The Billionaire Bid. Leigh Michaels
“Taking me for a run is more like it,” Gina said, sounding breathless.
He looked disparagingly down at the strappy sandals she wore. “If you’d choose some sensible shoes, you wouldn’t have so much trouble keeping up.”
“And if you weren’t so tall…” She stopped dead on the sidewalk in front of the main doors, looking up, and a large woman who was carrying a stack of boxes and half a dozen loaded shopping bags almost mowed her down.
Dez pulled her out of the line of traffic just in time and followed her gaze as she surveyed the front facade of the building. “What’s the matter, Gina?” he hazarded. “Is it a little larger than you remembered?”
“I was just thinking it looks too busy for a store that should be closing.”
Sure she was. He’d seen the way her eyes had widened as she’d taken in the sheer size of the place. But he’d play along—for a while—and let her save face.
Besides, she was right about the store being busy. People were streaming into and out of every entrance. Dez shrugged. “That happens all the time. People only realize what they have when they’re told it’s going to disappear. There will be a last burst of interest, and then everybody will forget about it and move on to the next store. By this time next year, if you stand on this corner and ask people what used to be here, only about half of them would even be able to tell you.”
“Especially if what’s here in a year is only an empty hole.”
He shot a suspicious look at her, but she returned it blandly.
“Come on,” Dez said. He gave the revolving door a push for her.
Just inside, a woman in a dark suit was offering samples of perfume. Gina paused and held out her wrist. Dez suspected she did it more to annoy him than because she wanted to try the scent. “The shoe department’s just over there if you want to take a look,” he suggested.
She sniffed delicately at the perfumed pulse point. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t dream of taking up your valuable time with shoes. Or perhaps I should say I wouldn’t follow your advice anyway, so I’d rather not have to listen to it.”
He ushered her between the makeup counters, past fine jewelry and antique silver, to the atrium lobby. The floor was tiled in a brilliantly-colored mosaic, spirals and scallops swooping in an intricate pattern. At the center the tiny tiles formed a stylized red rose, the symbol of the department store chain. Dez led her to the heart of the rose. “Stand right here,” he said.
“What’s the big deal? Everybody in Lakemont has done this a million times. ‘Meet me on the rose’ is part of the vernacular.”
“I know, I know. My mother made me report here, too. But that’s not why I brought you. Look up.”
For an instant he caught an odd expression in her eyes, something that looked almost like pain. What had he said to cause that reaction? Then she followed instructions, raising her eyes to the stained-glass dome seven stories above their heads.
If that didn’t make her see the light, Dez thought, nothing would. He’d almost forgotten himself how immense the building was, how the rows of white-painted iron balconies seemed to go on forever, up seven floors and out for what seemed miles.
She turned back to Dez. “And the point you’re trying to make is…?”
The nonchalant tone didn’t fool him. “The point is that even if you got this building for free, you couldn’t handle it. You couldn’t afford to keep the lights on, much less heat and cool it.”
“It’s a little bigger than what we have now, of course,” Gina conceded.
Dez stared at her for a minute, and then he started to laugh. “Oh, that’s rich! It’s like saying that Lake Michigan is a little bigger than the puddle you stepped over at the curb on our way inside.”
“And it’s a well-known phenomenon that when a museum expands, not only the number of visitors increases but donations do as well.”
“In your dreams.” He extended an index finger upward and drew an imaginary circle that took in the whole building. “Get real, Gina. Give it up. Maybe there’s another building somewhere that would actually be practical.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand, do you? Another building might be more practical, but this is the one that’s captured people’s hearts. This is the one that has aroused their feelings.”
Foreboding trickled through his veins.
“I’d be a fool to give up on this,” she said, as if she savored the words.
Not as much of a fool as if you hang on to it, he wanted to say.
“It’s a cause, you see—almost a crusade. It’s already building momentum.” She had the nerve to smile at him, as she added sweetly, “And all I have to do is feed it a little.”
CHAPTER THREE
DEZ stared at her for so long that Gina thought perhaps he’d gone into a catatonic state. But even when he finally blinked and shook his head as if he was trying to clear it, he didn’t say anything to her. Instead, he pulled his cell phone off his belt and without looking at it punched two keys. “Sarah, cancel my lunch meeting.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Come on. Let’s find a place where we can sit down and talk sense for a change.”
Gina shook her head. “No, really,” she said. She tried very hard not to let irony seep into her voice, and she almost succeeded. “You mustn’t put yourself out for my sake. It’s quite useless to try to convince me.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about. If you were the only one who’d be affected by this idiotic idea, I’d stand by and watch while you walked out in front of the freight train.”
Well, that was brutally frank, Gina thought. “Thank you.”
He frowned. “For what?”
“Confirming my suspicions that you’re not nearly as unconcerned about your public image as you pretend to be.”
“You think this is about my image?” He made a sound that could charitably have been called a snort. “The tearoom on the sixth floor is probably the quietest place in the building at this hour.”
“And I seem to recall they have hazelnut coffee,” Gina murmured.
“Hey, you can’t blame me for wanting to get something pleasant out of this. Though if you’d rather, we could stop on the fifth floor instead.”
“What’s there?” Gina asked warily.
“Hot tubs. They usually keep at least one full of water as a demonstration model.”
“On second thought, coffee sounds like a great idea.” She paused beside the Art Deco elevator and with the tip of her index finger traced the pattern overlaid on the cool gray metal. “Elevators. Already installed. And such nice ones, too.”
“They’re the originals,” Dez countered.
“I know. They’ll be like an exhibit themselves.”
“You can look at them and romanticize their history if you want, but all I see is old machinery that needs an expensive overhaul—if it isn’t obsolete altogether.” He punched at the sixth-floor button with his fist.
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