doors. It was a lot easier looking at the lawyer than at the man who sat beside her with tension radiating off him like steam.

  As soon as the door swung shut behind the lawyer, Blythe's son spoke in that arresting voice of his, which was soft and deep and just a little bit rough, like velvet when you rub it against the grain.

  "This is your doing, isn't it?"

  Emma sucked in a big breath through her nose. One of her best groomers and dearest friends, Deirdre Laventhol, was real big on yoga. In yoga, you always breathed through your nose.

  It was supposed to be calming.

  Emma slowly let the breath back out the same way she'd sucked it in. It didn't help much. She still felt angry and confused and a little bit afraid of the man who was so determined to blame her for something she had not done. Her heart was beating too fast. Just racing away in there. And her hands felt clammy. She had to resist the urge to rub them on her skirt.

  Oh, Blythe, she thought miserably, why did you do this? I told you I plain don't like him. And he never liked me. I told you that.

  But Blythe hadn't listened. She was like that sometimes, once she got an idea in her head.

  Emma would say, "I don't like him and he doesn't like me, either. He always gives me that narrow-eyed suspicious look, like he's waiting for me to grab the silver and run – or to cheat you out of every last penny you own."

  And Blythe would say, "You're wrong, Em. You don't understand him. Naturally he's hostile with you. He doesn't want to admit the attraction. But you're the woman for him. And he's just right for you." And then Emma would groan and order her friend to forget that idea. Blythe would always drop the subject about then, which left Emma assuming that her friend had gotten the message.

  To assume, Aunt Cass used to say, makes an ass out of u and me, too…

  Emma made herself look at him again. It wasn't that he was so hard to look at. He was a big, muscular man in a high-dollar suit with a burning look in eyes that sometimes looked blue – and sometimes looked black as the darkest part of the night.

  Not handsome. No. His features were too blunt, too … basic for that. Not handsome, but masculine. Emma had always thought that the air kind of vibrated with male energy whenever Jonas Bravo was around – even when he wasn't ready to chew nails like he was now.

  Women were supposed to be drawn to him "like moths to a dangerous flame." Yep, she'd actually read that about him somewhere. Blythe had told her that his "playboy phase" had come to an end around the time he turned thirty. But during it, he'd dated the most beautiful and charming women in the world. Famous actresses. The stunning youngest daughter of one the nation's oldest and wealthiest families. Not to mention a long string of starlets and showgirls from both the good old U.S. of A. and abroad.

  Blythe had often mentioned oh so casually to Emma that in the past few years, Jonas had hardly dated at all. Blythe had said she considered that a good sign. She thought he was ready for the real thing, for the love of his life.

  In fact, looking back now, it seemed to Emma that Blythe was constantly bringing up Jonas whenever she and her friend spent time together. It seemed, looking back, that she should have been warned that Blythe might do something crazy like this – something bizarre and extreme, something just next door to desperate, to try to get her and Jonas hooked up.

  But then, Aunt Cass'd had a saying for that, too – the one about hindsight always being twenty-twenty.

  "Don't give me that wide-eyed innocent look," the Bravo Billionaire growled. "Admit it. You set this up."

  Emma folded her clammy hands in front of her, yanked her shoulders up tall and looked him dead in the eye. Think bold, she told herself silently. Think one hundred percent completely unconcerned about the mean things this awful man is saying to you.

  "Didn't you?" he taunted.

  She answered truthfully – as if the truth was going to do her a bit of good with this wild man. "I most certainly did not. I didn't know a thing about it until I walked in here today."

  One side of his mouth curled lazily into a sneer. "Fine. Then get out of the way."

  Now, what did that mean? She was not in his way. If he wanted to leave, he could get right up and go. "Pardon me?"

  "Get out of the way. Refuse to marry me and decline to assume custody of my sister. If you won't marry me and you won't take Mandy, either, there's no problem. She'll go to me."

  The wild man had a point. Nothing said sh
e had to go along with Blythe's crazy scheme. Mr. McAllister had said the same thing a few minutes ago, hadn't he?

  If Ms. Hewitt is unwilling, then these changes become meaningless…

  Emma could just … do what Jonas Bravo wanted her to do. Get out of the way. Mandy would go to him and – well, wasn't that the right thing, anyway?

  Emma opened her mouth to tell him she'd do what he wanted: step aside. Make no claim on Mandy.

  But the words got caught in her throat.

  A little over five years ago, right after her aunt Cass died, Emma had first come to L.A. She'd brought nothing but a few cheap clothes, a battered Ford four-door, a degree from a two-year business college in Odessa and a burning will to succeed, to make a mark upon the world. She'd taken a job at a famous deli/restaurant on Fairfax – just until she could figure out what kind of business she intended to make her mark in.

  She'd met Blythe Bravo the second morning on the job, when Blythe had dropped in good and early for a black coffee and a plain bagel to go. It was immediate, the feeling of connection between them. It didn't matter that, on the surface, they had nothing in common. Emma had looked in Blythe's eyes and known that things were going to be all right, that she didn't have to be secretly terrified anymore. She had lost her dear aunt Cass and she was starting all over. But she had found a rare friend. That gave her confidence, made her certain that she really was going to make it in L.A.

  "When can you take a break?" Blythe had asked the third time she walked into the deli and found Emma behind the register. "We'll do lunch."

  After that, they met two or three times a week – for lunch, to take in a movie, sometimes just for coffee and serious girl talk. Within a month, Emma was telling Blythe her idea of creating a special kind of "pet retreat." And Blythe was offering to be her backer…

  Emma owed Blythe so much. She did want a chance to repay her – not only for giving Emma her start, but also for holding out her hand in true and binding friendship.

  Some people – like the man who was trying to push her around right now – would say that Emma came from nothing. Her daddy and her mama had both been dead by the time she was five. She'd been raised by a good-hearted, sun worshipping, platitude-loving aunt in a double-wide in a dinky, dusty west Texas town called Alta Lobo.

  So yes. Some folks might say she was a nobody from nowhere.

  But in Alta Lobo, in her aunt Cass's double-wide, Emma had learned a number of important lessons. One of them was that if you can possibly give a friend what she wants, you do it.

  Emma longed to do just that, to grant her dear friend's dying wish.

  But, oh, Blythe, she thought miserably. Oh, Blythe, why this? Anything but this, to get myself hitched up to this awful man.

  Emma was not sure she could bring herself to do it – even for the very best friend she had ever known.

  The awful man in question was still watching her through those blue-black angry eyes, waiting for her to give in and say she'd do what he demanded.

  Well, she wouldn't do what he demanded.

  Not right yet, anyway.

  He would just have to wait a little longer, because she needed time to think.

  Emma slid the strap of her bright orange purse high onto her shoulder. She closed the folder on her copy of Blythe's will and tucked the folder under her arm.

  Jonas said, "Where do you think you're going?"

  "Out of here."

  "Oh, no you don't. Not yet."

  Emma pushed back the big leather swivel chair and stood. "This is a lot to think about. I'm not makin' any snap decisions, Mr. Bravo. I need a little time."

  He looked at her as if he'd like to pick her up and toss her through that big window behind her. And probably all he'd do was smile in satisfaction when she hit the pavement ten stories below. "Time, Ms. Hewitt, is the thing we don't have much of. You've got to marry me in the next two weeks – or you've got to prove to my satisfaction that you do not intend to try to claim custody of my sister."

  "Excuse me," Emma Lynn Hewitt replied. "I do not have to marry you. And I do not have to prove a single thing. I have to decide whether or not I can bear to grant my dearest friend's dyin' wish. And if I decide I just can't make myself do that, since to do it I'd have to marry up with you, then I have to figure out whether or not I want to fight you for custody of sweet little Mandy. Those are the things that I have to do and they are all that I have to do. And in order to do them, I need some time."

  She turned for the door, thinking as she headed for it that maybe refusing to marry him would be the best way to go. She could refuse – and then fight to get Mandy put in her care. Maybe that would satisfy her obligation to her friend. After all, the little sweetheart would certainly have a better chance at a happy, normal life with her than she ever would with Jonas Bravo.

  "I'll see you in hell before I let you have Mandy," the billionaire said before she got out the door.

  Emma paused, turned to face him again and gave him her sweetest, brightest smile. "I'm sure you know just where you're headed, Mr. Bravo. But whether I'll be there to meet you remains to be seen."

  "We are not finished here."

  "Oh, yes we are. I told you. I need a little time to think."

  "How much time?"

  "A few days. Then I'll get back to you."

  He started to stand. She didn't stay to watch him come at her.

  She darted through the door, yanked it closed behind her and headed for the exit as fast as her three-inch heels would carry her.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  «^»

  Jonas dropped back to his chair as soon as the blonde in the orange suit bolted from the room. There was nothing to be gained by following her right then, nothing left, at that moment, to use on her save physical force. And contrary to what a lot of people believed, Jonas Bravo never used physical force. He only let them think that he might.

  A few days, she had said. She would get back to him in a few days.

  What the hell, Jonas wondered, was a few days? Two? Three? Four?

  He felt caged. Caught. Bested.

  Made to wait.

  He sat alone in the conference room for several minutes, giving his frustration a chance to abate, at least minimally. Eventually it occurred to him that Ambrose would be ducking back in shortly, just to check and make sure he hadn't torn the little dog groomer limb from limb.

  Since Jonas felt zero inclination to deal with Ambrose again right then, he left the lawyer's offices and went to Bravo, Incorporated, which was housed in the Bravo Building, a towering forty-story structure of pale granite and dark glass in downtown L.A.

  He had a meeting at three with the project manager of a certain upscale shopping center that was due to open in six weeks. It was a project in which he'd made a significant investment of Bravo, Incorporated funds.

  The meeting lasted two hours. When it was over, Jonas hardly remembered a thing that had been said. He kept thinking about the kennel keeper, about that word, few, about what she had really meant when she said it.

  About how damn long she intended to make him wait. After the meeting, there were calls to make and papers to sign. He spent an hour and a half closeted with one of his assistants, going over correspondence and contracts he needed prepared.

  By seven, he had had enough.

  He was supposed to meet the CEO of a certain Internet startup group for dinner at L'Orangerie. But he knew it would be pointless. Right then, he couldn't have cared less if every decent tech stocks opportunity out there passed him right by. He had his secretary call and reschedule the appointment for Thursday night.

  After all, Thursday was three days away. He'd have his answer from the dog groomer by then – wouldn't he? Weren't three days a few? He flexed his thick, powerful fingers, thinking how pleasant it would be to wrap them around Emma Lynn Hewitt's neck and begin to squeeze.

  Before he left his office, he downloaded the file on the Hewitt woman into his laptop. There might
be something in it he had missed, something he could use to get her to start seeing things his way and to do so as quickly as possible.

  Jonas kept files on all of his mother's various causes and charities, as well as on her friends and acquaintances. In spite of what had happened thirty years ago, when she'd lost a son and a husband within months of each other and spent four years in psychiatric care as a result, Blythe Bravo had ended up a trusting soul. She was also a person who felt a responsibility to leave the world a better place than she'd found it. Jonas felt no such responsibility. And he made it a point not to trust anyone until they had proven they were worthy of trust.

  He'd had the Hewitt woman investigated five years ago, when she'd first popped up in his mother's life. Once he'd read the report provided by his investigators, he'd come to the conclusion that, while she rubbed him the wrong way personally, Emma Lynn Hewitt was probably harmless.

  Harmless. He scowled as he thought the word.

  And he felt bested again.

  By a blonde with big breasts and inappropriate shoes.

  On the way home, in the quiet back seat of the limo, he studied the file. He was still going over it when he reached Angel's Crest, the hilltop Mediterranean-style house in Bel Air where Bravos had lived for three generations. Jonas owned a number of houses and apartments, among them a hunting lodge in Idaho, a small villa in the south of France and a penthouse on Fifth Avenue

  . But he considered Angel's Crest his home.

  Palmer, who ran the house, greeted him at the door. "Good evening, sir."

  Jonas nodded. "Palmer." He handed the butler his briefcase and the laptop. "Put these in the study, will you?"

  "Certainly."

  He told Palmer that he'd have a light meal in the small dining room in one hour and then he climbed the curving iron staircase to the second floor.

  He visited his sister in the nursery. As usual lately, she babbled nonstop. It was all two-year-old talk, that phase of language development consisting in the main of instructions and demands.