Never with a Rich Man
Page 1
Table of Contents
NEVER WITH A RICH MAN
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
NEVER WITH A RICH MAN
TINA SUSEDIK
SOUL MATE PUBLISHING
New York
NEVER WITH A RICH MAN
Copyright©2016
TINA SUSEDIK
Cover Design by Melody A. Pond
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
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Published in the United States of America by
Soul Mate Publishing
P.O. Box 24
Macedon, New York, 14502
ISBN: 978-1-68291-262-1
www.SoulMatePublishing.com
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
To Al,
who saw beyond the steak sauce incident
on our first date and asked me for another.
After 46 years, we’re still together.
I love you.
Acknowledgements
There are so many people who have helped me along the way with this book. To Al, who always thought I’d be published. To my wonderful editor and owner of Soul Mate Publishing, Debby Gilbert. Thank you for taking a chance with me again. To Linda Robinson, who is always there to help me when I get stuck on plot and listened to me ramble during the major re-writes of this book. To my writer’s group, who has always been supportive over the years.
Chapter 1
An antique wooden tabletop radio blared an oldies tune as Cassie Sue Jordan pried a length of woodwork from a wall in her dining room. Stripping, sanding, and staining woodwork: her solitary project for the long weekend ahead. She danced around a pair of sawhorses standing on a paint-splotched tarp, dreaming about the boy from the wrong side of the tracks doing wonderful, wild, exotic things to her. Lord knew it was the only way she got her kicks lately.
Working on the one-hundred-year-old house was good therapy after a week of watching a co-worker lie and brown-nose their boss in order to get a promotion they were competing for. The sound of a nail screeching its way out of the woodwork made her think of the way she’d like to rake her nails across the guy’s face. Not only did she have to put up with Richard, but lately there had been some strange vibes in the office ever since he’d joined the team.
If there was one thing Cassie couldn’t stand it was lying. No matter if they were big ones that caused life-altering changes like cheating husbands, or little white ones made to protect someone’s feelings, she hated them.
The upbeat rock tune switched to a slow, sultry love song. Her mind went from worrying about co-workers to a dream that replayed in her mind more and more lately. Her hands stilled as a dark-haired man treated her to a sensuous, full-body massage, his large hands sliding down her back and over her ass, his thumbs rubbing along the insides of her thighs, caressing closer and closer to her core. Cassie’s stomach clenched.
Ringing? Why was there ringing in her fantasy? Darn. The doorbell. Her mind jerked back to old woodwork and stained clothes. Cassie fanned her flushed face. She needed to get a grip, or a man, and since a man wasn’t forthcoming, she’d better get the door. After leaning the crow bar against the wall, she walked through the living room to the small foyer and opened the door.
“Hi, Sweet Susie.” Cassie’s younger sister, Bess, held the hand of her daughter.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Cassie glanced around Bess to see her brother-in-law, Rob, with their ten-month-old son and other daughter. Something was up. Bess only called her Sweet Susie if she wanted something. It was bad enough having Bess use the nickname she’d given Cassie when she couldn’t pronounce Cassie Sue when she was little, let alone adding ‘Sweet’ to it.
“I tried to call and remind you of your promise to watch the kids, but your line was busy.” Bess swept around her astounded sister, nudging her two daughters into the house.
Rob followed, carrying Billy in one arm and a playpen in the other. It took Cassie a moment to realize the girls carried their overnight bags and pillows and Bess held a highchair and Billy’s diaper bag.
“What’s going on here?” Cassie demanded.
“Like I said, I’ve been trying to call you, but your line’s been busy. I tried your cell and sent you a text, too.”
“I took the phone off the hook. I keep getting weird phone calls from some man. The battery died on my cell phone.”
Bess rushed on, ignoring her sister’s problems, “Rob got called away to a conference in Florida. His boss was supposed to give a speech, but ended up having emergency surgery. Rob is taking over for him.”
Her sister blushed, a positive sign she was either lying or feeling guilty. From the corner of her eye, Cassie saw her nieces take off their coats and sit on the edge of the couch. Rob opened up the playpen, lay Billy in it, and removed his outer garments. Then he left the house and returned with car seats and several plastic grocery bags.
“What does that have to do with me?” Cassie asked, knowing full well she wouldn’t like the answer.
Bess smiled at her husband, her eyes sparkling with love, then turned to her sister. “I get to go along. Isn’t that wonderful? Three days alone, just the two of us.”
Cassie crossed her arms under her breasts, tapped a foot on the floor, and frowned at Bess. “Once again, what does that have to do with me?”
Bess worried her bottom lip. “You told me last week that you planned on staying home this weekend and work on the house. So I just figured . . .”
“You figured I’d just drop everything and watch the kids for you again,” Cassie finished for her. “Did it ever occur to you I may have made other plans for the weekend?”
“Well, no. But you never do anything on weekends except work on Grandma’s old house. You need a life, sis.”
“I have one, thank you very much, which includes working on this house when I want to.” Cassie tapped her foot harder.
Bess sighed and shook her hea
d. “I mean a life with a man.” She placed a hand on Cassie’s arm. “Honestly, Susie, you’re an attractive woman in her prime. You haven’t had a date since your divorce two years ago. Any man would be happy to be with you.”
Cassie snorted. “Yeah, that’s right. That’s why the one man I had didn’t stick around.”
“We all know Tony was a jerk. Not all men are like him.”
“I’m not looking for a man. I’m happy the way I am.” She shrugged. There was no way a man would be interested in her anyway.
“C’mon, hon.” Rob knelt down to hug his daughters. “We need to get going or we’ll miss our flight.”
“So you’ll watch them?” Bess pushed out her bottom lip, lowered her eyelids, peered at Cassie through her lashes. “Please, Susie? Please?”
Cassie nearly nodded, always a sucker for her little sister’s pleading act. “But the whole weekend? I love them dearly, but jeez, all three? For the entire weekend? Here?” Cassie ran a hand through her shoulder-length hair. The house she’d inherited from her grandmother was not suited to young children. She closed the dining room’s pocket doors, hiding the mess. “What about Mom?”
Bess giggled. “She’s going away for the weekend. With a man, no less.”
Cassie shook her head and pretended to clean out her ears. “A man? Mom’s going away with a man?”
“Yes, well, some of us do have lives, you know.”
Cassie clenched her fists and turned her back on her sister.
“Wait. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do with the kids. Mom told me she’d come get them Sunday night about seven-thirty.”
“Well, she’d better because I can’t be late for work this week.”
Bess frowned.
“The promotion. Remember? I told you about it.”
“Oh, yeah.” Bess picked her daughters’ coats up from the floor. “Don’t worry. She’ll be here.”
“Bess, this promotion is really important to me.”
“I know, Susie. You’ve worked hard for it. But there’s more to life than work, you know.”
Rob tugged on Bess’s elbow. “We need to go, hon. Now.”
“Please, Sweet Susie. I’ll make it up to you. Honestly I will. The kids have everything they need in their backpacks. Billy’s baby food is in one of the bags, and you can give the girls anything you want. I brought extra milk and snacks and their favorite cereal.” She hugged and kissed her children and raced out the door.
Before Cassie could slam the door behind her, Bess ran back up the porch steps.
“Oh, by the way, one of Rob’s friends is stopping by tonight to pick up the tennis shoes he left at our house last weekend. They’re in one of the bags Rob brought in.” She raced down the stairs when Rob honked the horn, then raced back up. “His name is Hogan Wynnters, and the kids know him.” She placed a kiss on Cassie’s cheek. “You’re a pal, Susie.”
“Pal, schmal. More like a plain ol’ sucker,” she murmured, slamming the door. “Well, what do we do now?” she asked her two nieces.
“We’re hungry,” the girls sang together.
“Figures.” She picked up the crowbar to hide in the dining room.
A few minutes later Cassie leaned forward on her chair facing Billy who kicked his feet against the plastic footrest. She ground her teeth together. Feeding the little tyke at her sister’s house was never this big a problem. And he’d always liked carrots before. Maybe her irritation at his mother was rubbing off on him.
“C’mon, squirt, try some of these yummy carrots for Auntie Cassie,” she urged, wiping strained carrots from her nephew’s chin.
Billy giggled in response and smacked his lips tight as a bank safe. Cassie resorted to the airplane routine, and after several attempts, some of the orange goo slipped into his mouth, only to be spit out again.
“Billy hates carrots,” her five-year old niece, Emily, said as she colored on the floor with her three-year old sister, Jazmine.
“Since when?”
“Since now,” Emily replied.
Cassie sighed. She loved her nieces and nephew dearly, but after the week she’d had, all she wanted to do was hide out in her house and strip woodwork. She’d make Bess pay somehow. She didn’t know where, or when, or how, but her sister would pay. Besides, knowing Bess the way she did, she was definitely lying and up to something. The thought ran through her mind like the gooey vegetables running down Billy’s chin.
“I’m in a rut, kiddo,” she murmured to Billy.
“What’s a rut?” Emily asked.
“It’s what happens when life gets so unexciting, so dull, everyone and their uncle knows who to have watch their kids on weekends,” Cassie answered.
Emily stopped coloring. “We don’t have any uncles, Auntie Cassie.”
“No kidding,” Cassie muttered to herself.
“Why don’t we have an uncle, Auntie Cassie?” Jazmine asked.
Cassie scraped the side of the spoon against the plastic bowl. Billy slapped his hands on the high chair tray, giving a good imitation of a rock star drummer. Maybe if she ignored her nieces, the question would go away.
She’d love to provide another uncle for her sister’s kids. Unless a man landed unexpectedly in her house, it wouldn’t be any time soon. Maybe she was quiet and reserved around men, but sometimes they acted so stupid it was difficult to even carry on a conversation with one. Anyway, that was the way it seemed to her. If a man couldn’t get over his ego and find out what kind of woman she was, well, it was their loss.
Maybe if her father had lived, she’d have learned how to be around men. She remembered him as a kind, gentle, rather absent-minded man who cared about his wife and family. Since she was only thirteen when he was killed, her memories of him had now faded to gray.
After he died, left with a pile of bills, her mother moved them to Milwaukee to be near family. Since he had forgotten to renew his life insurance, money was tight. Her mother worked two jobs to make ends meet.
She never complained, but threw back her shoulders, raised her chin, and sometimes her middle finger, to those that said she couldn’t do it alone, then proceeded to prove them wrong.
When Cassie was old enough, she helped with odd jobs in between studying hard enough to graduate as valedictorian of her class and land free tuition to a Wisconsin university. She vowed to make it without a man—just like her mother.
Cassie scooped up more carrots for her resisting nephew and reflected on how her mother insisted on being called Annie by her daughters. It was her idea that by not being called mom she would stay forever young.
Years of squeaking out a living for her daughters had made Annie determined her daughters would marry for money. A doctor. A lawyer. Maybe a stockbroker. Hell, her mother would be happy if she married a dead man—if he were rich.
Before and after her divorce, Cassie earned enough to take care of herself, and with a raise with the promotion, she would be able to furnish her grandmother’s house with more than just the bare essentials from garage sales, second-hand stores, and the few pieces of her grandmother’s old furniture left behind after she died. Piece by piece, she’d fill it with more antiques. Cassie gazed with love at Bess’s kids. At the age of twenty-eight, she felt her own clock tick, tick, ticking away, her chances of motherhood oozing out of her like the carrots oozing from Billy’s mouth. Sometimes when she watched her sister’s kids she pretended they were hers. Her husband, who of course loved her to distraction, would walk in the door from work, come up behind her as she made supper at the stove, wrap his arms around her waist, and nuzzle her neck as his hands cupped her breasts . . .
Cassie’s nipples hardened against her shirt. Darn. She needed to get a grip. Kids just weren’t in her future any more than a tall, dark, handsome, sexy
man was. What were the chances that the man showing up at her door tonight would be the man from her dreams? She snorted.
After seeing the decrepit shoes in the bag left by Bess, Cassie figured this Hogan must be a slob. The shoes were on their last legs, legs on a man that had walked through a desert for months. When she opened the bag, the smell that accompanied the cracked, dirty, holey shoes was enough to make her cough. She couldn’t imagine how the man managed to tie them up with the frayed laces. Obviously he didn’t care what people thought of him.
She pictured a squat man wearing a worn T-shirt over a growing belly. His jeans, riding low under his stomach, would be too long, and when he turned around to leave, his too-short T-shirt would reveal butt cleavage.
Cassie shuddered. It was a far cry from her earlier fantasies. But, most likely that was what would greet her. When he came to the door, she would shove the offending shoes at him and send him on his way.
“Sometimes reality really sucks,” she muttered, aiming a spoon of food toward her nephew’s mouth.
Billy voiced his agreement with an orange raspberry, timed perfectly with the doorbell ringing. With a squeal, Jazmine raced for the door.
“Jazmine, don’t you dare open that door!” Cassie yelled, dropping the dish of carrots on the highchair tray.
“You shouldn’t put it there,” Emily warned.
The warning came too late. Before she could chase after Jazmine, Billy slapped his hand on the dish, sending it flying end over end. Cassie gasped when the dish smacked against her white sweatshirt and splattered orange mush all over her and the floor. The dish dropped, spun around several times like a top, and finally came to a rest, bottom side up.
“Watch Billy,” she ordered Emily, when the doorbell continued ringing. She grabbed a dishtowel and hurried through the house, blotting the front of her shirt. As she reached the door, Jazmine swung it open.