Riches to Rags Bride

by Myrna Mackenzie

  She hazarded a glance at Lucas, who was looking like a dark thundercloud. “You don’t have to tell me this,” he said.

  “I know. I want to.” She rushed on, afraid she wouldn’t be able to finish if she didn’t get it all out at once. “Of course, the amount of money I was supposedly throwing away was small compared to what he was siphoning off on the side, but the story served its purpose as camouflage. By the time my fortune was gone and he had disappeared, leaving no trace of what he had done or where he had gone, everyone thought that I was an out-of-control shopping addict and a spoiled rich brat who had run through her parents’ fortune. I believe there were even rumors that some of my money went for drugs. I’m not sure I ever even realized all the lies that he fabricated about me.

  “But when he was finished…he had apparently been quite convincing. I still remember going into a store on a legitimate errand and having my credit card denied, because there was no more money. That was how I found out. It was a store where everyone knew me. I gave them another card and had the same results. Then, I tried to ask questions, to plead my innocence, but the pitying, disgusted looks the clerks and the other shoppers gave me and the comments they made were…” Genevieve shuddered. “I don’t like to shop anymore and I restrict my excursions to the basics. Mostly food. All the rest…I became an embarrassment to my friends and acquaintances. I like nice things, but I’m fine with what I already have, thank you.”

  Lucas’s dark gaze was almost brutal. “If your friends considered you an embarrassment because they fell for a con man’s lies, then those friends weren’t worth keeping. Especially when you were blameless.”

  “I wasn’t blameless. I was an idiot. This is the twenty-first century—I’m a modern woman. Yet, I let Barry make all the decisions and didn’t question a thing.”

  “Everyone trusts the wrong person now and then.”

  Genevieve wondered who Lucas had trusted. He no longer trusted that deeply and probably never would. He probably would never have shared his Angie story with her yesterday if he hadn’t felt that she, as project manager, would need to have ready answers for the inevitable questions.

  “Maybe if I had a history of being accomplished and independent and smart about money and people, I and everyone else could simply write off my situation as merely an anomaly, one mistake in a sea of good decisions. But I don’t have that strong history. I had lived my whole life with my parents, doing their bidding, a bit like a ventriloquist’s puppet. I made it easy for people to think I was the kind of person who would flip out and go wild when I got my first taste of freedom.”

  “Public humiliation cuts deep and I can’t tell you how to handle your situation, Genevieve, but whenever my pride has taken a blow, I’ve found that facing my opponents down is the best thing to do,” he said.

  Because of what he’d told her yesterday, she knew this wasn’t just garden-variety well-meaning advice he was giving her. As a child, he’d been hurt by the very people who should have cared for him, repeatedly. He’d had people he loved turn their backs on him. It was so much more than his pride that had been damaged.

  “How did you do it?” she asked softly. “How did you survive all that and come out a serious winner? You always look so confident.”

  He shrugged as if it was nothing, but she’d heard his voice go thick yesterday. It hadn’t been nothing. He’d simply learned to control his outward reactions, not his memories.

  “Don’t give me any trophies, Genevieve. I haven’t done anything anyone else couldn’t do. It’s all about appearances, training your body to project confidence. With a bit of practice, you can mask the memory of that hurt and make people see only what you want them to see. No one will ever know that a jerk of a man once stole something precious from you.”

  He was frowning intensely. She knew he wasn’t talking about the money. And he had her half-convinced this lesson was all about changing her life…until she remembered how she’d felt that day. Like a shoplifter, a fraud, a cheat.

  “Don’t look like that,” he warned.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re going to make up an excuse to back out on me. This conversation might have started with me wanting you to buy some jeans but now that I know just how much of a jerk Barry was, this little shopping trip is about so much more. I certainly wouldn’t mind helping you get back some of your own. Wouldn’t you like to walk into that store where everyone gave you those sneering looks and give them the queen treatment?”

  “The queen treatment?”

  “The ‘you may kiss my hand’ looks.”

  Genevieve sucked in a breath. “I never did that, even when I had money.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Still, it’s important to get back on your horse and ride when you’ve had a spill. Didn’t you tell me that you intended to be your own woman, beholden to no one?”

  “I do.”

  “Gen, as far as you’ve come, as much as you’ve accomplished running the show here at Angie’s House, you’ll still never be the woman you want to be if you’re terrified of walking into a store for fear that everyone will think that you’ll lose control or that they’ll throw you out because you have no money.”

  “I have money,” she said. “You paid me.”

  He smiled. “Exactly.”

  “I’m still not sure about this.”

  “I am. Consider it the next step to reclaiming your independence.”

  And how could she argue with that? Her independence was all that mattered, wasn’t it? The fact that Lucas smiled at her in a way that made her heart start misbehaving was immaterial. She hoped. As long as she didn’t pay attention to her heart, she should be all right. Shouldn’t she?

  So, Genevieve hadn’t had an easy time this past year, Lucas mused as he watched her purchase the one pair of jeans and one blouse she had insisted was all she needed. She’d lost everything she’d once had, including the people who had loved her; she’d had a jerk of a fiancé who had totally betrayed her. And she was completely alone. She’d been kicked around.

  He knew what that was like. After his mother’s desertion, his father’s death, being cast off by foster parent after foster parent, he’d had to scramble to stay afloat emotionally. He’d been betrayed and he’d learned to be the betrayer; he’d gotten mean, but he knew that some people, innocent people like Angie or Genevieve, weren’t ever going to be the mean type. They were easy prey, easily hurt.

  She had no experience with the tough stuff that had been handed to her, and so she was like a defenseless puppy some idiot had decided to torture. And he hated that. That must be why he had a raw need to see Genevieve reclaim her pride.

  Watching her now, he couldn’t help feeling…good, proud, exultant. She had, at his suggestion, very publicly paraded around the store, trying on many pairs of jeans before eventually settling on the ones she’d chosen in the first five minutes.

  “If they think you’re out of control with a charge card, lead them on a little by putting on a show. Then you’ll prove them wrong and get back a little of your own when you make only a modest purchase,” he suggested. “Never give them what they expect. You want to be the one who retains control of the situation. By bobbing and weaving and doing the unexpected—like a prizefighter—you’ll never let them have a chance to hurt you.” Now she was putting words to deeds.

  “Just these two items,” she said to the salesperson, holding out the debit card Lucas had provided for her.

  The woman at the register looked at the name on the card, then quietly excused herself and went away. In search of a manager, he was sure. Obviously, Genevieve’s name was on a list of those with less than optimum credit ratings. To Gen’s credit, even though he could tell that she was incredibly self-conscious and uncomfortable, she stood tall, no hint of her inner turmoil on her usually expressive face. She waited, pretending to look at other items he knew she had no intention of buying. Eventually, the sales clerk returned.

  “I’m sorr
y this took so long,” the woman said. “Computer problems today, you know.”

  “Is there…a problem with the card?” Genevieve asked, sweetly, staring directly at the woman as he had told her to do.

  The woman looked away slightly, then shook her head. “No, not at all. It went through with no trouble. Thank you for your business, Ms. Patchett.” She bagged the purchases and handed the bag to Genevieve. “Come back soon.”

  Genevieve flashed her an impish smile, but she didn’t commit to anything. When she and Lucas were outside the store, she let out a long breath. “Okay, tell me, what did I buy? I was too nervous to pay much attention.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t believe you for a minute, but I applaud you. No one could have told that you were nervous. You handled yourself well, and no one looked down their noses at you.”

  She smiled. “I never thought that shopping could become such an intimidating experience, but then I never thought about a lot of things until this year. I lived a very protected life, I think.” She wrinkled her nose.

  “Nothing wrong with living a sheltered life.”

  “Except it keeps you from learning how to actually live and take care of yourself. But that’s all behind me now. Soon I’ll be a fully armored female. Invincible. Able to handle any situation. Thank you for the pep talk and the lesson. You knew just what you were talking about.”

  He shrugged. “I learned early in life how to stick my chin out and stare people in the eye, even when it would have been smarter to back down.”

  She stopped and stared at him. Uh-oh, he shouldn’t have said that. “Those foster parents you had, the ones who walked away…what did they do when you stared them in the eye?”

  Oh, no, he knew that look. He’d seen it a thousand times, and he had always hated it. It was the “let me make you my next pet project” look.

  “Nothing you need to worry about. I’m not a boy anymore.”

  She opened her mouth as if to argue.

  “Seriously. Don’t say anything,” he said, and without thinking he placed his fingertips over her lips. Bad mistake. Her mouth was soft, warm, incredibly tempting.

  “I won’t,” she promised, ignoring his command to stay quiet. Her movement sent that pretty mouth sliding against the pads of his fingers. He wanted to groan. Instead, he smiled as he pulled away from her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Do you often do the opposite of what you’re told?”

  Genevieve blinked. “Actually, I spent most of my life doing exactly as I was told. My parents were very absorbed in their work. They wanted a quiet, well-behaved child who would fade into the background and not be a bother, and I complied. I think I thought that if I did everything they asked of me, maybe they would notice me, even love me. But hey, you can’t have everything you want, can you?” She smiled, a brave smile, as if trying to comfort him for having to listen to her misfortune.

  A black mist seized his soul. It was one thing for someone like him who had kicked his way out of the womb, fists swinging, and who had continued to fight the world, to be denied love. He had fought, sworn, stolen, run away and generally been trouble to everyone. He’d deserted Angie in her hour of need. He didn’t deserve love. But someone soft and earnest like Genevieve?

  He wanted her to win, to have what she needed.

  She looked at him with those big green eyes full of hope.

  He groaned. He fought himself. And then he lost control. He pulled her into his arms, plunging his fingers into her hair as he kissed her. “Why do you hide your beautiful hair like this?” he grumbled, but he didn’t wait for her to answer. Her mouth called to him and he had to taste her again.

  She was sweet, she was heaven in his arms, her curves against his body. He wanted more of her. And he got what he wanted when she returned his kiss.

  He pulled her closer, kissed her more. Then he pulled away. “I’m not going to be like Barry,” he said. “I want you. I want this from you. But I’m not going to overstep the bounds. I don’t want to be another man you’ll regret when I’m gone. I’m not a part of your plans.”

  “You’re not,” she agreed, her palms resting lightly against his chest, making him crazy, testing his self-control. “You’re not in my plans. No man is. But…”

  He waited.

  “But sometimes you’re in my fantasies,” she whispered as she rose on her toes and kissed him again. “I try to control those, because I’m sure it would be a mistake to kiss you too often.”

  And that night she was in his fantasies, too. As she had been ever since he’d met her. It didn’t change a thing. Genevieve was coming off of a major hurt. Two major hurts if you included her genius parents, who had been clueless about caring for a child. He wasn’t going to be another person hurting her. For her sake. And his. He didn’t think he could take damaging another person. Especially not Gen.

  Besides, he wasn’t in her plans. Never would be. He needed to keep that in mind.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A WEEK LATER GENEVIEVE stood in the gold-and-white banquet room of Lucas’s hotel, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Any moment now, people were going to start filing through the doors. Or at least she hoped they would. She was almost ready to faint from the tension, wondering if people would come out of curiosity or stay away because, after all, who was she? Not her artist parents by a long shot. Not anyone important, really. She ran her hands down the slender lines of her strapless pale blue sheath, trying to calm herself, to appear poised. As if that was even possible.

  And Lucas? He looked cool as ever in formal black and white, totally uninvolved. But by now Genevieve was beginning to know him a bit better. This project meant a lot to him. The fact that he was hiding the tension he must be feeling was just a testament to how well he’d trained himself. He always had his finger on the control button.

  Except when he kisses a woman. Then he loses it. The thought just dropped right in there, catching Genevieve by surprise. Was she blushing? She must be blushing. Lucas was looking concerned.

  “Everything looks fantastic, Gen. You outdid yourself. The framed photos you took of Angie’s House look superb. The room, the food, the wine…it’s all perfect. I hope you know that, so there’s nothing to worry about. We’re just going to wade right in and do this thing, all right? We’re going to make it happen.”

  She nodded, aware that her focus felt different tonight. In the space of a few weeks she’d gone from simply wanting a job in order to save herself to needing to help Lucas. Because this charity was his salvation. The stakes had been upped. And the fact that she cared so much about his part of the outcome tonight…?

  She wasn’t going to even examine that scary thought. “I just hope that the invitations I sent out were enough to attract some curiosity seekers.”

  He smiled although it wasn’t the full-bodied smile he had gifted her with the other day. “I especially liked the part of the invitation where you referred to ‘some previously unseen’ Patchett art. Very provocative.”

  Genevieve took a deep breath. “Yes, well I might have stretched the limits a bit with that one. There really isn’t any previously unseen art. At least none that my parents would have allowed anyone to display in a gallery. I have a few things they hadn’t gotten around to trashing when they died. If they knew I was doing this, they would come back to life just to berate me for it.” She nodded toward a display area she had set up in the middle of the room. There were a few drawings, a few sculptures, some glasswork and a stack of their notes concerning projects they hadn’t gotten around to starting. “Not very interesting stuff to an aficionado and yet it was the only draw I could think of. Moreover…” He waited.

  “I’m not an artist, but I spent a lot of time listening at art shows. My parents were very good at what they did, most of the time, but sometimes they talked up their pieces in such a way that people thought the work was even better than it actually was. I’m counting on that sort of scenario this time, hoping the guests will s
ee what they want to see rather than the reality. If they don’t, we’re sunk. They’ll just get angry at the misrepresentation and refuse to back any project we’re involved in. What will happen if no one steps forward tonight and offers to sponsor another project?”

  He breathed in a deep, tight, long breath. “I can still manage to fund and staff one or two more projects.”

  But she already knew that he wanted and needed to do more. This initial project was the mother ship, but there were women all over the country who needed a place to heal and grow. They had become his penance, a way to get over his past.

  “So, we’ll just have to get more donors tonight,” she said, closing her eyes and trying not to let the pressure get to her. She’d never sold anyone on anything in her life.

  He gently placed his fingertips on her bare arm. “Gen, stop pressuring yourself. You’ve gone above and beyond what anyone could ask for in organizing this event and you’ve come up with a stellar guest list. If you think I’m going to blame you if people choose to be less than generous with their checkbooks tonight, you’re wrong.”

  “I don’t think that.” Even though it was what her parents would have done. When a gallery opening didn’t go well, they had always been ready with plenty of criticism for the nonartist in the family, the one who must have messed something up. But Lucas? He wasn’t like that. He was even letting her off the hook for the most demanding part of the night because he thought she would feel like a failure if the evening didn’t go well.

  Because you’re standing here with your eyes closed, taking deep breaths, you idiot. No wonder he’s worried about you. You’re talking about a man who feels he failed his mother because he was a difficult child. He thinks he drove foster parents out of the system because he was too out of control. His formative years were spent being told that he was too horrible to love. And he can’t forgive himself for what happened to Louisa. So, do not be a ninny and become one more woman on the list in his guilt book. Which was what would happen if she didn’t get her act together.