Priceless: Contemporary Billionaire Romance Novel by Aria Hawthorne

time since he felt determined to commit
to it.
    The
final floor chimed.  The mirrored elevator doors shimmered open.  Miles stepped
out, not into a hallway or a private lobby, but directly into his penthouse
suite.  Miles snapped his fingers twice.  Suddenly, the lights switched on,
illuminating the spacious luxurious condominium—and his unexpected guest. 
    “Gillian,”
Miles said her name without surprise.  He should have felt surprise to
see her there, lounging in his favorite Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair and sipping
wine from a glass—no doubt from one of his rare vintage bottles that she had
opened without his permission. But with Gillian, he had long since learned that
she had no sense of boundaries and nothing was beyond her.  At least she had
her clothes on , he thought, and tossed his car keys across the quartz
countertop of the grand kitchen island that separated him from her. 
    He
leaned against the island and stared at her with confrontation.
    “Hope
you don’t consider it an intrusion,” Gillian said, smoothly.
    “To
enter a home without an invitation?”
    “Oh,
come on, now, Brax… we’ve never been that formal with each other and you
know it.  In fact, some of our best days were when we were a lot more
spontaneous with each other.”
    Gillian
stood up from the chair.  She was wearing a tight red dress and a black mink
shawl coat. “In fact, I’m fairly certain that one of our best negotiations was
done while I was wearing nothing more than this mink coat.”
    Miles
didn’t need the reminder.  He remembered buying it for her, and she modeling it
for him as well as the business transaction that followed.  A series of
business transactions , Miles thought, that’s all his life had amounted
to , and that’s all that Gillian expected from him now .
    Miles
felt the urge to put her in her place, and cut to the chase.  But that’s what
the ‘old Miles’ would do.  The ‘new Miles’—the relaxed, amorous Miles from this
weekend—was less interested in combat and more disciplined about avoiding it. 
Instead, he simply crossed his arms and peered at her—waiting.
    Gillian
circled towards him and offered him a glass of wine.  “It’s one of your
favorites:
Château Lafite
Pauillac 1990.”
    “Are
we here to enjoy wine together, or do you want something specific?”
    Gillian
threw back her head with laughter.  Miles noticed her red lips, her bleached
teeth, and her short blonde hair, freshly cut and styled.  Then, he noticed how
the veins in her neck bulged through her pale skin and how her overpowering perfume
poorly masked the staining scent of cigarettes.
    “Brax,
I really don’t understand why you seem so determined to make this difficult on
both of us.  We want the same thing,” her fake red nails clicked against the
quartz island before gliding their way over his shoulder and behind the nape of
his neck.  He stared at her with stone eyes; she was close enough now where he
could see the pale green glints in her muddy eyes and smell her breath.  “Let’s
find a way to come together, and close the Olson & Anderson deal, and then
we can move onto more important things—like celebrating.”
    She
touched his hand with her vampiress claws.  She had sucked him dry so many
times, and he had never even realized it, or if he did realize it, he went
along with it because it was easy and automatic.  But the outcome was always
the same—nothing remained except superficial emotions and an executed business
deal.
    Miles
remembered Maribel.  He felt the shopping bag, burning in his left hand.  He
suddenly relaxed and set it on the island’s quartz countertop.
    Gillian
gazed at him, noting the change.  Then, her eyes fell down upon the sleek
shopping bag—with its department store logo and “
Fine Jewelry
”
tagline. 
    “Brax,
I’m speechless. You shouldn’t have.”
    “I
didn’t” he said, sliding the bag away from her grasp.  His sweeping broad arm
forced