A Forbidden Love (Eligible Billionaires Book 9) (2 page)

Ilana crossed her arms over her chest. She closed her eyes. She swallowed.

No.

No.

He couldn’t hurt her now. He couldn’t hurt Mama because Mama was dead. He…he wasn’t even free…

Ilana swallowed. He was in jail. She didn’t know the details—didn’t want to. She avoided any knowledge of what he’d done, how he’d been caught. He had nothing to do with her life now.

“Are you okay?”

Ilana opened her eyes and turned to Amelia.

“You look like—” Amelia raised an eyebrow. “Did something happen? Did—”

“No. No, nothing.” Ilana tried her best to curl her lips up into a smile. “Just…Mama. Sometimes I think about Mama.” And she did. Often. Two years had gone by and still each day thoughts of Mama caught her. Ilana twisted the opal ring on her right hand that had been her mother’s.

“Oh.” Amelia’s curious expression melted into a sympathetic frown. She reached out and pulled Ilana into a hug. “She’d be so proud of you.”

Heat built behind Ilana’s eyes. She nodded and pulled away from Amelia. “She’d be so proud of
us
.” She and Amelia had spent their entire childhood going from Amelia’s house to Ilana’s apartment. Mama had been a second mother to Amelia, just as Amelia’s mother had been to Ilana. Ilana blinked rapidly to try to stop the tears from welling up, but they spilled over her lashes and down her cheeks.

“Look at us, crying,” Amelia brushed tears from her own cheeks. “She would be proud,” Amelia said.

But Mama would also be cautious. Always cautious. There was no guarantee that this life would remain safe and not crumble into a heap of debris. The horrible past could always destroy a beautiful future. Even now, it would seem.

Who had called her by that name? Who even knew about that name?

Amelia grabbed two paper towels and handed one to Ilana. They both wiped their eyes. “Want me to go with you today?”

Ilana shook her head. “Work on the art room. I’ll just go take care of that paperwork and be right back. Okay?”

“Okay.” Amelia radiated concern.

Not even Amelia, who Ilana had known since she was six, knew all the details of Ilana’s life.

“I’ll be here.”

Ilana pushed open the front door and walked into the California sunshine. After four days of May gray, the sun blazed. She closed her eyes, inhaled the air, and let the sun warm her face and her arms. This. This was real. Not a childhood filled with terror and violence, but this moment, now.

Forget the phone call.

Forget the voice.

Forget the last name that no one knew about…no one.

Focus on now. This moment. This place. This life. This Center that she and Amelia were about to open. Focus on the present and forget the horrible past.

She opened her eyes. She was back in Venice. She was a business owner. She was finally, after her mother’s death two years before and nine months of travel after,  grounding herself in the community where she’d grown up. A reawakening to life, like a newly potted plant reaching its tendrils to the sun, Ilana was ready for now. This present and what the future would bring. She would not be afraid, she would be strong.

Tomorrow they’d have enough of the interior finished that she and Amelia could take down the brown butcher paper that still covered the Enrichment Center windows. There wasn’t a sign or logo, but Amelia had just taken care of that. She could paint the elephant, sloth, and friends just above the front door. The Center was real. Her life in Venice was real. She was whole and safe and here. Even if Mama was gone, even if the past had sucked, even if she might carry those fears inside, this was her life now and it was pretty damned good.

After all, luck was on her side, wasn’t it? Mrs. Luskey closing her pet store and assigning her ten-year lease to Ilana had been pretty darn lucky. Otherwise, there’d be no way that Ilana and Amelia could afford the space on Main in Venice plus the start-up costs of The Children’s Enrichment Center. Ilana glanced back over her shoulder to look at the neatly papered windows of the Center. Yeah, this building, this storefront, this business would be her home, her focus, for the next decade.

*

“You have to vacate the building by the end of the year.”

Ilana’s heart hammered. A cold sweat broke out on her upper lip.

“No, that’s not right…I have a lease.” She pulled her purse off her shoulder and yanked her laptop from her bag. “Let me pull it up. Remember, Mrs. Luskey assigned her lease to me and—”

“The owners refused the assignment.”

“They can do that?”

Felicia, the leasing agent, lifted an eyebrow and tapped talon-like fingernails on her desk. “Didn’t you
read
the lease?”

Of course she’d read the lease…kind of. Ilana had read the lease as best she could, but she was no expert. Amelia had recommended an attorney to review the lease, but the hourly rate had been so high—

Felicia shook her head. “Right.” A sad little smile came over her face, creasing fans of fine lines into the skin that was stretched tighter than saran wrap. “I get it. First-time business owner. So here’s the thing. The owners of the building want you out.”

“Out?” Ilana whispered. The tiny droplets of perspiration springing up all over her body turned into flop sweat. “I just spent a lot of money turning the building into the right place for the children and—”

Again Felicia nodded. She held up her hand to stop the flow of Ilana’s words and smiled. “I understand, sweetie, truly I do, but the market value for rent for
that
building is a whole lot more than what you’re paying, right?”

Ilana nodded. She knew she’d gotten a great deal on the property. That
great
deal and the location were the very reasons that she’d agreed to take over Mrs. Luskey’s lease.

“Mrs. Luskey said that the assignment was legit, that I could take over the rent payments and keep the space.”

“And where is Mrs. Luskey again?”

Ilana swallowed and took a long breath. “Belize.”

“Right. I’m guessing with your money, too.”

Ilana said nothing. Yes, she’d given Mrs. Luskey some money to buy the lease from her, but Mrs. Luskey wasn’t the type of woman to cheat or steal or lie to get money to move to Belize…was she?

“Here’s the thing, sweetheart”—Felicia pressed her hand to her chest as a shark’s smile played over her lips—“I know how much time and energy you’ve put into that tiny little dump of a building, so
I
convinced the owners to give you six months before you have to leave or start paying full market value for the unit.”

“Six months?”

Felicia nodded. “Let you earn back some of your investment.”

“Do you know what I’d have to charge in the next six months to earn back what I’ve already spent?”

“Well, that’s why they call it capitalism. Charge what the market will bear. With all these young families that make gobs of money moving into Venice, I’d think you could charge a whole lot more than sixty dollars a month for four art classes. My God, you’ve got Amelia DeLoitte teaching an art class to kids. Every hipster in L.A. knows that name. Who wouldn’t want their precious little darling taught art by
the
Amelia DeLoitte?”

“That’s not the intent of The Children’s Enrichment Center,” Ilana said. “The idea is to provide a space for
all
children to explore their creativity, kind of like an artistic co-op, and—”

“That’s sweet.” Felicia’s sharkish smile ratcheted up another notch. “Precious, really. But darling,”—Felicia leaned forward and lifted a brow—“does it pay the rent? Because while I understand what you’re saying and what you want to do, you’ve got six months before the lease price goes up to market value.”

Ilana swallowed. “Market value?”

Felicia exuded the predatory air of a great white circling a sinking boat as she waited for Ilana to ask the obvious follow-up question.

“How much is”—Ilana licked her lips, she could barely ask—“market value for the location?”

“You know what you’re paying?”

Ilana nodded.

“Just multiply by twenty.”

Ilana’s heart stopped. No. Blood drained from her face and a roar sounded in her ears. There was no way…no matter what she charged, she could
never
make that kind of money on enrichment classes for children. No. Way.

“You have six months.” Felicia dismissed her with a smile and a wave. “Enjoy!”

Ilana stumbled from the building and into the street. She stared at the Ballerina Clown sculpture that adorned the CVS at the corner of Rose and Main. How could she come up with twenty times her monthly rent? She exhaled through her mouth and closed her eyes.

Venice had changed. This wasn’t the Venice she and Mama had moved to from the Bronx when Ilana was six years old. That Venice had been eclectic and artistic and, yes, sometimes a little weird, but still, not the capitalistic hot spot with hip restaurants, rehabbed buildings, and five-figure rents that the beachside town had become now.

Ilana’s heart hurt. She closed her eyes. Her dream was dead. Demolished by her own inability to read a contract and proclivity for frugality. She should’ve known the deal was too good to be true. Shit. What could she do now? She’d put every penny of her own money, plus some of Amelia’s, into the Center. She covered her mouth with one hand. Six months. She shook her head. There was no way she could make enough money in six months to keep the space. Was there?

“When are you coming home?” Justin leaned forward and settled his hands on the conference room table. An entire country separated Devon from his three brothers, who sat in the Travati Financial offices in New York, and yet the internet connection clearly conveyed his oldest brother’s disapproval over Devon’s continued absence.

Justin still thought of himself as the leader of the Travati family, even though the three younger Travati brothers were well past the age of needing to be led. Devon suppressed his automatic flash of annoyance. If he wanted Justin and the others to listen to what he had to say, he needed to keep his cool.

“Your office is empty and waiting for you. Plus, the hospitality division of Travati Financial could use your magic touch. The past quarter wasn’t good,” Justin continued.

Devon frowned. Even if he were to return to New York, he wouldn’t be running the club and hospitality division. Didn’t his brothers realize that after he testified in Sergey’s criminal trial and endured the death threats that followed, he’d never run nightclubs again?

After a short pause, Justin glanced toward Anthony. “We’ve actually received an offer for that division. If you don’t think you’re going to come back to run it—”

“If the offer is competitive, take it.” Devon flicked his gaze past his computer screen to the window that showcased a view of the Pacific. In the distance blue sky met ocean. A cool breeze blew through the window, carrying the scent of the sea right into his office. Devon couldn’t run nightclubs anymore. Not after his failure. How could he have been so blind? “
If
I return to New York, I won’t return to hospitality.”

Justin steepled his fingertips. “I see.”

“You’re considering staying in California?” Anthony lifted an eyebrow.

Devon shrugged. He didn’t feel like discussing where he wanted to live with his brothers. He’d save that fight for a different day. “I can’t do hospitality anymore.”

Justin’s eyebrows furrowed. “Can’t or won’t?”

Did it matter? Explaining his reasons to Justin wasn’t on the meeting agenda for today. The guilt. The shame. The facts that Devon had discovered after Sergey’s arrest by the Feds. He’d been oblivious to Sergey’s dealings until the Department of Justice had laid out their case against him. Was it the booze? The late nights? The parties for clients and investors? Or had he simply not noticed because he didn’t want to know? Interrogation by FBI agents had pierced the fog that surrounded Devon and focused a spotlight on the illegal business that Sergey Rashnikov ran out of Devon’s nightclubs. Now that Devon saw clearly what he’d become during that time, he wasn’t going back. “That lifestyle isn’t good for me.”

Justin shrugged. “We all went through that lifestyle. The women, the booze, the drugs…we came out the other side and so did you. You have the magic touch where nightclubs are concerned.”

“Not anymore.” He looked squarely at his brother, his tone definite. Justin always pushed, but this time, Devon pushed back. “I’m thinking real estate.”

Leo, the second oldest and more gregarious of Devon’s two older brothers, studied Devon with his dark-eyed gaze. “What do you have in mind?”

“Economic social activism.”

The corners of Leo’s mouth lifted into a grin. He shook his head. Devon knew that Leo, the brother he was closest to in easygoing personality, was already anticipating the response of the two more reserved and conservative Travati brothers.

Justin squinted. “What exactly is
economic social activism
?”

“I want to create positive social change through economic investment. Commercial real estate that helps to build community.”

“You say ‘build community,’” Anthony frowned, “and I hear ‘below market value.’”

“I need to do something more important than just making money.”

“Excuse me?” Leo said. He sat back in his chair, his grin growing wide. “Where is my little brother? Who the hell are you?”

Justin scowled. While Leo might be getting a huge kick out of watching his youngest brother torture Justin and Anthony, Devon realized that he’d lose them if he couldn’t explain what he wanted to do and why he wanted to do it.

“There’s more to life than simply making money.”

“Are you kidding?” Justin leaned forward. “The family is growing. This isn’t just about us anymore, it’s about the next generation and the generation after.”

“I’m not suggesting that we close Travati Financial. Or even change what we’re doing much at all. I’m simply suggesting that we start a division that does more than just create profit. You keep on making your gazillion dollars, and I’ll make investments that turn a profit
and
do some good for the community.”