What a Woman Gets (16 page)

“What kind of person would I be if I charged your grandmother that kind of money?”

She crossed her arms now, and that wasn't much better than when they'd been on her hips because it only emphasized an area he was trying hard not to notice.

“I charged her a nominal amount. I can pay you back for the glue, but I'll need the rest for the phone.”

“Okay. Fine. Whatever.” He dipped the brush into the stripper again. He didn't want to talk money with Cassidy. Money was at the root of all evils. Case in point: Rachel. And money was, after all, the reason she was in his home. The irony of one woman thinking he didn't have enough of it and another needing what he
did
have was laughable.

Too bad he wasn't laughing.

*   *   *

C
ASSIDY
chewed the inside of her bottom lip. Something had crawled up Liam's butt, but it couldn't be her. She was going to pay him back and she'd been nice to his grandmother. He couldn't be mad at her.

Well, he probably could, since she'd pretty much barged into his life, but she was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Her side of the garage was as neat as she could keep it and still be creative. She'd cleaned his house, cleared space for his gym, kept Titania out of his hair, been nice to his grandmother, and was custom painting a piece for her only slightly above cost. And that markup had only been because she hadn't wanted Mrs. Manley to figure out that she was cutting her a deal. Cassidy wasn't going to make anywhere near what she should for her time and talent, but there were some things more important than money. Her integrity being one of them.

Hmmm, which parent had she gotten that from? Or maybe it was a latent gene in the family tree.

“So what are you planning to do with this place? Are you going to live here?” She couldn't imagine him wanting to leave where he was now, since it was such a beautiful house, but she'd seen the peaceful look on his face when he hadn't been aware she was outside the six-paned front door. He'd been scraping the paint from the shelf, his attention focused yet relaxed. His mouth had been curving up a bit at the corners and there hadn't been all the tension in his shoulders that was there now.

She'd put that tension there. She had to have. The minute he'd answered the door with his gruff greeting, his hackles had risen.

Her first instinct had been to call him on it. After all, no one treated a Davenport with disrespect. But then she'd remembered she wasn't throwing her father's name around anymore and being a Davenport hadn't really done much for her these past few days.

“I can't live here. Zoning's changed in this part of town and it's no longer residential. My real estate guy has a couple of professionals interested in this place for their office.”

“What about a daycare?”

Liam pointed to the fireplace. “Not a good idea with the fireplace that's still operational. I don't want to seal it up. It's a good feature for the sale, especially once I stain these floors walnut.”

“What about cherry? Give it a high-gloss finish?” It was a Cape Cod; he ought to embrace the characteristics and go full force on the New England feel. “Paint the walls hunter green with white trim and maybe re-point the brick surrounding the fireplace with black mortar? That'd punch up the impact when you come through the front door. Make it a focal point of the room.”

Liam looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time.

She got that look a lot when people actually took the time to get to know her—as if they didn't expect her to have a brain in her head. Thank God she wasn't blonde; she'd never even get the opportunity to show them she had brains if she were. “I studied interior design. My father wanted me to be part of his design team.” But then one of his Flavors of the Month (who'd lasted longer than a day) had had an issue with “Mitchell's daughter” giving her advice, and dear old Dad had switched Cassidy's status to Showpiece. When the Flavor had been dismissed, Cassidy had been too mortified to head back to the team. Everyone knew she'd gotten the job because she was Mitchell's daughter and had been replaced because of his lover. Bad enough her parents had ping-ponged her between them while Mom had been around; Cassidy wasn't reliving it in her career. So she'd pasted her perfected smile on and been the best damn Showpiece anyone could want.

And look where it'd gotten her. On the marriage block and, now, out on the street.

Still, she did have her talent and her eye for design. Dad couldn't take those from her. “You'll want to have a couple of plant stands with ferns when you stage the room.”

Liam arched one of his eyebrows in a sexy, rakish way that made her stomach flutter. “I don't stage a room. The agent brings buyers to an empty space.”

“Seriously?” She ordered the butterflies to quiet down. “You ought to try staging it. Not everyone can visualize the opportunities of an empty room, plus the place looks cold and impersonal without anything in it. Even if someone's going to turn it into an office, seeing the hearth with a rug and seating group in front of it, a few pictures on the wall . . . It'll do wonders for people's impressions. And I bet it'll up the offers you get.”

The arched eyebrow settled back on his brow and if she weren't mistaken, moved downward with the other one. “Look, Princess, that might be how you do it in your world, but I've been flipping properties for years and know what I'm doing.”

“I didn't say you didn't. Just trying to help, but you're right; this is your business. But if you change your mind, I could pull a few pieces together to help out when you're ready. If you're interested, that is.”

Yes, she might be shooting herself in the foot by not trying to sell the pieces immediately, but she could see the sideboard beneath those leaded windows. She might go with a hunt scene on it, or maybe just a cascade of fall leaves. She could finish the top in the same high-gloss cherry stain as the floor, tying the room together—

Except that it wouldn't be staying in the room. Still, the round plant stand had the same claw-foot design as the sideboard and there was a hutch that she could tie in with them that'd look perfect in that nook.

She crossed the room and paced off the space. She'd have to check it against the width of the hutch, but it would look perfect there if it fit. She'd suggest ivy in a tarnished brass pot on the upper shelf, trailing down the side with a matching planter on the stand between a set of Queen Anne wingback chairs and a matching upholstered settee squaring off the hearth—

“What are you doing?” Liam's voice cut through her vision.

“Measuring.”

“For?”

“There's a hutch that I think would fit here—”

“Cassidy, I appreciate the suggestion, but I'm not staging the room. The professionals my agent will be bringing through already know what they want. It'll be a matter of the right price per square foot. If I have to rent furniture, it'll cut into my profit, which I'll have to pass on in the square-foot cost. I'll be priced out of the market. Besides, that's unethical. Or at the very least, coercive. Artificial. As if you're trying to pull something over on them. If I walked into a space like this that'd been tricked out, I'd be lifting the rugs to check for termite damage or something.”

She refrained from pointing out that there would
never
be termite damage in a Davenport property. Dad was all about branding and the last thing he'd do was let an insect damage his image.

His daughter, too, apparently.

“Okay, then. I'll just be out of your hair and head back home after the store. I have a lot of work to do.” And she didn't need to stay around here and have him patronize her “little ideas” like her father had done for years. That was what she was trying to get away from.

So she'd head back, get to work, and get those pieces ready for sale. She could do this, and she would.

Then they'd all see who the real Cassidy Davenport was.

T
ELL
me you brought beer.” Liam reached for the cooler Sean carried, praying his hand didn't shake.

What the hell had come over him? Cassidy had made a couple of innocuous comments and he'd immediately gone off on her, defending his business as if she were an authority he had to answer to.

“Yeah, it's
five o'clock somewhere.” Sean flicked the lid open when Liam set it on the sawhorse table he'd set up in the middle of what would be the entrance foyer of someone's new office.
Without
a hutch or a sofa or anything. “Domestic or imported?”

Liam grabbed the first bottle he found. “Doesn't matter. I just need something to quench my thirst.” And calm his spinning mind. He couldn't decide if it was anger at Cassidy for insinuating he didn't know his business, or the fact that she'd looked so damn appealing and he didn't
want
her to look appealing. Whatever it was, the last thing he needed was for Sean to find out. Thank God she'd left fifteen minutes before his brother had shown up unannounced and unexpected. If Liam had known he was coming while Cassidy had been here . . . He didn't want to think about it.

“So how's working for Cassidy Davenport?”

So much for that.

Liam twisted off the top without answering. Not sure
how
to answer it.

“What?” Sean tilted his beer away from his mouth. “Is it some big secret?”

“Me working at her condo? No.” Liam took a tentative swallow, still waiting for Sean to warn him off getting involved with another high-priced user.

“Well at least we don't have to worry about you with her.”

Liam choked on the swallow. “Me
with
her?”

“Yeah, you know. Having a thing for her. I mean, you have to admit, the woman is hot.”

Liam started to get hot. Sean shouldn't be noticing how hot Cassidy was—

Oh. Damn. Not cool. Not cool at all. Bros before hos. And she wasn't even his ho—

Liam shut down that train of thought because that's
exactly
what he'd thought of Rachel when he'd found out she wanted to live off the fruits of his—or any guy's apparently—labor, simply by putting out to reap all the benefits. Classic definition.

But the same didn't apply to Cassidy. Why that was worried the crap out of him. He had to keep some perspective here.

“Yo, Lee?” Sean waved a beer in his face. “You in there? Or did I just wake you up to the fact that your client is one hot babe?”

“Could you stop saying that, please? You don't know her or you wouldn't say that shit.”

“
Shit
? Are you blind? Or, wait. Did she turn out to have a soul after all? One that hasn't been sucked dry by her father's millions?”

“Drop it, Sean. I'm not in the mood.”

“Protesting too much perhaps?” Sean couldn't keep the shit-eating grin off his face.

Liam wasn't finding it funny at all. “I'm not protesting anything. You're a moron if you think I'd go down that road again. End of story. I just want to get this place in shape to put it up for sale. The realtors are bugging me. Seems there's a pending zoning change that's going to make this area a hot market.”

Sean looked around. “Uh, Lee? Do you realize how much work there is? Those steps outside are hazardous.”

Liam nodded and took another chug of his beer, thankful to be off the subject of Cassidy. “The rot on the outside wall. Water wicked through the subpar stucco repair job the last owner made to them.”

“Good thing you didn't get Mac's live-in job that I did or you'd never have time for this. Hell, it takes me a whole day just to clean a suite.”

“Yeah, but you're at the estate, so that's like getting two birds with one stone.”

Sean had convinced Liam and Bryan to invest with him on a gorgeous estate in the Pocono Mountains to create a luxury resort closer to Philly than the Catskills and more affordable than hightailing it to New York City, DC, or Atlantic City. A great place for high-salaried executives to relax and get away from it all, with a championship golf course, once Sean bought the place from the deceased owner's estate. Sean had been working on this deal for years, even buying some of the surrounding properties for privacy and possible future expansion. It was Sean's chance to make his dreams come true, and they had had the extra funds to back him, with the idea that Sean would buy them out some day. Liam didn't care when; he still had his cash flow, and he liked being involved with his brothers on a project. It was a stroke of luck that Mac had the estate on her client list. It'd been Sean's the minute they'd lost the bet.

“Yeah, but I'm working my ass off. That place is huge. Mac's gonna need to hire some more guys once we're done because I'm definitely going to need the help if—I mean, when—I take over.”

Liam set down the beer. “If?”

“I meant when.”

“But you said if.”

“I meant when.”

Liam looked at him. Sean had a good poker face, but he hadn't been prepared for Liam to question him. “Spill.”

Sean sighed. “There might be a glitch.”

“How much of a glitch?”

“I'm not sure yet. But I'm going to fix it. I
will
get that property.”

Liam didn't push. If there was a “glitch,” it was bigger than Sean wanted to let on, otherwise he wouldn't have made that slip. Sean had a load on his mind. No use adding to it by pushing him. When he was ready, he'd tell them.

The good thing about being so close with his brothers was that they knew when to back off. Just like Sean had about Cassidy.

“So why are you here if you're so busy at your place?” Liam picked up the scraper and headed back to the shelves. There
was
a lot of work to do on this place, and for once, he was grateful there was. It'd keep him out of his house and away from Cassidy.

“I needed a break. I'm starting to talk to myself in those long empty hallways, you know? Wouldn't mind something else to do. You up for another poker game? We could call Bry.”

“What, the last poker game turned out so well you want a repeat?”

“We won't invite Mac.”

“Ever again.”

He laughed with Sean, half tempted to share his theory, but . . . why? There was nothing to do about it now except suck it up and finish out the next three weeks.

Or longer if Cassidy couldn't sell enough of her furniture to move out.

The bet's ramifications just went on and on.

God help him.

*   *   *

C
ASSIDY
flipped her safety goggles back into her hair as another set of lights drove past Liam's house. One more car that wasn't his.

She shook her head, wincing as the goggles slid onto the bridge of her nose with a
clunk
. Cockeyed. Seemed to be her natural state of being around Liam these days. One minute he was being all nice and thanking her about his grandmother, the next he was telling her to butt out when she was offering her expertise for free.

Cassidy adjusted the glasses—the rhinestone-studded ones that she'd thought were so cute when she'd been painting on her own but in Liam's home just felt out of place—and finished sanding the credenza's wood top. A few passes of the top coat, a couple rounds of buffing, and this thing would look like it had a marble top. Faux finishing had been her specialty, especially
trompe l'oeil
.

She'd found an antique mirror surround at an estate sale to use that technique on. A magic mirror, she was thinking. Perfect for a little girl's room. A nice fit for her creative side, and her businesswoman side liked the fact that people typically spared no expense for their kids. Marketing a piece for someone's daughter upped its odds of being sold and selling well. Marketing was also a talent of hers, one that Dad hadn't given her credit for unless it came to looking good for the rack brochures and sales pieces.

Cassidy cracked her knuckles, her hand cramping from holding the brush and palette so long, not wanting to think about all the things she couldn't do right in her father's eyes. Was it because she was a reminder every single day of the woman who'd cheated on him and left?

She didn't think it had bothered her father all that much emotionally—aside from the obvious embarrassment at the whole sordid affair being public, that is. And if it had, he'd pretended it hadn't. He'd shown her how to be strong when Mom had left, but that hadn't stopped her from curling into a ball in her bed at night, wrapped around her favorite stuffed animal—a plush Maltese puppy she'd named Tinkerbell—and wondering why Mom had left
her
.

Well there was nothing she could do about being a reminder of her mother—

Speaking of, she'd left the photo and bracelet at the condo.

Ah, the irony. She'd kept those things for years, tucked out of sight, hoping against hope that Mom would come back for her—and then she hadn't.

She didn't need the photo anymore, and the bracelet was falling apart. Reminders of the last good time she and Mom had had. The last good time in her life.

Well that was going to change.
This
was going to be the best time of her life.

A crash came from the mudroom.

Or maybe
tomorrow
would be the best time of her life.

“Titania!” Cassidy set the sander on the floor and flew into the house, not caring that she was covered in sawdust.

Her dog was covered in just plain dust. She'd somehow managed to knock an electric broom off the wall and it broke apart,
poofing
a cloud of dust throughout the room. Great. There went all her hard work keeping the place clean.

*   *   *

T
WO
hours later, the dust was off every surface in the room, though she was pretty sure it was covering every inch of her. Titania had been banished to the quickly dog-penned bathroom, yapping her cute little dust-covered head off. She really
was
a dust mop right now and Cassidy had to smile at Liam's description, though she doubted he'd be smiling if he could see the two of them.

Then again, maybe he would be. Lord knew, the man had surprised her already. He'd let a complete stranger into his home, gave her the keys to his truck, some money, and a job. He hadn't needed to give her a place to stay. He didn't owe her anything. He'd known her for all of what? Half an hour? Who
did
that?

Liam Manley. Some woman was going to get very lucky someday.

For a second, she imagined it was her. That she could live here, with Liam, be a part of his family. Call Mrs. Manley Gran, have a few brothers-in-law, a sister-in-law—hell, make that
sister
. She'd always wanted a sister.

She'd always wanted a family. And Liam had a ready-made one just waiting for someone to be a part of it.

Was it so wrong to imagine that someone being her?