Mr. Right Now (8 page)

No blue-checked mini-skirt. No pink toenails. She was gone.

Grimacing, he lifted the t-shirt from his waist and then disposed of the condom in a nearby trashcan. He stood and pulled his jeans over his hips. At least she had the decency to put the shirt over him so he wouldn’t scare any old ladies who might venture into the cabana to look at the stars.

Why did she run away like that?

Mason didn’t have an answer. His editor’s voice rang in his head.

Cassandra Cash chews up reporters and eats them for breakfast
.

She might make reporters’ lives hell, but she didn’t know he was a reporter. And sleeping with her wasn’t hell. Not even Purgatory. Sex with Casey was as close to heaven as Mason figured he’d ever get. God, she was so tight around him he thought he’d scream. No way she had turned any man off women. Just what was the ex trying to pull?

That didn’t solve the problem, of course. She was running from him.

He would just have to run her down, because he wasn’t close to finished with the small brunette.

He needed to come clean. Tell her he was a reporter, but maybe letting her know he wasn’t writing the story on her would soften the blow. Besides, she was lying to him, too. She didn’t tell him she was famous or that her books were on more coffee tables than Pledge.

Of course, he hadn’t really given her a chance. When he saw her looking from the newspaper to the crowd and back again, he knew it was her. Knew she was freaking out. And even without knowing her, he wanted to rescue her.

He went from coming on to her to nearly attacking her in the elevator and then to surprising her at her stateroom door. With several opportunities to tell her who he was, he hadn’t. At the thought of her, his cock went hard.

He couldn’t solve her problems for her. She was better off without him, but he wasn’t going to leave it like this. Mason Drury wasn’t a commitment kind of guy, but then, he didn’t do one-night stands, either.

Serial monogamy, that was his game. For the rest of this cruise, he was going to be monogamous with Casey Cash. Now, to convince her to be monogamous with him.

* * * *

The door to the passageway banged shut behind Casey and she leaned against it, exhausted. She wanted to escape to her room, but Tyler was probably there. He was being paid to be with her, but somehow she didn’t think he would appreciate her need to talk about screwing a stranger. Especially since he was the one she was supposed to be loving for the next week.

She straightened from the door, clutched her bag tighter and headed down the corridor. Forget Tyler. She needed to get to her room and get fully dressed. She couldn’t find her panties on the deck and her bra was stuffed inside her purse. She felt naked without those tiny essentials on her body.

Passing one of the large meeting rooms, she glanced inside. A crowd of people worked on balloon nets, and four more hung some kind of sign. No guests seemed to be around, at least not yet. Thank God.

They must be getting ready for a private party. She quickly slipped past the glass doors and continued down the hall. She needed to get away from the party before the guests showed up. She felt thoroughly fucked, in the best way possible, and was sure she looked it, too.

She should email Jane.

Casey dismissed that notion from her brain. She didn’t want to talk to Jane just now. Well-meaning or not, half of this problem was hers. She’d hired Tyler to help Casey forget Nate, and then a reporter got wind of the scheme. Now that she’d slept with him, Casey wanted Mason, a man who very well could end her reputation.

Except he seemed like a nice guy. Reporters were egotistical, not known for personal integrity. God, if Mason was the reporter, she had already given him more than enough ammunition against her. She couldn’t tell him about Tyler, too.

One more encounter like tonight and she would tell him anything. She’d been ready to tell him why she couldn’t see him again—all the details—up on deck. Not the smartest move she had made.

No. She needed to disappear from Mason Drury’s radar before she told him all her secrets and fell in love with his abilities between the sheets.

Sure, he knew where her room was, but she could ignore when he knocked. If she paid close attention to a room before she entered, she could probably avoid him for the rest of the cruise.

A crowd of men and women in near-formal wear exited the main ballroom, laughing and talking. Casey slunk to the side of the hall, letting them pass by. An elderly couple were the last ones out of the room.

The man paused, noticing her trying to disappear into the wall. He elbowed his wife and pointed.

“Mags, it’s
her
,” he said in a loud whisper.

Mags shook her head and tried to pull him away. The old man stepped forward.

“Excuse me,” he said. His voice was rough, as if he were getting over a cold. Casey couldn’t tell if he was sick, or if it was just his age. “You’re Cassandra Cash, aren’t you?”

A blush heated her cheeks as she stepped away from the wall, running a hand through her hair. Busted. Wonderful.

Pasting a smile on her face, she nodded. “Yes.” She held out her hand and it disappeared in the healthy grip of the older man’s.

“I knew it. I told you it was her,” he said, turning to his wife. “Mags, can you believe it? Before the party and everything.”

She smiled at the older woman, who looked apologetically back at her and then expelled a breath.

Here it comes
.

The older man looked excitedly at her. “I’m Eddie, this is Maggie.” He pointed at his wife. “I just wanted to let you know, we love your books. You saved our sex life...it was like you looked into our world. Like you knew us, or at least Mags,” he gushed.

“Eddie,” Maggie said, drawing out his name and grabbing Eddie’s hand. She tried to pull him down the passageway.

He resisted for a moment, but Maggie’s grip was too strong. “But I wanted to tell her about our problems back when—”

“She doesn’t need to hear about our problems. She’s a nice young girl. She doesn’t want to be bothered.”

“It’s okay,” Casey said before she could stop herself. “I like meeting people. It’s one of the nice things about being a writer.”

“But you’re not here on a book tour, other than the party tonight, I mean. You want to be left alone.” Mags pulled on Eddie’s arm, and he reached out with his other arm to pat Casey on the shoulder.

“Your books are great,” he said.

Casey felt like she’d been punched in the gut, but in a good way. Tears threatened at the corner of her eyes and she caught her breath. They liked her. Even with the baggage piling up behind her, they liked her.

“Let’s leave the poor girl alone,” Mags said, pulling Eddie with her down the hall.

“But I wanted to tell her before—” The rest of his words were cut off when the two got into the elevator down the hall.

Huh. That was nothing like she’d imagined. Not one question about Nate or their break-up.

Maggie and Eddie made a cute couple. They reminded Casey of her grandparents. Ewww, now she would have an image of her grandparents having sex with her book on the nightstand. She shook herself and put the thought out of her mind.

Smiling, Casey continued down the hall. She would take the next stairway down to her room. Maybe Tyler wouldn’t be there. If he was, she would just ask him to leave. For a little while, at least.

Rounding the corner, Casey jogged down the steps and turned right. She stuck her keycard in the door, but nothing happened. Turning it over, she saw why.

She’d grabbed a business card from her purse instead of the plastic key. Rolling her eyes, Casey chuckled and turned it over.

Her heart stopped.

The business card read
Drury and Sons Plumbing
and had several New York prefixes listed. It must have fallen from Mason’s wallet when he dropped it on the chair.

He wasn’t the reporter?
Great judgment strikes again, Casey. You just ran from an average guy who could have been something more
. The thought made it harder to stick with the original plan. She had felt safe in his arms tonight.

Sheltered, almost.

But if Mason wasn’t the reporter, then who was? At least thinking it was Mason gave her someone to avoid. Now it could be anyone on board the ship. Even Mags and Eddie could be reporters in disguise.

She opened the door just as a firm hand gripped her elbow.

“I normally go with the flow on these assignments,” Tyler said, fire shooting from his bloodshot eyes. Where had the nice, comfortable, nosebleeding Tyler gone? He continued, “But being left to deal with your fans is
not
in my contract. You’ve got to fix this.”

Casey’s brain tried desperately to catch up with Tyler’s. What was he talking about, her fans? They didn’t know him from Adam.

Did they?

“What are you talking about?”

He grabbed her bag and, tossing it into the room, grabbed Casey’s elbow and pulled her down the hall.

“I’m talking about everyone on board wishing me happiness and asking about your next book. Dinner was bad enough, but then some of the staff cornered me and asked me to make sure you showed up in the meeting room tonight because the ship was throwing us a party. I don’t know anything about you. Do you know how hard it is to make up stuff about someone
I don’t know,
but everyone else seems to?” Tyler came to a screeching halt outside the meeting room.

Casey could hear hushed talking inside.

“Now, I’ve got you here. Thank God because I can’t pretend to know enough about you to scam all these people. Get me through this, and then when we get back to the room give me the crash course in Cassandra Cash,” he said, pulling Casey into the room beside him.

“Surprise!” A hundred voices called out the wish, and Casey wanted to sink to the floor. Happy faces smiled at her from across the room and a few people tossed confetti into the air.

Tyler pressed his hand to the small of Casey’s back, plastered a smile on his face and muttered, “I did not sign on for this.”

Casey wanted to agree with him. She didn’t need a surprise party to celebrate whatever these people were celebrating. Just that she was on board the ship with them? Somehow Casey didn’t think so.

She caught sight of Mags and Eddie sitting in the front row. Eddie tipped his champagne glass in a silent toast and then sipped. Mags nodded her head and smiled. Casey felt like she had fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole. Turning, she caught sight of the banner over the head table and froze.

In big letters, with colorful pictures of balloons and ribbons emblazoned on a white background it read,
Congratulations, Honeymooners!

Jane was so freaking fired.

Casey wanted the boat to open so she could sink to the bottom of the ocean floor. Had she been transported to some alternate universe where the object was to ruin her life?

She glanced up at Tyler and saw a thin trickle of blood seeping from his nose.

Crap
. What more could go wrong?

She squeezed Tyler's hand and pulled him to the head table. Tilting his head back like January had back in the stateroom, she placed a large napkin over his nose. This wasn’t just affecting her life. If she couldn’t lower his stress level, he was going to need one of those blood transfusions he joked about.