Riches to Rags Bride (5 page)

“Let's go,” he said.

He led her through the rooms, pointing out problem areas, the general plan for cleanup, repair and renovation and the big picture. “When we're done, each woman will need her own private space but there needs to be plenty of flow and room for interaction. This is a house, but it will also be a community, hopefully a family. The space needs to reflect that.”

Genevieve didn't say much, but she listened. She nodded. “And I'll be overseeing all of this.”

Her voice sounded slightly faint.

Lucas frowned. “I'll work with you closely, but I have a business to run, other irons in the fire. This will largely be your project.” Except he would personally see to it that the deadline didn't fall through. The deadline was that important.

“All right. I see.” Genevieve gave a tight nod. They turned down a hallway, not speaking, their steps silent on the carpeting.

The slosh of water sounded in a nearby room. “I don't know. Ms. Patchett is very nice, but…not experienced,” Jorge was saying. “I hope she knows what she's doing
and doesn't lead us into any mistakes. I don't want to lose this job.”

“She's very pretty. Do you think she and Mr. McDowell…?” Thomas's voice trailed off.

“Idiot. No,” Jorge said. “I've worked with Mr. McDowell before. He doesn't mix business and pleasure. Besides, she's too…I don't know…too innocent for him. Not his type.” He stopped. “We shouldn't be talking like this. They might hear. We might get fired. And anyway, it's wrong.”

Genevieve had stopped in her tracks. She looked up at Lucas, embarrassment written across every feature. Suddenly, she grabbed his hand and pulled him silently back down the hall. Then, cheeks blazing, she took a deep breath. “How long do you think the repair and renovation of this place should take?” she asked loudly. Too loudly. Loud enough for the other men to hear. Clearly, she didn't want Thomas and Jorge to know what she had overheard.

“Everything has to be done in six weeks. After that, we invite the world in, invite the tenants, and I leave town. Can you handle that?” he asked, playing along.

She took a deep, visible breath. “I can handle anything, Mr. McDowell.” Her voice shook slightly, but it came out loud enough to carry.

They continued down the hall past the room where Thomas and Jorge were working. “I lied. I'd like to pretend that I know exactly what I'm doing, but I think it's clear that I'm learning. But I'll tell you this much, Lucas. Truthfully. Totally truthfully. I may not be able to handle everything yet, but I don't intend to slack off or slow down or disappoint you if I can help it. I intend to do my best at this job.”

A nicer man would have assured her that that was
enough. He had never been a nice man. “I intend to see that you do,” he said. He hoped she would be able to produce the results that he needed. If everything worked out as planned, Genevieve would be his glowing gateway to the people he needed to reach.

But, by the end of the day, she wasn't glowing. Instead, she was wet, dirty and drooping. Strands of her bright hair had come loose from her tight ponytail and there was a scrape on her cheek. She looked as if she might drop to the ground at any minute.

“I'll take you home,” he said. “Congratulations. You survived your first day.” But he wondered whether she would be back for a second day or if she would choose to slink away, to decide that this was no life for a debutante.

Still, when he pulled up to her apartment, the sight of her crumbling and dangerous neighborhood reminded him that she had left debutante status behind. And he wasn't buying her declaration that she would never marry for money. Too long in a place like this and a woman—or a man—might do anything to get out. He knew about that kind of thing. Far too well, he thought with a grimace. Genevieve could get hurt.
She shouldn't be living here.

The thought caught him by surprise. He never allowed his interactions with employees to get personal, but then this project
was
personal, the repayment of a long overdue debt. Finishing it would close a chapter in his life he never wanted to look back on again and tie up loose ends he couldn't control. Then, he could concentrate on a future he
could
control, one with zero emotional risks. Just the way he liked things.

“Thank you for the ride,” Genevieve said, reaching
for the door, clearly uncomfortable. Probably not used to silent brooding bosses frowning at her.

“You don't…fit in a place like this,” he said, stopping her and further surprising and angering himself.

To his amazement, she laughed, a light, bell-like sound. “I fit,” she said. “We're all misfits here. I'm just not the norm.”

Then she sprinted for her building, paying no attention to her surroundings, her purse flopping against her hip.

Darn it! But then, he supposed he shouldn't be surprised at her carelessness. A princess like her would have been used to leaving everything, including her security, to others.

Growling, he flung open his door and got out. “Genevieve,” he said, his voice carrying.

She turned, those big eyes open wide, startled.

“Lock your door,” he said. “I don't want to lose my project manager through carelessness,” he felt compelled to add.

Genevieve blushed. She bit her lip. Was that a trace of resentment in her eyes? Intriguing. He hadn't seen that before.

“I have six locks,” she told him, lifting her chin a tiny bit. There was just a trace of haughtiness, of the miffed debutante. “I… You don't really trust me, do you?”

He hesitated. “I hired you.”

She nodded. “Because I'm a Patchett.”

He wasn't going to deny it. Nor was he going to tell her he trusted her. He wasn't sure whether he did. The truth was, he had a suspicion that hiring her had been a mistake, for reasons that had nothing to do with the project, reasons he didn't even want to acknowledge. There was something about her that made him not trust
himself.
He had a terrible feeling that he knew what it was, too. It wasn't good.

But he had hired her. The only thing to do now was to muddle through this mess. Quickly. Soon enough Genevieve Patchett would just be another woman in the rearview mirror of his consciousness. He was a pro at leaving bad situations—and problematic women—behind. If Genevieve was more problematic than most…well, he wouldn't let that happen. He'd tell her what she needed to know to do her job, oversee her progress from a distance and then he'd send her on her way with enough money to escape this place.

And both of them would walk away happy. End of story.

G
ENEVIEVE LAY IN THE DARK,
staring up at the ceiling but seeing instead the frown on Lucas's gorgeous face. Carefully, she went over what had taken place during the day. And cringed.

“You didn't even know how to sweep a floor, how to wash a wall.” She groaned and placed her palms over her hot face. “The man must think that he's hired an idiot. He's probably cursing Teresa and me right now, probably already looking through his list of applicants for my replacement. I don't have any of the skills necessary, nothing that he wanted.”

Worse than that, she had an annoying habit of blushing every time she looked at the man. With just one wordless glance, he had pointed out that her wet blouse was plastered to her body, and her reaction had been beyond embarrassment. Heat had slithered through her veins. Those steel-gray eyes had found her time and time again today, often wordlessly, and every time he had looked at her, she had felt like…

A woman when she should have felt like an employee.
For two seconds she thought back to the days when she had appeared at all of her parents' balls and openings. What would Lucas have thought of her had he met her under such circumstances?

“Stop it right now, Gen,” she ordered herself. She wasn't some silly romantic girl anymore. Besides, she most emphatically did not want a man, and Lucas certainly didn't want
her,
she thought, remembering Jorge's, Teresa's and Rita's words.

Besides, her very survival depended on her doing well at this job. And yet…in the back of her mind she heard her parents berating her for being awkward and for not being talented enough. She heard Barry mocking her for being such a sheltered, clueless princess. The thought that any day now Lucas might decide that she was incapable of doing her job…

Genevieve swallowed hard. Even the sound of yelling down the hall paled in comparison to her fears about what would happen if Lucas fired her. And it wasn't just about the money, either.

She sat up in bed and dashed away one stray tear. “Don't cry, you idiot.
Do.
Learn. Prove to him that you're not afraid of anything.” Even though she
was
desperately afraid. But she wasn't going to let Lucas know that.

“Odious, virile man,” she whispered. “Other women have cried buckets over you, but I won't ever be one of them. I don't care what you think of me as long as I survive you and learn from you.”

One thing she was sure of. When this was over, she would be more than glad to see the back of Lucas McDowell.

 

Lucas grunted as he flexed his arms, moving into his seventy-second push-up and trying to clear his thoughts. He was staying in the penthouse apartment of one of Chicago's most luxurious hotels and there was, of course, a gym available to him, but he had his own
private regimen he followed. One hundred push-ups for starters. Every night. No exceptions. After the emotional chaos of his childhood, discipline had been his salvation. Nothing was going to change that.

But clearing his mind to concentrate on his task was proving difficult. After he'd left Genevieve at her apartment with her six locks, he'd searched the internet and easily located the crime statistics for that neighborhood. Theft was a given, domestic disputes the norm. He growled at that. He knew better than anyone that domestic dispute sounded much too mild for all the horrors that tag encompassed. But that had nothing to do with Genevieve.

“Not your problem or your business,” he reminded himself.
Control the situation.
He repeated his mantra.
Don't let yourself get involved. Don't let the situation have power over you.
Because control was everything. It was the only thing that had kept him out of jail. It made life and success possible.

But in spite of his best efforts to stop thinking about Genevieve, when he tried to return to his task, he could still see the look in her eyes when she had told him that she had all those locks and asked him if he didn't trust her. Somehow he was sure she wouldn't appreciate him interfering in her life or suggesting that she might want to take her first paycheck and move.

It certainly wasn't the kind of thing he ever did or wanted to do.
Keep a distance. Never get too involved
was his motto.

And yet, Genevieve Patchett's naïveté, her dangerous situation, had kept him from completing a task he'd done every night for years. He was still stuck on push-up number seventy-two.

“Idiot. Get control of yourself. Stay out of this. Don't
do something you'll regret.” With a groan, he forced himself to complete the push-up and all the rest of them. Having withstood the onslaught of doubts and come out ahead, he went to bed. A soft bed. A safe bed. In an exclusive hotel in an exclusive neighborhood.

“And everything is perfectly fine,” he mumbled. But in the middle of the night he woke from a dream in a cold sweat, his fears about why Genevieve was bothering him confirmed. Voices from a past he tried never to remember had pushed their way into his dreams. He'd heard his mother crying in the night. He'd felt his own failure, his inability to be what she wanted, and his own panic as she'd walked out the door, never to return. And after his father's death when he'd been left totally alone, there had been other mother figures, women who had tried to help him and recoiled in distress at his wounded animal anger. Some had been nice; most had merely wanted to use him to gild their reputations; one society princess had called him her “street child” until she had a baby of her own, a better, sweeter child, the kind she'd always wanted. In the end, he had spurned all of them. And then…

Lucas took a deep breath, knowing that there was no use trying to hold back the next part. Because the next was the worst, the most damning incident. Then, there had been Angie, an innocent girl who had been savagely beaten by her father just because she had been involved with a reckless troublemaker like Lucas. He'd known what her father was. He'd selfishly and arrogantly ignored it, urged her to defy her father and stay with him. And she had paid the price.

Anguish rushed over him at the memory of a young woman who had suffered at the fists of a full grown
man, a woman who had never fully recovered, he had discovered only a few months ago.

Lucas cursed in the night.
There
was the connection. Angie. Because he'd known the danger that had existed for Angie and he'd ignored it, downplayed it. Just as he knew the danger for Genevieve.

Don't think about it. Don't get involved. Don't lose control. This is a different woman, a different situation,
he told himself.

And the next day, he knew he was right. Genevieve and her situation were nothing like Angie. The Patchett princess got into his car wearing a pair of designer shoes, biscuit-colored slacks that would never survive the day and a gold silk blouse.

He studied her, and without thinking, he raised an eyebrow.

Genevieve stared back at him with just a tiny bit of defiance in her eyes. He was half-convinced that if he said anything about her clothes, she would sass him. But a second later, her cheeks turned pink, she looked away and he realized that he had been mistaken about the sass and the defiance. She was still just a little rich girl flailing around.

The fact that he couldn't keep his eyes off the V of her blouse or the way that sweet pink flush made her seem vulnerable and fragile and…enticing was irrelevant. Wasn't it?

Maybe. But once she was in the car, he was thankful that he had to keep his eyes off of her and on the road. It was a good reminder.
Always keep your eyes on the goal, the job, on whatever got you to where you wanted to go.
Goals were good. They kept a man from doing something he would regret later. And he would
definitely regret doing anything…instinctive where Genevieve was concerned.

He glowered.

She was very silent. Maybe his glowering was scaring her.

Maybe he shouldn't have hired someone he could scare so easily. And yet…

“Did you survive yesterday all right?”

He knew the minute she turned to him. “Yes. Of course. You even told me that I survived before I went home.”

“I know, but…” Damn, but he was bad at this sensitivity thing. “You were working hard. Muscles get sore. The next morning is sometimes tougher than the day before.”

Her sudden chuckle was soft, whisperlike. “I may have been raised a privileged debutante and okay, maybe I
am
a little sore, but I'll get past it. Actually, it was rather nice…the feeling that I had actually used my own two hands to make a difference. So I'm fine, Lucas.”

Okay, she was fine. And he was looking like an idiot. This was not the way he usually treated his employees. What was it about Genevieve Patchett that threw all of his thoughts out of whack?

He needed to get his thoughts back in line, restore discipline.

He would. He'd made his last mistake. Genevieve, he reminded himself, was no Angie. He didn't really have to worry about her. She was a pampered princess, and if she'd ever met him back in the day when he was a skinny, angry, dirty kid, she probably would have put her nose in the air and run the other way. Besides for the moment at least, she was his employee. He should
be treating her as such. The job he had hired her for was too important, too meaningful for all this foolishness.

He turned his thoughts back to business, ignored the scent of her perfume. Why on earth was she wearing perfume when the smell of cleaning solution would overpower that delicate floral nonsense after a scant few minutes on the job?

“Before we get started this morning, I'd like to go over some paperwork with you, including your job description,” he said, pulling up in front of Angie's House.

“All right. I'll look forward to it.”

Those simple words, though soft, were delivered in a professional tone. And they did the trick. He and Genevieve were back to business. All that other stuff, her fragility, his annoying urge to protect, the way her perfume went straight to his senses and made him envision placing his lips on that enticing little pulse point in her throat…darn it, those were irrelevant. Thank goodness she knew how to speak “business style.” As long as she kept that up, he could stop thinking of her as a woman. A good thing, because he needed to be her boss. And nothing else.

 

Genevieve noticed the minute Lucas's demeanor changed. She had spent her whole life in the background, observing other people, so she was good at noting the little things that signaled a change in direction. Her parents had been volatile people, smiling at customers and sponsors one minute, screaming at their daughter for failing to do or be what they wanted the next. She had tried so hard to please them, but to no avail, and so she had learned to read the signs that a “berate Gen”
attack was coming on. Even now her chest felt tight at the memory of those days.

It wasn't like that with Lucas. Nothing volatile, no yelling, even though she sensed that under the right circumstances, he could be very dangerous. He was, as Teresa had told her, strong and silent. Still, she noticed the subtle change when he moved from frustrated concern about her having overdone things the day before into total businessman mode.

And, she told herself, it was a relief to have all that intense concern and attention turned away from her. Wasn't it?

Yes,
she thought, because Lucas was too overwhelming as it was. Having him paying attention to her, and worse, she admitted,
liking
the attention, would lead her down the “you're going to regret this later” road. So, she forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand.

“You've had a chance to spend a day in the house and get the lay of the land. Now let's discuss what we can do with the rooms and how we can best utilize the space that we have.”

This was new territory for Gen. Her parents had a massive home, but they traveled so much that, beyond the bedrooms and studios, most of the rooms were seldom used. They were filled with art, were cleaned by the staff, but there didn't seem to be any purpose to them.

“You'll be a better judge of what women need than I do. What do you think?” Lucas asked as they stared at a large sunny room.

Think, Gen, think. So far you've done nothing to justify Lucas's hiring you other than having a recognizable name.
“I think…this would be a good place for the women to gather, to talk, to share secrets,” she
said, struggling for a good response, remembering her own “travel here and there” lifestyle that had precluded building the kind of friendships other girls had. “I'd—I think I'd paint it a soft color, maybe add some comfortable couches and possibly put in lots of big floor pillows. And we could…yes, we could add a table where they could work on crafts or sit and share tea or coffee,” she said, picking up steam and forgetting that she didn't really know what she was talking about. She had never had any real contact with poor women who had truly suffered. But she knew what
she
would like. Maybe those women would like some of the same things.

“That wall would be perfect for a bank of bookshelves. And we could also add a hideaway television or hang one on the wall, so they could watch movies together. If it were my house, that is,” she said, finally remembering that she was on virgin ground here as she hesitantly turned to Lucas. He had a slightly amused expression on that too handsome face.

Uh-oh, she had gone overboard, hadn't she? Her parents, despite being artists, had been practical people and they had always told her that she was far too much of a dreamer. That's why they had wanted her to marry Barry, a man of numbers, one who would overshadow the nonsensical daydreamer part of her and keep her out of trouble.

Hmm, that was a plan that had failed miserably, but that didn't mean they hadn't been right about the daydreaming. Spending her time making up castles in the air hadn't prepared her for the real world and her current lifestyle at all.