Fake Engagement with the Billionaire
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Ally Blake
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11
CHAPTER ONE
PETRA GILPIN HAD made a huge mistake.
Since she was knee-high to a butterfly Petra’s intuition had been her navigation system, bewildering her highly successful Type A parents, and delighting her older brother Finn.
It had sent her meandering down garden paths in search of soft pink feathers and sparkly pink stones to add to her collections. It had sent her to art school, where she’d discovered her skills were more in the appreciation than the doing. And it was entirely to blame for her losing her heart to the first boy who’d found a pink feather on the ground one day and saved it for her.
Petra’s instinct was not infallible by any means. It had got her lost more times than she could count. But only in the best ways.
Now, sitting in the swanky Gilded Cage nightclub, the deeply luxurious purple velvet couch making the backs of her knees itch, that same intuition buzzed at her like crazy.
Petra glanced at her bag—the tip of her flamingo phone case in particular.
Read it, her intuition whispered, referring to the email that had lured her back home to Melbourne for the first time in over a decade. Read it one more time. There’s got to be a loophole, a way out—
“This place is insane!” said Deena—one of the few friends from her weekly boarding school days she’d actually kept in touch with—climbing through the actual cage curving around their private booth, huge bottle of bubbly in hand. “Did you see the disco ball over the dance floor? It’s bigger than my office. And I made partner last year. Having fun?”
Petra twinkled a smile her way. And wondered at what point she could call it a night.
Deena refilled their glasses generously, before lifting hers in the air. “What shall we toast to?”
Petra always raised a glass to the same thing—her big brother Finn. But Deena hadn’t met him, which would be a little weird.
“You choose,” Petra said.
“Your welcome home?”
Petra felt her nose twitch.
Deena laughed. “Okay, not that. How about beauty, love, art and...hot men with roping arm veins?”
Petra perked up and clinked glasses and said, “To favourite things!”
As the excellent bubbles dived deliciously down her throat, Petra pondered if huge mistake might be pushing it. For Deena was good value. And the club’s design elements were exquisitely brassy and bold. It was just that Petra was more a behind-the-scenes, get-it-done-then-head-home-for-a-glass-of-red kind of girl.
A burst of joyful noise saw Deena on her knees on the couch, leaning through the bars, making friends with the hen’s night party in the private cage next door.
Petra took her chance, grabbing her phone.
DARLING!
That was how the email in question began. Because that was her mother’s way of showing she felt fondness towards her daughter, even though she’d spent Petra’s entire childhood acting as if Petra had simply wandered in from the garden one day, and Josephine had decided raising her as their own was the civilised thing to do.
And all in caps because her mother had read that it expressed urgency, and deemed every message she ever sent out into the world to be of great import.
Petra nibbled at her thumbnail as she read on.
YOU MIGHT REMEMBER THAT YOUR FATHER AND I ARE ON THE BOARD OF THE GALLERY OF MELBOURNE.
THE GOM HAS FOUND ITSELF IN A BIT OF A FIX AND IN NEED OF SOMEONE WITH YOUR UNCOMMONLY SPECIFIC SKILL SET, AS WELL AS A NAME THAT WILL INSPIRE TRUST IN THOSE BEST ABLE TO DONATE THE FUNDS THAT IT NOW RATHER DESPERATELY REQUIRES IN ORDER TO KEEP ITS DOORS OPEN.
I MUST INSIST ON YOUR DISCRETION ON THIS POINT. AFTER SOME YEARS OF MISMANAGEMENT THE SITUATION IS DIRE. WE’VE THUS FAR HELD OFF THE WHIFF OF SCANDAL AND WISH FOR IT TO REMAIN THAT WAY.
YOUR FATHER AND I REMEMBER HOW MUCH YOU ENJOYED YOUR TIME SPENT IN THE GALLERY AS A CHILD, AND HOPE THIS MIGHT ENCOURAGE YOU TO DO WHAT MUST BE DONE.
ARE YOU UP FOR THE CHALLENGE?
Petra’s response—lots of wows and exclamation marks and Some of the best memories of my childhood, followed by a final Challenge accepted! were all typed in a shocked flurry, as if it was the best news ever.
Yes, art was her field, but not the business side—more the enchantment that came with stumbling on a work that made a person feel something. An affinity that had led to her procuring private collections for princes and pop stars, curating modern art collections for famous galleries, and breaking records hosting auctions of digital art.
All of which she’d put on hold so that she might help her parents save the august, old Gallery of Melbourne.
The sounds of the club whumped back to her, and Petra lifted her glass to find it empty.
“Phone down!” said Deena, literally yanking it out of Petra’s hand and tossing it up the other end of the couch. “No work. Or cat memes. Or whatever your kink is these days. And no photos. What happens at the Gilded Cage stays at the Gilded Cage.”
Petra held out her glass and Deena happily refilled it. “What exactly do you imagine happening tonight?”
Deena reared back, hand to her throat. “I am happily married! It’s my mission to see you hooked up.”
Petra flinched. “You’re meant to be giving me a rundown on who the movers and shakers are in Melbourne these days. Hooking up was not on the agenda.” Or bubbly, for that matter, but there she was, glass in hand.
“It can be!” said Deena. “Unless you have a man back in London?”
Petra shook her head rather more vehemently than was probably necessary. It wasn’t as if she didn’t date, it was just another normal person thing that didn’t come naturally to her.
She had thought herself on the way to falling in love a couple of years back, with a soft-spoken junior taxidermist at the American Museum of Natural History. It had taken her longer than it ought to realise that rather than being a strong silent type—her catnip—he was pathologically shy. And what she’d liked most about him was that he didn’t make her feel as if she had to work to impress him.
Had she imagined she’d still feel the sting of her parents’ lack of insight into who she was at thirty? Heck, no. Then again, she had imagined she’d be married to her favourite football player and living in some beautiful, gloriously eclectic hideaway in the Dandenong mountains by now.
“Humour me,” Deena begged, then poked her head through the bars of their cage as she looked down on the dance floor. “Nope. Not him. Wait a minute... Ding! Ding! Ding! I do believe we’ve found a winner! And—holy mother of Thor—he might just be the most beautiful man who ever lived.”
“Big call,” said Petra, snuggling deeper into the couch as she sipped on her bubbly.
“Big’s the word,” said Deena. “This guy is huge. Rugged. Beastly. Smells like summer rain.”
Petra laughed, the sound now bubbly too. She spun, fluffing her long dusky pink tulle skirt behind her so she could hop up onto her knees and see what the fuss was about. Only for the lights bouncing off the glassy mosaic ceiling to do funny things to her balance, making her wonder exactly how many times Deena had refilled her glass.
“How can you possibly tell what he smells like from here?” Petra asked.
“It’s a skill. Hang on, I’ve lost him. How could I lose him? Dark curls, the build of a giant, brown leather jacket... There!” Deena called, finger pointing madly.
Petra followed the line of the finger. And before she could mouth the words, Which one? a voice inside her head said:
That one.
The seething Saturday night crowd seemed to pause and take a breath, clearing a path to where a hulking, dark-haired man leant his heft against the circular neon bar in the centre of the room. Even from that distance Petra could sense the slow roll of a meaty shoulder before the guy lifted a glass to his mouth, the dark hair curling wildly and overlong over the collar of his beaten-up brown leather jacket.
It was enough for Petra to plonk her backside back into the seat, the tulle crinkling as it settled around her.
It couldn’t be him, could it?
He was always travelling, from country to country, city to city, even village to village, spreading Big Think Corp fairy dust—aka tech, or insight, or provisions—on whoever needed it. It had been years since they’d been in the same time zone, much less the same city.
And yet...
If her intuition had been humming before, now it filled her head with a delirious high-pitched scream.
“Hey,” Deena cried, “why are you not down there, shoving people out of the way to get to him? I would if I wasn’t, you know, happily married.”
“Too brooding for my taste,” Petra lied as she downed the remains of her bubbly in one mighty gulp. But, rather than loosening her up, it tightened her insides like the squeeze of a rubber band.
Deena settled her chin against her hand and sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. All that testosterone must be a lot to handle. A guy who knows how to rock cycling gear, and brings you coffee in bed every morning, that’s the ticket. That’s my man and I’m...”
“Happily married.” Petra shot Deena a smile.
Deena smiled back. “Now, I have to take a quick trip to the ladies’ room. Then I might find someone to dance with me. Platonically. Wanna come with?”
Petra saw the bottom of yet another empty glass. “I might grab some water.”
Deena patted her on the knee before climbing over her legs and out of the cage. “See you in a bit, then.”
“Here goes,” Petra said, ducking under the arch of their twirling gilt cocoon, strappy high heels carefully navigating the small steps down to the dance floor below. The music felt as if it was rising from the floor, through her knees and into her spine.
Once she reached the other side she ducked into a spare slot at the busy bar, then lifted onto her toes and glanced along the bar. Finding no familiar faces at all, she slumped back to her heels in disappointment.
Then stared dreamily at the pink lights dappling her skin, reflected off a thousand tiny mirrors embedded in the roof above, wishing she could bottle it somehow.
“What can I get you?”
Petra looked up to find a bartender smiling her way. The word water danced on her tongue before it was somehow replaced with, “Tequila. Slammer.”
The bartender clocked her fob, their private booth coming with its own eye-watering bar tab.
The moment the bartender put the ingredients in front of her she dabbed salt on her wrist, licked it off with a quick determined swipe of her tongue and downed the clear spirit in one go.
Wincing as she bit down on the sliver of lemon, she reached up into her hair, fluffed the roots till her auburn waves settled around her face like a cage of their own. And she let the tequila do what the bubbly had not, sear her fluctuating intuition away.
“Good evening,” a male voice said beside her, the cloying scent of cologne following.
“Nope,” said Petra, not even turning.
“Let me buy you a—”
“Nope,” she said again. Eyes now closed, she smiled as she felt the space beside her cool as the interloper moved away.
But it was short-lived, as soon a wall of heat filled the gap. A deeper male voice said, “Of all the gin joints in all the world.”
Only this time the rusty tone made her skin prickle, her breath catch and her instincts rise within her like a hurricane.
Eyes fluttering open, Petra braced herself and turned. But there was no amount of bracing to combat the rush of heat swooping her insides as she came face to face with the man in the battered leather jacket.
“Sawyer,” she said on a heady exhalation of breath.
Sawyer Mahoney. Her late brother Finn’s best friend. The one who’d gifted her a pink feather all those years ago. The most beautiful man who had ever lived.
The last time she’d seen him in the flesh had been a year or so after Finn died. At her eighteenth birthday party. Where they’d made one of those romcom movie pacts, promising to marry if neither was hitched by her thirtieth birthday. Not that that was why she hadn’t seen him since. She didn’t think.
Sawyer looked just the same, only different, if that made any sense. His lashes were still impossibly long, though creases now branched from the edges of his clear blue eyes, while sparks of grey glinted within the curls and the thick stubble covering his hard jaw.
It suited him. Boy, did it suit him.
As she stood there, cataloguing every part of him, his mouth cocked at the corner, his expression questioning.
And finally the very fact of him there, right there, overwhelmed her completely and Petra threw herself into his arms.
“Whoa,” he said, his voice muffled by her hair.
Then, after the merest hesitation, his arms closed around her too. Strong arms, thick, like tree branches. Tightening. As if he too was more than merely glad to see her.
They’d kept in touch over the years. Long, zingy text chains, funny social media comments—his to her, as he never posted a thing—memes shared. Though it had taken Petra a couple of years to realise Sawyer was trying to fill the gap Finn had left somehow.
Not that he’d ever admitted as much.
Not that that was what she’d ever wanted from him.
This, she thought, this was what coming home was meant to feel like.
Like a pool of warm lamplight. Like curling your feet beneath you on the couch.
Which was why she held on tight, even when she found herself noticing the press of his thighs against hers. The dig of his jeans button at her hip. The scent of him filling her nostrils. No cologne. Just him. Earthy and warm and delicious.
When she began to imagine the grip of his fingers around her waist shifting, pulling her closer still, she knew it was time to let go. Her ability to see magic where others did not might be her greatest asset when it came to her work, but when it came to Sawyer Mahoney it had always been a one-sided affair.
After indulging in a final deep breath, Petra lifted her head out of the cocoon of his chest and pulled herself completely from the circle of his arms.
“It’s so good to see you!” she said, thumping him on the chest with a fist, reminding herself that they were old chums.
Had been since she was fourteen, and he sixteen, and Finn had brought him home from footy practice looking like a Labrador puppy, all muddy limbs and knotted hair, and eyes so clear she’d had to blink to make sure he was real.
Only her fist bounced. He was harder than he used to be. Time had hewn him into solid rock. And if her knees gave way, just a little, she covered it well.
“What are you doing here?” She glanced pointedly at the huge mirror ball over the dance floor, the hot pink bar stools, the confetti painted into the bar.
Sawyer’s half-smile kicked higher again. She imagined the deep, sensual bracket bracing the edge of his lips, now hidden beneath a beard, as he said, “Right back at ya, kid.”
The bubbles in her blood went pop-pop-pop.
Kid. He hadn’t called her that since she was, well, a kid. She’d always be Finn’s little sister in his eyes, and it was better to remember that than, you know, lust.
“Oh, I’m fancy now,” Petra said, hands out, rocking back and forth to show off her pink tulle dress. “Gave up the overalls and bare feet for grown-up clothes a while back now.”
His gaze didn’t shift, but she felt him take her in. And move closer as the crowd pressed in around them. The music seemed to lift a notch. Faster, deeper, vibrating in Petra’s chest now, her belly. Lower.
Before she did something really silly, like sigh, or grab his sleeve and roll it up to see if he still had those amazing veins, Petra leapt in with, “Aren’t you meant to be in Guatemala? Or Istanbul? Or Flub...istan...ovia?”
“Flubistanovia?”
She waved a hand. “I don’t keep tabs.”
She did, of course. It wasn’t that hard.
Just after her eighteenth birthday party he’d run off to become an Australian Football League star—which had been his, and her brother’s, dream. After a career-ending injury, he’d been in rehab for months and had used his spare time to fight for better rehab funding for vulnerable kids. Which had won him the Young Australian of the Year award.
To say he was beloved by the press—and therefore easy to cyber-stalk—would be an understatement.
And that was all before he’d co-created Big Think. A multi-billion-dollar future-proof powerhouse focused on world health, innovation and invention, and Third World equity. Yes, she’d memorised the mission statement on their website by heart.
No wonder he was one of the most written-about men in the country.
As if he could hear her thoughts, he turned a little to face the bar, keeping the crowd at his back. Petra gazed about but couldn’t see anyone paying them any attention. Probably because he looked so scruffy, so rough.
“Are you in town long?” she asked, mirroring his pose.
“A bit. A few weeks at least. You?”
“Same,” she said, bumping her arm against his, as if needing to make sure he was really there.
“What are the odds?” he said, his voice low.
Something flickered behind the blue, something warm, molten, too quick to catch. And the rubber band feeling was back, tugging her towards him. But, despite the tequila-induced warmth moving through her, she held her ground.
“You here on your own?” she asked.
His mouth quirked. “I was meant to be meeting Ronan.”
“Ronan’s here?” Petra had known Ronan Gerard, one of his Big Think co-owners, longer than she’d known Sawyer, and could picture him in a place like this even less than she could Sawyer.
Sawyer lifted his drink and downed the last sip. “Not, as it turns out. I believe he thought it a great joke to have me come here, straight from the airport, under the guise of an important meeting.”
“Ah,” said Petra, chuckling.
Like the Gilpins, the Gerards enjoyed the rarefied world of trust funds and private schooling and summers in Europe. Ronan had fought against it, in his own way, whereas Finn had leaned in, enjoying the trappings. Petra had simply never fitted in. Ever.
While Sawyer, having come from more humble beginnings, with far more responsibility loaded onto his shoulders from a young age, stood up, fought the good fight and did what had to be done.
“Finding new and interesting ways to amuse himself is a mental health necessity where Ronan’s concerned.”
Sawyer nodded. Then ran a hand up the back of his neck. Was that dust he’d dislodged, now floating about his head?
She reached and brushed some from his shoulder. “How did they even let you on the plane, looking like this?”
“We have our own jet.”
Of course. “Well, you’re a grub. Wherever you’ve come from, you brought it with you.”
Spying a few stray flecks, she swiped a finger down the bridge of his nose, her thumb grazing the line of his cheek. She felt him still. Her gaze flicked back to his in time to see a shadow pass over his eyes.
Swallowing, she let her hand drop. And when she caught the bartender’s eye she motioned for another drink.
“You never mentioned you were coming home,” Sawyer said.
Petra explained her mother’s email, the job offer that came with it, her hope that Deena could help her make some local connections.
In fact... She looked at Sawyer. He was a connection. He and Ronan could fulfil her budget with their spare change. Then she could head off into the sunset, having proven to her parents that she was, in fact, pretty fabulous and worthy of their regard.
“You okay there?” Sawyer asked, his gaze dropping to her mouth.
No doubt because she was nibbling on her bottom lip as if it was made of chocolate. “Yep! Fine. Great.”
His eyes narrowed, and she felt the shift in him. He stood taller, rolled his shoulders, made himself even bigger somehow. Protection mode engaged. “If you need my help—”
She held up a hand, close enough to his face his eyes crossed slightly. Close enough to feel his breath against her palm. She moved it back. A smidge. “I’ve got this.”
When his eyes found hers they were glinting. “What if I want to help the art?”
Her resolve faltered under the warmth of his tone. “And how would you propose to do that?”
“Say, if the gift shop is selling a poster of a kitten with a funny saying written over it, you could put one aside for me.”
“Not dogs playing poker?”
He thought about it then shrugged. “Nah. Kittens all the way.”
“Fine,” she joked. “That’ll be a hundred grand.”
“Mercenary.” Sawyer flashed a grin.
Petra couldn’t help but grin right on back.
For Sawyer was in town. For a bit. As was she.
Yes, her contract with the old Gallery of Melbourne might come with complications, but for the first time since she’d read her mother’s email daring her, ARE YOU UP FOR THE CHALLENGE? Petra felt a thrill of anticipation rush through her.
“Here you go,” the bartender said, placing her tequila on the bar. He gave Sawyer a second glance, as if trying to place him, before shaking his head.
“Want one?” she asked, lifting her drink. “Or are you going to make me drink alone?”
A muscle flickered under his eye. Then he nodded his acquiescence to the bartender.
A minute later a second tequila shot was lined up beside hers.
Petra flashed her fob. “On me,” she explained to Sawyer.
“There’s no need. I—”
“I’m paying. Told you I’m a fancy grown-up now.”
Sawyer let that sink in before lifting his glass. “What should we drink to? Good health? Good weather?”
“To Finn,” she said, closing her eyes and sending out a small happy thought to her brother, as she always did.
She opened her eyes in time to see myriad emotions flashing across Sawyer’s eyes—shock, sorrow, and a flicker of something that looked a hell of a lot like guilt.
“Sorry,” she said, not quite sure what she was apologising for. “We can toast something else?”
Sawyer pulled everything back inside himself, locked it down, breathed out and shook his head. “No, it’s fine. It’s a good choice.”
It was, right? For Finn was there between them in every conversation they had. When it came down to it, everything they were, everything they were not, all came down to Finn.
“You absolutely sure?” she asked.
“Petra,” he warned. Her name, in that voice, was enough to stop her arguing further.
“Okay then,” she said. Then, with gusto enough for both of them, she added, “To Finn.”
A muscle ticked in Sawyer’s jaw before he nodded, downed the drink in one go and said, “Another?”
Petra knew water was probably a really good idea. But so was flossing, and she didn’t do that nearly as much as she ought to. Doing what she was supposed to do had never been her thing. That was where her instincts came in. And in that moment they were feeling pretty buzzed.
“Bring it on,” she said.
“May as well leave the bottle,” Sawyer said, raising his glass to the bartender.
Petra shot Sawyer a look. “Like that, is it?”
“It’s been a hard few months,” he said.
“Hard?” she said, leaning her chin on her hand and batting her lashes his way.
“Long.”
Petra grinned as the words floated between them in a bubble of double meanings, while Sawyer slowly shook his head, trying to hide his smile.
The bartender lined up their drinks, then accepted the sneaky hundred Sawyer passed across the bar.
“Ready?” Petra asked, watching him as she licked the knuckle of her thumb.
“Not even close,” he said, shaking his head before licking his knuckle too.
Petra poured salt on the slicks of damp. Took the lemon slice he offered. Then tapped her glass against his.
“To Finn,” he said, his voice like sandpaper, as if it was the first time he’d said Finn’s name in years.
“To Finn,” she echoed back. Strong and sure. Then finished her shot before Sawyer had even lifted his to his lips.
Huge mistake? she thought as she sucked on the lemon slice and looked right into Sawyer’s beautiful blue eyes, joy now flooding into all the places her earlier concern had resided.
And that was the final thought she remembered having for some time.
