by Judi Fennell
It was almost funny that Dad’s eviction had given her this. This moment, this place, this man. If not for that one event, she and Liam would have been ships passing in her hallway, a polite “Hello, have a nice day” relationship.
She wanted this relationship. She wanted him.
Finding herself was the reason she’d wanted to leave her father’s house; finding Liam was a gift she’d never dreamed of.
She curled closer to him, loving the feeling of him next to her. He hadn’t let go; his arm was beneath her shoulders and he was rubbing a few strands of her hair between his thumb and index finger. The tug on her scalp felt good. Made her feel wanted. Desired.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
“I thought I more than made up for it a few minutes ago.”
She felt his chuckle. “True.”
“Why? Is there something you want to talk about?” Suddenly, she was worried. He’d said they’d deal with the aftermath later. Was this that aftermath? Was he not feeling like she was?
“There is.” Liam shifted so that he was on his side, but still kept his arm around her and her hair in his hand.
She liked it there. Liked that he wanted to play with it. Liked that he didn’t want to let go.
“What made you the way you are, Cassidy?”
That wasn’t a question she’d expected. “What do you mean? I’m just me.”
He inhaled and tickled her cheek with her hair. “That’s what I mean. You. How did you get to be you growing up with him?”
“Ah.” Now she got it. But wasn’t so sure she wanted to answer it. Not truthfully anyway.
But she didn’t want a relationship without honesty between them. If he didn’t like the truth, she’d be better off knowing now.
“I wasn’t always like this. I used to be caught up in the society life. I liked going to parties and buying clothes and vacationing at exclusive resorts. I mean, who wouldn’t, right?”
“It sounds like a shallow existence.”
If she were still in that world, his words would hurt. Or maybe not since she’d been too shallow to care.
The fact that he felt that way, however, was encouraging. The first man to see through the BS and want her for her, not for her father’s money.
You sure about that?
Cassidy shook off the thought. Liam wasn’t like that. He was a stand-up guy. He was honest and hardworking and she’d bet he’d never take a handout from anyone. Liam was the kind of guy to make it on his own.
Unlike the woman she used to be.
“I’m not proud of who I was then, Liam. But that’s how I was raised and it’s how my world operated. Then I met Franklin.”
Liam stiffened against her. And not in a good way. “Franklin?”
She rubbed a hand over his chest. Felt his heart beating beneath her palm and she left her hand there. If he only knew how symbolic that was for her.
“Franklin was a thirteen-year-old boy with a lot of medical issues. Issues that could have made him mean and bitter and nasty to be around. I sat next to him at one of the hospital’s charity dinners.”
“They wheeled him out to solicit donations?” Liam’s jaw tightened.
“No. Nothing like that. It was one of Franklin’s life wishes. That’s what the foundation who’d sponsored him calls them instead of last wishes or dying wishes. They like to focus on what’s left of someone’s life rather than the approaching finality.” She pulled her hand from Liam’s chest and curled it into her own. She had a hard time talking about Franklin without welling up.
“Franklin wanted to wear a tux and go to a fancy event before he died. The dinner fell at the perfect time and he came as a guest. Sat at my table. I knew everyone there except him, and I’d grown jaded. It was just another event to me where I presented my father’s donation with a lot of fanfare and smiled and looked pretty for the cameras. I made small talk with Dad’s cronies and his wannabe-associates.” Same old Tuesday night gala that happened too many times a year. And she’d had a new dress for each one.
“Then along came Franklin for whom everything was new and shiny and sparkly and happy. He was like Cinderella at the ball, seeing glamour in what we’d all grown so blasé about. Seeing him in his wheelchair, with his oxygen tank and his bald head that was such a contrast to his big smile and wide eyes, with his interest in everyone and everything . . . I couldn’t not want to get to know him. But the others at our table couldn’t have been bothered. He was an outsider and, even worse, underprivileged and sick. I was embarrassed for them. But the thing was, if he noticed, he didn’t care. He was just happy to be there and in the moment. And that’s what got to me. What made me open my eyes. To me, he wasn’t a curiosity because of his medical condition, but because of his optimism and acceptance and sheer happiness at doing something I’d started taking for granted and even resenting.”
She sniffed as she remembered how his eyes had widened when the serving staff had brought out dessert. To her it’d been a piece of chocolate cake that would go straight to her hips, so she’d pushed it away. To Franklin, it’d been ambrosia. A bounty so sweet and so precious he’d had to fight himself not to gobble it up in one bite because he didn’t want to miss tasting it.
She’d given him her piece and that’d sealed their friendship.
“Franklin had such an amazing outlook on life. And on death. He wasn’t afraid of it. He obviously didn’t want it, but when it finally came calling, he was ready to embrace it.”
She, however, hadn’t been and it still choked her up to remember how he’d patted her hand and smiled as best he could with the little strength he’d had left. “He’d packed a lot of living into those months I knew him, and he taught me what was important in life. Not money, not things, not other people’s awe and grudging acceptance because of what you have or what your last name is or who your father is. Even when his family abandoned him to live in the group home and let society pay for his treatment, Franklin wasn’t bitter. He chose to focus on the positive.”
“They left him? Sick? Dying?”
She nodded. “But he didn’t judge them and he taught me not to.” She exhaled. “It was hard not to.”
“Like when your mom left you.”
“You know about that?”
“There’s not much about you that hasn’t made the news over the years.”
She was torn between liking the fact that he’d been interested enough to pay attention and remember, and sad that he’d heard her dirty laundry.
He touched her cheek. “Hey, don’t let your parents’ actions define who you are. You’re your own person. Stepping out on your own, right? You don’t have to be who they are.”
It was the perfect thing to say. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
Hers, too. One of the things she’d vowed when Franklin had died was to spread his message of acceptance and love and letting go of a bad past.
“Franklin was rich in friends if not family. And they became his family. Everyone loved him because he loved everyone. He accepted them as they were, even those who ignored him. He never had a mean thing to say about anyone and always had a joke or a compliment. Because, as he’d said, everyone he met was part of his journey, and since his journey wasn’t going to be a long one, there was no sense focusing on the bad or dwelling on the mean. This was his one chance to experience happiness. For however many months he had left, he was going to enjoy every minute, everyone, and everything.”
Franklin had been all about paying it forward, about living the life he’d been given to the fullest, and he’d been her inspiration. Her catalyst for change. Her new world view of how little her life had meant until meeting him.
She swallowed, her throat clogging with the tears she was trying hard not to shed. Smiles, not tears. That’s how he’d wanted her to remember him.
“He was thrilled when people started bringing him plants as gifts instead of flowers.” She’d never told Franklin it had been her idea because plan
ts lasted longer than flowers. Nor that she’d stocked the gift shop with them and had enlisted the staff’s help in having random visitors drop them off for Franklin. “We’d research every plant online and he’d decide where he wanted to plant it on the grounds. He wanted to know something would live on after him.”
She lost the battle with a couple of tears then, remembering how solemn he’d been when he’d figured out that the plants would go on after he was gone.
“Hang on.” Liam tilted her chin up. “Hospitals have landscape departments and boards of directors. He would have had to get approval for this, and that would have taken time. Not just anyone can plant whatever they want on hospital grounds.”
She exhaled. “They can if they’re backed by a Davenport donation.”
“You used your father’s position and money to help Franklin? Gotta love the perks that go with being a Davenport.”
She tensed. People always thought that. Always thought that money made problems disappear. It didn’t. There were just different problems. Case in point: her father. And Burton. People wanting what they could get from her, wanting to use her for their own benefit.
That was the beauty of her relationship with Franklin; it had been predicated on her being there for him in spirit and friendship, not for what her money could bring him.
“It allowed me to make Franklin’s dream happen. He was allowed to plant whatever he wanted wherever he wanted. When he died, I had plaques made for each tree, shrub, bush, and flower so everyone would know. So he’d never be forgotten.”
* * *
LIAM tried to breathe around the lump in his throat. He was right; she could never be like Rachel. He’d bet that, even before Franklin, Cassidy had had a heart and a soul she wouldn’t admit to. It’d probably gone into hiding so it wouldn’t be crushed by the shallow people who’d inhabited her world. “What’d your father say?”
“He . . . ah . . .” She nibbled her lip and glanced away.
“He doesn’t know.”
“Oh he knows that I had plaques made. He even thinks the sizable donation I made to the hospital came from the corporate charitable-giving account.”
“It didn’t?”
She shook her head. “It was from my bank account, not the company coffers. It was important to me that I do it, not the corporation, so it could be all about Franklin, not the donation. That’s why the plaques don’t say Davenport anywhere on them. Dad’ll be mad when he finally takes the time to actually look at them.”
Her money. That’s why she didn’t have any. Not because she’d spent it on fashion shows or parties or exotic locations.
Was it possible that Cassidy was the woman for him? That she had—aside from her father—what he was looking for?
But there were still differences between them. Big ones. Glaring ones. Million-dollar ones.
Right now, things could be easy, since it was just the two of them, but once ol’ Mitch got back into the picture—and he would; the press would have a field day if this estrangement continued—the game would change.
He tilted her chin and the sheen of tears tugged at his heart. He didn’t want it to change. He wanted her just like this. “So how do we do this, Cassidy? You a Davenport; me . . . not. I’m not from your world. Where do we go from here?”
The change that came over her shocked him. One minute she was all pliant and melting into his side, her arm slung peacefully across his abdomen, her fingers lightly stroking his side, and the next . . . She was scrambling off of him and not meeting his eyes.
“I’m thinking a shower and then some breakfast.” She got off the far side of the bed. “I’ll see you in twenty.”
She practically ran out of his room—in all her naked glory. But all he could see was that she was leaving him.
What’d he say? All he’d asked was what was next for them and she’d shot out of his bed as if she couldn’t get away from him fast enough.
Shit. Had the disparities in their lives sunk in just now? Was that what this was? She realized that he would never be able to give her what men like Burton and her father could, so tonight became a one-shot deal?
Had he completely misjudged the situation again?
Chapter Thirty-one
CASSIDY blinked the tears back under the hot shower spray. He’d had to bring up the differences between how they lived, hadn’t he? Had to see it. Had to ask about her father, mention her last name. Just when she’d thought her life could be different . . .
But she was still her father’s daughter, which put the ugly thought in her head: had Liam taken her in out of the goodness of his heart or because of a possible financial reward? Was there a payout in this for him? Was he like Burton but using a different angle? Hoping to get on her father’s good side so Dad would help his business? And how would she ever know the truth?
She hated this. Hated questioning him and his generosity, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that whoever married her would have a shot at the brass ring and she wasn’t stupid. Arm candy perhaps, but there was a brain in her head, and once guys had started going down the happily-ever-after-to-the-bank-account path, she usually cut them off. She certainly hadn’t let one of them get under her skin enough to sleep with him without making a few things clear up front. Well she sure as hell would now. If Liam really wanted this to go somewhere, he was going to have to prove to her that it was for the right reasons.
None of which had to do with her last name.
* * *
LIAM confronted her at the breakfast table. She didn’t get to turn his world upside down, then bow out with the silent treatment. Not when he needed to know what kind of woman she was.
You know what kind of woman she is. The kind to make a sick little boy’s final days everything he wanted. And not take the credit. A woman who’d rather start at the bottom than give in to her father’s demands. A woman who has lost so much, but still has so much to give.
He placed a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her and put a small portion down for Titania after he’d let her out of her pen. “So you mind telling me what happened back there?” He tapped his fork on his plate, the eggs holding no great appeal at the moment.
She shoveled a forkful in, then looked up at him. “Um, we had sex?”
“I know we had sex. I’m wondering why you took off the minute I mentioned continuing it.”
“Oh. Well, you know. That can get awkward.”
“Awkward? Come on, Cassidy. I was in that bed with you. That was not awkward and you can’t tell me one night is going to be all there is.”
She blinked and bent down to pet Titania. He heard her inhale once more, then she looked up at him with that fake-ass smile he never wanted to see across his breakfast table again.
“Okay, Liam, suppose we do get involved. Where, exactly, do you see it going?”
“Why do I have to have a master plan? Why can’t we just see where it goes?”
“Because everyone has a master plan when it comes to me. But my father isn’t going to reward you for being with me. He’ll only accept someone who went Ivy League and has the connections he does, or a pedigree that beats out the Rockefellers.’”
“Are you kidding me?” Liam dropped his fork onto his plate with a teeth-grating clatter. Maybe he had misjudged her after all. “You think last night was because of who your father is? Of all the fu—er, messed-up—” He sucked on the inside of his cheek. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more insulted in my life.”
Or hurt, dammit.
And that crack about Ivy League . . . Hell, he’d worked his ass off to put himself through college and get his business going. If she knew even half of what he’d done to get where he was today, she’d choke on her Ivy League.
He got up from the table and walked to the sink, looking out the window without seeing anything. Jesus Christ. Here he’d gone and let himself hope, let himself believe in another woman, and she thought he was using her. Yeah, yeah it was ironic. He’d misjudged her at the
outset and now she was doing it to him.
He sucked in a breath and turned around. “I don’t, you know.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t what?”
“I don’t have any ulterior motive regarding your father’s company or his money or your bank account.”
“That’s because we both know I don’t have a bank account.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, actually, I don’t.” She shifted on her chair, then shoved some of her eggs around with her fork.
Titania plunked her butt on the floor and was looking between him and Cassidy as if they were playing racquetball again.
They’d made a good team on the court. And painting his office. And definitely in the bedroom. She couldn’t fake all of that.
It was that last thought that made him head back to the table. He took the chair catty-corner to her and removed the ever-moving fork from her grasp. Then he tilted her chin with his finger.
There was a sparkle in her eyes that came from unshed tears.
Or—as his thumb moved up her cheek—shed ones.
“I’m not like the others, Cass.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“You didn’t mind a while ago.”
“A while ago I was out of my mind.”
“With pleasure.”
“With insanity.” She got out of her chair and picked up her plate, intending to pass him on her way to the sink.
He caught her arm. “Don’t, Cassidy.”
She looked at his arm. “Let go, Liam. You don’t own me.” She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “No one does. And it’s going to stay that way.”
He let her go because it was so important to her. He could see that now, her pride in being her own person. She didn’t like being her father’s little dress-up doll.
Just as he didn’t like being lumped in with her father’s sycophants.