Working Stiff: Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1) (39 page)

“Yeah, they really gave us the bum’s rush out of there.” Jitters ran through her at the thought of losing her job, coupled with the huge settlement from the apartment’s management company.

Too much adrenaline.

She glanced at the hills that rose on both sides of the freeway. Golden autumn weeds rippled on the steep slopes. If someone sideswiped them here, at least they wouldn’t roll down an embankment. Ever since Casimir had told her about the car crash that he had been in when he was a kid, she had been imagining every flip of the car and the sickening shrieks of twisting metal punching into his little-boy body. She tightened her fists around the steering wheel.

Casimir asked her, “So why did you steal the token?”

Rox shrugged. “Just to piss them off. Josie goes nuts when one of them is missing. Those two assholes will hunt for hours for it before they go home tonight.”

He laughed. “We don’t need to get in there, do we? My laptop has a bunch of contracts on it, and it is at home. You carried your laptop out in your purse. We should have all the evidence that we need to put our case together for the ethics board. They should have ample evidence to decide whether or not to censure them, disbar them, or file charges against them.”

“I just don’t care. I hate that we got fired when they’re the guilty ones. So I swiped it. Just to be a big ol’ bitch.”

Crack,
a bang slapped Rox’s ears.

The windshield spiderwebbed and split.

“Good Lord, that truck must have thrown a huge rock,” she said.

The explosion of cracks in the windshield cut the road into a thousand pieces. Afternoon sunlight glowed in the cracks, making the spiderweb catch fire.

Rox squinted to see through the broken windshield and looked back to check the SUV’s blind spot before she pulled over.

Casimir said, “Don’t pull over. Keep driving.”

“I can’t see much of anything through the cracks.” The car to their right had drifted back, so Rox changed lanes to get to the shoulder of the road. She pulled into the emergency lane and braked hard, stopping the SUV.

As they stopped, Cash’s window shattered inward, spraying them both with broken glass.

“Gunshot. They’re shooting at us.” He grabbed her neck, shoved her down on the seat, and crawled over her, shielding her with his body. “Push the accelerator with your foot. Now.
Hard.”

Rox kicked the accelerator pedal, and the SUV lurched forward. Her cheek was pressed against the leather upholstery, and Cash’s jacket flapped in front of her face. The seatbelt bit into her shoulder.

Cash said, “Release the catch on my seatbelt. I can’t reach it.”

Rox extended her fingers above her hair and found the buckle and the button to pop his seatbelt. She squeezed it, and Cash leaned on her a little more heavily. He laid on top of her, hunched over and peeking above the dash while he drove with one hand.

The emergency brake handle between the bucket seats was bruising her ribs, but she stayed mashed flat to the seats, trying to not move under Casimir so he could drive the SUV.

Another pop crashed through the SUV. Broken glass shot through the air, flipping over the back of the seat and peppering her back.

Rox wrapped her arms around Casimir’s waist, trying to steady both of them. If the car flipped now, he would fly out the broken front windshield.

“Faster,” Cash said. “More gas.”

She hesitated.

More gas meant more acceleration, more speed if they hit something and flipped.

He would fly out the window. She couldn’t hold him.

Another bullet slammed into the car. More glass showered them.

“Now!”

Rox shoved her foot down.

The engine snarled.

The SUV leapt forward.

“Come on, come on,” Casimir muttered. He twisted the steering wheel, turning off on an exit. “Brake now.”

Rox stomped on the brake. The SUV’s tires screeched under them. They slid, and they stopped.

Casimir said, “Stay down.”

He moved up a little bit, looking around, and Rox sucked in a deep breath of air when his weight lightened. She asked, “Are we okay?”

A crack, and a clang rang through the car, metal on metal.

“No,” Casimir said. “Gas.”

Rox stepped on the gas pedal, and Cash drove them through the streets, muttering directions to her. It was a miracle they didn’t hit anybody, but after a few minutes, Cash told her to brake one more time. The gear shift handle beside her waist moved, and the SUV flinched as the engine shifted into the parking gear.

Casimir said, “I think we lost him.”

“What the hell was that?” Rox asked, still clinging to his waist.

He sat up, maneuvering himself back to the passenger seat, though he still had one hand on the steering wheel and was looking around. “I think that sniper was the reason why Val needed us to get out of the office so fast. I am reconsidering my position that my car crash was just an accident.”

“No shit, Sherlock!” Rox shoved at Casimir to get him off of her and pushed herself up on her arms. “I can’t believe that Val is trying to kill you over this!”

“I’m not sure it’s Val,” he said, grabbing the door handle to pull himself upright. “I think she tried to warn me. When I argued with her earlier this week, she kept telling me that I didn’t understand, to back off, and to make sure that you had no part in it. I think Val and Josie are either being threatened or blackmailed.” He looked at the shattered windows. “Probably threatened.”

A police car pulled up alongside of them, its siren wailing and lights glaring in their eyes. The officer shoved open her door and jumped out to crouch behind her car, her gun pointing over the car’s roof at Rox and Casimir. She yelled, “Get out of the car!”

“Whoa!” Rox poked the button to roll down the driver’s side window and held up her empty hands. “We were shot at. We don’t have any guns, and we didn’t do anything wrong.”

The officer lifted her head so that she was not peering over the gun’s sights. She looked them over, the sun shining off the polished brim of her hat as her head dipped. “Someone just started shooting at you?”

From behind Rox, Casimir said, “There was a sniper. How many cars did he shoot at?”

“Looked like a couple cars were hit. Are you folks okay?” she called across the top of the car.

“Yeah,” Rox said. “I think so. A little shaken up.”

“I’ll bet.” The officer holstered her gun and walked around her car toward them, though her fingers hovered near her weapon. “Do you need an ambulance or other medical attention?”

Casimir said, “I think we’re all right.”

The officer walked over to Rox’s door. “Can I see some identification?”

“I’m going to take my wallet out of my pocket,” Casimir said, his hands still raised.

“Yes, sir,” the officer said, her fingers lightly touching the butt of her gun.

“And I’m going to dig around in my purse for a minute,” Rox said. “It’s kind of a mess in there.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The officer’s shoulders had relaxed, and Rox turned away to root through her purse for her billfold.

Casimir passed his driver’s license to the officer over Rox’s shoulder. “I have additional identification and the rental agreement for the SUV in my briefcase. There are just a few other pieces of paper in there, a laptop, and so on.”

“Sure,” the officer said. “Move slowly, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course, madam.” He slid his fingertips into a side pocket of the briefcase and took out a small, thin book with a burgundy and gold cover. The lions stamped on the front kind of looked like Casimir’s tattoo on the inside of his forearm.

The officer reached for it over Rox’s shoulder again, while Rox was still stirring the boxes of mints and gum and tissue and tampons and receipts, trying to dig up her wallet. She got a glimpse of the cover of Casimir’s passport as they passed it right by her face. The words on the front read,
Diplomatiek Paspoort.

Those words might have been Dutch, but Rox could figure out what they meant. She was still so shocked-stupid from getting shot at and nearly dying on the freeway that she almost giggled at the fact that his official diplomatic passport had the word “poo” in it.

Rox found her thick wallet in her purse and unzipped it on three sides. Damn, she had meant to clean it out. The wallet was so full that it looked like she had stuffed a deck of playing cards in there.

“It’s here.” Rox glanced back at the police officer while she separated the loyalty rewards cards and credit cards and gym ID with her fingernails. “I swear to God, it’s in here.”

“Take your time.” The officer examined the small book and asked Casimir, “Is this real?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“We don’t see this kind of thing very often.”

Casimir shrugged. “I can call someone, if you’d prefer.”

“It’s no problem. I just have to check it out.”

Among the cluster of cards in her wallet, Rox found her driver’s license. She put her thumb over the picture lest Casimir see that horrible photo and held it out to the police officer. “Found it.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll just run these.” The officer walked back to her car and bent to get in the front seat.

“What was that?” Rox asked.

Cash raised one eyebrow. “What?”

“That passport. That diplomatic passport.”

“I carry a diplomatic passport. It gets me out of parking tickets.”

“This isn’t a parking ticket.”

“And we didn’t do anything wrong. We were the victims of a crime, and the passport will help smooth things over.”

“Why does a lawyer need a diplomatic passport?”

He was looking straight at her, and while he didn’t look angry, he did look like he was wearing his resting bitch face, the stern expression that he put on when dealing with antagonistic opposing counsel. “All Dutch citizens carry a diplomatic passport. There are only fifty of us.”

Rox said, “I call bullshit.”

“Fine, but let’s talk about this later.”

“Oh, we will. You can count on that.”

A small smile sneaked through his blank expression. “I suppose we shall.”

Four more police cars sped into the parking lot, sirens blaring and rollers flashing. They surrounded the first police car and their SUV.

“Cash, is there something you need to tell me?” Rox raised her hands slowly, making no sudden moves that might be misinterpreted.

The police officers in the other cars hopped out, drew their handguns, and faced outward, surveying the parking lot around them.

“What the heck is going on?” Rox asked him.

“We’ve been the victim of a violent crime,” Casimir said. “Surely the police are here to protect us.”

The first police officer came back to the car and handed them back their identification. “Thank you, sir, ma’am. You’re free to go. Do you require any additional assistance, a tow truck or medical assistance? Do you need a ride home?”

“Uh, no thanks?” Rox had never heard of a police officer offering someone a ride in California.

Back home, sure. Back home, a police officer might offer to drive you home if you were coming out of a bar and hadn’t gotten into your car yet, just to make sure everyone got home safely.

But in California? That was weird.

“Thank you, officer,” Casimir said. “We would appreciate a ride back to my house.”

“We don’t need a ride,” Rox told him. “We could just call a cab, or I could call Brandy or Wren or somebody to give us a lift.” She turned to the police officer. “I’m sure that we don’t need to trouble you.”

“I believe that you would be safer in an official vehicle with a police escort, ma’am,” she said.

One of the other officers, also a woman, looked back over her shoulder and said, “You should accept our offer, sir. I’ll drive you.”

“I was the responding officer,” the first police officer called back at her. When she turned her head, Rox could see that her black hair was braided into a complicated bun on the back of her head. “I’ll drive them home.”

“I took the diplomatic defensive driving course, and I outrank you,” the other lady officer retorted.

“But I am the responding officer!”

Rox leaned over to Cash and whispered, “Lord Almighty, you haven’t slept with both of them, have you?”

“No,” Casimir said. “It’s the diplomatic passport. It brings out the best in everyone.”

She squinted at him, but she couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not.

Casimir called out, “Thank you, officers. We would be most grateful for a ride home.”

THE HACIENDA, AGAIN

The entourage of police vehicles dropped them off at Casimir’s house.

Rox walked inside without holding on to anything. Waves of weakness ran up her legs. She was almost falling off her heels, and she stood inside the house right next to the door from the garage, leaning against the wall.

Casimir stood beside her and hung out of the doorway, waving at the retreating battalion of police cars. The garage door rattled down.

Rox had tried to slow her breathing down, but she was still panting, scared to her core. She wasn’t going to let herself act like a scared little skunk. No way, no how.

Her hands tingled, though, and she couldn’t seem to take a deep enough breath to calm the flutters in her chest.

Outside, the garage door thunked closed.

Casimir slammed closed the door beside her. He grabbed her into his arms and pressed her against the wall, his mouth finding hers. He kissed her hard, pressing his mouth to hers and groping her waist and her ass.

She almost thought,
Wow, what’s gotten into him?
but her body answered his, a hot blast of desperate emotion dragged raw by the spraying glass and bullets singing with death. Rox grabbed him with one arm around his neck, her other hand clutching his waist, and one leg wrapped around his thigh.

He groaned into her mouth and ground his hips against her. His lips opened on hers, and she angled her head to kiss him more deeply. He shoved at her suit jacket, tangling her arms in it as he tried to take it off of her. She yanked at the jacket to get it off, but he was already sliding his hand up her thigh to hike her skirt up around her waist and tugging at her underwear, sliding his fingers over her hip and downward.