“Fine, but I’m going to pay you back. May take me a few years to save up but you’re going to get back every dime.” When Lina just shrugged, irritating her further, she reluctantly followed her to the door.
Cassie inhaled the smell of clean air with a hint of some type of exotic flower. She’d always imagined it would be classy and she’d been right. As many times as she’d lingered in front of the windows to get a glimpse of their accessories, she’d never found the courage to just walk inside and have a look-see. Well, she was definitely inside now.
Shiny hardwood floors, modern area rugs, and fashion-show-worthy dresses skillfully arranged on white, headless and armless mannequins kept her eyes bouncing around. Recessed ceiling lights subtly underscored relaxing sitting areas, pristine white walls, and racks of colorful dresses lining the perimeter. Nope, this wasn’t Sears.
A sophisticated, professionally dressed woman approached. Her blonde hair was slicked back into a tight knot at the base of her neck and her makeup was perfect. Elegant earrings graced her ears and an expensive watch glittered from her slender wrist. Her black, knee-length sheath dress completed the stunning picture. Cassie was happy to see the warm smile and inviting, brown eyes passing no judgment, just a genuine welcome.
“Hello, ladies. Are you looking for anything in particular? If not, please, take your time and look around. I’m sure we have something to fit your needs. Help yourself to the refreshments and if you require assistance with anything, let me know.”
Cassie looked over to where the pristine nails had indicated. A silver tea and coffee set, crystal sugar bowl, some type of fancy-looking rolls, and if she wasn’t mistaken, chilled wine sat perched on a cloth-draped table. Oh, yeah. She could get used to this.
“Thank you. Not sure what I have in mind, yet, but I’ll let you know.” She smiled warmly back at the lovely woman. She was refined and classy, but didn’t shove it down your throat or hold her nose up in disdain. Glancing over her shoulder, Cassie squelched a laugh as Lina waggled her brows, grinned like an idiot, and waved her toward the back.
Lina grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the back of the store. “Come on, let’s hit this wall first and we’ll work our way around.”
From that point, it was the Lina show. Lina quickly found her size and started flipping through the array of dresses, all floor-length, yet each unique. Her best friend knew she didn’t like pastels or flowery print, so those were immediately bypassed. As she watched her enthusiastic buddy work like a fiend through the long line, she glanced around and immediately froze. Tugging on Lina’s arm, she finally got her attention and pointed across the room.
“Would you look at that? It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen—besides your car.” Dragging Lina over, she dropped her friend’s hand and reached out to touch the material, reverently and with awe. It was unbelievably soft. Lifting the material, she was surprised at how light it felt, even with the additional lining. A deep burgundy, high waistline, sweetheart bodice sprinkled with subtle, yet strategic, accents of a lighter burgundy, and a lacy, mid-forearm, sleeved bolero jacket had her full attention. The immediately recognizable Mon Cheri Montage gown screamed elegance. She just hoped it would look as good on her as it did on the floor mannequin. Walking around the display, she gasped when catching sight of a sheer drape flowing from under the jacket and falling to hem level. “Lina! This is breathtaking!” Cassie lost the ability of speech when she saw the price tag hanging from the sleeve. She groaned and started to walk away. Lina caught her shoulders and pushed her back toward the dress.
“His exact order to me was, ‘Splurge.’ I think this should cover it. Humor me. Now be a good girl, close your mouth, and act like we do this all the time.
Chapter 6
Struggling to open her front door while juggling a thick, plastic-wrapped dress, shoebox bag, and other sundry items Lina had insisted on, Cassie managed to give her crazy-assed friend a little wave before she watched her drive away. Shoving into the door, she kicked it closed with her foot before heading to her bedroom.
Placing each item carefully on the bed, she stood back and shook her head, still unable to fathom the numbers that had popped up on the register. All that just for a dress, silk stockings, strapless bra, hair clasp, and stilettos. As soon as the final amount showed on the register, she felt like one of those cartoon characters whose eyeballs popped out a few feet followed by the sound of ahh-ooo-gah before the wayward, bouncing orbs slammed back into their sockets. She had to give Lina kudos for acting like it was nothing to drop that amount of money in under an hour. Cassie hadn’t even tried to pretend.
Throwing herself into that overstuffed chair and pouring a generous glass—or two—of wine had been mandatory for her sanity. To stop from embarrassing Lina any further, she’d struggled to keep from yanking everything from the fancy bags and forcing them back on the mannequin and up on the shelves. However, just looking at Lina’s happy face, she knew this was a gift, never to be repaid, never to be mentioned again, and never to be tied to guilt. She would have to take Lina’s advice to just shut up and enjoy. Well, at least Lina wasn’t going to get that spanking now, or maybe she was.
After shoving all her hanging clothes to the farthest part of the rod, she hung that Mon Cheri in there like it was a god damn visiting dignitary. She was pretty sure she would wake up in the morning and all of her “normal” clothes would be gone. Packed up, moved out, and picketing on her front lawn for having been dissed.
“Get over it.” She growled to the items cowering in the dark corner. “You’ll get to be front and center after tomorrow when this one gets shoved to the back. Worn once and soon forgotten.” She cringed as soon as the words left her mouth. What a waste! Maybe she’d wear it around the house for a month and pretend she was rich and waiting for guests to show up for tea. She finally decided to quit kicking her own butt for having a generous friend. Thankful Lina had fed her, Cassie wandered through her silent house before plopping on the sofa and grabbing the remote. Mindlessly flipping through channels, she finally threw it to the side when nothing appealed to her sense of restlessness. Two hours of needlepoint finally got a yawn out of her.
Grabbing a quick shower and throwing on an oversized T-shirt, Cassie crawled into bed and flicked off the light. With nothing to stare at except the inside of her buzzing brainpan, she assessed the last two crazy days. Again, she fought from calling Severus to check the level of his irritation but found she was just too tired to deal if she found out he didn’t want to talk to her. Hell, he was probably at the club, waist-deep in drooling women desperate to be twirled against his hard body on the dance floor. The thought was too difficult to stomach. She lifted her internal finger at the green-eyed monster and told it to back the fuck off before she knocked her head in the wall just to give it a lights-out event.
“Oh, great. Thanks for the trigger, Cassie.” Cue the lights and grab the snacks. The MGM lion roared and her inner movie screen flickered up the old-time classic Cassie liked to call Welcome to Your First Relationship. She would have used Titantic, but that one was already copyrighted.
Zoom in on the parents—and that title was loose at best—Doreen and Mitchell Wells. Cassie was always the silent observer, never the referee in their world-class boxing matches. She couldn’t count the number of times her mother had gone full-on banshee when Mitchell had come stumbling into the house reeking of booze and perfume. Doreen was beautifully righteous in her jealousy, but doomed in the resolutions. She remembered cowering in her room if she was fortunate enough to turn shadow, hug the walls, and sneak by the fray. She couldn’t quit shaking until a door would slam and she knew Mitchell had left. That door slamming only announced the end of a round, but never the conclusion of the match. At least there was enough of a reprieve for her to straighten whatever room they had used as a ring and pat her mom’s hand until she quit crying.
Maybe it was for the best just to let go of whatever this was with Severus. She didn’t think he w
ould ever physically hurt her that way, but maybe Doreen thought the same thing of Mitchell. Who knew since the dead can’t talk. Cassie heard the sounds of flesh smacking against flesh and her mom’s whimpering cries, and her attention immediately pulled back to that infernal screen, whether she wanted to watch or not.
The same old images of her mom’s frail body splashed the screen. Yes, there she was, struggling up from the floor and moving slowly across the room after they were left alone in the aftermath. There were no obvious bruises to her face or arms, but she knew she was hurting somewhere. Inevitably, the love of her mother’s life would come back after several days, speaking softly to Doreen, whispering apologies, loving on her, and being very attentive. It wouldn’t take long for him to morph right back into the mean, drunken bastard he truly was. His words were lies to simply draw her back close enough to abuse her again, but her mom just didn’t seem to get it.
The last time he smacked her mom around he had obviously gotten lax in keeping it quiet. He had thrown her over the dining room table and smashed her head through the kitchen window—just because his favorite shirt was still in the laundry basket. Good old Dad was the poster child for anger management issues in her book. Boy was he surprised when the cops arrived and hauled him off to jail. That was the only part of the movie she enjoyed. Not surprisingly, he blamed her mom when he came back several days later, packed his shit and left. Doreen mourned her loss with a vengeance. She stood by the window for days, expecting to see him walk up the steps with a bunch of wilted flowers in his meaty hand as was usual in their macabre love dance. After weeks of futile window-watching, she dove into booze hell and eventually opted for chugging down a bottle full of pain meds. She never woke up. Cassie shoved on Doreen for two days before she let the mailman in to give it a go-round. He hadn’t had any better luck and called the cops.
Cassie dreaded the next scene. She knew this one had fucked her up good but couldn’t seem to put it to rest. It sat on her chest, heavy and unyielding. A moment in time left unfinished.
Cleaned up, hair combed, and sporting a pretty, new dress, she finally found herself in front of a dingy, green door with a number missing. She could tell because of the sticky glue still hanging around, like the number was just off on vacation and would return soon. Mitchell had opened that beat-to-shit door, took one look down at her, grunted, and then closed the door before the Child Protective Services worker had barely gotten two words out of her mouth. She would never forget the look on that sweet woman’s face. Those knowing eyes already assessing that her future was fucked and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
She was barely past the ripe age of six and already she was pegged as another cog in the long, vicious cycle of dysfunctional-family tilt-a-whirl. Seven years on that ride and she was as hardcore as the forgettable faces of the foster parents that let her in their pit stops while on her inevitable journey. That was when she had met Lina. Her bright outlook and unflagging tenacity to wheedle her way into the hearts of the most jaded foster parents had broken a little of her hard shell. Lina had been older before she had gotten sucked into the hell zone and the love her parents had obviously showered her with remained intact. Lina’s warmth drew her like a moth to a flame, thawing her frozen heart enough to allow one, and only one, person to park a squat and stick around.
Maybe that’s why she couldn’t get her sperm donor’s face out of her head. Having felt Lina’s unconditional love only confirmed how much it’d been lacking in her own home, toward her anyway. Her mother had loved Mitchell though. No matter how many times he looked at her with disgust or raised those big fists to prove a point, she never failed in murmuring, “I love you,” through busted lips and broken teeth. Cassie felt her body shudder and yelled at the projectionist to shut the crappy film down. She was tired of chewing on the same old popcorn.
“Shit!” She was better off keeping things light with guys that meandered in and out of her life. She figured the longer you stayed with someone, the bigger the chance for them to sink their claws into you, to make them love you until you were willing to grovel to keep them around. She was pretty sure that Mitchell’s boxed presentation had looked very fine at one point, his ugliness layered so deep that Doreen found herself past the point of no return before she got a glimpse. As much as she hated this irritating walk through memory lane, it did come with one benefit. No man would ever have that much control over her. If he called, fine. If he didn’t, just as fine.
* * * *
“This is Cassie Wells. You’ve reached Miles Sturdivant’s office. May I help you? Hello? Heeelllooo? Well, don’t just breath heavy, say something. Nothing? Okay, I can play. Let’s see. I hear traffic noises, so you’re in a city and outside. Could be a pay phone but then again I’d have seen a number on the caller ID, so I can safely assume you blocked your number from your cell phone before calling. You had to work hard at this, didn’t you? Did you get a brain strain from trying to figure out how devious you could be? Heeelllooo? Yup. Hung up. Jerk!”
Cassie placed the phone back in the cradle and rolled her eyes. What in the hell benefit was it for someone to call and not say a damned thing? She figured it wasn’t Marcus. He would’ve started sweet-talking the second after she said hello. Lord knows he’d done that enough times. She hadn’t called to give him the final kick to the curb, so he wouldn’t chance it yet. Couldn’t have been Severus. He was too much of an alpha male to pull that chick-lit crap. Oh, well. If they called back she planned to blow her whistle into the mouthpiece until their ears bled.
Already feeling restless and irritable from tossing and turning all night, Cassie took a deep breath, counted to ten and clicked the print icon again. She leapt up from the desk and hauled it around the corner to the printer-slash-break room. This would make her third trip and if her document was missing again she was going to hurt somebody. She had under an hour to get Mr. Sturdivant’s travel package together and this back-and-forth was costing valuable time. This go-round she printed both the schedule and the meeting notes just so the beast would still be chugging away when she got there. That would buy her time to stop whoever was doing snatch-and-grabs without checking to see if someone else’s was stuck to the bottom of —whap!
Cassie slowly peeled herself off a broad, muscular chest and out of a set of strong arms preventing her from an assured ass plant. She could only stare stupidly up at the solid wall of muscle that had greeted her in the break room.
Chapter 7
“Whoa! Hey sorry! I didn’t see you! Are you okay, Cassie?”
Leaning back against the wall, Cassie blinked a few times before she could make any sounds. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. No need to apologize. That was totally my fault. I shouldn’t have been running. Did I do any damage?”
Cassie stared questioningly at Victor Drexler’s retreating back as he walked over to the coffee pot. Dark blond hair touched the lower edge of his collar. It was long enough to run your fingers through and get a decent hold, she mused. His shoulders were broad and proportional to his tall frame. He was wearing a white, long-sleeved dress shirt with the material rolled up to his forearms. She was able to get a good look at the bunching muscles as he poured a cup. Never one to be shy, she also took an appreciative glance down at the tightly-packed ass muscles displayed in his black slacks.
But, did that nicely put together male package give her a little shiver, or a wayward thought of what it would feel like to get horizontal, happy slammed? Nope. Not a chance of that when her treacherous mind gleefully brought forth a life-sized, Severus ghost to superimpose over the guy. Severus won, hands down. No comparison. That ass may be grope worthy but ghost man’s is…
“Did you hear me, Cassie?”
“Huh, what? Oh, sorry. My mind drifted. What did you say?” She realized Victor was now facing her as he leaned back against the cabinet. His long legs were crossed at the ankles and his coffee cup sat on the counter with a trail of steam curling over the lip. He had beautiful, brown eyes f
ringed with thick, dark lashes, but they weren’t multifaceted with striations of blue, green, and brown. Oh hell, I need a damn exorcist.
“Why were you in such an all fired-up dash just to make it to the break room? You’re either running from something or to something.” Brilliant-white, even teeth flashed in his handsome face.
She couldn’t help but smile back. “Running to something. Trying to grab my printouts before they mysteriously grew legs again.”
Frowning, he pushed away from the cabinet, grabbed up a stack of papers from the top of the printer and started flipping through them. “Well, let’s see if they hung around this time. What did you print out? Hmmm…flight schedule, meeting notes—hey!”
Cassie swung the snatched papers behind her back and laughed. “Uh-uh, Victor. You may be Mr. Scofell’s paralegal but you don’t get to snoop at my boss’s stuff.”
Grinning back, he raised both palms up in surrender. “True, but everyone knows Sturdivant gets all the good cases. I’m drowning in permit and incorporation hell and need a distraction. What’s he got this time? High-profile ballplayer caught with his pants down? Superstar with a white powder nose problem? Ooohhh, I know! Mob boss caught on a wire? Have mercy, Cassie, I’m dying here.”
Cassie laughed at his antics. She’d have never guessed Victor had a sense of humor. He’d always appeared to be a stuffed shirt, but then again she had only spoken with him once when the senior law partner had introduced them a few weeks back. After that, he was either holed up in his office, scurrying from a boardroom, or heading out to the courthouse. “Nah, nothing that infamous. Just keeping an eye out for someone in the wrong place at the right time.”
His eyebrows rose and waggled. “Hey, that sounds intriguing. But, I can tell from your face that you aren’t going to budge no matter how much charm and cajoling I throw at you. Okay, I give. But before you head out, you mind looking through your stack and giving me the precedent for Clark versus Bowmen?”
Fueled by Lust: Severus (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 5
