What a Woman Gets (12 page)

“Well you weren't home and I didn't feel up to more cleaning on top of working on the credenza. I fixed the door, by the way. It works just fine now. No one will ever know it didn't. If you're interested, that is.”

She put her hands on her hips and tilted her chin and—

Yeah. He
was
interested.

C
ASSIDY
stopped at the supermarket entrance and stared. Seriously? How was she supposed to find anything in here? The last time she'd been to a grocery store was when the nanny had been sick and the chef had needed a few last-minute items. Now, she had a list and some cash and she was supposed to make the list fit the cash.

That finishing school education of hers had been sorely lacking in day-to-day skills, but she tucked some hair that escaped her ponytail behind her ear and looked at the list Liam had written. She could do this. It wasn't rocket science. Millions of people did this every day. She had to do it sometime; might as well be now.

She had sixty bucks for things his grandmother hadn't brought. Things like milk, eggs, cheese, and . . . and she'd almost lost it when she'd read this—dog food.

She blinked back a few tears even now. She was not going to cry. Liam, the sarcastic pain in the ass, had a heart. Unlike her father, the man whose DNA she carried.

It was
because
of that DNA that she was going to do this. And she was going to do it in style. Dad was not going to see her fail. She was not going to cower and go crawling back to him. Or Burton. She was on her own. Well, once she left Liam, that was.

Rolling back her shoulders, Cassidy headed for Customer Service. “Hello. I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Whaddya need?” The girl behind the counter didn't even bother to look up. Good. Cassidy didn't want to be recognized. Not only would Dad have yet another conniption, he'd know where she was.

She cared more about the latter than the former.

“I was wondering if you could tell me where to find dog food and eggs and milk and—”

“Dairy's on twelve. Pets six.”

“I'm sorry, but what does that mean?”

The girl finally looked up and arched a pierced eyebrow. “Aisles twelve and six?”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Hey, aren't you somebody?”

Cassidy's stomach
thunked
. “Well, sure. Aren't we all?”

The girl straightened up and tapped her pen against the counter. “No. I mean,
some
body. Like famous or something.”

Crap. She'd worn the most anti-Davenport clothes from the pile of anti-Davenport clothes, pulled her hair back, and sworn off makeup. She didn't look anything like her former gossip-pages self. “Nope, sorry. I'm just me.”

The girl's lips twisted. “Well you sure look like someone. I just can't figure out who it is.”

“Aisles six and twelve, right?” Cassidy tapped the countertop. “Thanks.”

She headed for the dog food first, then managed to find everything on the list within a half hour. Not too shabby for a first-timer. She could do this. She could learn the normal, everyday things that most of the population took for granted, but for which those of her father's crowd had “people.”

She was in the checkout lane when that afterglow of success dimmed.

“Did you hear about Mitchell Davenport's daughter?”

Actually, the afterglow
tanked
. Way beyond
dimmed
.

“You mean the pretty one who's always all over the news? Born with a silver spoon and leads a charmed life?”

The other woman shook her head. “Not anymore she doesn't.”

Cassidy couldn't see the woman's face, but she heard the glee in her voice.

Ah. A Hater. She'd run across more than a few of them in her time.

“What do you mean?”

“Here. Look at this.”

Supermarket tabloids. Dammit. Cassidy's glow went up in a
poof
of mortification.

“Her dad kicked her out. Made her fend for herself.”

“About time. How long did she think that self-made man was going to keep paying for her party lifestyle? What I wouldn't give if my old man had funded even half my teenage party-hopping. Still, gotta admire a girl who's managed to get her father to pay for it for ten years after graduation.”

“She shoulda found a sugar daddy to continue the tradition. In those circles, shouldn't have been too tough.”

“Next.”

Cassidy heard a buzzing in her head. She looked at the conveyor belt, expecting something to be caught to make that god-awful racket, but all she saw was the checkout girl looking at her.

“Next.”

Oh. Right. Her. That buzzing was probably the beginnings of a whopper of a migraine.

“Poor baby didn't get to take the 'Benz. And the reporter even managed to get a shot of the car.”

Cassidy jerked to the register, somehow managing to get her hands to coordinate with her brain to get the contents of her shopping cart onto the conveyor belt, and her fingers to negotiate her pocketbook for the sixty bucks.

The total came to sixty-two fifty.

She didn't have it.

God. This had
never
happened to her before. Where was that damn silver spoon that woman had been talking about? She'd sell it for cash to make this transaction happen.

“Sure, I could sleep with some old guy for his money,” said the Hater. “Not as if it'll be for too long, know what I mean? A few good Os and the guy'll blow a gasket and die on me. Then it'd be all mine.”

“Too bad we don't run in that Davenport girl's circles. I wouldn't even be picky as long as his bank balance was in the seven figure range.”

That would make the woman a prostitute, but Cassidy kept her mouth shut. Oh, not because she was some sage human being, but if she opened it, she was fairly certain something she shouldn't say would come out.

That wasn't who she was. It wasn't who her friends were. Did it happen in her social circle? Of course, but that didn't mean everyone had the morals of an alley cat and the conscience of a flea.

“Sixty-two fifty, please.” The checkout teenager cracked her gum.

Cassidy shook her head to clear the fog of screaming reprimands from it and focused on the total. What was she supposed to do? She'd never had to return food. Could she even do that? And was it a return if she never took it out of the bag?

“Um, could you take off three of the dog food packets?” Titania would just have to do with more beef stew and less commercial food. The dog wouldn't mind.

The kid, however, obviously did, rolling her heavily made-up eyes, and huffing loud enough that those women overheard.

They turned around. And one of them got a look on her face Cassidy dreaded.

“Hey, you look a lot like that Davenport girl.”

“Who? Me?” Cassidy couldn't pay the checkout girl and get the bags off the turnstile fast enough. “I get that a lot. Wouldn't mind having her bank account, though.”

“Not these days you wouldn't.”

“Bet she can't even afford to buy your groceries.”

That's right; she couldn't.

And it'd made the tabloids. Everyone she knew would know.

Cassidy practically ripped the last bag off the turnstile and headed toward the door before the women got a look at her earrings. Those would be a dead giveaway and she didn't want to have to stand here apologizing for being born with a silver spoon nor hear their ridicule anymore.

God, if only she'd met Franklin sooner in life. The lessons his thirteen short years had taught Cassidy were worth more than any private school education her father had paid for.

She blinked the tears from her eyes. She'd met Franklin when she'd attended a charity dinner for the hospital's pediatric unit in her father's place. Yet another chance for Dad to parade her out on his behalf.

Not that she'd minded. She'd known almost everyone and had had the opportunity to wear her new Stella McCartney dress and drink champagne—her life's staples up to that point.

Then Franklin had been seated next to her.

The kid had won her over in about thirty seconds and changed her life in the next thirty days. He'd been at the end stage of his treatment with no hope for remission, but he'd been determined to leave his mark on the world. He, who'd had every reason to be bitter and to give up on life—from his cancer to the family who turned him over to child services because they hadn't been able to deal with it—had refused to do so. He'd wanted to enjoy himself as long as he was able, and dwelling on the negative and petty things in his life had been a waste of the time left to him.

Cassidy had made sure to stop by at least three times a week, more as the end neared. Being with him so much had put those frivolous time-sucking things like shopping and gossiping and “being seen” into perspective.

And then he'd been gone.

Cassidy still remembered the pain as if it were yesterday. As if her heart had been ripped out and trampled. As if she'd never catch her breath again. The only reason she'd known she would was because she'd gone through the same emotions when Mom had left.

But hearing those women talk about her—
laugh
at her hard times . . . Times like these were when she wanted to give in to the self-pity and just cry. But then she'd remember Franklin and suck it up and go on. Because what she had to deal with wasn't as bad as what Franklin had faced and he hadn't succumbed to self-pity.

Neither would she.

Those women's attitudes, the whim of fate, the insidiousness of disease, and life . . . none of it was fair. It was how she chose to deal with it that would make or break her. And Cassidy, like Franklin, was
not
going to be broken. She would rise above.

She blew a kiss heavenward—as she did whenever she thought about Franklin. She wasn't going to let his death be in vain.

She took a deep breath, pushed the women from her mind, and headed back to Liam's truck. He'd loaned it to her for the day, since he was going to be tied up at her father's building. It'd been bittersweet to see the place she'd called home for six years when she'd dropped him off there this morning, but, interestingly, there hadn't been any of the sadness or anger she would've thought she'd feel to be there again. It was as if the building belonged to a different place and time. One she didn't want to go back to.

She stowed her shopping bags in the back seat of the four-door cab, then climbed inside, remembering when Liam had helped her.

Damn if that didn't elicit tingles. It was strange, really, how just the thought of being near him, standing beside him, having him touch her put Cassidy in touch with her feminine side in a way she'd never been with Burton or Carlton or Helmsford, or any of the other men her father had arranged for her to date.

She winced as she put the truck in gear. There'd always been some eligible guy at her father's gatherings. A representative of another “well-bred” family to create the perfect offspring. She'd often joked with her friends that the guy who examined her teeth would be the one her father would pick for her to marry.

Burton hadn't gone that far, but then, he hadn't gone far at all. She hadn't let him. Hadn't felt the need to delve into a physical relationship with him—a big glaring neon flashing light that said he wasn't the man for her.

What about Liam?

She scooted around a wayward shopping cart that was rolling across the parking lot. There was nothing about Liam. He was a nice guy to help her—and sexy as hell—but he was a temporary measure. A stopgap.

He can stop my gap anytime—

Oh for heaven's sake. Cassidy exhaled and deliberately yanked the truck to the right. Seriously? Did her subconscious
have
to be so crude? So banal?

Hey, get crude and banal with Liam and see if you don't enjoy it.

She had to smile at that. Yeah, that would be pretty fun.

But she had a job to do and it wasn't to do the maid, no matter how hot he was. There was more to life than sex.

But it does make life sweet . . .

She pulled out of the parking lot and turned right onto Davenport Drive. She couldn't even escape her father
when
she'd escaped him. There was the Davenport wing on the library and the Davenport Properties roadside clean-up signs, and the playground she'd tried to get her father to rename Franklin's Field but he'd refused. Of course. Nothing was more important to her father than the Davenport name.

Not even his daughter.

She made a quick left into another strip mall and was just about to circle back to the alley behind it—anything to get off Davenport Drive—when a storefront caught her eye.

Pawn Shoppe.

A cutesy name for a nice solution to that two-fifty deficit.

She parked in front and headed inside, unscrewing the backs of her earrings as she went.

*   *   *

L
IAM
reread the blurb in the newspaper beneath a picture of Cassidy in a knockout evening dress on the marble steps of a ritzy restaurant.

PRINCESS BECOMES A PAUPER

Local socialite, Cassidy Davenport, is learning that the grass on the other side of the fence is far less green than the professionally landscaped lawns of her high-rise and country club these days.