The Ballantyne Billionaires

He couldn’t be hard to reach, she’d thought, so she’d tried to contact him through Ballantyne and Company. Ha! That was like trying to speak directly with one of the Windsor boys. She’d left countless messages, sent a dozen emails to the group secretary, but nothing. When she’d visited the flagship store, asking to see Jaeger, her requests to speak to someone higher up the food chain were dismissed. When she refused to leave until either Jaeger or one of his three siblings spoke with her, security escorted her off the premises.

She’d been on the internet a few days later and found an in-depth article on him in which he was quoted saying that he had no intention of ever marrying, that he did not want children. The world needed innovators and adventurers and discoverers, not more mouths to feed.

Besides, kids would seriously cramp his style...

By midnight of that awful day, she’d finally received the message that Jaeger wasn’t interested in her or her sapphires or hearing she was pregnant.

Ty, she decided, was hers; she wasn’t obliged to share his existence with a man who would not be excited or interested in her child. Mick had ignored her, and she’d always wondered why he didn’t love her. There was no way she would burden her son with an uninterested, unenthusiastic father.

Piper desperately wished she could forget about Jaeger, but that was impossible when she lived with a miniature version of the man. In Ty she saw Jaeger’s gorgeous, fallen-angel face—light eyes a perfect foil for his olive skin and dark, wavy hair—and then she remembered the scrape of his two-day-old beard against her skin, the breadth of his shoulders, the ridges of his corrugated stomach, the peace she felt in his clever assured touch.

Some nights she woke up from a deep sleep, her heart pounding, an orgasm hovering, her thoughts full of him. On occasion she rolled over looking for him, wanting him to take her to that place where only he could—a dizzying, sparkling place where time stood still and magic lived. When reality crashed down—she was a single mother and he wasn’t interested in her or her son—the following hours were dark and dismal, long on tears and short on sleep.

Ty gurgled and Piper dropped her head to nuzzle his tummy, feeling his tiny hands in her curls. When she’d first found out she was pregnant with Manhattan’s Main Man’s baby, she’d cursed God and Fate and wept and wailed. Now she couldn’t imagine her life without her little man; he was the beginning and the end of her universe.

“What about some lunch and then a walk in the park? It’s cold but sunny.” Piper put Ty on her hip and walked downstairs, ignoring her study to head for the kitchen. “You up for that, Ty?”

Ty shoved his fist in his mouth, and Piper took that to be a yes. Handing Ty a sippy cup filled with water, she pulled out a jar of organic baby food and heard her doorbell buzz. Frowning, she looked at the small screen in her kitchen and saw a man in a suit standing by the front door to her building. He looked very...lawyerly, Piper decided.

Piper lifted the receiver to her intercom, and when she heard he represented the law firm in charge of administering her father’s estate, she buzzed her visitor into the building.

Five minutes later, Mr. Simms sat at her kitchen table as she fed Ty his lunch.

“I understand that you’re a fine arts appraiser, you work from home and you have a steady clientele of both art gallery owners and private collectors.”

Accurate enough. Piper nodded as she spooned sweet potato and carrots into Ty’s welcoming mouth. Wanting to get outside and into the fresh air, she lifted her eyebrows. “All true. But I doubt you came here to talk about my business, so what can I do for you?”

“I also understand you are Michael Shuttle’s daughter?”

There was no point denying it. “I am. My mother and Mick were together for over thirty years. My relationship to Mick is not public knowledge, and I’d prefer it stayed private.”

Piper wiped Ty’s face and hands and handed him oversize plastic house keys to play with. They immediately went to his mouth. “Why are you here?”

Simms nodded. “Unlike his business, your father’s personal assets were very well-documented. On his list were numerous pieces of furniture, with annotations that they are in this house. There is a Georgian desk, a painting by Zabinski, a sculpture by Barry Jackson. A Frida Kahlo painting.”

“He gave those to my mother. They were gifts.”

“The spreadsheet states the items were on loan to Gail Mills.” Mr. Simms looked sympathetic.

From the kitchen she could see into the living room, where the bronze sculpture of a ballet dancer sat on the credenza. “Are you telling me they have to be sold?”

Simms nodded. “Yes. They are part of his estate.”

Piper bit her bottom lip to keep her curses from escaping. “On loan, my ass! They were gifts. I was there when he gave them to her.” Feeling sad and a little sick, Piper stood up to release Ty from his high chair.

Simms made a note in a small black notepad and looked at her as she swayed side to side, Ty on her hip. “I’ll send a crew to collect the table, the art and the bronze. They’ll go up for auction and you can buy them back.”

Yeah, right, that wasn’t going to happen. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.” Piper looked at the door, hinting that she’d like him gone.

“There’s just one more thing, Miss Mills.”

Oh, God, judging by his serious face, whatever he was about to say would be a kick to the gut. She tightened her grip on Ty and waited for the hammer to fall.

“This property is owned by one of your father’s companies and will definitely have to be sold to repay some of his creditors.”

Piper felt her knees buckle, and she dropped to a chair, Ty landing on her lap. “What? But he left this house to my mom, who left it to me. I’ve requested a copy of the deed but I’ve received nothing.”

“That’s because he left the right for your mom to live in it. He didn’t leave the asset. It’s definitely not yours to live in. It will be sold. That is indisputable.”

Indisputable? That sounded pretty damn final. Piper pushed past the panic and forced herself to think. “Would I be able to buy it?” she asked, her voice breaking.

“Do you have around three million dollars?” Simms asked. “Or a way to raise three million dollars?”

No, but she had some stones that might be worth that much, if they were real. This was her home, Ty’s home! She’d lost her mother; she couldn’t lose her house, too. If she could raise money from the sapphires, she might be able to get a mortgage for the rest...

“I can try to find the money. How much time do I have?”

Mr. Simms’s face softened. “Your father left a hell of a mess, and you’re being punished for it. That’s not right. I’ll push the sale of the property down my list of priorities and hope like hell I don’t get caught. What about three months?”

Piper nodded, tears in her eyes. “Three months to raise three million. Holy crack-a-doodle.”

Simms cocked his head at her. “If anyone can do it, Michael Shuttle’s daughter can.”

Piper didn’t bother explaining that, while she carried Mick’s DNA, she’d been anything but his daughter.

But she was Gail’s daughter and Ty’s mom, and she had a life she loved, a life now under threat. Piper looked around her colorful, cozy home, and her stomach twisted into a sailor’s knot. This was her nest, the center of her life. It was her refuge, her cave, her son’s playpen. It was where she felt safe.

Leaving her house and her life wasn’t an option, so she had to fight for it, and that meant... God. Piper pushed her hand against her flat stomach, ordering her lungs to work.

Fighting for her life and her home meant selling her stones. And selling her stones meant going back to see Jaeger, the only man who’d ever tempted her to walk on the wild side. It didn’t matter that she was still furious that he’d refused to see her, still hurt that she was so easily forgotten. She needed him.

Dammit. She needed Jaeger.

Only, she quickly qualified, to buy her sapphires so she could save her and Ty’s home. She didn’t need Jaeger to be her lover or Ty’s dad or even to rehash the past and explain his actions.

It was a simple transaction: she’d give him ten sapphires and he’d give her a considerable amount of money.

It would be swift and simple.

With her rising stress levels, she didn’t think she could cope with anything but swift and simple.

* * *

Sitting in the reception area, three floors up from the magnificent flagship jewelry store on Fifth Avenue, Piper took in the details of the Ballantyne and Company headquarters.

Unlike the restrained elegance of the jewelry store below, where the furnishings were top quality but designed to play second fiddle to the magnificent jewels, the corporate offices were modern, light and airy. Orange backless couches sat on polished cement floors, and wide windows allowed visitors to watch the Manhattan traffic below. Modern artwork—Piper instantly recognized the massive monochromatic Pinz—dominated the wall above a light wood credenza holding a coffee machine.

The knowledge that she was in danger of losing her house had galvanized her, and she’d swung into action. She had no choice; she had to establish whether the stones were valuable or not.

Piper hadn’t wasted her energy trying to get an appointment with Jaeger directly, choosing instead to use her contacts in the art world. Art collectors had deep pockets, and many of them, including her old client Mr. Hendricks, purchased jewelry as well. She’d once saved him from purchasing a fraudulent Dali, and he’d quickly agreed to facilitate a meeting between her and Jaeger.

She would’ve saved herself a lot of heartache if she’d had this brainwave last year. Baby brain, she decided. Those pregnancy hormones had a lot to answer for!

Despite Jaeger acting like a toad after Milan, she trusted him professionally to tell her the truth about the stones. His reputation as an honest dealer was vitally important to him. Ballantyne and Company was also reputed to pay the highest prices for quality gems. Three very good, very business-y reasons for her to be here. Piper felt a drop of perspiration run down her spine. Her heart was bouncing off her rib cage and the air seemed thin.

She had to calm down.

She was going to see Jaeger again. Her one-time lover, the father of her child, the man she’d spent the past eighteen months fantasizing about. In Milan she hadn’t been able to look at him without wanting to kiss him deeply, madly, without wanting to get naked with him as soon as humanly possible.

Jaeger, the same man who’d blocked her from his life.

Piper sucked in as much air as she could. She had to pull herself together! She was a few months shy of thirty, a mother. She was not a gauche girl about to meet her first crush. She had sapphires to sell, her house to save, a child to raise. She was being utterly ridiculous! This meeting had nothing to do with Ty or Milan. This meeting was about her gems and her need to raise the cash to keep her home. Ty’s home.

Unable to sit still, Piper walked down the hall to examine another painting, this one by Crouch. Not his best work, she decided. Piper turned when male voices drifted toward her, and she immediately recognized Jaeger’s deep timbre. Her skin prickled and burned and her heart flew out of her chest.

“Miss Mills?”

Piper hauled in a deep breath and looked at Jaeger. His hair was slightly shorter, she noticed, his stubble a little heavier. His eyes were still the same arresting blue, but his shoulders seemed broader, his arms under the sleeves of the black oxford shirt more defined. A soft leather belt was threaded through the loops of black chinos.

The corner of his mouth tipped up, the same way it had the first time they’d met, and like before, the butterflies in her stomach took flight and crashed into one another. Heat ran up her neck and into her cheeks and she bit her bottom lip, frantically telling herself she couldn’t, wouldn’t, throw herself into his arms and tell him that her mouth had missed his, that her body still craved his.

He held out his hand. “I’m Jaeger Ballantyne.”

Yes, I know. We did several things to each other that, when I remember Milan, still make me blush.

What had she said in Italy? “When we meet again, we’ll pretend we never saw each other naked.”

Oh, God! Was he really going to take her statement literally?

Jaeger shoved his hand into the pocket of his pants and rocked on his heels, his expression wary. “Okay, skipping the pleasantries. I understand you have some sapphires you’d like me to see?”

His words instantly reminded her of her mission. It shouldn’t—it didn’t!—matter that he was being a hemorrhoid. She’d spent one night with the Playboy of Park Avenue and he’d unknowingly given her the best gift of her life, but that wasn’t why she was here. She needed him to look at her stones and, ideally, confirm they were valuable. She needed him to buy the gems so she could keep her house.

Piper nodded. “Right. Yes, I have sapphires.”

“I only deal in exceptional stones, Ms. Mills.” Jaeger told her, his expression guarded.

Tired of wasting time, and feeling like an idiot, Piper reached into the side pocket of her tote bag and hauled out a knuckle-size cut sapphire.

“This exceptional enough for you, Ballantyne?”

Two

Jaeger lowered his loupe and looked at the sapphire he held between his thumb and index finger. It was a small stone, barely four carats, but its color and quality, like those of the rest of the ten stones, were off the charts.

Like the woman who owned them.

Jaeger turned his head to the right and looked toward the window where she stood, watching the traffic on the famous street below. Like the stones, something in her called to him. She wasn’t beautiful, precisely, but she was...dazzling. With her naturally curly hair and cat-like green eyes, her stubborn chin and long, lean swimmer’s body, she was exotic, interesting. Utterly feminine...

And majorly pissed off with him.

Jaeger knew women. He should—he’d had enough experience dealing with them. He knew when they were moody or sad. He could recognize manipulation and desperation from a mile away, could see calculation and greed with one glance. He could read body language like other people read text, and Piper Mills was five feet seven inches of pure pissiness.

Directed at him.

He wanted to ask if they’d met before, but he knew that couldn’t be possible. Apart from those two months last year, his memory was impeccable, and he knew they’d never crossed paths before that. The probability of them meeting during his lost months was slim indeed. Credit cards, air tickets and a private investigator had filled in the blanks for the majority of the time he’d lost.

He’d spent July in Burma and Thailand, on the trail of a fantastic ruby he’d subsequently lost in an auction held in the back rooms of Bangkok. From Bangkok, he’d flown to Milan, where he visited Ballantyne and Company and examined and purchased some inexpensive art deco jewelry. He’d spent some extra time in Milan, not unusual since it was his favorite city, but the visit had ended badly. On his way to the airport, the taxi he’d traveled in was T-boned by a delivery truck, and he’d become the human filling in a vehicular sandwich. He’d sustained a broken clavicle and bleeding on the brain.

They’d stabilized him in Milan. Then Linc sent their private plane and a team of doctors to Italy, and Jaeger was transferred back to New York. After operating to stem the bleeding on his brain, they’d kept him in an induced coma until the swelling in his brain subsided. He woke up to the news he’d lost ten weeks of his life, and his beloved uncle, the man who’d raised the Ballantyne siblings, was dead.

Jaeger pulled his eyes from the long-legged beauty at the window and turned back to the stones. Kashmir Blues...why did that phrase keep jumping into his brain? Jaeger picked up his desk phone and punched in a number, impatient for Beckett to answer. His brother had a computer-like brain and remembered most of their uncle’s many stories. From the age of ten, he, Beckett and Sage, along with the housekeeper’s son, Linc—who Connor adopted along with the rest of them—listened to Connor’s gemstone-related tales. Beckett always remembered the finer details.

“You’re calling because you can’t handle the hot chick and you need my help?”

Jaeger scowled at his brother’s greeting. “Yeah, that’s why I’m calling,” he sarcastically replied.

“Thought so. Hang on, sweetheart. I’ll be right there to rescue you.”

If he’d been alone, he would have told his cocky younger brother exactly what he thought of his comment. Because he wasn’t, Jaeger just asked him what jumped into his head when he heard the phrase Kashmir Blues.

It took Beckett less than ten seconds to respond. “Great-Grandfather Mac called a cache of sapphires he saw in the London store the Kashmir Blues. Fifteen brilliant stones. Because other gem dealers, like Jim Moreau, also saw them, we know they definitely existed and weren’t just a figment of Mac’s whiskey-soaked imagination. Strangely, they’ve never, as far as I know, turned up again.”

Until, maybe, today. Could these ten stones be part of the original fifteen? If they were, Jaeger was staring at a hell of a find. He placed the handset back into its cradle. Good God. Could he really be looking at the biggest gem discovery of the last fifty years?

“Well, are they worth anything?” Piper demanded, her hands on her slim hips. Jaeger couldn’t help noticing the sun shone through her thin silk blouse. He could see the curve of her breast, the lace of her bra. He wanted her stones but, by God, he also wanted her with a ferocity that roared and clawed.

Pull yourself together, Ballantyne. This is not the time to think about sex.

“Yeah, they are worth something,” Jaeger slowly replied. “But how much, right now, I’m not sure. I need to do some tests. I’d like other experts to look at them.”

“I thought you were an expert.”

“I am. But with stones like these—” magnificent, important, breathtaking, expensive stones “—I like to make doubly sure.”

“I’d prefer to keep this between us,” Piper said, lifting a stubborn, sexy chin.

“My other experts are my two brothers, Linc and Beckett, and my sister, Sage. They are all Ballantyne directors, and we don’t discuss our clients with anyone else.”

Piper folded her arms across her chest and stared down at the floor, lifting one hand to hold her riotous hair back from her face. When she looked up at him, her expression was fierce. “No games, no lies...if I wanted to sell them right now, what would you offer me?”

“Do you need the money?” She didn’t look like she did. Her clothes were fashionable, her shoes new.

Piper dropped her hand and sent him a hard stare. “I know you might not realize this, but some people do.”

Jaeger held her hot eyes, not bothering to tell her he’d seen more poverty on one trip to Southeast Asia than she could ever comprehend. He knew what people would do for money; he’d witnessed what people would do for money.

He couldn’t help that he was the heir to a dynasty, that he was wealthy beyond belief, but he worked damn hard every day of his life. He didn’t lie or cheat people out of their stones. He paid good prices for good gems. He didn’t deal in blood diamonds, and he boycotted mines and miners using child labor. Like his parents, like Connor, he operated ethically, dammit!

Annoyingly, the urge to explain was strong.

What was it about this woman? And why did he care what she thought about him?

“Give me a number,” Piper demanded, but he heard the fear in her voice, and her hope that the gems would solve a very big problem.

“I’d give you a million,” Jaeger said, just to test her. Actually, he’d consider paying her double, but he wanted to see what her reaction would be.

Her shoulders slumped and she bit the inside of her lip. So a million was short of what she needed.

“Three?” Piper asked.

So three was what she needed. For what?

“Maybe two,” Jaeger said, pretending to think about her offer.

Again, there was a flash of disappointment in her green eyes. God, such beautiful eyes. Eyes that tempted him to cut her a check for the full three mil and then kiss her senseless before ripping off her clothes.

“Can I think about that?” Piper asked, placing her thumbnail between her teeth.

Jaeger slowly rolled up the velvet, capturing the gems inside. “Sure, but I’m not making the offer today, Ms. Mills. Or tomorrow.”

Because, despite the party in his pants, he wasn’t a novice dealer who could be swayed by a pretty face, a rocking body and sad, possibly desperate, eyes.

Piper’s luscious mouth fell open, and he wondered what she tasted like, whether her lips were as soft and plump, as sweet, as they looked. He knew her smile would be dynamite. He wanted to see it, feel it on his skin. God, Ballantyne, get a frickin’ grip.

“But...but...you said—”

Jaeger stood up and placed his hands on his desk, leaning down so their eyes were level. “I’m not making a million-plus offer on gems I know next to nothing about. I do that in the field when I have nothing to rely on but my gut. But I’m not prepared to do that now when I don’t need to take the risk.” Jaeger stood up and pushed his hand through his hair. “I’ll make you a solid offer after I’ve done some research—”

“What type of research?” Piper asked, obviously frustrated.

“We use various databases, including those set up by Interpol and the FBI, to check whether any similar gems are reported stolen. I want my siblings to look at the stones.”

“How long will it take?”

Jaeger shrugged. “As long as it takes.”

“I can always take them to Moreau’s.”

Ballantyne and Company’s biggest competition.

“That’s your prerogative, but you won’t,” Jaeger said, watching her eyes, watching frustration chase fear through all the green. “You won’t because you want me to buy these stones. For some reason you want me to have them. Why?”

Piper tried to dismiss his statement, but he saw the flash of agreement in her eyes. Why did he think there was so much more happening here than her wanting to sell the stones? He felt like she had a story and he was part of it.

“You have two weeks to make me a solid offer,” Piper told him, picking up her bag and pulling it over her shoulder. “After that, I start shopping around.”

Jaeger nodded. “I need your contact information. If you’ll give me a little time, I’ll enter the details of the stones into our database and print you a receipt, stating that they are in our custody.”

“I’ll give you my card. Just send the receipt. I know you won’t steal them or swap them.”

Her instinctive trust in him made him feel warm.

“All I need is for you to keep my name, and the fact that I have these jewels, confidential. Can you do that?”

Why was she so concerned about privacy and confidentiality? Could these sapphires be stolen? God, he hoped not. If they were, he’d have to report her, and he did not want to see Piper arrested and jailed for handling stolen property.

The only thing she should handle was him.

Jaeger gave himself a mental punch to the head. It was time to act like an adult, a partner in Ballantyne and Company, like the hard-ass gem hunter he was reputed to be.

“You did hear me say I’ll be running these stones through the Interpol and FBI databases, didn’t you?”

Piper’s only response was a searing look. Shaking her head, she pulled a business card out of her bag and handed it over.

Jaeger looked down at the card and flicked the edge with his finger. “You’re an art appraiser?”

Piper shook her head. “You really did take my words to heart, didn’t you?”

Jaeger frowned. What did that odd comment mean? From the moment she’d walked into his office, he’d seen half-formed statements on her lips, in her eyes. She’d start to speak, but then she’d bite the words back, acting as if there was something she needed to say but wouldn’t. What was going on behind those pretty eyes?