The Billionaire’s Bidding

Five

It was three minutes past eight by the time Alex found a parking spot and strode up the wide staircase into the DreamLodge headquarters lobby. The airy, open room was impressive-quiet, understated and classy. But then Clive Murdoch hadn’t built his empire on stupidity and poor taste. He was Alex’s number one competitor for good reason. The man wasn’t to be taken lightly.

Briefcase in hand, power suit freshly pressed, and his hair trimmed right to his collar, Alex scanned the floor directory next to a bank of elevators. The executive suite was on number thirty-eight.

He pressed a button and one of the doors immediately slid open.

The ride up was direct and smooth. And on the top floor, he emerged and introduced himself to the receptionist, hoping name recognition would get him in to see Clive Murdoch without an appointment.

“I’ll see if he’s free, Mr. Garrison.” The young woman smiled behind a discreet headset and punched a number on her phone.

“Alex?” The sound of another woman’s voice sent a ripple of warning up his spine.

He quickly blinked the surprise from his expression and turned to face Emma. Then he took a few steps forward to put some distance between them and the receptionist. “Emma,” he crooned. “Right on time, I see.”

“What are you-”

“I was worried you’d be late, sweetheart.” He gave her a kiss on the forehead, while his mind scrambled for a contingency plan.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“What are you doing here?” he returned. “And why aren’t you wearing your ring?” A good offense? It might work. He sure hadn’t come up with any better ideas in the past fifteen seconds.

“I have an appointment,” she said.

“So I heard,” he bluffed.

“Heard from who?”

He quickly grabbed an answer for that one. “The hotel business is a tight-knit community.”

She frowned. “It is not.”

“Yes, it is.” He frowned back at her, pretending he had a right to be annoyed. “I can’t believe you’d book a meeting with Murdoch without me.”

And, quite frankly, he couldn’t believe she’d agree to meet Murdoch on his own turf for a negotiation. Didn’t she understand the home court advantage?

“It’s still my company,” she said.

“And I’m a player in it. Where’s your ring?”

She curled her left hand and tucked it behind her. “We haven’t signed a thing.”

They’d talk about the ring later. He had a lot to say about the damn ring. “You said yes in front of five hundred people.”

Her complexion darkened a shade. “And we are definitely talking about that one later.”

He should hate it when she used that tone of voice. But he didn’t. It energized him instead of annoying him. It made him look forward to later.

“Fine,” he said, keeping his tone deliberately flat. “But for now we have a meeting.”

“I have a meeting.”

He gave her a cold smile. “Sweetheart, your last solo business meeting was yesterday.”

“Why, you-”

He cut her off with a quick kiss on her taut, tender lips. Then he drew back and dared her with his eyes, all the while raising his voice so the receptionist would hear. “Don’t worry about it. We can pick up the ring after lunch.”

“I’m going to kill you,” she muttered under her breath.

“Later,” he whispered. “After you give me hell for proposing to you.” Then he took her hand and turned to the friendly receptionist. “Is Mr. Murdoch ready to see us?”

Emma couldn’t believe Alex had crashed her business meeting. How had he found her? How had he even known to look for her? And didn’t he have his own business to run on a Monday morning?

She felt like a fool traipsing into Clive Murdoch’s office half a step behind him. She looked like a fool, too, if Clive’s expression was anything to go by. He’d called last week to say he’d been working on a deal with her father. He wondered if she’d be taking over from here on in.

She’d said, “absolutely.” She’d said she was at the helm, making decisions, running the company. And here Alex had cut her off at the knees.

“Clive,” Alex greeted brusquely, sticking out his hand.

“Alex.” Clive nodded, offering a guarded handshake.

He looked to Emma. “Ms. McKinley?”

“Soon to be Mrs. Garrison,” said Alex, a definite edge of aggression in his tone.

Emma shot him a glare. What did he think he was doing?

“Good news travels fast,” said Clive.

Alex pulled out a chair at the round meeting table, gesturing for Emma to sit in it.

She thought about rebuffing his offer, but his expression wasn’t one to mess with. So she took the chair. She’d set him straight on business protocol later.

“Yet,” said Alex, still standing, that same thread of steel in his tone. “You made an appointment with my fiancée anyway.”

“Alex,” Emma interrupted.

“I made the appointment last week,” said Clive. His shoulders were tense, his voice hard-edged.

“Things have changed since last week,” said Alex.

“Mr. Murdoch,” said Emma, trying to calm things down.

“Call me Clive,” said Clive.

“Don’t,” said Alex.

Emma stared at him in total shock. “Will you stop this?” Then she looked at Clive. “We’re here to listen.”

Alex’s hands closed over the back of one of the chairs. “We’re here to make a point.”

She glared at Alex. “You don’t even know-”

“McKinley assets are not for sale. Not now. Not ever. None of them.”

For sale? Clive hadn’t said anything about a sale.

“You haven’t even heard my offer,” Clive stated, the word sale obviously no surprise to him.

Emma stilled. How had Alex known they were talking about a sale? She hadn’t even known they were talking about a sale.

“We don’t need to hear your offer,” said Alex. Then he reached out a hand to Emma. “In fact, we don’t need to be here at all.”

Emma glanced back and forth between the two men as they stared each other down. What had she missed? What did Clive want to buy? Why wouldn’t Alex consider it?

“Can somebody please-”

“I’m your contact,” Alex informed Clive, tossing a business card on the table. “You think you have any more business with McKinley, you call me.”

Clive didn’t touch the card. “You walk out that door, the offer’s closed.”

Alex shrugged, and it occurred to Emma he might be negotiating. Was this how it was normally done? Did he expect Clive to follow them to the lobby and up the ante?

Clive smirked. “The offer was way above market.”

“It was chump change, and we both know it.”

Wow. Emma could never have been that gutsy. She did wish she knew what they were talking about, but it seemed to make the most sense to play along.

She took Alex’s hand, and they left the office.

“What now?” she asked as they waited for the elevator.

Alex glanced down at her. “Now, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “So, will he follow us?”

Alex looked behind them. “I doubt it.”

“But…”

“But what?”

The elevator door slid open.

“I thought he’d follow us out and up the offer.”

Alex gestured for her to precede him. “He didn’t make an offer.”

“But he was going to.”

Alex trapped the elevator door to keep it from closing. “Yes, he was going to.”

The truth dawned on Emma. “We really walked away without even hearing what it was?” What kind of a way was that to conduct business?

“Of course we walked away. Get on.”

“But maybe it was-”

Alex leaned in, lowering his voice. “Stop talking and get in the elevator.”

Emma hesitated. Then her glance slid over to the receptionist. Right. This argument was unseemly. But what on earth was Alex thinking?

She lifted her chin and marched inside, gritting her teeth until the door closed. “Maybe it was good,” she shouted. “Maybe it was fantastic.”

Alex gave a dry chuckle. “Which do you think is more likely, Emma? That Clive Murdoch got rich by benevolently paying more than market price for hotels, or that Clive Murdoch is a shrewd old man looking to take advantage of your inexperience.”

She glared at Alex. “Guess we’ll have to tell him to get in line for that one, won’t we?”

A muscle near his temple ticked for a moment. “I’m not old. And I’m not taking advantage of you, Emma. I’m saving you from bankruptcy.”

“Benevolently, I’m sure,” she returned with syrupy sweetness. “And with no thought whatsoever for your own welfare.”

“You knew the score from minute one.”

The elevator pinged and the door glided open.

“How do I know you’re not taking advantage of my inexperience?” she pressed. “And, by the way, that was insulting. I’ve been in the hotel business my entire life. I’ve done everything from tend bar to renovate a ski resort.”

“That’s your credential? Tending bar?”

“Most recently, I was the vice president of North American operations. I’m not some naive newbie.”

“Yeah?” he challenged as they started across the lobby. “Then why did you agree to meet Murdoch in his office?”

Emma didn’t get the point of the question. “Because it was Mr. Murdoch I was meeting with.”

Alex pushed open the double glass doors. The temperature went up twenty degrees while car horns and tire screeches replaced the echoing quiet of the lobby. “You should have had him come to you.”

“What difference would that make?”

They dodged other pedestrians as they made their way down the stairs.

“Tactical advantage.” Alex’s lips quirked in a grin. “Newbie mistake. Good thing I was there to rescue you.”

“You didn’t even let him make the offer.”

“The offer sucked, Emma. I brought a car. Just across the street.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No-I’m pretty sure I brought a car. That blue Lexus over there, under the red sign.”

“You don’t know the offer sucked.”

Alex stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to face her. “I knew about your meeting. I knew he wanted to buy. I knew how to shut him down. Don’t you think there’s maybe a slim possibility that I know the market value of a hotel?”

“Not half high on yourself, are you?” As soon as the sarcastic words were out, Emma regretted them.

Alex had made a fair point.

She’d been out to prove herself on this deal with Murdoch. She’d even gone so far as to secretly hope that whatever he had in mind would save McKinley Inns, so that she wouldn’t have to give half of the company to Alex, and she could avoid going through with this farce of a wedding.

But Murdoch hadn’t wanted to make a business deal beneficial to McKinley. He’d simply wanted to make a purchase. He’d been looking for a bargain.

Not that she’d ever admit any of it to Alex. He had enough of an advantage over her already.

“Like I said before,” Alex interrupted her thoughts. “There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

“Your lawyer?” Now that the engagement was out of the way, the prenup was next on the list.

“No. Not my lawyer. My housekeeper.”

For a man with a reputation as a cold-blooded hard case, Alex sure had a soft spot for his housekeeper. Oh, he tried to hide it. But it was there in the inflection of his voice as they came down his long driveway in Oyster Bay.

“She can be irritable at times, and she’s as judgmental as anyone I’ve ever met. But she’s been with the family since before I was born, so I try to humor her.”

“Because she scares the life out of you,” Emma guessed.

Alex hesitated just a shade too long. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

They drove beneath spreading oaks and past fine-trimmed lawns. The last time Emma had come to the Garrison estate, she’d been focused on the upcoming conversation with Alex. This time she paid more attention to the landscaping, doing a double take as they passed a magnificent rose garden.

“What did you tell her about me?” Emma asked as she craned her neck to watch the stunning blooms. Wow. The Vanderbilts’ gardener had nothing on the Garrisons’.

“That I was marrying you for your hotels,” he said.

“You did not.”

“Actually, I told her I was helping you out of a financial jam. She guessed the part about the hotels.”

That surprised Emma. “Well, at least I don’t have to lie to her.”

“You don’t have to lie to anyone else either.”

Okay, now that was about the most ridiculous thing Emma had ever heard. “Yeah, I have to lie.”

“We tell them we’re getting married,” he explained. “We tell them we couldn’t be happier-which, when you consider the money, has got to be true. And we tell them we’re co-managing McKinley Inns. All perfectly valid.”

“And what do we do when they ask about our feelings? You planning to pull a Prince Charles?”

He glanced her way, raising an eyebrow. “A Prince Charles?”

“When Prince Charles was asked if he loved Diana, he said ‘whatever love is.’”

Alex chuckled.

“Hey, you pull a Prince Charles on me, and I’ll pull a Mrs. Nash on you.”

“What’s a Mrs. Nash?”

“I don’t know, but she does something that intimidates you, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Like a fox.” Emma glanced back out the windshield to see the three-story white building rising up in front of them. “I swear your house is bigger than some of my hotels.”

“That’s why I bought an apartment in Manhattan.”

“You kept getting lost?”

Alex laughed.

The building grew closer and seemed to get taller. White stone pillars gleamed in the morning sun. Dozens of dormered windows delineated the three, no, four stories, while a fountain dominated the circular drive’s center garden.

“You spin me around three times in there, I swear you’ll never have to see me again.”

“Good tip,” said Alex as he brought the car to a smooth halt in front of the polished staircase.

She pulled a face, but he just laughed at her.

They exited the car and started climbing the wide steps.

“We have to talk about this,” said Emma, trying not to feel outdone by Alex’s status and old money.

“About my house?”

“About everything. How this marriage thing is going to work. How much time we’ll have to spend together. How we’ll coordinate our schedules.”

Alex reached for the handle on the massive front door. “We can coordinate schedules over breakfast.”

She supposed they could schedule a regular morning call. “What time do you get up?”

“Around six.”

Emma nodded. “I usually eat about seven. We could talk on the phone over coffee.”

“The phone?”

“You’d rather e-mail?”

“I’d rather eat at the same table. Dining room, breakfast nook, kitchen, pool deck, I don’t care-”

“What are you talking about?”

He reached for the ornate knob on the huge double doors. “Breakfast. Pay attention, Emma. We’re talking about breakfast.”

“Where?”

“Here, of course.”

Emma stopped dead. “Here?”

“Can you think of a better place?”

“My penthouse.”

He smirked as he pushed open the door. “You want to share your bedroom with me?”

“We don’t have to live together.”

“Sure we do. We’ll be married.”

In name only. And even if they did spend time in the same residence, it couldn’t be here.

Emma walked tentatively into the cavernous rotunda foyer, gazing upward. It definitely couldn’t be here. “Regular people don’t live like this,” she said. “It’s practically a palace.”

“That’s because great-great-great Grandpa Hamilton was British royalty. The second son of an earl.”

Emma gazed at the row of portraits sweeping off down the main hallway. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“The Earl of Kessex,” said Alex. “It’s a small holding just south of Scotland. However, his older brother inherited the property and the title. So Hamilton became an admiral in the British navy. I guess he always wanted the trappings because he bought the original eight hundred acres and built this place.”

Emma made her way slowly down the hallway, peering at the old portraits of nobility.

“This guy,” said Alex, pointing to a distinguished man in a dress navy uniform, gold tassels on his shoulders, medals adorning his chest, with a saber clutched in his left hand. He looked proud, serious, intense. In fact, take away the hat, the moustache and about twenty-five years, and he looked surprisingly like Alex.

Emma stepped back and glanced from one to the other.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Alex. “I know.”

“It explains a lot,” said Emma. “It’s genetics that make you so intent on expanding the family empire.”

“Oh, I like her,” came a woman’s voice. She had a British accent, and her staunch declaration was quickly followed by the tapping of her heels on the hardwood floor.

Embarrassed, Emma pulled away from Alex.

The woman was taller than Emma, maybe five feet ten in her sensible shoes. Her hair was dyed sandy blond and cut fashionably short so that it feathered around her narrow face. She had on a straight skirt, a high collar and minimal makeup, and a pair of reading glasses dangled from a gold chain around her neck.

“You don’t deserve her,” the woman said to Alex.

“Mrs. Nash. May I present Emma McKinley, my fiancée.”

It was the fist time Alex had used the title, and it made Emma’s stomach clamp with guilt.

“You’re quite certain you want to do this?” Mrs. Nash asked Emma, carefully searching her expression.

“Quite certain,” said Emma. And she was. There were a million reasons against marrying Alex. But the one reason in favor of marrying him was pretty compelling.

“Well, let’s get a look at you, then.” Mrs. Nash glanced her up and down with a critical eye.

“Mrs. Nash,” Alex protested.

“Amelia’s,” she pronounced.

Emma looked to Alex.

“Emma can pick her own wedding dress,” said Alex.

Her wedding dress? So far Emma had blocked that tiny detail from her mind-along with the church, the flowers, the cake and the groom. Most especially the groom. And the kiss from the groom. And the shiver of arousal she got even now when she thought about their engagement kiss on Saturday night.

“If you’re going to do this,” said Mrs. Nash. “And let me go on record here and now as being dead set against your doing this. For the sake of the family, you’re going to do it right.”

“We can do it right without Amelia’s dress,” said Alex.

“You definitely don’t want Cassandra’s.” Mrs. Nash spoke to Emma. “Or Rosalind’s.”

“I was thinking of something from Ferragamo or Vera Wang,” said Alex.

“New?” asked Mrs. Nash with obvious horror.

“What’s wrong with Cassandra and Rosalind’s dresses?” asked Emma, partly to appease Mrs. Nash, but also partly to put Alex in his place. If he thought he was picking out her wedding dress, he had another think coming.

“Rosalind died young, dear.”

“Oh, I’m so-”

“It was in nineteen-forty-two,” Alex put in.

“Oh.” Okay. So maybe condolences weren’t necessary.

“And Cassandra.” Mrs. Nash clicked her tongue. “She was a most unhappy child.” She cast a knowing look at Alex. “And you two have quite enough problems without the dubious karma of that dress.”

“It’s a very generous offer,” Emma said to Mrs. Nash. “But I’m sure I can find something on Fifth-”

“Do you want the world to believe you’re marrying for love?”

Emma hesitated, thinking of poor Princess Diana. “We do.”

Mrs. Nash divided her disdain between both of them. “I must say, if I’m to be a coconspirator in this folly, then you will have to take my advice.”

Emma almost said yes, ma’am.

“A Garrison,” Mrs. Nash continued, “would never buy a wedding dress off the rack. Now, let’s take a look at the ring, shall we?”

Alex slanted an accusatory glare at Emma, and she guiltily inched her hands behind her back.

“I, uh, left it at home.”

“Indeed.” But then, instead of leveling a criticism, Mrs. Nash gave a decisive nod. “Just as well. We’ll be needing the Tudor diamond for this.”

Emma didn’t know what the Tudor diamond was, but it sounded old and sentimental, and most certainly valuable. She shook her head. “I don’t want any of Alex’s heirlooms.”

“But of course you do.”

“No, really-”

Alex slipped an arm around her shoulder. “Mrs. Nash is right, Emma.”

She shook her head more vigorously, fighting the reaction to his touch. Why did this stupid sensation have to rise up every time he put his hands on her? It was beyond frustrating, and it made no sense whatsoever.

Sure, he was a fit, sexy man who smelled like cedar musk. And he was rich and smart, with a brilliant if convoluted set of ethics that she couldn’t help but admire.

And he sometimes seemed to have her best interests at heart. And every once in a while he showed a soft spot or a wicked streak of humor. She liked that. She didn’t want to, but there was no point in denying he could make her laugh.

“You need to save those for your real bride,” she insisted.

“That would be you,” said Mrs. Nash. “You are his real bride.”

“No, I’m…” She turned to Alex for support.

He shrugged his shoulders, and she felt completely adrift. The heirloom ring, on top of everything else, suddenly seemed ridiculously overwhelming.

“We need to get organized,” Emma told him. Maybe if they made a list-the prenup, the ceremony, where they’d live, how long they had to stay together. Maybe then she’d feel like things were under control.

“Exactly,” Mrs. Nash agreed. “And we’ll begin with the Tudor diamond. It’s being stored in the safe in the Wiltshire bedroom. I trust you remember the combination, Alex?”

“I remember the combination, Mrs. Nash.”

“Well, we’re not keeping the liquor in there, so you won’t have had a use for it lately.”

“I should have fired you years ago,” said Alex, but there was clear affection in his tone.

Their banter made Emma feel even more like an interloper. “I’m sure the ring isn’t intended-”

“You might take a look through the rest of the collection while you’re up there,” Mrs. Nash added. Then she winked at Alex. “Nothing says commitment quite like flawless emeralds.”

Alex nodded to Mrs. Nash and patted Emma’s shoulder. “Shall we?”

No, they shouldn’t. She had to slow this thing down. They had to get organized. “We need to talk,” she said with renewed vigor.

“We can talk in the Wiltshire bedroom.”