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Zane glared. “You done?”
“Oh, I could go on.”
“I seem to recall another article about the billionaire bachelors. All three of us.” Zane tipped his glass at his friend. “They’ll be coming for you, next.”
Mav’s smile dissolved, and he shrugged a broad shoulder. “I’ll toss Kensington at them. He’s pretty.”
Liam Kensington was the third member of their trio. Unlike Zane and Mav, Liam had come from money, although he worked hard to avoid his bloodsucking family.
Zane saw a woman in a slinky, blue dress shoot him a welcoming smile.
He looked away.
When he’d made his first billion, he’d welcomed the attention. Especially the female attention. He’d bedded more than his fair share of gorgeous women.
Of late, nothing and no one caught his interest. Women all left him feeling numb.
Work. He thrived on that.
A part of him figured he’d never find a woman who made him feel the same way as his work.
“Speak of the devil,” Mav said.
Zane looked up to see Liam Kensington striding toward them. With the lean body of a swimmer, clad in a perfectly tailored tuxedo, he looked every inch the billionaire. His gold hair complemented a face the ladies oohed over.
People tried to get his attention, but the real estate mogul ignored everyone.
He reached Zane and Mav, grabbed Zane’s wine, and emptied it in two gulps.
“I hate this party. When can we leave?” Having spent his formative years in London, he had a posh British accent. Another thing the ladies loved. “I have a contract to work on, my fundraiser ball to plan, and things to catch up on after our trip to San Francisco.”
The three of them had just returned from a business trip to the West Coast.
“Can’t leave until the auction’s done,” Zane said.
Liam sighed. His handsome face often had him voted the best-looking billionaire bachelor.
“Buy up big,” Zane said. “Proceeds go to the Boys and Girls Clubs.”
“One of your pet charities,” Liam said.
“Yeah.” Zane’s father had left when he was seven. His mom had worked hard to support them. She was his hero. He liked to give back to charities that supported kids growing up in tough circumstances.
He’d set his mom up in a gorgeous house Upstate that she loved. And he was here for her tonight.
“Don’t bid on the Phillips-Morley necklace, though,” he added. “It’s mine.”
The necklace had a huge, rectangular sapphire pendant surrounded by diamonds. It was the real-life necklace said to have inspired the necklace in the movie,Titanic. It had been given to a young woman, Kate Florence Phillips, by her lover, Henry Samuel Morley. The two had run away together and booked passage on the Titanic.
Unfortunately for poor Kate, Henry had drowned when the ship had sunk. She’d returned to England with the necklace and a baby in her belly.
Zane’s mother had always loved the story and pored over pictures of the necklace. She’d told him the story of the lovers, over and over.
“It was a gift from a man to a woman he loved. She was a shop girl, and he owned the store, but they fell in love, even though society frowned on their love.” She sighed. “That’s true love, Zane. Devotion, loyalty, through the good times and the bad.”
Everything Carol Roth had never known.
Of course, it turned out old Henry was much older than his lover, and already married. But Zane didn’t want to ruin the fairy tale for his mom.
