Read Online The Billionaire Gets His Way by Elizabeth Bevarly - Free Book Online Page B

toes, making her smile. A gentle breeze drifted over her shoulders, lifting a few errant strands of hair from her forehead. Then, suddenly, it wasn’t the breeze nudging aside her hair—it was a man’s fingertips. Violet turned her head into his touch, then looked into his face, and saw the strongest, most handsome, most delicious, most—
    She snapped her eyes open again, her pulse rate rocketing, her breathing shallow. Dammit, now Gavin Mason was even invading her beautiful thoughts. How dare he?
    â€œMiss Tandy, back so soon?”
    Ava’s question returned Violet well and truly to the present, reminding her of the matter at hand. Ava really was a lovely woman, even if she did nothing to play up her attributes. Her dark blond hair was swept up in a French twist, and if she was wearing any makeup, Violet sure couldn’t tell. Her wide smoky eyes were thickly lashed, but not from mascara, and her mouth bore only a trace of gloss. She was dressed in a dove-gray suit that was doubtless as high fashion as her wares, a simple pearl necklace and studs her only accessories.
    â€œI hope there wasn’t a problem with the suit,” she added. Her voice was completely at odds with her outward elegance, sounding of dark nights in smoky lounges and whiskey onthe rocks. “If so, it will be the work of but a moment to find something more appropriate.”
    Violet smiled back. She’d never heard anyone talk the way Ava talked. She wondered what the woman’s story was, why she was renting out fine clothing to women who couldn’t afford to buy it when she was obviously a product of high society herself. Normally, people like that didn’t want people like Violet anywhere near them. They wanted to forget people like Violet even existed. Oh, they didn’t mind writing checks to organizations or attending fancy fundraisers that helped people who couldn’t help themselves— giving back to the community, they called it, as if they’d ever come out of that community to begin with—but they didn’t want to soil their white gloves by actually coming into contact with anyone who needed help. Yet here was Ava, offering a means for such people to infiltrate society. Violet bet, if she asked, Ava would even be able to supply the white gloves.
    â€œNo, the suit was perfect,” she assured her. “My, ah, meeting didn’t last as long as I thought it would, that’s all.”
    Ava clasped her hands together in front of herself in a way that reminded Violet of a school librarian. “I hope it went well.”
    â€œUm, yeah,” Violet lied. “Yeah, it went really, really well.”
    â€œExcellent.”
    â€œI’ll, uh, go change if that’s okay.”
    â€œOf course,” Ava told her. “If you’d like to step into changing room B, I’ll have Lucy bring you your things.”
    That was another thing Violet liked about Talk of the Town. If your rental wasn’t overnight, you could check your street clothes for the day, thereby saving yourself a trip home and back. That plus the posh atmosphere and the fact thatAva had a way of making you feel like a million bucks, even when you were wearing your grubby blue jeans and hoodie and hiking boots, made Violet wish she could move into Talk of the Town and live here forever.
    Unfortunately, since Ava would probably frown on that, she didn’t even ask. She simply changed into her grubby blue jeans and hoodie and hiking boots when Lucy brought them in to her, retrieved her damage deposit from same, and made her way out. The minute she hit the street, she was back in her real life. Her real life that wasn’t anywhere near as glamorous and refined as one small boutique off Michigan Avenue could make it feel.
    Still, Violet’s real life wasn’t all that bad, and was certainly an improvement over the one she’d had as a child and young woman. Her Wicker Park apartment was