Priceless: Contemporary Billionaire Romance Novel by Aria Hawthorne

taste her sweetness.  It was too soon, and he knew it.
    Suddenly, his cell phone rang.  Maribel looked down
at his vibrating pocket.  The glee and banter dissipated as they both waited to
see if Miles was going to answer it.
    Miles noted the name of the caller and exhaled into
the cold air with bitterness. Then, he answered the call. “I’m here.”
    “You’re not going to blow this deal, are you?”
    Miles clenched his jaw, drifting away from the loud,
cheery glee of the ice skaters in the rink.
    “Thirty-five million dollars, Brax, and you’re
making them wait on the details, just so you can get your nuts off with some
call girl…”
    “Enough, Gary—” Miles cut in.  “Gillian called you,
fine, I get that.  But the rest is personal, so fuck off.”
    “Okay, okay, whatever you say. I’m just your lawyer,
not your shrink.  But maybe you need a visit to your shrink to have your head
examined if you think it’s a good idea to blow off a thirty-five million dollar
deal.”
    “Look—it’s Saturday.”
    “I’m a lawyer, Brax. We don’t acknowledge the
difference between the work week and the weekend.  They’re all billable hours.”
    “We’re too far apart on the lease terms.”
    “You’re not that far apart,” Gary countered.
“And that’s what I’m here for.  Tell me what you want, and if it gets shot down,
then let me be the one who carries the surrender flag. No ego lost on your
part.” 
    Ego . Everyone always
thought it was about his ego , Miles thought.  He considered taking up
Gary’s offer and spewing out the acceptable terms, but then reconsidered.  He
had escaped—for a few brief hours—and now they were circling him like ravenous
vultures, attempting to draw him back in.
    Maribel
suddenly appeared behind him. “Hot chocolate,” she mouthed, and proudly offered
up two paper cups, steaming and frothy with their cocoa delight.
    He
gazed at her and slowly smiled—a thirty-five million dollar deal or hot chocolate
on Valentine’s Day with a sassy, spontaneous, sexy woman who he wanted to get
to know more.
    “Marshmallows,”
she mouthed, sweetening the deal.
    Oh,
Maribel .  Miles rubbed his face and peered down at the
white dots, bobbing in the hot chocolate.  She made difficult choices seem so
simple.
     
“I’ll call you tomorrow, Gary.”
    “Don’t,
Brax—” Gary rushed to keep his attention, “Don’t do this… you blow this deal,
and you’ll quickly become the hardass megalomaniac real estate tycoon who
nobody is going to want to do business with.”
    “Well,
that sounds better than just being known as an ‘asshole.’”
    Miles
ended the call, regretting his decision to answer it in the first place.  Crude
and rude .  That’s how they provoked him to act because that’s what they
expected from him.  It was a vicious cycle, and he hated it.  He noted the sun
was drifting behind the thick winter clouds.  The frigid wind lashed through
their coats and pushed them close together.
    Maribel
shivered against his coat.  “Trade,” she offered—the hot chocolate for his
phone.  Miles accepted the drink, but waivered on giving up his cell phone.
    “C’mon
on,” she nudged, opening up her purse. “At least until we finish our hot
chocolates.”
    It
was a fair compromise, and a concession he was willing to make—more than she
knew.
    “I’m
a wanted man, Maribel,” he quipped, depositing his phone in her purse. “My
mugshot is all over the wires.”
    She
shrugged. “You’re a billionaire. Everyone will always want something from you.”
    Everyone—except
her.  She didn’t seem to want anything from him except to share an
uninterrupted moment to enjoy their hot dogs and hot chocolates.  Snow drifts suddenly
flecked down upon them.  Maribel shivered again as a gust of wind swept through
the city like an invisible hand pushing them off of the street and out of the
cold.  He considered inviting her up to his apartment.  It was right there,
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