EXES - A Second Chance Billionaire Romance Novel Read online

  “Show-off,” Harvey corrected him, irked by his French accent. “And trust me, if I wanted to be a show-off, I would pull your underwear band out of your khakis and up to your nipples, and send a selfie back to the girls at City Hall. Instead, I’m going to play nice and take care of the demolition myself.”

  Harvey stripped off his black leather jacket like a streetfighter preparing for a brawl. It was almost five-thirty, and Jacques’ interference was not only infringing on Rodrigo’s curfew, but he was also threatening to disrupt Harvey’s own evening plans. Supremely annoyed, he removed his cuff links and rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt; he’d expected to finalize a closing today, not perform the demolition himself—literally. At least he was wearing decent shoes for the job: his well-worn cowboy boots.

  “Ignoring my official summons is the same as breaking the law,” Jacques insisted.

  “That summons only prevents me from hiring contractors to perform the demolition without a permit,” countered Harvey, striding toward the rear exit door where he knew he’d find the idle bulldozer stationed on the south side of the parcel. “As the owner, it doesn’t prevent me from doing the work my damn self. So, it’s a good thing I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, where I’ve been driving bulldozers since I was eighteen, rather than hanging out in Paris, engorging myself on escargot. Because yeah…you’re right. I am a showman. And plowing down my own property with a three-ton machine is going to make a much better Facebook Live stream for those girls at City Hall than naked selfies of you sucking snails out of their shells. Even if it is less romantic.”

  Jacques stomped his foot like a petulant child. “You will regret this, Monsieur Zale. I will be sure of it.”

  “Oh, I’ve done an entire lifetime of things that I regret, Monsieur Jackass. And it hasn’t stopped me from being an asshole yet.”

  “I’ll definitely agree with that.”

  Harvey stopped cold and turned toward the familiar female voice. The woman fixed her black, smoldering eyes on Harvey, her judgmental gaze sending a shot of unexpected adrenaline through his heart.

  “Mon chèri!” Jacques emphasized dramatically as he attempted to draw the woman into his body to greet her with a double-cheeked Parisian kiss. “So glad you received my call.”

  “Well…when you said that someone was preparing to destroy a historic structure— possibly with Tiffany stained-glass windows—I should have immediately guessed who it was.”

  Harvey tracked her movements through the weeds and vines of the front entrance and across the depot’s main interior lobby. Despite the filthy floors, soot-stained walls and rotting wooden benches, she was clearly in her element. He scanned her appearance—rebellious red-framed glasses, youthful ponytail, denim overalls, oversized construction boots, heavy leather gloves, and a miniature black backpack. The Laura Croft of antique hunters, he thought, mocking her in his mind because she was too cute for her own good. Whatever she had come there to do, Harvey guessed she wouldn’t stop until she was successful. Which meant, he was fucked.

  “Hello there, Miss Castillo,” he purred, smoothly greeting her as if it might just matter to her.

  It didn’t.

  “Hello, Monsieur Asshole,” she tossed back.

  He muted his smile, fighting how her sassy insult amused him. It had been a long time since they had seen each other, and if there was one person in the world who could get away with addressing him as “Monsieur Asshole,” it was Alma Castillo.

  “Well…now that Miss Castillo is here, the party can officially begin.” Harvey bowed like the ringleader of a circus. “You’re just in time for the grand finale.”

  “Which includes what?” Alma challenged him.

  Cupping his hands to his mouth, he announced, “Personally flattening this entire building with my ’dozer!”

  She scoffed as if she knew better than to ever take anything he said at face value. “You can’t possibly be serious about destroying this building?”

  “It’s private property, Miss Castillo,” he shot back. “Both you and Jackass are trespassing. But I’ll be kind and give you five minutes to get off my property. Otherwise, I’ll have Rodrigo shout out a warning—as a courtesy—three seconds before I cut through that wall with my tank, just so you don’t have to witness Frenchy shitting in his pants.”

  “Tsk—” Disgusted, Alma clucked and turned away from him as if he was the most vulgar man she had ever met. He probably was, and he knew she hated it when he flaunted his unrefined, blue-collar upbringing. But even though he’d become a successful real estate billionaire, it hadn’t happened because he talked pretty all the time and wore Gucci.

  “You’re a man-child, Harvey,” Alma flung back. “So I certainly can believe that you equate your big, fancy machines to your penis prowess. But I also know that you’re the last person who’s going to bulldoze anything with authentic Tiffany stained-glass windows.”

  “Really?” he said slyly, chewing on his blade of grass, wondering if she was actually contemplating his penis size. “And why it that, Miss Castillo?”

  “Because if they really are Tiffany windows—and some of his earliest ones, which are the rarest kind—they could each be worth up to a million dollars. And if they’re sold together as a set from the same location, they could fetch even more at auction.”

  Harvey’s eyes darted around the train depot, quickly counting all the stained-glass windows.

  “That’s only ten million dollars. Maybe fifteen million at the most.”

  “Rodrigo—” Alma called out to the foreman. “How much is Harvey paying you these days? A million dollars an hour?”

  Rodrigo huffed like that was the biggest joke of the day.

  “Exactly my point,” Alma snarked, turning to directly confront Harvey. “He could be…if he wanted to take the time to properly remove all these windows. Or he could just bulldoze the whole damn structure and keep paying you twenty dollars an hour.”

  Harvey eyed her, noting the way her girlish ponytail and denim overalls made her look ten years younger than she actually was, and how her glossy, red-framed glasses confirmed she was smarter than he was. With her fancy Ivy League education and art history expertise, he knew she was intellectually his superior in almost every way. And truth be told, he secretly liked it—when it wasn’t inconveniencing him.

  “Maybe you haven’t heard, Miss Castillo, but I have a closing at the end of the week for this land, and they’re expecting it to be free and clear. And I will lose way more than fifteen million dollars if the sale doesn’t go through.”

  “Yeah, you’ll also lose a part of your humanity.”

  He looked at her, sidelong. His humanity? She was still the only woman in his entire life who cared more about the status of his soul than the size of his bank account, and it irked him more than he expected.

  “How do you even know those are authentic Tiffany windows, anyway?” Harvey questioned her, surveying the lightless panels of stained glass, which looked like they had been glazed with hardened maple syrup. “You and I both know that they’re more likely just worthless amateur copies. Everybody thinks every stained-glass window is a priceless Tiffany until they find out it’s just a ten dollar junkyard imposter.”

  “True,” Alma conceded. “Which is why I need another day—and ideally the morning light—to properly evaluate them.” She walked up to Rodrigo and removed the sledgehammer from his hands. Rodrigo frowned and glanced over at Harvey as if he had just lost his favorite toy.

  “Another day?” Harvey scoffed, amused by her proposition. “You actually expect me to delay the demolition—and potentially endanger my closing—just to appease you and my lacking sense of humanity? That would make me less of an asshole than you thought.”

  “Or a bigger one who sees the opportunity to make an extra fifteen million dollars—just by granting me one more day to know for sure.”

  He pushed closer into her personal space and suddenly caught the familiar scent of her perfume,
faintly floral and intoxicating.

  “Which one do you think I am, Miss Castillo? The bigger one or the lesser one?”

  She held up her hand and touched his chest, her fingertips subtly driving him back. He edged forward, even closer, just because he knew he could get away with it.

  “The bigger one, Monsieur Asshole,” she smarted off, like she couldn’t help herself. “After all, you do have a reputation to maintain.”

  He lowered his chin to meet her gaze. “You’re still wearing the perfume that I bought you for your birthday.” Through the lens of her intellectually superior glasses, he stared into her steady eyes. Her dark bewitching eyes always enchanted him, even when they glared, expecting him to act like the biggest asshole in the room.

  “It was a ridiculously huge bottle,” she whispered, allowing his nose and lips to graze her cheek. “Another statement of your manhood.”

  “Lucky for me,” he countered softly, closing his eyes and inhaling her sweetness, reminding him of those years when there wasn’t so much animosity between them. “My manhood still appreciates it.” Then he exhaled in disappointment as she handed back the sledgehammer and pulled away.

  “Well, it seems that we are in stalemate,” Jacques interjected, conspicuously drawing his hand around Alma’s body to steer her toward him. She yielded to Jacques’ touch, making Harvey’s blood boil with envy. Suddenly, he no longer was interested in enhancing his humanity, especially not if she was going to play dirty by sleeping with his archenemy.

  “The only thing stale about this situation is my patience to entertain it,” he warned Jacques with a growl. “So I’ll tell you exactly how this is gonna go…I’m gonna smile and shake your hand and promise to honor your summons. You will go merrily on your way, and probably even invite Miss Castillo back to your apartment for a candlelight dinner to celebrate your mutual victory. And when you return in the morning, the depot will be flattened like a house of cards, and Rodrigo and I will greet you with some hot coffee and a box of tissues, just in case you feel like you need to blow your snotty sense of entitlement on something other than my sleeve. Now get the fuck off my property.”

  Alma glared at him, her wounded eyes and pouting scowl drawing battle lines between them.

  Just then, the heavy wooden doors of the train depot groaned open. Alma’s father pushed through the entanglement of vegetation and emerged into the lobby, brushing himself clean of thistles and ivy. “Really, Harvey…can’t you afford a gardener? Or even a lawn mower?”

  Enrique Castillo suddenly stopped and eyed the sledgehammer in Harvey’s hand. “Well, looks like I made it here just in time.”

  “No, Papi. You’re too late,” Alma answered, directing her next words at Harvey with disdain. “As usual, bad boy billionaire Harvey Zale is choosing his own engorged net worth over anything else that might have value in life. He’s determined to bulldoze the building by tomorrow and he’s throwing us off the property.”

  “Well, really…do we expect anything less from Mr. Zale?” Enrique mused, approaching Harvey and offering him a cordial handshake. “It wouldn’t be a Harvey Zale property if there wasn’t some kind of a melodrama.”

  “I’m glad to see someone at least understands how I like to do business, Enrique,” Harvey confirmed, accepting his handshake. Enrique Castillo may have been Alma’s father, but at least he was also a businessman. He was also a loyal White Sox fan, which sealed their unspoken bond beyond his status as an ex-son-in-law. “Your daughter and Jackass over there want me to delay my hundred-million-dollar closing, just so they can preserve an old train depot with a dozen Tiffany window knock-offs that should have been demolished a century ago.”

  Enrique’s eyes lifted to the rafters of the cathedral ceiling before following the natural arc of support beams down to the perimeter of the foundation.

  “Well, I hate to break this to you, Harvey…but this structure is anything but a train depot. Whoever told you that is either a liar or an idiot.”

  Harvey shot an accusatory glance over at Jacques. He’d put his money on both.

  Suddenly, the room fell silent as everyone stopped and turned their attention to Harvey.

  “What?” He questioned them all with an awkward smile. “Don’t tell me my fly is open.”

  Slowly approaching him, Alma held up her hand to shield his face from the flickering ray of twilight descending from the upper balcony.

  “What is that?” she asked slowly, noting how the rainbow of colors illuminated the palm of her hand. Both she and Harvey turned and gazed up to its source.

  Through the punctured roof and patches of missing brick, a tangled web of elm branches had long since invaded the building and woven a dense stronghold across the entire upper balcony. Water-stained trusses and a crumbling chimney seem like a foregone conclusion that nothing but nature had benefited from decades of neglect and structural decay. But in an instant, the flickering ray of kaleidoscope light held the promise of something unknown—even magical—behind all that foliage.

  Before Harvey could stop her, Alma rushed up the spiral iron staircase leading to the balcony. Submitting to his instinct to protect her, he braced its wobbling base from below until she safely reached the top.

  “Damn it,” he cursed aloud as he squeezed himself up the narrow steps. Whatever she thought she had seen, whatever visceral impulse that ray of light inspired in her, he knew she wasn’t going to leave his property until she investigated it.

  When he reached the final step into the balcony, a sticky cobweb ensnared his face.

  “Ick, ack, yuck!” He shivered and swatted away the ghostly remnants of silk. He really, really, really hated spiders, possibly even more than he hated snotty preservationist Frenchmen.

  “Alma?” He called out to her again, but this time the edge in his voice melted away into uncertainty. Like a mysterious secret garden, the invading branches of the crown of the tree completely obscured his view of anything beyond him except the perplexing reflection of colors seeping through the intermittent spaces between the limbs and oak leaves.

  “I’m here.” Her response hinted at her location, just beyond the natural barricade of branches. Harvey found a small opening in the foliage and forced himself through it.

  “Really, Alma… I suggest next time you trespass onto somebody’s property, you make sure it doesn’t belong to someone who’s willing to tie you up, sling you over his shoulder, and carry you away, kicking and screaming—”

  He stopped in his tracks, frozen by the prismatic shades of green, pink, turquoise, and white light cascading down upon him.

  “What the hell is that?” His voice betrayed the shock and awe of being dwarfed by the twelve-foot stained-glass window positioned in the rear exterior wall of the balcony.

  “You’re not going to believe me if I tell you,” Alma uttered, her eyes fixed on the intricate panels of opalescent glass and its portrayal of a mother and child, embracing each other in an enchanting field of lavender lilacs while basking in the orange rays of a twilight sun.

  “Another priceless Tiffany?” Harvey replied, trying hard not to mock her.

  “Not just another Tiffany,” she answered slowly, as if she was in a trance. “Something so much more...” But her voice trailed off as she suddenly backtracked and attempted to push past him.

  “So much more?” He ensnared her hand and interrogated her. “More what?”

  “I’m not even sure…” she stammered, peering down at his grasp and submitting to it. “But I’m certain you aren’t going to understand even if I try to explain it.”

  He drew her closer, the urge to prove her wrong swelling inside him. “There was a time when you told me everything and I understood you. So try me.” He lowered his voice and strengthened his grip, keeping her profile—and body—squarely in line with his own.

  “That was a long time ago…when I was young and foolish. And you…” she paused, as if she was weighing whether or not anything she said to him mattered.


  “What?” He encouraged her with a gentle nudge of her arm.

  “You smelled better,” she deadpanned.

  Harvey cracked a smile, realizing how much he missed her sassy unforgiving tongue.

  “Well, I definitely was a better man when you were my wife. There’s no question about that.”

  Their eyes locked, as if his admission echoed a sentiment that they both knew was true.

  “Not only do I think that window was made by Louis Comfort Tiffany, Harvey, but I think that window is Tiffany’s legendary, long-lost masterpiece, the Eternal Love.”

  The gravity of her confession glinted in her eyes.

  “That sounds extremely good for you and terrible for me.”

  “It could be very good for everyone. If I’m right, that window may be one of the most important works of Tiffany’s entire career—he would have made it around the time of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, making it one of his very first experimentations with Favrile glass. But more importantly, it’s claimed that he made it as a sacred memorial for his first wife.”

  “First wives are a sacred thing,” Harvey confirmed, looking deeper into her eyes than he knew he should.

  “You can’t destroy this property, Harvey. You can’t.” She turned to the stained-glass window and grimaced, obviously pained by the threat of its destruction.

  “And what if you are right?” He challenged her. “This train depot—or whatever the hell it is—is sitting on a thirty-acre riverfront parcel that I intend to sell for a hundred million dollars. I need the money to fund an even bigger deal in Shanghai, and instead, you expect me to hold up the entire deal on account of some…treasure hunt?”

  “At least,” she pleaded, “not before you give me a chance to find out if I’m right.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, Alma. You’re always right.” He glanced back at the window and hesitated. “And what if I don’t let you? I am Monsieur Asshole, after all.”

  “Then you will have to tie me up and drag me away from here because I won’t let you destroy this building until I know for sure.”