Page 79 of A Billionaire After Dark

“Don’t you dare talk to Mr. Beaumont like that.” A blonde hurried up. Grayson didn’t recognize her face, but he did recognize the standard purple dress and heels that all the receptionists wore. The woman pointed an orange nail that clashed with her dress at Chloe. “This is the same woman that was trying to sneak into French Kiss earlier. She thought she could see a Beaumont without an appointment.” The woman looked at him and batted her eyelashes. “As if you would want to talk to someone with a bad haircut and faux leather boots. Which is exactly why I told her to take a hike and come back when she had a clue.”

As much as he was enjoying toying with Chloe, this woman’s arrogance didn’t sit well. Especially when he had grown up poor and knew what it was like to have bad haircuts and cheap clothing pointed out by the wealthier kids. He was about to put her in her place when the door opened and two police officers walked in. Upon seeing them, Chloe raced toward the opposite doors.

The policemen gave chase, and Grayson figured that his fun was over. It was one thing to let Chloe get hassled by a security guard and another to let her get arrested and thrown in jail. Unfortunately, by the time Grayson got out to the street, the police officers had Chloe on the ground, handcuffing her. Or trying to handcuff her. As expected, she was putting up one hell of a fight.

“Get your hands off me! I did nothing wrong.”

“If you did nothing wrong, ma’am, then why did you run away from us?” The officer who had her on the ground finally got ahold of her wrist and pulled it behind her back.

“Let her go,” Grayson ordered as he walked up.

The other police officer stepped in front of him. “Back off. This is none of your business.”

“It’s exactly my business. I’m Grayson Beaumont, and I own French Kiss.”

The officer looked him over and then laughed. “Sure you are. And I’m Donald Trump. Now go about your business before I haul you in for interfering with an arrest… or for loitering.”

Grayson glanced down at his tattered, paint-splattered jeans and couldn’t blame the officer. He did look like a vagrant. “Look, I can prove it.” He went to pull out his wallet, but then remembered that he’d left it in his studio. Unfortunately, the officer didn’t take kindly to Grayson reaching for something behind his back and grabbed Grayson and shoved him against a parked car. The arm Grayson brought up was more reflex than anything. When you grew up with two older brothers who loved to box, you had to have good reflexes. He didn’t intend for his elbow to clip the officer’s jaw and send him stumbling back.

Before Grayson could ask if the guy was all right, the other officer joined the fray and Grayson found himself lying facedown on the sidewalk next to Chloe.

Grayson grunted as the cop’s knee dug into his back and cuffs were slapped on his wrists. “You want to tell them who I am?”

Chloe squinted. “Do I know you?”

Grayson didn’t know why he laughed. He should’ve been pissed that she had turned the tables on him. And he was pissed, but he could also see the humor in the situation. He continued to laugh as the police officer got him to his feet and escorted him to the cruiser.

“Wait!” Chloe yelled. “He is Grayson Beaumont, and if you just go inside and get the receptionist, she’ll identify him and this entire misunderstanding will be cleared up.”

The officer that Grayson had elbowed in the chin pushed him in the backseat of the cruiser. “I don’t care who he is. He hit an officer. He’s going to jail. And since you resisted arrest, you’re going with him.”

As soon as Chloe joined him in the backseat, she glared at him with murder in her eyes. “This is all your fault.”

He tried to adjust his handcuffed arms so he could sit back. “How do you figure? I wasn’t the one who stole the ducky.”

“No, you were just the one who wanted to be an ass and not tell the security guard that you knew me. What happened to you? I thought you were the nice Beaumont brother—the one who always does the right thing.”

He had always done the right thing. Whether it was getting good grades in math or eating all his peas, he did what was expected of him and never complained. With two headstrong older brothers, compliance had been the easiest route. So he had kept his mouth shut and gone along. If something had bothered him and he needed an outlet, he would go to his room and sketch or paint. Through his art, he learned to express all the emotions that he couldn’t express with his brothers… not without getting called a wimp or his lights punched out. His paintings were his release. Or at least they had been. Now he couldn’t even paint an apple. Chloe was right. He had lost his painting mojo.

“Maybe I got tired of being the perfect Beaumont,” he said.

“I didn’t say you were perfect. I said you were nice. Now you’re just as grumpy and mean as I am. And let me tell you, it’s not very becoming.”

They rode in silence the rest of the way to the police station. When they arrived, Chloe finally spoke. “Do you think they’ll fingerprint us?”

He glanced over. She didn’t look as cocky anymore. In fact, if he didn’t know better he would think she was scared.

“Probably,” he said, “but it’s not a big deal.”

“How do you know?”

“I watched a lot ofLaw and Orderwhen I was a kid.”

She didn’t get the humor. In fact, her face lost all color. “I don’t want to be fingerprinted.”

Grayson knew she’d had a hard life, and he couldn’t help wondering if she’d been in jail before and had a record. “Look, it’s going to be okay. I’ll call my lawyer, and he’ll have us out within the hour.” Fortunately, he didn’t need to call Jason, French Kiss’s lawyer. While he was getting fingerprinted, a female sergeant recognized him.

“You’re one of the panty billionaires, aren’t you?”

---