A Beauty For The Billionaire. Elizabeth Bevarly

status symbol.

      After he’d told Gus Fiver his reasons for wanting to “buy” Anabel that first day in his garage—man, had that been three weeks ago?—the attorney had given him some helpful information. Gus was acquainted with the Carlisles and knew Anabel was the current employer of one Chloe Merlin, personal chef to the rich and famous. In fact, she was such a great chef that, ever since her arrival on the New York scene five years ago, she’d been constantly hired away from one wealthy employer to another, always getting a substantial pay increase in the bargain. Poaching Chloe from whoever employed her was a favorite pastime of the Park Avenue crowd, Gus had said, and Anabel Carlisle was, as of five months prior, the most recent victor in the game. If Hogan was in the market for someone to cook for him—and hey, who wasn’t?—then hiring Chloe away from Anabel would get the latter’s attention and give him a legitimate reason to reenter her life.

      Looking at the chef now, however, Hogan was beginning to wonder if maybe Park Avenue’s real favorite pastime was yanking the chain of the new guy, and Gus Fiver was the current victor in that game. It had cost him a fortune to hire Chloe, and some of her conditions of employment were ridiculous. Not to mention she looked a little...quirky. Hogan hated quirky.

      “If you want to eat tonight, you should show me my room,” she told him in that same cool, shoulder-chip voice. “Your kitchen will be adequate for my needs, but I need to get to work. Croque monsieur won’t make itself, you know.”

      Croque monsieur, Hogan repeated to himself. Though not with the flawless French accent she’d used. What the hell was croque monsieur? Was he going to be paying her a boatload of money to cook him things he didn’t even like? Because he’d be fine with a ham and cheese sandwich.

      Then the other part of her statement registered. The kitchen was adequate? Was she serious? She could feed Liechtenstein in this kitchen. Hell, Liechtenstein could eat off the floor of this kitchen. She could bake Liechtenstein a soufflé the size of Switzerland in one oven while she broiled them an entire swordfish in the other. Hogan had barely been able to find her in here after Mrs. Hennessey, his inherited housekeeper, told him his new chef was waiting for him.

      Adequate. Right.

      “Your room is, uh... It’s, um...”

      He halted. His grandfather’s Lenox Hill town house was big enough to qualify for statehood, and he’d just moved himself into it yesterday. He barely knew where his own room was. Mrs. Hennessey went home at the end of the workday, but she’d assured him there were “suitable quarters” for an employee here. She’d even shown him the room, and he’d thought it was pretty damned suitable. But he couldn’t remember now if it was on the fourth floor or the fifth. Depended on whether his room was on the third floor or the fourth.

      “Your room is upstairs,” he finally said, sidestepping the problem for a few minutes. He’d recognize the floor when he got there. Probably. “Follow me.”

      Surprisingly, she did without hesitation, leaving behind her leather bedroll-looking thing and her gigantic box of plants—that last probably to arrange later under the trio of huge windows on the far side of the room. They strode out of the second-floor kitchen and into a gallery overflowing with photos and paintings of people Hogan figured must be blood relations. Beyond the gallery was the formal dining room, which he had yet to enter.

      He led Chloe up a wide, semicircular staircase that landed on each floor—there was an elevator in the house, too, but the stairs were less trouble—until they reached the third level, then the fourth, where he was pretty sure his room was. Yep. Fourth floor was his. He recognized the massive, mahogany-paneled den. Then up another flight to the fifth, and top, floor, which housed a wide sitting area flanked by two more bedrooms that each had connecting bathrooms bigger than the living room of his old apartment over the garage.

      Like he said, pretty damned suitable.

      “This is your room,” he told Chloe. He gestured toward the one on the right after remembering that was the one Mrs. Hennessey had shown him, telling him it was the bigger of the two and had a fireplace.

      He made his way in that direction, opened the door and entered far enough to give Chloe access. The room was decorated in dark blue and gold, with cherry furniture, some innocuous oil landscapes and few personal touches. Hogan supposed it was meant to be a gender-neutral guest room, but it weighed solidly on the masculine side in his opinion. Even so, it somehow suited Chloe Merlin. Small, adorable and quirky she might be, with clothes and glasses that consumed her, but there was still something about her that was sturdy, efficient and impersonal.

      “There’s a bath en suite?” she asked from outside the door.

      “If that means an adjoining bathroom, then yes,” Hogan said. He pointed at a door on the wall nearest him. “It’s through there.” I think, he added to himself. That might have actually been a closet.

      “And the door locks with a dead bolt?” she added.

      He guessed women had to be careful about these things, but it would have been nice if she hadn’t asked the question in the same tone of voice she might have used to accuse someone of a felony.

      “Yes,” he said. “The locksmith just left, and the only key is in the top dresser drawer. You can bolt it from the inside. Just like you said you would need in your contract.”

      Once that was settled, she walked into the room, barely noticing it, lifted her duffel onto the bed and began to unzip it. Without looking at Hogan, she said, “The room is acceptable. I’ll unpack and report to the kitchen to inventory, then I’ll shop this afternoon. Dinner tonight will be at seven thirty. Dinner every night will be at seven thirty. Breakfast will be at seven. If you’ll be home for lunch, I can prepare a light midday meal, as well, and leave it in the refrigerator for you, but I generally spend late morning and early afternoon planning menus and buying groceries. I shop every day to ensure I have the freshest ingredients I can find, all organic farm-to-table. I have Sundays and Mondays off unless you need me for a special occasion, in which case I’ll be paid double-time for those days and—”

      “And have an additional day off the following week,” he finished for her. “I know. I read and signed your contract, remember? You have Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Thanksgiving off, with full pay, no exceptions,” he quoted from it. “Along with three weeks in August, also with full pay.”

      “If I’m still here then,” she said. “That’s ten months away, after all.” She said it without a trace of smugness, too, to her credit. Obviously Chloe Merlin knew about the Park Avenue chef-poaching game.

      “Oh, you’ll still be here,” he told her. Because, by August, if Hogan played his cards right—and he was great at cards—Anabel would be living here with him, and his wedding present to her would be a lifetime contract for her favorite chef, Chloe Merlin.

      Chloe, however, didn’t look convinced.

      Didn’t matter. Hogan was convinced. He didn’t care how many demands Chloe made—from the separate kitchen account into which he would deposit a specific amount of money each week and for which she alone would have a card, to her having complete dominion over the menus, thanks to his having no dietary restrictions. He was paying her a lot of money to cook whatever she wanted five days a week and letting her live rent-free in one of New York’s toniest neighborhoods. In exchange, he’d created a situation where Anabel Carlisle had no choice but to pay attention to him. Actually not a bad trade, since, if history repeated—and there was no reason to think it wouldn’t—once he had Anabel’s attention, they’d be an item in no time. Besides, he didn’t know what else he would do with all the money his grandfather had left him. It was enough to, well, feed Liechtenstein.

      Hogan just hoped he liked...what had she called it? Croque monsieur. Whatever the hell that was.

      * * *

      Chloe Merlin studied her new employer in silence, wishing that, for once, she hadn’t been driven by her desire to make money. Hogan Dempsey was nothing like the people who normally employed her. They were all pleasant enough, but they were generally frivolous