But she wasn’t capable of being with one man. It wouldn’t matter how she felt about him, she would eventually cheat on him. She was built like a man, emotionally speaking, where sex was just physical. It didn’t have to be emotional. But she did need that kick.
The first few times with Ward had been hot, surprises, games, but for the long haul, he had proven he couldn’t share, didn’t want to. He would require more from her than she was capable of giving.
She’d never depended on a man for anything emotional. She’d never truly cared for a man. She’d never wanted to. A relationship would have gotten in the way. But somehow Ward had slipped in and made her feel.
When he figured out she wasn’t capable of conducting any kind of normal relationship, he would slip away just as easily.
Chapter Thirteen
“Hey, Ruby. I thought we could look at some fabric swatches for the dress.”
It was lunchtime at West Coast, and the receptionist had let Cassandra walk right on through without announcing her. After all, she was the boss’s daughter. Ruby was halfway between her desk and Holt’s office door. She stopped, hand in mid-air, her eyes alight with...something. Surprise? Excitement? Cassandra, who was usually good at interpreting expressions, wasn’t sure what that look signified.
“Now?” Ruby asked, glancing toward Holt’s door.
Then Holt barked out a command. “Ruby, I told you to get in here.”
Cassandra hadn’t heard that voice from him since the tender age of sixteen when he’d caught her climbing through her bedroom window at two o’clock in the morning. What the hell was going on? Trouble in paradise so soon?
Then he was standing in his doorway. His face turned a ruddy shade when he saw her. As if he was embarrassed. Maybe he was, since she’d obviously broken up an argument.
“I was just going to take Ruby out to lunch to look at some fabric.” Actually, she’d already the fabric she’d use—and she knew Ruby would approve—but she needed an excuse to get Ruby alone so they could talk. She’d had a brainstorm during the night, and she absolutely had to talk to Ruby.
Ruby made a sound. “Uuuh.”
The woman wasn’t usually short on words. But how could something have gone wrong between the lovebirds between last night’s cozy scene on the couch and now? It could be work-related, but even Cassandra had to admit that Ruby was a model of efficiency.
“Well, of course,” Holt finally said, punctuating with a loud exhale.
“But—” Ruby said.
He held up a hand. “We’ll have our discussion later.”
Ruby made another ineffectual sound. Cassandra was no BFF of hers, but she certainly knew Ruby well enough to realize this didn’t sound like her at all.
“You girls go,” Holt said magnanimously, waving his hand. “Have fun.”
“All right.” Ruby backed away, her gaze on Holt. Cassandra could swear a silent message passed between them. “We’ll talk about the issue right after work.” Then she turned, opened her desk drawer, and retrieved her purse.
“Is everything all right?” Cassandra asked her in the car.
Ruby smiled, her lipstick as red as her name. “Of course.”
Cassandra headed into Palo Alto to an excellent little bistro she knew.
“Just a little work problem, that’s all,” Ruby added.
Cassandra glanced at her. Ruby stared ahead through the window, that smile on her face. A secret smile. Cassandra decided that whatever had happened wasn’t necessarily bad.
“There’s a couple of fabric samples.” She pointed to the backseat.
Ruby reached behind, grabbed the small pile, and laid them in her lap. She fingered the rich satin swatch on top. Cassandra reached over to tap it. “This is the one I believe will work the best.”
“It’s nice.” Then Ruby nodded. “Yes, it’s perfect.” She glanced up. “But you could have shown me this in the office.”
“That was an excuse. I wanted to talk.”
Ruby raised a brow. “About what?”
“Let’s save that for the restaurant.”
“Are you about to warn me away from your father?” Then she added, “Again.”
“No.” Cassandra slipped into a miraculously empty parking spot on University in downtown. “I’ve decided you’re perfect for him.” Actually she wouldn’t know that for months, but she was willing to give Ruby her support. Unless she did something that forced Cassandra to withdraw it.
“Well, I can hardly wait to hear what this is all about.” Ruby’s voice was laced with sarcasm.
She was a gorgeous woman with a stunning figure. Cassandra knew she was forty, but Ruby could pass for thirty-five. Her clothing choice was slightly on the slutty side, her skirts always a tad too short, her tops a smidgen too low-cut. Though Cassandra had to admit that her style had improved since the last time she’d seen her. She turned many a male head as they made their way along the sidewalk, their high heels tapping in unison. Ruby loved turning heads; she seemed to catalogue every glance. Ruby certainly loved her men. And that’s exactly why Cassandra had invited her to lunch.
But she waited until they were seated and their napkins across their laps before she started the conversation she’d planned.
“I have the sense that you and I are quite a bit alike.” She squeezed a lemon wedge into her water glass.
“Oh you do,” Ruby said, her tone only slightly mocking.
“Woman to woman, let’s state it plainly. We both like men.”
Ruby pressed her lips together. “If you’re going to tell me—”
Cassandra held up her hand. “I’m not going to tell you anything. All I want is your advice.”
Ruby eyed her doubtfully.
She knew a lot about Ruby. Cassandra didn’t work at West Coast, but she’d attended many of her father’s work parties when they coincided with her visits. She’d gone to the Christmas bashes. She was a great observer. And she knew Ruby loved men. Just like Cassandra did. She had no clue why Ruby and Clay Blackwell had parted ways—she hadn’t been to a West Coast party since that event had occurred—but she’d be willing to bet it had to do with Ruby’s love of men.
Now that she actually had to say the words, she realized her question was quite rude. It hadn’t sounded so bad in her mind. She decided to preface it. “I’ve met a man.”
“That’s nice.”
“And my problem is that I’m not quite”—she searched for the right word—“capable of being with only one man.”
Ruby smiled, her lips glistening. Then her eyes gleamed with a naughty sparkle. “You don’t know how to be monogamous.”
“Exactly.” That didn’t seem so bad.
“And you think I’m a slut and you wonder how the hell I’ll be able to remain monogamous with your father.”
Slam. She’d miscalculated and offended her future stepmother.
The waiter chose that moment to stand at their table, pencil poised, ready for their orders. “Have you ladies decided?”
Ruby gave him a long perusal, then said in a low, seductive voice. “I’ve definitely decided what I want.”
Mid-twenties, dark hair a sexy mop that emulated the Twilight vampire, the young waiter blushed.
“I’ll have the beet salad with mandarins, pears, and arugula.” Ruby fluttered her eyelashes as if she’d just asked for him as the side dish.
He wrote crazily, the tip of the pencil snapping. Ignoring that, he turned to Cassandra.
“I’ll have exactly what she’s having.” And she smiled, too.
He almost tripped over his own feet as he scurried back to the kitchen.
“You’re bad,” Cassandra said with admiration.
Ruby mimicked shining her fingernails on her sleeve. “Yes, I am.” She let her smile fade meaningfully. “And your father knows exactly what I’m like.”
“I’m not asking about you and him. I did that before, and you gave me a straight answer. I’m just asking how you can give up”—she shrug
ged—“everything you have to give up for a man.”
Ruby sat back and gave her a bit of the same perusal she’d given the waiter. Without the sexual content. “So this man is actually someone special?”
She had no intention of telling Ruby anything about Ward. But she had to admit the truth if she was going to get the answers she needed. “Yes. He’s special.” Her chest felt tight saying it aloud. “But to use a terrible metaphor, I’m not sure this leopard can change her spots.” How exactly did Ruby change hers?
Ruby tore off a small piece of bread and dabbed a smidgen of butter on it. “Basically men are tools.”
Cassandra did not believe her father was a tool.
“Then a woman like me meets someone like your father, and she’s suddenly willing to let him direct her. And when she lets go, lets him take over, he makes it perfect.”
What the hell did that mean?
Ruby laughed. “Too esoteric for you?”
“I do believe it is.”
“Let him tell you want he wants. And I bet you’ll find there’s a way to make it what you really want as well.”
The salads arrived. Their waiter had a busboy deliver them. They’d terrified him.
In the few moments that took, Ruby’s incomprehensible logic suddenly made sense. Cassandra had directed everything. She had made all the plans, decided what they would do with whom, when, and even how. She’d dragged Ward along simply assuming he would love it all. He hadn’t. Not all of it. But he’d loved some of it. And perhaps, if she didn’t push so hard and gave up the need to direct every single thing, they could find a compromise.
She held up her water glass to salute Ruby. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
Ruby had managed to tell her exactly what she needed to hear without really telling her anything at all.
* * * * *
“Sorry about last night.” Ward didn’t mutter, didn’t drop his eyes, maintained his cool.
“You’re in love with her.” Spence spun his pen on the table until it slowed, then stopped it to point directly at Ward.
The month-end shipping meeting had ended. Only Spence and Ward remained. Spence usually sent his customer service manager, but today, for some reason, he’d chosen to attend. Not some reason. This was the reason. So they could rehash what had—or hadn’t—happened in the motel room.
Ward didn’t answer the question directly. “It’s impossible to fall in love in less than two weeks.”
“Of course it’s possible.” Spence cocked his head. “Not for someone like me. I’m too cynical. But you”—he stabbed a finger in Ward’s direction—“are a romantic.”
He hadn’t been a romantic since his divorce. “I don’t know what I am.”
“I knew you couldn’t go through with a threesome.”
“So why’d you agree to it in the first place?” It would have been a hell of a lot easier if Spence had just said no.
“Because you needed to make the decision.” He picked up the pen, clicked it closed, and slid it into his pocket. “Did you tell her you love her?”
“I said I don’t know what I’m feeling.”
“Are you afraid you can’t meet her needs? Because she’s definitely a hot little number.”
“Je-sus. You’re an asshole.”
Spence merely smiled. “I am. And therefore I would be able to handle a woman like that without getting all tangled up in emotion.”
“A woman like what?”
Spence merely raised one eyebrow and shot him a wry smile. “A woman who thinks a threesome is hot. That’s not your typical female.”
Cassandra was anything but typical. He knew exactly what she was. She would never be easy. She would never let him be the boss. No, for her, he would always be the cuckold. She might actually attempt to emasculate him. But he still wanted her. The thought of going back to the life he’d had made his chest ache. If that was love, then he was in love.
“You’re right,” he said. “She’s not typical. But I am. I’ve got a strong suspicion the difference between us is too big to work out.”
Spence leaned back in his chair and propped his foot on his knee. “Have you ever gone on an actual date with her? I mean, dinner, dancing, whatever.”
“No.”
“Why don’t you try that first before you simply throw in the towel after barely two weeks?”
Cassandra wasn’t a dinner-and-dancing kind of woman. She’d be more likely to want him to put his hand up her skirt under the tablecloth. And Christ if that image didn’t make him hot.
Spence was a ladies’ man. He picked them up in bars. He enjoyed one-night stands. He didn’t do dinner and dancing, though he wasn’t above wining and dining. He hadn’t done the relationship thing in the three years Ward had known him. But he was right about one thing. Ward had given up in a little over two weeks. All because of this goddamn sense of inadequacy he’d harbored since his divorce, suffusing him with a healthy dose of fear that Cassandra would do the same thing as his wife, leave him for his best friend.
Was that why he’d let Cassandra dictate the terms of everything they’d done? He’d allowed her to plan and strategize his every move. He’d followed her around like the proverbial love-sick puppy. Or a smitten hound dog. It truly was pathetic.
He could remain a dog for the rest of his life, ruled by his fears and inadequacies. Or he could start acting like a man. It was time he made a few plans of his own. Dinner and dancing? He had no clue. Lasagna? He had to laugh at the thought of wooing Cassandra with his cooking.
But there was something else she wanted badly. And he would show her he was the only man who could give it to her.
Chapter Fourteen
Ward texted her Friday morning before she’d decided what she wanted to say when she called him. Her heart actually leaped when she saw his name on the small screen. She’d thought it was something that happened only in romance novels, but for the first time, it happened to her.
“9:00 Hotel Neapolitan in the bar.”
It was the fanciest hotel on the Peninsula. He wasn’t done with her. It was actually a relief. She’d grown used to him and the things they did together, the way he made her feel, the heightened excitement when he watched her with that dark gleam in his eyes. She didn’t want to give any of that up. Of course, he might be planning to dump her—with that thought, her stomach dropped sickeningly—but if so, why meet her in a hotel bar? No. Ward had something else in mind. No man had ever planned anything for her. She was always in charge. She couldn’t wait to find out what he intended.
Ten seconds later, he hit her with another text: “And put several condoms in your purse.”
Oh yeah, he definitely had something else in mind.
Luckily Holt and Ruby had gone out for dinner—at least that’s what she assumed—and she had the house to herself. She really needed to move everything out of her L.A. apartment soon and find a place up here.
Running a steaming tub, she poured her mango bath salts into the water. It reminded her of the first morning when Ward had found her. The first morning, that’s how she thought of it, the morning when things had changed, even if she didn’t know exactly how yet.
The flashy fuchsia dress she chose was tight in the bodice, long and flowing in the skirt, with a slit straight up the center. When she walked her thighs played peekaboo with the folds of the fabric.
Heads turned as she entered the hotel lobby. Men stopped dead in their tracks. A bellboy nudged his buddy. A group of smartly dressed ladies gaped.
“What a gorgeous dress.” An older yet elegant blonde fawned over it.
“I designed it myself.” Cassandra stopped long enough for a pleasantry and to give each of the four women her card. She never missed a business opportunity.
The hotel was an open, modern plan, with floor-to-ceiling windows, black marble floors, bronze statues reminiscent of Rodin’s Thinker, and huge pots of exotic flowering plants. The wide curving hallways on either side of Re
gistration led to the ballrooms on one end and the conference facilities on the other. Cassandra took the escalator to the mezzanine level where the bar and restaurants were located.
The hotel bar was ultra modern, all black, chrome, mirrors, and brilliantly colored exotic blooms. The bar itself and all the tables were topped with marble.
The place was 90 percent full. The chink of glasses on marble and the bark of male laughter accompanied by higher-pitched female voices made a cacophony trapped by the tall ceiling.
Ward was seated alone at a corner table, and her heart leaped again just as it had when she’d received his text. She had it bad. Reflected candlelight flickered in the lenses of his glasses. His shirt was crisply white, his black suit jacket snugly fit across his shoulders. The man was a perfectly complete package. She was wet with anticipation.
He’d ordered her a champagne cocktail, the bitters pinkening the sparkling liquid, a sugar cube still fizzing at the bottom.
“I’m not a champagne drinker,” she said as she laid her evening bag on the table and sat. The slit of the dress fell open over her knee when she crossed her legs.
“You are now.” He slid the flute across the table. Beside it lay a room key on the cocktail napkin.
Ooh. That was the name of the game, Ward Takes Charge. And it involved a room. Cassandra didn’t debate her course of action. She didn’t wonder what letting him take control would entail. She simply picked up the glass and sipped. “That’s actually quite good.”
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