The Bravo Billionaire

“Ms. Hewitt, you are trying my patience.”

“You know, I got that. I got that loud and clear.”

“I could make you a very rich woman.”

“Well, that is real nice. But no thanks. I mean it. I truly do. I will call you, as soon as I can make up my mind what to do.”

Right then, he heard one short, sharp bark. “Oh, sweetie,” she said. For a minute, he thought she was talking to him. But then she did talk to him, and he realized the difference. “That was Ted. He says hi.”

Damn her. She had the dogs. She wasn’t getting him or his sister.

“You have yourself a nice night now,” she said.

“Ms. Hewitt—”

“’Bye…” The line went dead.

Jonas pulled the phone from his ear and stared at the thing. She had hung up on him.

Nobody hung up on him.

Except, apparently, for Emma Lynn Hewitt.

He called again the next night. She told him that no, she had not made up her mind yet.

He hung up on her that time, because he knew if he didn’t that he would end up raising his voice. Jonas Bravo was not a man who ever needed to raise his voice.

After that, he gave up on phone calls. For two entire days he did nothing about the problem, though it seemed to him that the whole time a clock ticked away relentlessly inside his head, counting down the seconds, the minutes, the hours, moving him closer to the date by which he had to be married to Emma Lynn Hewitt—or possibly lose Mandy.

By the time those two days had passed, it was Thursday night, ten days since Blythe’s death, eleven days before the deadline set out in the will. And three days since the meeting at McAllister, Quinn and Associates.

Three days. If that wasn’t a damn few, he didn’t know what was.

And he’d come up with another angle, another offer he could make her.

Friday, he spent almost three hours closeted with his top corporate attorneys, getting the whole thing in order, lining out exactly what he was willing to do and how it would be accomplished. One of his secretaries typed the thing up.

By then, it was after four. He put the finished prospectus in his briefcase and called for the limousine. A half an hour later, his driver pulled up in front of Emma Hewitt’s place of business in Beverly Hills. The driver got out and opened Jonas’s door for him.

Jonas paused on the sidewalk to reluctantly approve the clean, simple lines of the building. The large plaque on the wall by the big glass door gave the establishment’s name: PetRitz. And a brief description of the services provided: Grooming, Boarding, Animal Care. Not a billboard or a tacky picture of a pink poodle in sight. He gave Ms. Hewitt no credit for this clear display of good taste. In Beverly Hills, tackiness was not permitted, at least not when it came to places of business. No billboards, no neon, no cheesy advertising art of any kind.

Jonas knew that it was his mother’s money and influence that had landed the dog groomer in such a prime location. And it was Blythe’s connections with wealthy animal owners all over the Southland that had brought the Hewitt woman a huge clientele right from the first.

But he also realized that it was the Hewitt woman herself who had somehow managed to keep all those fickle, demanding, big-spending pet lovers coming back. From the day it opened its doors, PetRitz had been a success. Everyone who was anyone took their precious pedigreed pooches to Emma Lynn Hewitt’s exclusive pet salon.

And Jonas had been standing on the sidewalk long enough.

He strode up to the glass door and went inside, where he was instantly bombarded with color and sound.

The waiting room boasted hibiscus-pink walls, lots of big, soft chairs and a skylight overhead that let in plenty of light. There were plants everywhere, palms and huge, trailing coleus, ficus trees, giant ferns and big-leaved begonias. Among the greenery, there were several fish tanks in which bright-colored tropical fish darted about and a couple of huge terrariums where large reptiles basked under glowing heat lamps. A few customers were waiting, sitting in the fat chairs, looking prosperous and contented, thumbing through copies of Pet Life and People. Their animals waited with them. A dignified Irish setter, patient on a leash. A Burmese cat hissing in a carrier. A parrot that kept whistling and asking, “What’s the matter, pretty baby?”

Music was playing. The Dixie Chicks, he thought. Which figured.

And he could also hear bird sounds—not including the parrot. Piped in or real? Had to be recorded. He didn’t see any birds perched among the greenery.

There was a reception counter opposite the door. Behind it, at a computer, sat a plus-sized young woman with hair the same color as the counter: jet-black. The young woman wore a smock the same screaming pink as the walls.

Jonas crossed the room and stood right in front of her. She punched up something on the keyboard, scowled at the screen, then looked up at him, ditching the scowl for a welcoming smile. “Hi there. Need some help?” She wore a rhinestone in her nose, three studs in her left ear and four in her right. On her ample pink bosom rode a black lacquer name tag with pink metallic lettering. Pixie, it read.

“Well, Pixie. I’d like to speak with Emma Lynn.”

The black brows inched closer together on the wide forehead. “Wadeaminute. I know who you are. Blythe’s son. The one they call the Bravo Billionaire.”

“Call me Jonas. Please.”

Pixie beamed in pleasure. “All right. I’ll do that. Jonas.”

“May I speak with Emma Lynn?”

Pixie heaved a huge sigh and her rather close-set eyes grew scarily moist. “I’m so sorry—about Blythe. She was the greatest.”

“Yes. There was no one quite like her. Now…would you get me Emma Lynn?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” Pixie got up from her chair and went to a black door on her side of the counter. “I’ll tell her you’re here. Won’t be a sec.”

Pixie was gone for more than a sec.

Approximately two minutes after she disappeared, another woman in a pink smock came through the black door and took Pixie’s place behind the counter. Jonas continued to wait, moving to the side every time a client approached to pick up a pet or drop one off.

It occurred to him after he’d been standing there for about five minutes, listening to twittering birds and the Dixie Chicks and then after the Dixie Chicks, to Sheryl Crow, that he felt like a salesman. Someone in pet supplies, briefcase in hand, waiting for the owner to come out and grant him a few minutes of her precious time.

Waiting.

His least favorite activity.

And he’d been doing it a lot lately. Way too much.

Because Emma Lynn Hewitt wouldn’t make up her damn mind.

There was another black door on his side of the counter, on the same wall as the one behind it. A third woman in a pink smock came out of that door twice to take pets from the people at the counter. It didn’t take a Mensa candidate to figure out that the two doors led to the same hallway.

When the second hand on the big wall clock behind the counter had gone around for the seventh time since Pixie had left him, Jonas decided he’d had enough. He turned around and went through the door on his side of the counter.

“Uh. Excuse me,” the woman behind the counter called after him. “You can’t go back there….”

He ignored her and pushed the door shut behind him.

He was in a long, pink hallway, with three black doors on either side, and one at each end. Sheryl Crow and the birds continued to serenade him.