He looked at me over one shoulder.” You don’t think I’m a total child for collecting these, do you?”
I shrugged, because who isn’t weird in one way or another? “I think it’s harmless and also kind of sweet – after all, you could be collecting kinky bondage gear, right?”
His green eyes flashed with delight. “How do you know I don’t?”
Just like that, I pictured being tied down and helpless, legs spread wide as Dave moved between them …
I breathed faster, I trembled down to my toes, and I needed to change the subject NOW. “Anyway, whatever perverted stuff you do or don’t have here, we need to get it packed up before somebody steals your ride.”
We’d brought in tons of boxes, so I grabbed one, threw another at Dave, and we started with the books. Since the rebels needed the shelves, most of the books were in piles on the floor – architecture textbooks, engineering manuals, calculus and trigonometry workbooks, and a volume titled Arcology: The City in the Image of Man that held a place of honor on the desk huddling in one corner. One after another, they went into the boxes, said boxes were taped up, and then more books surfaced – under piles of clothes, under the bed, and why would a university in the 21st century require all these actual physical textbooks? Shouldn’t all this stuff be online?
I thumbed open a battered volume about something electrical. Paragraphs here and there and everywhere drowned in yellow highlights, and I recognized the ragged scrawl of Dave’s handwriting in the notes that filled the margins of every page.
He’d been studying the hell out of his courses, plain enough, but not anymore. Architectural design and construction and engineering meant a lot to him, but that was history, thanks to his dad.
And thanks to me. If I hadn’t blundered my way into his life, who’s to say but he might not have gotten away, run and hidden and escaped the future his dad had planned out for him, and survived to build and dream somewhere far away from here?
Good one, Cassie.
“Dave, this isn’t fair.”
“What’s not fair, babe?” Bent over the desk, he didn’t turn around – he just kept scooping stuff out of desk drawers and into boxes. Pens, markers, tape and tacks and tons of miscellaneous stuff were packed away, and then he started on the top of the desk. He grabbed the laptop covered with Wondermark stickers, flipped it closed and slid it into another box, and then he turned to look at me.
“Tell me what’s not fair, Cassie, and I’ll make it right.”
I lifted one textbook, waggled it in the air, and then thumped it into a box. “This isn’t fair.” I raised another book, waved it around, and dropped it into the same box. “This either.”
How to say it? “You’re having to give up your dream, give up your classes and your degree and the future you planned for … but at the same time, you’re going out of your way to get me back into school and on track to become a vet, so I can have my dream. How is that fair?”
I sniffed a bit and shoved a handful of frizzy red curls out of my face, because my hair is evil and wild. “Doing this personal assistant job is one thing – it’s new and strange to me, sure, but I’m confident I can figure it out. But in my scraps of spare time, how can I study and make notes and read and prep for tests right in front of you, knowing that I’m only able to do all that because you walked away from your dream?”
I sat down on a box of books and looked at all the unboxed books stacked around my feet. “Like I said, it’s so not fair.”
Dave didn’t say anything for a minute. He leaned against the desk, arms folded, and just looked at me.
Then three long strides brought him across the room, and he sat down cross-legged on the floor right next to where I sat on my box of learning.
He settled his left hand on my knee, and his eyes held me.
“Cassie, you’re amazing. My dad blows up your whole world and takes everything from you, but you’re worried about being fair to me.”
He leaned closer, and his fingers tightened on my knee. “Listen up, personal assistant – you’ve earned every bit of your dream, you’ve bought and paid for it with every minute of your life up to now, and it’s the least I can do to see that you get it. Don’t worry about me.”
I pasted a smile that I didn’t feel onto my face. “It’s my job now to worry about David Connor Dallstrom, remember? And there’s no way this is fair to you.”
He looked away. He held onto my knee still, but he looked away. He picked up a book at random, and then dropped it into the nearest box. When he turned back to face me again, his eyes filled with pain.
“You earned this, I didn’t. You’re as brave as a mother lion protecting her cubs, and I’m a coward. You’re –”
“I call bullshit – nobody gets a 4.0 average on their way to a master’s degree in a damn technical subject without working their asses off and deserving every bit of it. And how are you a coward?”
“I did the work, but I did it while living in the lap of luxury, courtesy of Dad, and I did it living every minute with the knowledge of how much that luxury costs. Cassie, you don’t know what happens behind the scenes, what he does away from the eyes of the public he says he’s protecting – and trust me, you don’t want to know. I know what he does, at least most of it, and I’m a coward for staying here and living with it.”
I put my hand on top of his and felt the pulse pounding beneath his skin. “But you did leave, remember? You blew off the whole ‘coddled billionaire’ thing, you left all this behind, and you became a pretty fair Kansas fry cook. Deny that.”
His sad smile broke my heart. “I ran, but I didn’t get far, did I?”
I remembered the blossoming explosion in a bone-dry Kansas field hundreds of miles from here, the explosion that had blown up my world and forced Dave to come home to his world. “Not your fault, Dave.”
And I knew it was useless, but I had to ask. “By the by, I guess filing charges against your dad for blowing up the finest roadside dive bar in three counties would be a waste of time, right?”
He nodded. “You said it. You and I both know what happened, but there’s no way to prove it. Dad would have brought Sergei into the country on a private plane and flown him out again within hours, and I guarantee you there’s not a single fingerprint or piece of paper or scrap of evidence anywhere to connect any of it to Dallstrom Defense Systems.”
“Dave, who is Sergei? I get that he’s somehow your friend, but who is he, really?”
Dave let go of my knee. He stood up. He looked everywhere around the room, except at me. He stood with his back to me and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Interpol says he’s a terrorist.”
Silence.
“So does the NSA, the CIA, MI-6, and every major law enforcement agency on the planet. I could be arrested just for knowing him.”
I trusted Dave. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew I trusted him. I trusted his heart.
“Who do you say Sergei is?”
Finally he turned to look at me, and his eyes begged me to understand. “I say he’s one more person who’s been destroyed and buried by Einar Dallstrom. Sergei’s still walking and breathing, but he’s been dead for a long time, thanks to my father.”
***
She came to me and she held me.
She didn’t criticize, she didn’t judge, she didn’t ask a single one of the million questions she had every right to ask – she just held me.
We stood like that for a long time, wrapped up in each other and not saying a word. I leaned into her warmth, I breathed in the sweet scent of her hair and her skin, and I let her trust me.
I did ask myself one question. It was the only question that mattered.
If she knew the truth, would she stay?
12
Monday was Day One of my crash course in Personal Assisting 101. It was also the beginning of the countdown to Apocalypse Friday, it was only my second day in town, and it started way too early.
Kristen coll
ected me from Dave’s high-rise penthouse apartment of decadent excess at seven in the morning – and I loved the woman to death, but she turned out to be one of those annoying go-getters who are wide awake and bubbling over with enthusiasm at that hour. Seriously, morning people should be illegal.
We left a note about my whereabouts for Dave – who was still asleep, the adorable bastard – we booked out the door, and not two minutes after the limo pulled out into the downtown traffic, I dozed off again.
Snapping fingers in front of my face jerked me awake.
“Look alive, Cassie, we’ve got a lot to do today – what’s the matter, did my wicked baby brother keep you up giving him personal assistance all night?”
He hadn’t, actually. Something about the situation – palace in the clouds, sweet and sinfully hot guy, an ocean of money lapping at the door, not having had any in over a year, my old life blown up and gone, no clue about the future – had unnerved me to the point of crawling into my bed early and alone.
I decided not to tell her about that. I decided not to mention that Dave had been so sweet and understanding about it, that he’d told me I’d know when I was ready, and that he’d then left my side for his own bedroom.
I definitely didn’t say a word about staying awake half the night wondering what was wrong with me, or about wanting him and not daring to get up and go down the hall to get him. Some things aren’t for sharing.
So I went with ‘wow, we were both just so tired,’ and Kristen, being full of smarts and sympathy, pretended she bought that story.
Then she thrust a bag of something edible into my hands – ‘here, you need these calories’ – and followed it up with a steaming double espresso – ‘here, you need this caffeine’ – and even though I was too sleepy to really taste any of it, I polished it all off before we reached our first stop.
That first stop was the exclusive boutique of Vincenzo, a reclusive genius of fashion design who apparently considered himself way too cool to bother with a last name. Kristen informed him I needed only the most basic business wardrobe, and that as a personal assistant I needed to blend into the background and look classy without demanding attention.
Vincenzo was not happy.
“An ensemble by Vincenzo does not demand attention, it receives adoration as its most basic natural right.”
Huh?
He walked around me in a tight circle, tall and cadaver-thin, his elegant ring-lined fingers curled around a tiny ceramic cup of something that was probably offended to be in the presence of mere humans. He eyed me up and down with a flat glare, he curled his free arm around himself as he strutted along, his head jerked first to one side and then the other as he appraised me from various angles, and he basically he looked like the biggest and most flamboyant praying mantis in existence.
He stopped. He raised an artfully sculpted eyebrow, sniffed, and then spun on one heel to face Kristen.
“I can do this.”
He cast one elegant glance back over his shoulder. “At least you have brought me someone with a real body, a curving form that speaks of the bounty of nature and the timeless perfection of the natural woman – this is a canvas upon which I can paint with true abandon, not a shivering stick of a model who is likely to collapse beneath the weight of my vision.”
I thought that was a compliment, but it was hard to be sure. Was he even speaking English?
Kristen stepped in with a dose of reality. “I’m so happy you feel can work with her, but remember – we’re talking business wear that will work in a variety of practical situations. You deserve more, I know, but for now –”
“Vincenzo does not do ‘practical.’ Vincenzo does magic and beauty and light, Vincenzo creates magnificent flowers of form and movement, Vincenzo brings into being moments that last for all time.”
Vincenzo wouldn’t last two seconds in Kansas. One speck of rural dust would land on his shoe and he’d melt away screaming, like the Wicked Witch of the West.
Kristen pasted on her best doe-eyed smile. “Please do it for me. Do it for me, do it for Cassie, do it for the promise of what you can create for her in the future. Please?”
“You must allow me to design gowns for her.” He put enough emphasis on the word ‘must’ to sink a battleship.
“Stunning business ensembles now and gowns later, please?”
“Six gowns at least, and more as I develop further insight into her possibilities. This is not negotiable.”
He upped his eyebrow another notch and Kristen surrendered with a nod.
Two hours later, I’d been measured, poked, prodded, measured again, photographed from every angle, and measured some more by an army of assistants. Dozens of fabrics were draped over me, notes were taken at a furious pace, phone calls were made, and three different shoe experts came in to stare at my feet. They called in two more specialists to actually measure my feet, and Vincenzo never showed up at all – no doubt because practical things like measurement and planning were beneath his notice.
Once I was allowed to get dressed again, I emerged from the back room where Operation “Make Cassie Look Fabulous” had gotten underway to find Kristen frowning at something on her iPad. She waved at me and turned back to the glowing screen, while Vincenzo issued imperial commands to someone on the other end of his phone.
“Silvetta, you simply must send me all that you can spare of the Domasinia silk – this woman has skin that glows like the stars, and only the finest fabrics can do it justice.” He hummed impatiently as he stalked back and forth across the marble floor.
I made a point of staring down at my arm and its not-glowing, not-starlike skin, and then looked up at Kristen. “Is he on crack? Bath salts? Some exclusive designer drug that nobody’s ever heard of?”
She shook her head. “Nope, he’s just dedicated and obsessive, and also the best in the world at what he does. Trust me, he’s kind of sweet once you get to know him.”
Across the room, Mr. Dedicated and Obsessive was rolling his eyes as he explained that Silvetta simply did not understand the luminous nature of my hair and how essential that Domasinia silk stuff was to setting it off properly.
I wondered how many heart attacks this guy would have if he knew my luminous hair was currently held back by three worn elastic bands from Walmart.
Kristen finished consulting the internet gods and then rose to her feet. “Vincenzo, I need to steal Cassie away from you for now – is that okay? Anything else you need from her before we go?”
Vincenzo dismissed Silvetta by tossing his phone onto the leather cushions of a nearby couch as if he couldn’t bear its weight any longer. He swept across the floor and came to a halt before us.
“Tivoli.” He said it with a flourish, as if trumpets should be playing in the background as he delivered each syllable. When we failed to applaud or fall to our knees in adoration or even recognize the name at all, he sighed.
“You must send her to Tivoli Farmiga in Rome. He works miracles with hair that God himself could not accomplish, and I would trust no one else with the care of this vibrant cloud of color and light.” He waved a hand in the general direction of my temperamental red curls.
Going to another country just to get my hair fixed? Ah, no.
“I do my own hair, not that I’ve ever been able to get it to behave. I mean, what’s wrong with just pulling it back?”
Vincenzo clapped a hand over his face and gasped in horror. He stared at me from between his fingers like he thought I might be rabid.
“Sweet child, no! Your hair is a wild creature, like the wolves that run beneath the moon in the Tuscan hills, and only Tivoli can tame it in a manner that is worthy of you. Please, you must trust me in this.”
“Do they even still have wolves in Italy?”
He dropped his hands to his hips, arched both eyebrows, and looked at me as if I’d just called his mother a whore. “Of course, dear girl – Italy has all that is needed for a life of beauty and meaning.” He paused, reached up to tap
one delicate finger against his chin, and then added, “Except for Vincenzo, of course.”
Then he smiled like a goofy little kid, surprising me into a burst of laughter. Kristen joined in, Vincenzo winked at me, and loon or not, I put him into the ‘good guy’ column.
While my new fashion guy got busy communing with his muse or whatever it was he did to produce a billionaire-worthy wardrobe, Kristen and I headed across town to our next stop. On the way, she popped open her briefcase, pulled out an iPhone, and handed it to me.
“Guard this with your life because Dave’s schedule for between now and Friday is on there, plus all the contact numbers you’ll need to manage his traveling roadshow.”
I turned the phone over in my hand, and why did it look so unfamiliar? “Kristen, this doesn’t look like any iPhone I’ve ever seen before.”
“That’s because it’s a beta version of the next-generation model that won’t be available to the public until Christmas. Enjoy, it’s probably got a teleporter or something built into it.”
Stop Two happened when we pulled up to the yellow-painted curb in a ‘No Parking’ zone and parked there, big as life.
I trotted along behind Kristen, breathless and confused, as she abandoned the limousine and headed inside an anonymous glass-fronted skyscraper – no street number, no logos, and not so much as a single receptionist in the lobby. “Aren’t we going to get ticketed or towed, or maybe come out to find one of those boot things on our tire?”
She shook her head as we climbed skyward in a blank stainless steel box of an elevator that also refused to identify its owner. “Everyone here recognizes our vehicles, so don’t sweat it – and even if some rookie parking cop shows up who doesn’t know us, the driver will see to it they don’t make that mistake twice.”
On the umpteenth floor or so, we emerged from the elevator to find a forgettable man waiting for us – smooth and ordinary features that your eye slid away from, a bland grey off-the-rack suit, and a voice that sounded like he announced the time and temperature on his day off.
No Dreams Allowed: A Billionaire Romance Page 13