by Meg Ripley
“What makes you think that?”
“The fact that you didn’t come home until after three in the morning was my first clue.”
“Yeah, sorry.” She felt like she was apologizing to an overprotective parent. It was almost comical.
“I’ll forgive you this time, but next time, call if you’re going to be home late.”
“I’ll do that.” She smiled dryly as she poured a cup of coffee. Lexi must have brewed a pot for her when she got up. And as she took the first sip, that confirmed it. The coffee was lukewarm at best and tasted like it had been sitting there for hours.
“Sorry, I thought you’d be up a whole lot earlier,” she offered with chagrin. “So…where were you?”
“Um, I was on a date, I suppose.”
“I knew it! So, who’s the guy?”
She was silent for a moment. If Lexi was this excited she’d had a date, she was going to go through the roof when she discovered who she’d been with.
“This must be good. Spill it, Hope.”
“Have I ever told you how pushy you’ve gotten?” she teased. “Alright, the guy happened to be…Cade Stryker.”
“Holy crap!”
“Yeah.”
“So, when are you seeing him again?” she asked without missing a beat.
“I don’t know, Lexi. He asked me to some dinner tonight…” It was a charity dinner. Cade wanted her to join him as his date for a public function. Didn’t he realize the media would be there? Maybe that was the point. Maybe his interest in her had stemmed from a need to further his public image, making him more likeable by bringing some poor, young woman to his expensive gala.
“Don’t even think it. That’s just ridiculous, Hope.”
“What’s ridiculous?”
“I don’t believe for a second this guy’s inviting you to dinner as some show of charity.”
It was a little odd. If he’d wanted that, he could have chosen from a slew of women who would have been salivating over the opportunity to spend time with the infamous Cade Stryker. There would’ve been no reason for him to bother with the one woman who’d shot him down the first time they met. Even so, did she really want to spend the evening in front of every journalist in the city? By tomorrow, news of her “relationship” with Cade would be plastered all over the newspaper.
“Who cares what anyone else thinks,” Lexi interrupted her thoughts like she’d been able to read exactly what was going through her mind. It was amazing how well they’d come to know each other in such a short amount of time.
“Maybe I don’t want to be known as the next floozy drooling all over one of Vegas’ most well-known billionaires. I’ll look like nothing but another gold digger.”
“Just keep your mouth closed and no one will know you’re drooling,” she teased. “Hope, you’re always telling me I have to do what’s right for me. It’s time you took some of your own advice. Besides, if you happen to get a bit of publicity, you can use it to advertise the show and Adam will owe you big time. Is that such a bad thing?”
“I suppose not.” Though, she wished at the moment, the thirteen-year-old standing next to her would act more like a teenager and less like a wise, old woman.
“So…do you need some help getting ready?” Lexi smiled brightly. The girl was going to be a makeup artist one day, or a stylist to the stars.
“You want me to start getting ready at noon for a dinner seven hours from now that I’m not even sure I’m going to attend?”
“Of course not. I want you to go shower so I can start getting you ready for a dinner you are going to attend seven hours from now.”
It was funny how eleven months ago, Lexi had been too nervous to say more than two words at a time, and yet here she was, spouting opinions and issuing orders without a moment’s hesitation. Still, there was no sense in arguing at this point. She’d figure out how to let Lexi down later with the news she wasn’t going to the charity dinner. So, without another word she stood up and grudgingly walked down the hall to the bathroom for a shower.
Twenty minutes later, she sat down at the kitchen table since it was the only room in the apartment with good lighting, and Lexi pulled up a chair in front of her. She was armed with an entire tool belt of makeup, nail implements and hair tools, and she looked like she was itching to get started. Hope reached for the container with her contact lenses, but Lexi swiped it out of her hands.
“Seriously? You’re going to wear those ugly things? I’m sorry, Hope, but I’m going to have to veto this one.” She tossed the container onto the kitchen counter and sat back down opposite her and got to work. Jeez, the kid could really be pushy when she wanted to be.
Only a few moments had passed when Lexi held out a small hand mirror to her. “What do you think?”
Hope peered into the mirror and was immediately caught off guard by the blue eyes staring back at her. She knew they were beautiful. As far back as she could remember, people always commented on how lovely her eyes were, and how they were an exact copy of her mother’s.
Her father had told her often enough after her mother died. He’d told her she had the same eyes that would bring nothing but pain and anguish to everyone in her life. As soon as she could, she’d covered them up with the chocolate brown contacts and had worn them ever since. No one but Lexi had seen her eyes in a very long time—well, no one but Cade. The damn sand in her eyes had forced her to take out her contacts, and if she hadn’t been so overwhelmed by the stupid ocean and annoyingly-gorgeous man, she never would have let him see her like that.
“So, are you going to tell me what you think, or should I take your stunned silence as a bad sign?”
“You did a wonderful job. I just don’t think—”
“Too bad. You’re not going to ruin my makeup job with those ugly things, so just suck it up. Your father isn’t here, Hope, and he was just plain wrong. After all the times you told me to ignore everything my stepdad said, it’s time you took some of your own advice, and you know it.”
How was she supposed to argue with that and not sound like she’d been feeding Lexi lines for the past year? She could clearly remember how broken Lexi had been when she first found her curled up behind her building. She’d felt an affinity for her immediately because she could relate to the young girl’s plight like no one else could. She remembered leaving home, hitchhiking from South Dakota to Nevada, just trying to get as far away from home as she could. The hunger and the cold, the vile people; she could remember it like it was yesterday. Lexi had a similar rough time as a child, yet she’d made so much progress in the past year. Hope couldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.
“Alright, fine.”
“Good, then let’s get to your hair. I saw the most beautiful hairstyle in a magazine a few weeks ago. I thought it would be perfect on you—elegant, but not overdone.”
God, not that, too. The shimmering, silver wig she wore day in and day out was just as much an escape from her past as the contacts were. Like armor or a cloak, it allowed her be strong and confident. It let her be someone so different from the girl she’d been when she left home. How was she supposed to stand there with Cade Stryker as just Hope?
“You can do it. You believed in me, so it’s my turn now.”
“You’re too wise for your age, kiddo.”
“I had a good teacher.” She smiled and hugged her gently.
“Thanks, hon.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do this.”
How she was actually going to force herself to go through with this, she didn’t know, but there was no way in hell she would let Lexi see her as a coward. That wasn’t the kind of role model the girl needed. So, she sat there while Lexi brushed through her long, auburn hair, and she pushed the evening that lay ahead from her mind as she twisted and pinned her locks into something wonderful.
The roles had been reversed so many times since Lexi first arrived. She’d stand behind her, combing through her blonde hair while they swapped stories or said nothing at all. Lexi’s hair
had been short and scraggly eleven months ago because she’d cut it in some back alley to change her appearance, but it had grown since, just like the girl. She’d been too thin, barely more than skin and bones when Hope had taken her in, but she’d blossomed into a beautiful, young woman in such a short amount of time.
It couldn’t stay this way forever, though. She knew that, but she also had no idea where to go from here. Lexi needed to go to school, to meet new friends, to fall in and out of love like every teenager was meant to do. She’d been putting off the inevitable for quite some time, but soon she would have to make a decision; not whether to send Lexi home, but where to take her. If they could move far enough away, then under the guise of new names and identities, Lexi could be a teenager again.
“Okay! Are you ready to see what Hope Davenport looks like all done up? I bet it’s been so long since you’ve seen her that you won’t even recognize her,” Lexi teased her, swinging the handle of the mirror back and forth in front of her.
“Alright, kiddo. Let me see it.”
Lexi handed her the mirror and she took a deep breath as she glanced at her reflection. She gasped, her lips parting in shock. Tiny, silver pins held sections of her hair intricately atop her head, while long, gentle waves trailed down her back. Lexi had done an amazing job. Hope looked…just like her mother. Her father had been right: she was the spitting image of the woman; absolutely beautiful. God, how she wished she wasn’t. Her life would have been so different if she’d been ugly, or even plain, because he wouldn’t have hated her as much as he did. He’d said her fiery red hair and crystal blue eyes had reminded him too much of the woman.
“Well?”
“You’re an artist, Lexi. You really are.”
“Thank you very much.”
“So, now that my hair and makeup is done, what do you suppose I should do all afternoon?”
“Well, we still have to do your nails, and then, I don’t know…see what it’s like to live life as a pampered princess with nothing to do but sit back and relax?”
“Does that sound like me?”
“I suppose not. I guess I can let you quiz me on my last science lesson, but only because I’m a really nice person.”
“Sounds good.”
While she couldn’t enroll Lexi in school, she’d wanted to make sure she kept up enough that she’d be right on par with the other kids when the time came. And while she wasn’t the best teacher in the world, Lexi was an eager student, and that helped to make up for Hope’s shortcomings. And so, studying science was precisely how they spent the rest of the afternoon, in between a manicure and pedicure, of course.
Before she knew it, there was only an hour to go. In sixty minutes, she was supposed to leave her apartment to spend the evening with a billionaire, the most sought-after bachelor in the state, and probably beyond.
It had been one thing when it was just the two of them alone on a beach. She’d been dressed in her normal clothes with her cloak in place, at least for most of the time, and he’d been an ordinary man—aside from the helicopter. Tonight though, it wasn’t going to be just the two of them. There would be other people there; ridiculously wealthy people who would no doubt look down on her, and even worse, there would be a swarm of journalists there as well.
As much as part of her wanted him, she didn’t want this. If she backed out now, though, Lexi would see her as a coward. So, she lifted the one formal piece she owned carefully out of her closet, slipped out of her comfortable jeans and t-shirt and carefully shimmied into the cream-colored, satin dress. A gift from Adam after his show became a success, it really was beautiful. The floor-length, almost strapless, gown outlined her curves without clinging to them. A soft braid the same color as the gown wound around her ribs, just beneath her breasts, and then continued upward along her back, over her shoulder and back down between her breasts.
When everything was in place, she took a deep breath and checked her reflection in the mirror. And though the dress revealed far less than what she usually wore in front of a large crowd of people, she felt naked, the features she’d kept hidden for so long right there on display.
“Are you going to let me see, Hope, or are you going to hide out in there all night?”
Hiding out sounded pretty good at the moment, but she opened the bedroom door reluctantly, and it was Lexi’s turn to gasp in surprise. “Oh my God, I am so jealous,” she cried excitedly.
The pizza guy knocked on the door right then. She’d called for delivery a short while ago to make sure Lexi had plenty to eat, and he was right on time.
“If you answer the door in that, you’re going to have to give the guy an awfully big tip, you know?”
A few extra bucks on pizza was the least of her worries at the moment. She grabbed the money from her wallet and opened the door, but it wasn’t the pizza guy standing in the hallway.
“Hope…” He seemed stunned to see her like this, and she couldn’t blame him. The last time she was dressed in a full-length gown was…never.
The way he looked at her was as if he wanted to devour her. Heat shot through her body, setting her core on fire. She would have thought she’d hate for him to see her like this, completely without the cloak she’d donned for years, but she liked having him look at her. Her body couldn’t help but respond to the eagerness in his eyes, even if a small voice in the back of her head was screaming at her to run the other way.
“You’re early,” she stated the obvious, trying to ignore the breathlessness in her own voice.
“I thought I’d prove flying isn’t the only way I get around,” he told her as he smiled devilishly. “Do you want to go for a drive?”
Before she could answer, another man stepped off the elevator and strode down the hall with a pizza box in his hands.
“Keeping your options open just in case?” Cade teased as the other man came to a stop in front of her door.
She went to tell him the pizza was for Lexi, but she stopped herself. She couldn’t tell anyone about Lexi, nor had she ever encountered such a near-slip before.
“I have no idea what kind of food they serve at these things, so I thought it would be best to make sure I had a backup option available for later.” It was plausible, even if the look on his face said Cade wasn’t buying the excuse. She paid the pizza guy—including a hefty tip—and left Cade standing at the door while she darted across the apartment to put the pizza down on the kitchen table.
He was looking at her strangely when she came back to the door. “Are you sure you don’t want to put that in the fridge? We’ll be out for quite a while.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Are you ready to go?”
He nodded and stepped back as she entered the hall and turned around to lock the door behind her. When she turned back though, he was right there, his body no more than an inch or two from hers. His lips covered hers in a flash while his arms pulled her across the gap and up against his immaculately-dressed body.
“You look incredible,” he whispered as he pulled back just slightly. “Your hair…I had no idea what you had hidden under that wig.”
“Yeah…surprise,” she replied, starting to feel uncomfortable without the cloak. He kissed her again, this time more greedily than the last, and all thought of cloaks and dinners and journalists fled her mind.
When he finally broke the kiss, he didn’t just pull away this time. He took an enormous step back, but the insatiable hunger she sensed in him sent a chill down her spine at the same time. But then, why had he stopped?
He started down the hall, not toward the elevator, but to the staircase. They were eleven stories up, and he wanted her to walk down the stairs in a dress and heels? “Don’t you think the elevator might be faster?” she asked after him.
“If I get you alone in an elevator, Hope, we’ll never make it to dinner,” he told her, the husky timbre of his voice and the heat in his gaze confirming it.
She fell into step beside him as he opened the door to the stairw
ell and descended the entire eleven flights of stairs without a word. He seemed to relax a little once they were outside, and her mouth fell open as he stopped in front of the most beautiful car she’d ever seen.
“Oh my God! That’s your car? A Lamborghini Veneno Roadster? It’s a four and a half million-dollar car. Do you know there were only nine of them ever made?”
“I have heard that, but you can’t imagine how much it impresses me that you know that. I had no idea you were into fast cars, especially not after seeing your reaction to helicopters.”
“There’s a big difference between fast cars and helicopters—one of them is designed to stay on the ground,” she joked, walking around the vehicle.
“So, is there something particular that made you an avid car enthusiast?”
“Um, my dad,” she told him distractedly. She probably wouldn’t have brought it up if she’d been paying more attention.
“You don’t like to talk about him very much,” he observed rightly.
She nodded.
“Then what would you say to forgetting all about him and hopping in so we can go for a ride?”
“I’d say that’s the best idea anyone’s had all day.” She smiled, pushing away her past as he opened the winged-like passenger door to the Lamborghini and she slid into the bucket seat.
He sat next to her a moment later, revved the engine and took off down the street, turning at intersections and avoiding stops as much as possible. The ride was smooth and comfortable. It really was an incredible vehicle. “I love the car, but don’t you find it’s a little bit wasted in the city?”
“You mean, how often could I possibly get a chance to give her a good run at two hundred and twenty miles per hour?”
“Exactly.”
He smiled the most devilish smile she’d ever seen and made a hard left. She had no idea what he had in mind, but she could sense whatever it was pleased him immensely. Five minutes went by and he hadn’t said a word. He stared intently out the windshield as he swerved onto the highway, taking the 95 South out of Las Vegas.
The engine roared louder as the car sped forward and the scenery outside whipped by faster and faster. Within seconds, he was driving at least two hundred miles an hour down the highway, and he didn’t even flinch. Strangely, though, neither did she. There wasn’t a single warning alarm sounding in her head. She knew he wouldn’t let the car crash. His reflexes would keep them from running head-on into another car or swerving into a ditch. How on Earth did she know that? Still, her heart pounded harder, not in fear, but with exhilaration.