by Judi Fennell
“Cassidy?”
She didn’t seem to hear him as she walked disjointedly toward her bathroom, grabbing a bag from her closet almost as an afterthought.
He practically jumped off the ladder and ran after her. She did not look good.
He found her tossing toiletries into the bag. Silly things like loofas and toilet paper and razors.
He slid the bag from her grasp. “Cassidy, honey, talk to me. What happened?” Her father had just arrived. Had something happened? Her mother maybe?
She picked up the scale and put it into the bag, then headed over to the basket of bath gels and stuff, aimlessly picking through them, but not with any real idea of what she was doing.
Liam took the scale out of her bag. He was pretty sure wherever she was packing to go would have a scale. And what did she need one for anyway? The woman was as thin as a socialite should be.
“Cassidy, what’s going on? What are you doing?”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “I’m packing.”
“I get that, but for what?”
“The rest of my life, apparently.” A little laugh escaped.
A maniacal little laugh.
He took the basket of bath products she’d picked up out of her hands. “Explain.”
She looked at the basket as if she didn’t know what it was, which was odd, since she’d been pawing through it as if every item was a crown jewel, then looked around the rest of the bathroom and made her way, shakily, over to the toilet lid to sit down.
“My father’s evicting me.”
Liam set the basket down and wiggled a finger in his ear. “Come again?”
“My father. He’s kicking me out.”
“Of here?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that what evicting means?”
“But why?”
Another laugh came out but this one wasn’t really amused. More along the lines of a snort. “Because I’m not getting married.”
Oh. Liam got it. Daddy was putting his two-thousand-dollar-shod foot down. “If you don’t marry that guy, he’s making you leave?”
“You got it.”
“He can’t do that.”
Cassidy’s eyebrows went even higher. “Do you know who my father is? There isn’t much he can’t do.”
That was true. “So what’s with the rush job?”
“Oh shit.” She jumped up. “I don’t have time to talk. I’ve got to get my stuff and get out of here.” She grabbed the bag, plopped it into the sink in front of her medicine cabinet, shoveled those contents into it, then tossed in an assortment of hair appliances and brushes.
Jeez, she had a brush for every strand of hair.
Figured.
The front door slammed shut.
“What was that?”
Cassidy hefted the bag onto her shoulder. “Damn. That was my father. I have to make sure he didn’t take Titania with him.” She almost fell when the bag slammed into the door frame as she tried to run out of the bathroom.
“Here, let me get that.” Liam winced as he slid the handles off her shoulder. Damn it. He didn’t even like the woman; why the hell was he helping her?
“I’ve got it.” She tried to yank it from him.
“Go. Get your dog. I’m not carrying it out for you.”
She looked at her bag, then out to the living room, then at him. “Thank you.”
He almost said, “Sure thing, Princess,” but right now wasn’t the time for sarcasm she wouldn’t get. He was carrying her bag for her while she was being evicted from her penthouse apartment by the man who paid the bills. He ought to be gloating over this. One of them had just gotten a dose of reality.
Too bad none of those vacations she’d tried to glom on to earlier had paid off. She could’ve waited out Daddy’s change of heart after teaching his little princess a lesson in style if her so-called friends hadn’t bailed on her.
“Titania, no!”
Liam winced when he heard the crash. He had a feeling it was one of the crystal knick-knacks on the end table right where the carpet ended and the marble foyer began. Which meant at least five grand now in shards—that he was going to have to clean up.
“Titania, come here. I don’t have time for this.”
Liam heard the cabinets in the kitchen slam and the plastic containers and assorted cans scatter all over the floor.
“Bad girl, Titania!”
“Oh please.” Liam walked in and hunkered down beside the little terror and scooped it up. “Look, mutt, chill. Your mom doesn’t need you freaking out right now. She’s got an agenda and you need to help out.”
The little yipper-snapper calmed down, thank God.
“Here, give her one of these.” Cassidy tossed him a cardboard canister covered in pink felt and rhinestones.
“Uh, I’m not sure, but I’m thinking rhinestones aren’t good for her digestive tract.” God knew, they weren’t good for his. He loathed rhinestones, and juggled the canister and the dog as if they were a game of hot potato.
“There are treats inside. She likes those.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to reward bad behavior?” He set the dog down. She was looking at him a little too interestedly as he peeled back the lid. For all its designer outside, the inside still smelled like liverwurst dog treats.
“She quieted down. I’m rewarding that.”
“No, you’re encouraging her to bark so she’ll get a treat when she quiets down. You don’t just give these to her randomly throughout the day for being quiet, do you?”
“Really? Is that what you think is most important right now?” Cassidy stretched her arm to the back of the cabinet, her cheek smashed against the drawer above it. “I have a few more important things on my mind at the moment.” She grimaced and leaned into the cabinet some more. “Ah, there it is.”
“What’s that?” It was some sort of pink plastic concoction with curled edges and, oh for Christ’s sake, a tiara carved into the back of it like a throne. A dog throne.
“This is her bed.”
“And it was in the cabinet why?”
“My father wouldn’t like it in the living room or my bedroom. It doesn’t go with the décor.”
That was for damn sure. The thing looked as if it’d come right out of a Disney movie.
“Since he’s making me leave, I figure it won’t matter that Titania sleeps in it now.”
“If you say so.” Personally, he’d have nightmares if he had to sleep in something like that, but then, he wasn’t a spoiled socialite’s pampered accessory.
But it could be fun to be hers.
He shut that thought down real quick—until she stood and brushed off her thighs.
Her bare thighs.
How had he missed that amid all the clutter falling from the cabinets?
Damn, Manley. Losing your edge.
Actually, that was a good thing. The last thing he needed to be noticing was Cassidy Davenport’s legs.
Except when she leveraged herself on the counter to stand up, and her shirt managed to get caught under her hand and she gave him a quick flash of pink bra and cleavage and that was the last thing he needed to be noticing.
Especially with these damn pants that were way too tight to begin with for his liking. And then he had to stand up in them.
Luckily he still had her bag, so he covered his hard-on with it and scooped up the mutt.
“So do you have everything you need for now or are you going to pack up all the closets?”
An odd look crossed her face and he could have sworn her bottom lip trembled. But she regained her self-control quickly, and straightened her shoulders as she purposely closed the cabinet door.
“No, I’m done. This is all I need.” She looked around the kitchen, grabbed a bag from the pantry and dumped the cans of food and boxes of biscuits into it. “Oh, and her leash. I need that.”
“I got it.” Liam headed out to the closet in the living room.
She followed h
im, slinging the bag—a brown paper bag with twine handles—on her forearm and rearranging the drapey shirt so it covered some parts of her.
“Where’s my iPad?” She walked to the sofa back table and rifled through the magazines there. “Did you move it to clean?”
“Last I saw it, it was there.”
“He took it. The bastard.”
Probably better not to point out that the bastard was the one who’d bought said iPad. He didn’t feel like dealing with tears. The day had started out so promisingly; he didn’t want to ruin the rest of it.
“So should I call you a cab or is your car here?” Anything to help the cause along of getting her out the door.
“My car’s downstairs.” She held out her hand after she shoved her feet into a pair of sparkly flip-flops. “If you’ll hand over the leash and my bag—and my dog—I’ll get all of us down to it.”
He was tempted. Man, was he tempted. Get her out the door in one fell swoop. Problem was, she looked as if she was going to collapse before he could.
“I’ve got your stuff. You have your keys?” He didn’t wait for her to nod, but headed to the door and held it open for her. “After you, Prin—Ms. Davenport.”
She stuck her nose in the air, perfect socialite behavior. “Don’t call me that. I’m changing my name.”
He rolled his eyes after her. Worthless threat since it was that name that opened doors for her and would continue to, he was sure. Like the ones at the Ritz, or the Hyatt, or hell, especially her father’s hotels.
Marco greeted them by name—including the dog. “Your father said you’d be down. Should I call you a cab?”
Cassidy looked at him absentmindedly. “A cab?”
“Yeah, you know, a yellow car?” Liam interjected. “Takes you where you want to go?” He hefted the pooch and stage-whispered in its ear, trying to diffuse the situation because Cassidy still didn’t look so hot and there was no need to feed the gossip mill. Marco appeared to be a stand-up guy, but who knew what he’d do if the tabloids came calling for dirt with the right amount of payola. “Your mommy seems to have forgotten how us common people live.”
“That’s a really nasty thing to say.”
Good, he’d gotten her Irish up. It worked. Anger was a much easier reaction to deal with than tears.
“Hey, babe, if the Jimmy Choo fits.”
“You think you’re so funny, don’t you? Acting all holier-than-thou because you were there when my father—” She glanced at Marco. “Uh, just now.”
Liam shrugged and handed the fluff-ball to her. “Just sayin.’”
“You can keep your comments to yourself.” She hiked the pooch and kissed the silly knot on its head. The thing licked her on the lips.
Yeah, the lips. Not a big deal, Liam was guessing. The pooch probably made regular trips to the doggy dentist.
The extremely fast and extremely quiet elevator made quick work of the twelve stories to street level, and Marco was the epitome of the not-seen-and-not-heard help as he held the door open for them. Liam would have tipped him, but since Cassidy made no move to, he figured good ol’ Mitch’s daughter either didn’t have to or had an account that paid out handsomely at holiday time. He wasn’t sure what the protocol was for this level of high life.
Liam was heading for the front door when Cassidy took a left toward another bank of elevators, fully expecting him to tag along, her flip-flops flopping furiously on the marble floor. It’d serve her right if he dropped her bag right there in the lobby for assuming he was her lackey, but—dammit—he felt sorry for her and didn’t want to make a scene after the one she’d just had.
* * *
THE second bank of elevators opened into a parking garage unlike any he’d ever seen before. It wasn’t just any old parking garage. The floors looked like brick, the support columns were Ionic, and he wouldn’t be surprised if there were cushioned benches in the shape of that stupid dog bed all over the place. The lap of luxury for luxury cars.
“Son of a bitch.”
Liam did a double take. One did not expect to hear such language from a socialite who’d gone to all the best finishing schools. Not that he knew which schools those were, but that’d been her claim to fame every time she was mentioned in the newspaper. He was fairly certain Cussing 101 wasn’t on the curriculum.
“That supercilious, sanctimonious bastard.”
If it was a course, she’d get an A for delivery because the words sounded so incongruous coming from that angelic face.
And then he saw what she was looking at.
There was a boot on the Mercedes.
A boot.
Man, that was fast. But then, Mitchell Davenport probably had people lying in wait to do his bidding.
“He booted your car?”
Cassidy inhaled so deeply her breasts rose a good four inches—which made her shirt rise a good four inches, showing a delicious four inches of silky, tanned skin.
Why couldn’t the woman be fat and dumpy? Why’d she have to be straight out of every erotic fantasy he’d ever had and be a pampered princess? Was the universe trying to torture him?
“How the hell does he expect me to go anywhere without my car?”
“That explains the taxicab comment from Marco.”
She twisted her lips. “Great. Marco knows. I wonder who else does. It’s not bad enough my father evicts me, now he makes me a laughing stock.” She set the puffball down, dragged her pocketbook off her shoulder, and started rummaging through it. “Dammit.”
He was almost afraid to ask. “What?”
“I don’t have any cash.”
Of course she didn’t. The super rich didn’t have to carry cash.
“I’m sure you can charge cab fare.”
She looked at him as if he were an idiot. “The man put a boot on my car. It takes about a tenth of that time to cancel my credit cards and, oh hell, my debit card. You can bet my money that my father didn’t overlook those.”
Liam wasn’t betting anything. Betting had gotten him into this predicament—and smack dab in the middle of hers.
“What about stopping at a bank? You can make a withdrawal.”
She shook her head. “He’ll have closed the accounts if he’s cancelled everything else.”
“So I’m guessing that means a hotel’s out.”
“What?” Cassidy’s eyes got wide. “Oh my God. Where am I going to go?”
“The boyfriend?”
“Burton? I don’t think so. Not after last night.”
“He doesn’t know you don’t want to marry him, right? You didn’t actually turn him down. I bet he’ll come to your rescue.” And she could go live happily ever after in a castle her father paid for. Rachel would be so jealous.
“Oh sure. I call him and see if I can move in? That’s exactly what my father wants me to do. And then there will be the guilt and the pressure to give in to Burton.” She tugged the shirt back onto her shoulders, but Liam could have told her not to bother. That shirt had been designed to hang provocatively off a set of very sexy shoulders and Cassidy possessed just such a set. “Now what am I going to do?”
“Give your friends a call.” There had to be one she hadn’t been turned down by.
“I did. Everyone’s away and those who aren’t have probably already heard about last night. There won’t be any grand gestures of letting me stay with them now. My father’s name and influence is bigger than mine in this town, and when word gets out . . . No one is going to want to be on his bad side. In the face of social ostracism, friendship with me falls by the wayside.” She leaned against the hood of the booted car. “Besides . . .” She pulled out her cell phone and swiped her finger across it, then held the screen toward him.
The black screen.
“He turned it off.”
Liam didn’t like where her logic was leading him. He really didn’t. He also didn’t like his stupid, fucking bleeding heart. “So where are you going to go? Don’t you have any family that’ll take
you in? Your mom?”
Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. “I guess you haven’t read all of the society pages. My mother took off with her lover when I was just a kid. Wanted to get as far from Daddy dear as possible. Mexico’s pretty far.”
“She could wire you money.”
This time she looked away. “That’s not an option.” Her tone said that was the end of the story.
It must be one hell of a story if she was willing to live on the streets instead of calling the woman who’d given birth to her.
So what was with the picture and bracelet under Cassidy’s bed? He ought to find it interesting that she hadn’t gone for those in her almost catatonic state when she’d been throwing anything and everything into her bag, but maybe not. Maybe she hadn’t wanted any reminders of her parents. She hadn’t taken any of her personal items like clothing—
Oh hell. All she had to her name was what was on her back and in her bag. Without a freaking dime.
He was going to regret this. As sure as he’d lost the bet to his sister, he was going to regret this. But he couldn’t stop the words.
“Come on. You can come home with me.”
Chapter Eight
CASSIDY shook her head. She couldn’t have heard what she’d thought she heard. “Did you just invite me to come home with you?”
“Yeah, I did. And I’m just as surprised about it as you are.”
“But you don’t even know me.”
“I know you just got tossed out, don’t have two nickels to rub together, have nowhere to go, and no one to help you. That leaves me.”
“How very Prince Charming of you.” He seriously thought she would be grateful to go home with him? Here she was at her darkest hour and he was probably trying to get in her pants.
“Okay, Princess, if that’s the way you want it. Seems to me I’m the only option you have. But, hey, if you’d rather not . . .” He dropped her bag on the stamped concrete floor. “Don’t let me stop you from finding your prince. I’m sure Burton will come looking for you at some point.”
“That’s not happening.” She wouldn’t let it. She was not going to sit here and wait for Burton to show up. That he would, she had no doubt. It was, after all, Dad’s master plan. Well, she was not going to go along with it. Not this time. This was too important.