by Judi Fennell
But this was one Liam wanted to hear.
“Yes, I know it’s been over a week. She must have found some friend of hers willing to take her in and they’re holed up somewhere. I would have thought I’d have heard from her after the Herald ran the story, and this whole childish adventure would be over with by now. She’s really screwing up my plans.”
He’d probably been the one to leak the story in the first place. Talk about a shitty thing to do to his daughter; trying to make her look like a spoiled, self-centered, air-headed brat in front of everyone she knew. Nationally, too, because Liam had seen a glimpse of it on one of the celebrity news programs before he’d turned off the TV in his bedroom last night.
“No, she isn’t out of the country. I have her passport.” Davenport swiped a finger along the sofa back table and looked at it. Liam was surprised there was no white glove in attendance. “She’ll make it to the dinner, Burton. She’s not going to let me down.”
But he could let her down? Jesus. This guy was a piece of work.
“I’ve already cut off all her cards and her phone. Her jewelry is in my vault, and all my bankers know they’re to contact me if she shows up. You know Cassidy; she can’t live for a week without her credit cards. She’ll come crawling back soon. Might even be today.” Davenport skirted the vacuum cleaner as if it were a bomb. “I do know my daughter, Burton. And you’d better learn how her mind works if you’re going to marry her. She’s not stupid, just emotional. Takes after her mother.”
No one but Liam would ever know that the look that crossed Davenport’s face at the mention of his ex-wife wasn’t anger, but . . . pain.
“You’ll have to keep her on an even keel. I’ve suggested medication, but she refuses to take it. Said it made her head fuzzy.” Davenport snorted. “I should’ve had her nanny crush it into her breakfast every morning. Hell, I should have done that with my wife.”
Liam wanted to shake the man until his head got screwed on right. Drugging his wife and kid? The man had more than just obsessive greed and self-aggrandizement going against him. Father of the Year he was not. No wonder Cassidy wanted nothing from him. Liam didn’t even want his business, but that wasn’t his call to make. And since Mac needed the income from this contract, he’d keep his mouth shut and provide the kind of service Davenport—and Mac—were expecting from him. But, God, he’d love to punch the guy’s lights out.
“No, if she shows up, let her sweat it. No need to propose right away. She’s going to learn to appreciate what my money can do for her.” Davenport picked up a crystal knickknack off the end table and looked at it. He puffed on it, brushed it against his coat lapel, then set it back down.
Pretentious SOB. Liam had polished every facet of that thing, knowing the guy would be anal about it. There wasn’t a smudge to be had; he was sure of it. Seemed that nothing was good enough for Mitchell Davenport.
Poor Cassidy. Liam had known the guy was a hard-ass when it came to business, but what must it have been like growing up with him for a father? And without a mother to mitigate the emotional damage.
Liam glanced back at the bedroom. At the bed frame where he’d found that bracelet and picture. He needed to give them to her. Maybe they did mean something to her after all, and seeing how dismissive Davenport was of her feelings, Liam could see why she’d kept them hidden.
“Yes, yes, Burton. Of course you’ll get your bonus regardless of when she shows up. Can’t have my future son-in-law driving a mid-class sedan much longer. You have to look the part. Now, did my lawyers contact you about the name change? Can’t have Davenport Properties without a Davenport, can we?” He inspected the mantle, too. Liam ground his teeth.
“We’ll make it official the day you marry her.” Davenport fiddled with the knot of his tie. “I’m sure Cassidy will be thrilled not to have to change her name. After all, Davenport does open doors.”
Liam wanted to puke at the play on the company’s slogan. “A Davenport Property Opens Doors.” It was all about the lifestyle. All about the appearance to this guy. Everything. Including his own child. Bastard didn’t know how lucky he was to still have a daughter. What Liam and his brothers and sister wouldn’t do to have had all these years with their parents, yet this bastard was playing with his family as if they were part of a contract negotiation.
“I’m telling you, Burton, I know my daughter. She’ll come back. She’s not stupid, just stubborn.”
No, Davenport was the stupid one. The guy didn’t have a clue what it meant to have his daughter out of his life. He still thought it was about money.
Liam got it. As he hadn’t before. She wasn’t like Rachel. Cassidy wanted her father’s love and acceptance and all his money couldn’t buy it for her, whereas Rachel would’ve taken the platinum credit card and run—off to Monte Carlo or L.A. or somewhere equally as expensive.
“She had a tantrum. She does that every so often. A bit high-strung like her mother. But one doesn’t just buy one’s daughter off the way one can with an ex-wife, so I have to put up with these moods of hers.”
Liam bit his tongue. Literally bit it, because figuratively doing so wouldn’t stop him from saying what he wanted to say. The guy was completely missing the Father gene and Human was in question as well.
“She’ll come back, Burton. She always does. Her kind always does.”
If it weren’t the exact same thing Liam had said about her himself, he’d take offense at the man’s smug condescension.
Now, he just found his own conclusions about Cassidy condescending. And wrong.
“Cassidy’s used to the best in this world.” Davenport rearranged a picture frame on the top of the baby grand. “It’s all she’s known. Her friends can’t hope to compete with what I can give her. Not many people can.”
The guy just didn’t shut up. Good God, the hubris. What would take Davenport down a few hundred pegs?
What Liam wouldn’t do to get the chance.
But . . . why? Why was he so mad on Cassidy’s behalf when he’d thought the same things about her?
Maybe that was it. Maybe he was mad at himself. For being wrong. For judging her. For not taking her at face value. He always gave people a chance, but he’d seen the high-rise, had heard all the press coverage about her, and, hell, had Rachel for a template for these sorts of relationships . . . It was no wonder he’d jumped to those conclusions, but that didn’t mean he had to like it about himself. He’d always prided himself on giving people that chance. On giving them a break, but he’d judged her. Wrongly.
“Oh, she started with these little fits of temper about a year ago and they’ve become quite the chore. This time she’ll learn who holds the cards, and if she wants to continue wearing the high-end designer clothing and shoes she loves, if she wants to vacation at the most beautiful resorts in the world and eat at the most famous restaurants and have the best seats and meet celebrities, she’ll get herself under control and come home. Or she’ll have to learn how the other half lives.”
As a representative of the so-called other half, Liam wanted to walk in there and tell this pompous ass that the other half wasn’t doing so bad. Wouldn’t the guy shit if he knew that, right this minute, Cassidy was living like the so-called other half and doing a damn good job of it?
But it wasn’t Liam’s place to enlighten him, so he snuck into the dining room and tucked everything back into the Manley Maids tool tote, plunked a baseball cap onto his head, shoved the mop, dust mop, blind cleaner, and extension rod under his arm, picked up the tool box with his other hand, and swung around—
And smacked Davenport across his midsection.
There was more than a small measure of satisfaction in that, but still, there was Mac’s contract to worry about.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you standing there—”
Davenport held up his hand. “Hang on a second, Burton.” He hit the MUTE button on his phone. “What are you doing here?”
“Cleaning.”
“Weren�
�t you here last week?”
“Yes, but dust comes back. Since you’re selling the place, I thought you’d want it to be in tip-top shape.”
Davenport arched an eyebrow and studied him, his lips pursed. “How much of my conversation have you overheard?”
“What? Me? Eavesdrop? I’m sorry, sir, but that wouldn’t be professional.” Firmly entrenching himself in the peon category of Davenport’s estimation, Liam added that “sir.” Gran always said he could get more flies with honey; Liam was sure the same applied to rats. Besides, it was Cassidy’s right to tell the guy where to shove his condescension.
“Hmmm.” Davenport clicked his tongue, then reached into his interior jacket pocket and pulled out—
His wallet.
Oh this was rich.
“Burton, let me call you back.” Davenport slid the phone into his pants pocket, then flipped the wallet open and withdrew a hundred-dollar bill. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything to anyone.” He flicked his wrist, presenting the cash in one fluid motion, as if he’d done it dozens of times before. “A nice dinner, perhaps, to take your mind off my little problem?”
Liam should have cleaned out Cassidy’s closets. Taken everything. This ass, with his pious condescension in wanting to teach his daughter a lesson, deserved to be shorted a few thousand dollars by losing her wardrobe. The hundred was nothing to him.
But Liam took it anyway, though not for the reason Davenport would think. Cassidy could use this. It wasn’t as if he had any intention of telling people what he’d just heard; he was trying to forget he’d heard it.
For the first time in his life, he was feeling sorry for a spoiled little rich girl—who maybe wasn’t so spoiled, and who was definitely nowhere near as rich as he and his siblings were when it came to what was important in life: having someone who loved them enough to take them in.
Not kick them out.
Chapter Twenty-seven
IT was a thought that stayed with Liam throughout the dinner with Gran and his brothers that evening. Sean and Bryan were at each other’s throats—figuratively, that was. The three of them were as close as could be, but one couldn’t not rib the other about anything and everything.
Funny, though, that they knew to draw the line when the subject of Cassidy came up.
“How’s Cassidy?” Gran asked, effectively shutting down the conversation about the issue with Sean’s project and getting their focus on him. She might as well have said Rachel, because the reaction would be the same. His brothers had been his support system when that relationship had gone to hell and he knew they’d be there for him even if he fell off the wagon and into Cassidy’s bed.
But too bad they didn’t know the Cassidy he did.
But he wasn’t ready to share that Cassidy yet. Wanted to make sure she really was what he was coming to think she was before he sprang her on the guys. They’d be naturally cautious, and he had enough on his plate without them looking over his shoulder. “She’s Cassidy.” He just hoped Gran didn’t bring up anything about her staying at his place. Then again, Cassidy hadn’t given her the correct name, so Gran wasn’t supposed to know who his houseguest really was.
“Now, Liam, don’t judge her by what everyone says about her. I mean, look at Bryan. Do you really think everything they’ve printed about him is true? He hasn’t dated all those women.”
It was not his place to disabuse his grandmother about Bryan’s supposed lack of prowess. Because Bryan didn’t lack any prowess and the tabloids made good use of that.
“Don’t worry, Gran. I’m letting Cassidy prove herself.”
And what a surprise she was turning out to be.
“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” Gran waved her glass around for a little more wine, and Liam recognized that gesture for what it was: a change of subject. Gran never had two glasses of wine.
Her tactic worked and the rest of the dinner was all about Sean and the heiress, Bryan and the widow, and Liam’s latest property-flipping project. And racquetball. Specifically, Sean challenging him to a game tomorrow night.
Blowing off some steam on the court and kicking Sean’s ass at the same time sounded like just the thing to take the edge off. He’d imagine Davenport’s face on the ball. A win-win in his book.
“You know, Liam,” said Gran after serving dessert, her homemade apple pie. It brought back all sorts of memories from his childhood—Gran had been one of those who’d put her pies on the windowsill to cool. He and Jared had stolen a pie only once. The whooping she’d given them—verbal, not physical—had been enough to make them never want to do that again. Well, that and the threat that she’d never give him another slice for the rest of his life. Thing was, Gran had meant it, so he’d learned to respect her orders.
Had Cassidy ever had someone bake her a pie? Sneak her a piece when she’d fallen off her bike or gotten tackled in the big game, or whatever the boarding school debutante version of falling down during a clutch game was?
He had a feeling she hadn’t. Her father, as evidenced by that phone call to the man he’d chosen for her to marry, had no concept of how to raise a child. No concept of family.
No wonder she’d lived the life she’d lived. With a man as shallow as Davenport raising her—or leaving others to raise her—what chance had she had?
And the fact that she was trying to change . . . Couple that with the whole attraction thing, and the situation was just getting more complicated.
Gran wasn’t helping matters. “I met your houseguest, Liam,” she said after Bry and Sean had left.
He’d been two steps away from making a clean break. “She mentioned it.”
“She seems nice.” Gran was going to drag it out.
“Yes.”
“She’s painting a piece of furniture for me.”
“She told me.”
“It’d be nice if you could help her deliver it. I’m sure it’s too heavy for her to do by herself.”
Message received. Still . . . “Oh she’s pretty good at doing things by herself, Gran. Is kind of insisting on it, actually.”
Gran patted him on his arm. “Just because someone can, doesn’t mean they should, Liam. She’s a nice girl and ought to be judged on her own merits. Remember that.”
It wasn’t something he was likely to forget.
Chapter Twenty-eight
YOU brought Cassidy?” Sean whispered as Liam was taking his racquet out of his bag for their game.
“It’s not like I had a lot of time to come up with someone else, and she overheard.”
Liam glanced at the girls who were on the other side of the court doing whatever girls did when they first meet. And this had to be the first meeting for the two of them; Sean’s Gypsy-Chick would never run in the same circles as Cassidy.
“She’s in pink,” Sean stage-whispered. “Rhinestones.”
“Tell me about it.” They’d had to run out and buy her a pair of sneakers courtesy of Davenport’s hush money, but she’d refused to take any extra cash to buy an outfit. She hadn’t wanted to be in debt to him any more than she already was, and Liam had been ready to give her the cash because he didn’t think anything could be more inappropriate for a game of racquetball than the rhinestones. But then he got a look at Livvy, Sean’s partner, in her beaded skirt and stomach-flashing half shirt, and realized he was wrong. The Gypsy-Chick won.
Yet despite this, Sean had the balls to ask, “She does know that this is a sport, right? That you get hot and sweaty and the makeup will slide off her face?”
“If she doesn’t, she soon will. That could make this whole thing worthwhile.” He meant the hot and sweaty part. He wouldn’t mind seeing Cassidy like that—
Damn shorts suddenly got tight. He crossed his arms with the racquet hanging down, hoping to hide the evidence. “Any progress with the Gypsy-Chick?” Livvy’s grandmother had changed her will, leaving the estate to Livvy instead of allowing Sean to buy it at the below-market price they’d previously agreed on if Livvy
completed some strange scavenger hunt thing the old woman had devised. Liam, Bry, and Sean were all hoping she failed.
Actually, Sean was doing a little more than hoping. He was kind of helping the failure along.
Sean rolled his eyes. “We’re following the clues. Tomorrow we’re chasing down baby cradles.”
A jolt shot straight through Liam’s gut. Babies. It seemed to be a theme lately. His assistant was on maternity leave, his housekeeper was on maternity leave, Cassidy’s father was selling her out like a brood mare . . . “You realize that’s a dangerous line of thought around any woman, right?”
“Trust me,” said Sean. “It’s not an issue.”
“Famous last words.” He wasn’t talking to Sean. He smacked his bro in the chest. “Come on. Let’s get this going.” He needed to concentrate on something other than Cassidy in those short shorts that hugged her ass in a way his palms were itching to.
He gripped his racquet. At least he could get a good workout in so thoughts of her across the hall from him tonight wouldn’t screw with his sleep.
* * *
FIVE minutes into the game and that was a lost cause. Hell, two minutes into the game, with Cassidy’s slim, toned body eating up the court, and her hair swishing all over the place, and the determined grunt she made every time she returned the volley . . . Liam was going to have all sorts of dreams and probably be up all night. In every sense of that word. God, even with those crazy rhinestone-studded protective glasses she used for painting on for safety, the woman drove him crazy.