The Billionaire's Con (3 page)

She didn’t give Cara a chance to answer. “The Ashfords have the kind of money you only read about. Does that kind of wealth warp people? Elizabeth Ashford isn’t just going to accept me with open arms if I show up on her doorstep. Do I really want to put myself in a position where I’m forced to defend myself, when if I do nothing at all, I won’t have to?”

With a sigh, she sat forward to rest her elbows on her knees. She glanced over her shoulder at Cara. “Anyway, I have too much at stake right now, too many other things to think about. Palmer House has to be my only focus. It’s too important to me not to give it my full attention. When things calm down...” She shrugged. “I’ll deal with Elizabeth Ashford then.”

Chapter Three

Trevor let himself inside his Beacon Street penthouse and shrugged out of his suit jacket. He tossed the keys to the carriage house onto the entry table as he passed. His briefcase joined his jacket on the couch as he kicked off his shoes. In stocking feet, he padded into the kitchen to grab a beer from the refrigerator before heading to the couch.

He’d signed a six-month lease on the studio apartment, much to Jill Carlson’s disappointment. She’d been pushing for a full year. The best he’d been able to offer was the possibility he may extend it at a later date. It wasn’t going to happen, but she didn’t need to know that. She’d taken what she could get.

The two-bedroom apartment on the grounds of Palmer House couldn’t have been more perfect for his needs. He had little interest in the amenities of the converted garage. With any luck, he wouldn’t be there long enough to unpack.

The rent hadn’t been cheap. The ladies of Palmer House had set a high price for the pleasure of renting the small apartment. Subsidizing their income until the restaurant took off, Jill said. Just the cost of doing business, Trevor reminded himself.

He propped his feet on the etched-stone coffee table, ignoring the briefcase full of files while he sipped at his beer. There was no point in trying to work, not when a tiny woman with a cap of blonde waves and crystal blue eyes kept drifting through his thoughts—a woman he planned to destroy to keep Elizabeth from being hurt, yet again.

Though there was no blood connection between him and the Ashford matriarch, Elizabeth was family. He’d do whatever it took to protect her. It had been Elizabeth with whom he’d felt an instant connection when his widowed father married her daughter, Anne, when Trevor was eight. That connection grew to love less than a year later, when his father and Anne were killed by a drunk driver, and Trevor was left orphaned. Elizabeth won his undying love and gratitude with her announcement that he belonged to her now.

At the time, he’d been too young, and too grief stricken, to understand the true scope of Elizabeth’s grief. A grief compounded when Anne’s daughter, eighteen-year-old Rachel, walked away from Ashford Farm, never to be heard from again. Elizabeth’s love eventually healed his own sense of loss, but years passed before he came to understand just how much she still suffered over the loss of Anne and Rachel.

Elizabeth spent a fortune over the years, searching for any word of Rachel, without success. It was as if his step-sister had vanished. Then, five years ago, a young woman bearing a strong resemblance to Rachel showed up at the farm, claiming to be her daughter. Elizabeth had been ecstatic.

Only when the idea of a DNA test had been introduced was the truth exposed. The woman disappeared as quickly as she had appeared. The experience left Elizabeth devastated, and still had the ability to make Trevor’s blood boil.

He wasn’t about to see the situation repeated. Megan Calhoun hadn’t made any type of claim, hadn’t requested to meet Elizabeth. She’d stayed less than five minutes, and yet, her visit lasted long enough for Elizabeth to see her.

He yanked at the knot of his tie and slipped the top button of his dress shirt, loosening the constriction at his throat. Her excuse of wanting to turn down the chef’s position in person was laughable. Now that he’d seen the setup at Palmer House, he was even more convinced she hadn’t come to the farm because of any position. She already had one.

No, Megan Calhoun had gone to Ashford Farm to get a look at the place and had scored the accidental bonus of having her remarkable resemblance to Anne noted. He’d bet money on it.

He had to hand it to her, her cover was good. He hadn’t found a whiff of corruption in her background. Everything he’d discovered so far corroborated the image she projected of a small town girl from a loving home. He’d found no record of an adoption, which would have at least opened the door to the possibility that Rachel could have been her birth mother.

Still, there was always the possibility of a private adoption. If that were the case, he’d need to dig a little deeper to find a record. He didn’t expect to find any such record, however, and it would be interesting to see how she explained away loving parents when she made her claim.

She was ambitious enough to start up a business in an industry that saw most of its daring entrepreneurs fail within the first year. And owning and operating Palmer House was no small ambition. The property carried a hefty mortgage, incentive enough to have a smart woman looking for other means of funding.

He rubbed a palm over his jaw. The partnership of Palmer House interested him. Megan, Meggy, he corrected himself, was one of three equal partners in the venture with sisters Shannon and Cara O’Shea. By all accounts, Shannon looked to be what she appeared—a single mom, struggling to get by, who just happened to have some expertise in the field of restaurant management. Unlike Meggy and Cara, however, her name wasn’t on the mortgage.

The third partner, Cara O’Shea Finnegan was the new bride of ex-pro quarterback, Michael Finnegan, and was a successful artist in her own right. Finn was said to have the Midas touch when it came to business investments, and was worth millions. His artist wife raked in the cash with each pricey canvas sold.

On the surface, the Finnegans had too much to lose by involving themselves in an illegal scam, even one worth millions. Could Meggy Calhoun have conned the football star and his artist wife, the way she was planning to con Elizabeth?

A simple DNA test would settle the matter with a minimum of fuss, but he was holding that option in reserve. She’d yet to play her hand and he needed her to if he was going to prosecute her to the fullest extent of the law.

In the meantime, his ruse as a writer doing research would allow him to move around the edges of her life without suspicion. As far as anyone knew, Trevor Bryce had come to town to do research for a book. Any questions he asked would be chalked up to literary curiosity.

He dropped his head against the couch back with a satisfied grunt. If his questions about a certain, petite blonde appeared a little too personal? Well, what red-blooded man
wouldn’t
want to know more about a woman who looked like Meggy Calhoun?

****

“
That’s
our new tenant?”

Meggy laughed at her friend’s excited reaction.

Whereas Cara was tall and dark, her sisters, Shan and Erin, were both petite, strawberry-blondes. All three shared the same piercing, green eyes. Just now, Shan’s sparkling, green gaze was incredulous. They shared a grin. Their shoulders bumped as they leaned closer to the window to enjoy the sight of Trevor Bryce unloading a black Mercedes in the driveway below.

She sighed, watching him carry a large box up the pathway to the carriage house door.

He bent to set the box on the stoop, straightened, and shoved a hand into the pocket of worn jeans to pull out a key.

“Don’t you just love when life works out so nicely?” She shot Shan a grin. “A monthly rent check with a butt you can bounce a quarter off.”

Shan’s breath barked out in a shocked cough.

“Oh, come on, Shan. Look at him.” She leaned closer to the window until her nose was all but pressed to the glass. “If you tell me you’re not swallowing back drool, we’re using his first check to get you some professional help.”

“God, Meggy.” Shan laughed. “You’re like a female construction worker.”

Her gaze never left the man on the pathway below. God, he was glorious. “No, if I were a female construction worker, I’d open this window and call out lewd comments, instead of just admiring from afar.”

Shan snickered.

Meggy stepped back from the window when Trevor disappeared behind the carriage house door. “So, what’s on your agenda this morning?”

Hot coffee warmed her as she leaned against the counter sipping while Shan outlined her busy morning. Although they minded each other’s privacy in their individual living spaces, they’d gotten into the habit of catching up on the day’s business over coffee or iced-tea in Shan’s second floor kitchen. The routine reminded her of when they’d been kids. She’d spent many an hour in the O’Shea kitchen with Cara and her sisters. It was there she’d learned her love of the culinary arts.

“What are you doing up this early? I thought you’d sleep in today so you’d be fresh for tonight.” Shan pressed a hand to her stomach. “I can’t believe tonight’s the night. I’m a bundle of nerves.”

She was too excited to be nervous. Or was it her nerves that had her so excited she thought she’d never breathe at a normal rate again? The renovations had taken time, and the waiting had been excruciating. Now, at long last, they were finally ready. Palmer House would officially reopen tonight, and her dream of running her own kitchen would be a reality.

“I’m headed into Boston, to the fish market.” A glance at the clock had her dumping the dregs of coffee from her mug. “And I’d better get going before there’s nothing left and we end up having to serve frozen fish sticks to Wallis.”

Shan grimaced at the mention of the well-known food critic. “Do you think he’ll make an appearance tonight? He hasn’t made a reservation.”

“He won’t be able to help himself. He’ll consider it his sworn duty to review my worthiness in my own kitchen.”

“The man does seem to have a personal interest in your career. I think he has a secret crush on you.” Shan waggled her eyebrows and then added a smirk.

She snorted her disdain. Wallis confused his considerable influence in the local culinary community for sexual magnetism. In her opinion, he had too much of the former and
none
of the latter.
The jerk.

“Whatever his agenda, a positive review will put us on the map. I plan to knock his socks off.” She hooked the strap of her purse over her shoulder and headed for the private staircase to the restaurant below. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

At the bottom of the stairs, she paused to look around at the gleaming industrial kitchen, enjoying the giddy surge of pure possessiveness. This, at last, was hers. At the spotless stoves and ovens, on the yards of stainless steel counters, she would make her mark, and the result would taste like ambrosia.

The room was empty now, but in her mind she could already see the choreographed dance she and her staff would perform here in just a few hours. She couldn’t wait to slip on her smock and dazzle the diners with the results of the performance.

Chapter Four

Meggy was smiling as she stepped outside, mentally running through her to-do list. One look at Trevor Bryce, however, rummaging through the trunk of his big, dark car, sent thoughts of the day’s many tasks flying right out of her mind.
Oh, yeah
. She strolled over to stand behind him. The man had a world-class butt.

The tailored suit was absent today. His long legs were caressed by a pair of softly faded jeans. A black T-shirt stretched across the subtle musculature of his wide shoulders. Short sleeves revealed surprisingly ripped biceps when he hefted a duffle bag from the trunk to hold it dangling over his shoulder with one hand. He pivoted, and his gray gaze widened as it collided with hers.

“All moved in?” She gave him her most cheerful smile, hoping there was no drool on her chin.

“This is the last of it.” He stepped back and shut the trunk with a quiet click. Squatting, he lifted one of two boxes from the ground. He tucked it under his free arm.

Without a word, she stooped and picked up the remaining box. Her brow furrowed at the surprising weight, and she shifted the heavy carton in her arms. “What have you got in here, barbells?”

“Leave it. I’ll get it in a minute.”

“A minute is about all I have to do my duty as a good neighbor and help you move in your stuff.” She laughed when he hesitated. “I’ve got it, Trevor, but it’s not getting any lighter.”

At her challenging smile, he moved aside to let her pass. “After you.”

She stepped through the open door of the carriage house.

He brushed by her, dropping the duffle bag on an oversized chair. He set the box he carried on the small kitchen table. “Here, let me have that.” He stepped close to relieve her of the second box, setting it aside as though it weighed nothing.

She expected him to step away from her then. Her brows lifted in surprise when he turned back, standing close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his big body.

God, he smelled richer than her double-chocolate-brownie-cheesecakes baking in the ovens.
The surprising intimacy of standing in the sphere of that heat, of
his
heat, was startling, and delicious. Before she gave in to the insane urge to close the remaining distance between them, she forced herself to step back—bumping against the edge of the kitchen counter.