Riches to Rags Bride

by Myrna Mackenzie

  Her arm came around his waist. Her head tilted back. She returned his kiss, pleasing him. Very much. A tiny moan escaped her.

  As if the sound had awakened her and brought her back to reality, Genevieve tore her lips away from his. She brought her hand up to her mouth. Her eyes grew even bigger. Scared. “No,” she whispered. “I absolutely can’t do this.”

  Lucas recognized guilt the moment he saw it. He lived with it every day, and this moment, this day, would no doubt heap more guilt upon all that he already carried.

  “You didn’t do anything,” he said. “I did. Please don’t worry about this. Don’t even think about it. It’s all on me. I stepped well over the line. I apologize for touching you.”

  And because he was afraid that he might touch her again, scare her more, worry her more, he turned and walked away.

  The truth was that he had done everything wrong with Genevieve from the start. He had hired her when he shouldn’t have, given her too much work, not understood her situation, forced his will on her by making her move here, and now he had kissed her. His self-control had been compromised from day one.

  That was going to have to stop. From now on he needed to realize that the two of them had to work in concert. Only by succeeding at this job and standing alone would she claim that independence she craved. Only by completing this task and moving on to the next and the next could he begin to make amends for his past transgressions. When this was over, she needed to move on. He needed that, too.

  No more touching, he told himself. But he still craved another taste.

  Genevieve stared in the mirror. She touched her aching lips. Something had happened back there with Lucas.

  “A lot of somethings,” she whispered. First of all, she had seriously messed up, allowing her daydreaming ways to get in the way of doing her job well. The room was a mess and she intended to fix it.

  But more important than that was the other. Not the kiss. She wouldn’t think about the kiss. It had been too overwhelming, too wonderful, too insane, too…everything. Thinking about kissing Lucas—or worse, kissing him again—would make her crazy. As it was, her nerves were tingling. If she hadn’t somehow recalled herself, she would have been totally lost in his arms and then…

  “Then, nothing, you idiot.” Because that was what happened with Lucas. She’d been warned. Women tripped over each other trying to get to that incredible mouth of his and then he got tired of them. He moved on. Always. Always. And anyway, she did not want a man, did she?

  “No, I can’t want a man.” Certainly not Lucas.

  Yet here she was, doing what she had forbidden herself to do. Thinking about the kiss.

  So Gen forced herself to remember the other, the way Lucas, a man who exuded power and control had been so angry at the thought that he might have harmed her that he let that famous control slip. She’d seen the pain behind the mask.

  Lucas wasn’t a man without feelings, as some thought. He was a man who didn’t want to feel. He kept it bottled up. What had he said? That line about how a man like him should have learned how easy it was to hurt a woman? Apparently, he had regrets, bad memories of past relationships. He wasn’t as cold as people said he was.

  And there it was. Another brick in the wall that separated her from Lucas. Because if she fell in love with him and got hurt when he left her…

  “I’ll be a part of his pain,” she said. Like Rita. Like… Angie? Was there a real Angie?

  Don’t think about it. Don’t go there. And don’t get too close to him. It was immensely clear that any personal involvement between her and Lucas could only end up badly for both of them. Best to keep her distance.

  A full hour after he had pulled Genevieve into his arms, Lucas was still agitated. He’d removed himself from the house to the yard, had taken off his jacket and was concentrating on splitting wood for the fireplaces for the winter. But the physical activity wasn’t chasing away his irritation.

  What had he been thinking? Lucas thought, slamming the ax into the wood so hard that the two halves flew across the yard. He never got involved with his employees; he certainly never had anything to do with potentially vulnerable women. Yet he had kissed Gen, a move that was surely only going to complicate things in major ways.

  What was a man to do in such circumstances?

  “Man up,” he muttered, setting up another log and cleaving it cleanly in two. “Apologize.”

  But he’d already done that. It didn’t feel like enough. The only thing to do now was move on. Never touch her again. Stop looking at her as a woman. At all.

  Just do whatever you can to make this project move forward, make this project successful and get everything done and out of the way.

  Then he would finally feel as if he deserved some small degree of absolution. By helping a few women forge a path back to happiness, he could find some solace.

  But to do that he had to stop sidestepping time spent with Genevieve and just…get down to business. Surely if he kept his head down, his nose to the grindstone, and never touched her again, they could both walk away from this situation reasonably satisfied in just a few weeks.

  CHAPTER SIX

  GENEVIEVE LOOKED at her watch. Rats! She was running behind again. Ever since she’d moved in, ever since Lucas had kissed her, the two of them had been working at a feverish pace to finish everything before they opened the doors to Angie’s House and Lucas moved on to France.

  And until I…do what? she wondered. But there wasn’t even time to worry about that. Thank goodness. Thinking about her future filled her with determination but also with trepidation and doubts. At least doing her job kept her mind off all that.

  And off the memory of Lucas kissing her.

  “Stop that,” she ordered herself.

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught Jorge looking at her, and she gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry. Sometimes when I’m tense or rushed, I talk to myself.”

  He shrugged and returned her smile. “I noticed. You’ve been talking to yourself a lot lately. Lots of stress around here. Even Lucas has been talking to himself and that’s not like him. I worked with him here when he opened one of his stores. I think this place—” Jorge gestured toward the wall “—means a lot to him. He told me it was special. I wonder if there really is an Angie. Why did he choose that name?”

  “Maybe it’s just a name, Jorge. And anyway, I’m sure that Lucas would have told us if he wanted us to know more.” But she had wondered the same thing, she thought, as Jorge agreed and went on his way.

  Truly she had wondered about whether there was an Angie too much, too often. Repeatedly. Especially since she knew that this was the first such project Lucas had taken on and he spoke of it with such fervor. Especially since she’d glimpsed that pain in his eyes. She hoped that all of the wondering she’d been doing didn’t have anything to do with how Lucas had made her feel when he’d kissed her crazy.

  Because that kiss couldn’t matter. It was almost as if it had never happened in Lucas’s eyes. Because once he’d apologized, he made it a point to keep his distance from her. He’d very politely told her that in order to speed up the project, she should feel free to use him in whatever way she needed to. Then he’d given her a curt nod and walked away. Now, although they saw more of each other than they had in those first few days, they kept their personal interactions brief. Nonexistent, really.

  He handled the financial end of things, some of the more technical aspects of structure. She handled the big picture, the “what do girls like?” items, the pizzazz end of things.

  Those areas might have normally crisscrossed. They should have. Somehow, however, she and Lucas managed to keep a polite distance between them.

  At least she hoped she gave the appearance of polite distance. She hoped he never caught her staring at his mouth or his chest and remembering how it had felt to be in his arms.

  A buzzer went off at that moment, sending her thoughts flying. “Darn it,” she said, looking at the reminder
that appeared on her phone. She was supposed to be meeting with some of the neighbors over coffee tomorrow and she needed to finalize the food. That she could manage. The other item on her to-do list, sending out the invitations to the “meet the elite” party Lucas had requested was more problematic. Her throat closed up at the enormity of the task. The people he would want and expect might have come at her parents’ calling. They wouldn’t come for the “no artistic talent” daughter of the Patchetts. They especially wouldn’t want to come to a party she was throwing if they had heard any of the rumors Barry had spread, and they surely had. Gossip expanded like bread dough in her parents’ inner circle. She was going to fail Lucas.

  For now she would concentrate on the coffee, the easy task. At least she’d thought it would be easy…until she showed up the next day and found herself fielding a barrage of questions.

  “Would you consider marrying me? These cookies are better than any I’ve tasted and you’re an extremely pretty lady. I think I’m in love.” Those were the words Lucas heard as he entered the backyard where Genevieve was holding court with the neighbors. He glanced to where she was talking to a handsome aging man.

  She was wearing a mischievous smile, and for a minute Lucas stood transfixed. It was hard to believe that any man—that rat ex-fiancé of hers—would intentionally hurt a woman like Gen. But then, I’ve hurt plenty of women, haven’t I? And if he followed his inclinations and chased Genevieve’s smiles, he would hurt her just like Barry had. Because in the end, he would still leave. And when they were done here, she needed her freedom and confidence, not some man born to disappoint her.

  He leaned on the fence and listened.

  “William, how many women have you asked to marry you today?” Genevieve said to the elderly man. “I’ll bet it’s been at least a dozen. But thank you so much for the compliment. If I could marry any man today, you’d be right at the top of my list. Unfortunately, I can’t marry anyone. And I’ll tell you a secret. I didn’t bake the cookies. I bought them.”

  The man clapped one hand over his heart in mock horror. “No marriage? No home-baked cookies? Oh, you’ve broken my heart, Genevieve.”

  “I know. It’s sad, but I’m sure another cookie or two will heal your heart. Even a store-bought cookie.”

  The man’s laugh rang out, ending the exchange, and Genevieve moved on to another group of people. Lucas watched as she charmed them, keeping the conversation light. This was to be a social gathering only. Nothing serious. Just putting people’s minds at ease by being friendly. He didn’t really even have a place here, but she had asked him to stop by just in case anyone insisted on asking questions she couldn’t answer.

  “Genevieve, thank you for inviting us,” one woman said. “This is so nice. I love all the pretty green and ivory umbrellas, and the food is delicious. I tell you, I’m glad to hear that you’re happy with the size of the house. We were afraid someone was going to tear the place down and build something even bigger.”

  “No. The footprint will remain the same,” Genevieve said, “and we’ll make this pretty yard even more luscious by adding plenty of flowers and some benches.”

  “Will you be living here then, you and your husband?” the woman asked. “I told William there that the two of you were most likely married. Or going to be married. You both spend so much time here.”

  That was when Genevieve faltered. She looked up into Lucas’s eyes, as if seeking him out. Or maybe she was just afraid that he had heard.

  Slowly, she was shaking her head, that pretty blush spreading up her throat. For some totally foolish, insane reason Lucas couldn’t understand, he wanted to hide her. He didn’t want anyone other than himself to see that intimate color that disappeared beneath the collar of her blouse. Which was, of course, ridiculous. He had no more right to think intimate thoughts of Gen than anyone here.

  “Lucas and I merely work together,” Genevieve finally managed to say. “I suppose I should explain a bit about why we’re here.”

  He couldn’t help smiling. She was always so honest. The script called for a brief neighborhood social hour followed by a mailing and then another question-and-answer meeting, no explanations given today.

  Well, so much for the script. This was a lot like Genevieve’s foray into painting. Wild and uninhibited and…interesting. She was always interesting. And so were her cookies, he thought, looking down at the plates filled with miniature works of art.

  But by then, she’d begun to speak. “This house is being transformed into a very special place,” she began. “A place that will offer hope to people who need it very much and a place that will, I’m sure, be a credit to your wonderful, beautiful neighborhood.”

  “Hmm,” one man said. “That sounds like a lead-in to something I’m not going to like. This is going to be some sort of home for people we won’t want in our neighborhood, isn’t it?”

  Lucas frowned at the man. Maybe he even growled or took a step forward, because Genevieve immediately sent Lucas a pleading glance. Which did no good. All Lucas could think of was his mother, who had been a lost soul, of Angie, who had had abuse heaped upon her, of…Genevieve living in a place where there were bars on the windows. A man like that one could raise an outcry, turn people against this project, stop it from happening.

  Stop Lucas from doing this thing he desperately needed and wanted to do. Lucas opened his mouth.

  “I suppose that might be true,” Genevieve said softly, halting Lucas’s speech. “That is, if you think someone like me would be bad for the neighborhood. This home will be called Angie’s House and it will house eight women like me. Ones who’ve had some hard times but want to raise themselves up. Women who need good, kind neighbors. Women who will work hard to win your trust and to become contributing members of the community.”

  She was putting words into the mouths of women she didn’t even know and yet…that was the goal of Angie’s House, wasn’t it?

  For two seconds, she looked into Lucas’s eyes. Was she looking for encouragement? He didn’t know, but he nodded. Although what he really wanted to do was challenge any man who questioned her, he knew that wasn’t what she wanted. Encouragement was all she would want to accept. You’re doing fine. He tried to convey the words with his expression.

  Which was ridiculous. He was not a sensitive man. He’d been told many times that he looked cold and foreboding. Reassurance wasn’t in his library of expressions.

  “So…are you Angie? Metaphorically, I mean,” a woman asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I am.”

  “Is there a real Angie?”

  “Must be. Why would they call it that if there wasn’t an Angie?” a man said.

  The questions came hard and fast, but most of them fixated on the name of the place. “Will the real Angie be coming here?” “Is she alive?” “Is she dead?” “Why did you call the place Angie’s House? What’s the story behind it?”

  Lucas felt himself closing up inside. He cursed himself for not anticipating this. Of course, people would be curious about the significance of the name. What had he been thinking doing things this way?

  And Genevieve… He’d put her in an uncomfortable position. She was supposed to be the all-knowing, all-seeing leader of this project and he had made her look bad by not giving her all the tools she needed.

  “I—” She looked up. He thought she was going to look straight into his eyes, but just as her gaze almost met his, she quickly looked away. “I’m sorry. I don’t know all the answers to your questions,” she said. And she didn’t promise that she would seek out the answers, either.

  “So what do you know?” someone asked. “Tell us everything we need to know. This is our home.”

  Lucas saw the struggle on her face as she tried to decide what to tell, what would turn this back into a warm, friendly situation.

  But at that moment, someone turned around and saw him leaning against the fence. “There’s that guy. He probably knows more.”

  Lucas frowned
. “I assure you, Genevieve is the person to answer your questions.”

  “But she doesn’t know all the answers.”

  “You’re wrong about that. She knows all the answers.”

  “She didn’t know who Angie was.”

  Lucas stared the man down. “She was protecting me, shielding my feelings. Angie was—” he took a deep breath “—a woman I once cared for.”

  “Will she be coming here? Is she still alive? Did she die a tragic death?”

  “Donald, that’s enough. The man obviously suffered a personal tragedy and it’s none of our business,” a woman who must have been his wife said.

  The man made a rude noise. “He named this place after her. This is our neighborhood. That makes it our business. Why should we, the neighbors, be the last to know?”

  The man had a point. There were people who deserved to know the story. Genevieve should know.

  “Angie isn’t alive, I’m afraid. She won’t be coming here.” Somehow he managed to keep his voice on an even keel. He managed not to look at Genevieve, because he was afraid that he would read pity in her eyes. “Are there any more questions?”

  “If there are, I’ll take over from here, Lucas…? Perhaps our neighbors would like to get a glimpse of what I’ve done with the ground floor.”

  “You don’t want to miss this,” he told the crowd. “Genevieve has a way of looking at a space, envisioning the people who will be occupying it and turning the place into something magical.” He stared at her as he said it. He meant every word. She had…a gift. And no matter what had happened here today, he wouldn’t let that gift be overlooked because what was to have been a social gathering had turned down a sad path.

  Genevieve looked back at him. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.” Then with a sad smile and a firm step, Genevieve led the group away.

  Lucas was left alone with his naked reality. He’d wanted to do some good while keeping his past private. Now the world would know his anguish. They’d pity him, and he had sworn—long ago—that he would never be an object of pity again. He needed…