Working Stiff: Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1) (8 page)

Rox had to lean way over to hand him her fork so he could taste her steak thing, a heady mix of caramelized onions and dark tastes.

She scooted to the edge of the couch so that she could reach his outstretched fingers. Truly, she was so short that she was just a ball with hands and feet sticking out, sometimes.

Pirate, Midnight, and Speedbump had acclimated to Cash’s house astonishingly fast, even though they still were clingy. Speedbump and Midnight were wound in a tangle of warm black and gray fur on Rox’s lap, and she had her arms locked around both of them to keep them from falling off while they slept and she ate. Speedbump’s gimpy back leg was stretched out to the side.

Pirate was sitting on Cash’s lap, purring, while Cash carefully scratched around his ruined ears. Cash asked, “This isn’t hurting him?”

“He looks ridiculously happy. I really can leave them locked up in the guest bedroom so they won’t get fur all over your house.”

“You can’t lock up an animal like that. It’s unkind.” Cash gingerly moved to scratch under Pirate’s chin, and the cat stretched his neck to get more. His tongue was hanging out a little on one side of his mouth in his delirium.

“I really appreciate you letting us stay here, Cash. I found a guest house in between contracts today. They’re fine with cats. I filled out the form online, and they said they can do the credit check in the morning so I can move in tomorrow after work.”

“Good. As long as you’re safe. I started Melanie on drawing up documents to serve your old landlord. We’ll have your things and your deposit back within a few weeks, I predict.” He leaned his head to the side, watching Pirate, and smiled. “Okay, I know that they’re your babies, or whatever, and I hate to say anything harsh about an innocent animal, but these are some beat-up beasts.”

“They’re beautiful,” Rox said, scratching Midnight on his scarred back. The mound of cat fur on her lap began to purr. “Besides, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

Cash laughed a full-throated laugh. He threw his head back and everything. Pirate looked up at him, bemused. He said, “No, it’s not.”

“Of course it is.”

He raised one eyebrow. “If you’re not beautiful on the outside, you can’t get laid, no one likes you, and you won’t get ahead in life.”

Rox shook her head and released Midnight, who trotted away and licked his tail. “I call baloney, Cash.”

“It’s not. It’s the absolute truth.”

“You think you got where you are because you’re pretty?”

An incredulous look floated up his face. “Absolutely.”

Rox laughed at him. “Humble, much?”

“This is how I look. I am aware of how everyone reacts to me, every day. Yes, I have a bit of success because I am, as you have said,
pretty.”

“You’re a damn fine lawyer, Cash. You went to Yale.”

He shrugged. “Money and flirting with the admissions board.”

“Every actor and model in this town wants you to look over their contract.”

He raised one eyebrow. “And then sleep with me.”

“Some of them are in New York and go over the contract via video chat.”

“And then they all fly in for one last meeting,” Cash said.

“You don’t sleep with the guys.”

“It’s not for their lack of trying.”

“It is not just because you’re a pretty boy! Look at me. I work my ass off, and I’m advancing within the firm. I’m not beautiful.”

Cash looked up from the cat in his lap and blinked, a slow movement of his lids over his brilliant green eyes. “Yes, you are.”

“Oh, my stars, Cash!” She cracked up. He could not be serious. “Look at me. I’m dumpy. I’m chubby. My hair is boring brown. So are my eyes. My bone structure is so-so and buried under pudge anyway. Don’t tease me.”

His hand stole along the back of the couch, and he stroked her bare shoulder with one finger, a breach of their established etiquette. “You are beautiful. Your eyes are the color of the caramels back home. When you smile, everything about you is a delight.”

“Stop it. It is not.” She was losing her breath. He shouldn’t say stupid things like that to her.

“Doesn’t your husband tell you that you’re beautiful?” he asked.

His hand drifted down her arm, and he tugged her elbow. Her hand floated away from the cats, who adjusted so they wouldn’t fall off her lap. Midnight grumbled.

Cash caught her fingers in his with his hand underneath, as if he might kiss her hand in an old-fashioned way.

She couldn’t quite look away from his hand, his long fingers that held hers, even while she reached for righteous indignation. She lived in Los Angeles. Surely the ability to act was in the water, there. Her voice was a little breathy as she said, “He doesn’t have to.”

He turned his chin, looking at her sideways. “He does though, right?”

“Um, no.” She looked away. None of her imaginary friends lied to her, not even her imaginary husband.

His fingers still held hers suspended in the air, and her whole body was aware of his hand and all the possibilities.

He might pull her toward him.

The cats would tumble off her lap and end up in a cat fight.

He might brush his lips across her knuckles, starting with her hand, then her wrist.

She might shove the cats off and jump on him, finally tasting his golden skin and lush mouth.

Her lips felt too big, and her bra was too tight where she was struggling to breathe.

Good God, this was why women fell into bed with him. She didn’t believe in fairies or spirits or such, but Cash Amsberg had some kind of hot sex magic and had sent it thrumming through her body.

His thumb skimmed across her knuckles, a caress that zinged through her chest.

Damn it.
She shouldn’t have stayed with him, in his house. He would break her heart, and then he would run away.

But she didn’t let go of his hand.

Cash said, “He should tell you that you’re beautiful.”

“It’s just a thing. I don’t care.” Her voice was too high like she was just about to have a panic attack. She shouldn’t have come to his house. She should have slept in her car just one more night. She had to let go of his hand, but she couldn’t. Every second holding his fingers wound her up more.

He turned his wrist a little. That colorful tattoo on the underside of his forearm flashed into view: three abutting shields, a white lion that looked like it was on fire on the orange shield, and two other shields with three crowns and a red and white harlequin pattern.

Cash said, “But you know you are beautiful, right?”

Rox glanced down at her wedding set on her other hand, her suit of diamond armor. The cheap gold and fake stones glowed against Midnight’s black fur. “Where are you going with this?”

Cash leaned his head on the back of the couch. His hand receded, and he stared at the ceiling. “Nowhere. Can’t a friend state to a friend the obvious fact that she is blindingly beautiful?”

Rox retracted her hand and crossed her legs away from him, still trying to breathe normally. “Now I know that you are messing with me. That was over the top, Cash.”

He smiled a little. “It’s not. It’s a good thing you’re married, or I would have made a play for you a long time ago.”

He shouldn’t say things like this to her, to his business associate and a supposedly married woman. “And then you would have lost the best damn paralegal in the office when you ghosted on me.”

He raised an eyebrow, still staring up. “Ghosted?”

“When you blow someone off by not returning their emails or texts, like turning into a ghost.”

“How metaphorical.”

“You know that you do it to all the women you date.” She was pushing at him, she knew. She was pushing him away so that these vibrations would leave her. She needed to have no chance with him.

He shrugged. “They don’t care. I’m nothing to them.”

“It’s like you think they don’t really like you or something.”

He shrugged.

Rox looked over at him, watching the nonchalance in his shoulders and body. “At least some of them do. There are too many broken hearts lying around the office for all of them to be pulling the drama llama.”

“So why do you have three ugly cats?” he asked.

Ah, so he was redirecting the witness. Typical arrogant lawyer move. Yet, she had to defend her cats. “They’re not ugly!”

“Sure they are. It’s what’s inside that counts, right? So why did you adopt three such abominable creatures?”

“Well,” she looked at her hands, still fidgeting with the rings, “because they were at the shelter for a long time.”

“And why was that?” His sideways glance was sly.

“Because no one adopted them.”

“Any why did no one adopt them?” he pressed.

“Fine,”
she said.
“Because they’re hideous. But they’re the best cats, and I love them.”

Cash closed his eyes but kept scratching Pirate along his shoulders. Pirate was a limp heap of drooling love. “Because no one else would look beyond their ugliness. You’re a special person, Rox, but no one else is.”

AGAIN

Casimir took the curve in the highway with a solid twist of the steering wheel. The car’s stereo was blasting “Alwaysland,” a demo copy of a new song from one of his music clients, Alexandre Grimaldi.
 
Alexandre was the lead singer for the “emerging” band Killer Valentine, a polite word that meant no one had ever heard of them. Alexandre’s cousin Maxence was one of Casimir’s closest friends, and thus Casimir provided
pro bono
legal advice on contracts for Alexandre. It also meant that Casimir got demo copies of new music, an excellent perk.

The themes of lost love and lost chances were killing him, but Casimir didn’t forward to the next song.

He scratched a spot just below his cheekbone, the rough bristles of his beard poking under his blunt fingernails. The spot that itched was adjacent to one of the numb areas on his cheek, and his skin vibrated where he couldn’t feel himself scratching.

The red sedan beside him edged closer. Rust was bubbling under the paint on the hood.

Casimir had had a night with Rox in his house, and he’d dithered all night between the fact that she was married and the fact that her husband hadn’t been there when she had needed someone to take care of her and never told her that she was beautiful.

But he was sure that she was loyal to her husband, and Casimir respected that.

He shouldn’t have taken her hand, and he shouldn’t have rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. Her whole arm had started shaking.

She must hate him for doing that.

She should.

That idealistic part of his brain had been talking again, the stupid part that wouldn’t shut up about Rox, how he believed her, how she was different.

Lust had buzzed in his blood the whole evening, and then after she had gone to bed, taking those mashed-up cats with her, he had stolen down the hall to his gym to burn off the adrenaline for a few hours so that he could finally sleep.

As he drove that morning, he was tired. He needed coffee.

Before they had driven separately to work, he and Rox had met in the living room, fully dressed, ready to go, and walked out to the garage. He had joked and so had she, but her eyes had darted away as soon as he managed any eye contact.

Her black sports car drove in the lane to his left and two cars back. He watched it the whole time he drove his commute, wanting to call her to talk. He often called her while he drove in to talk about work or any old excuse.

Traffic surged around his car, and he leaned on the accelerator to stay with it. The car thrummed around him as the finely tuned engine sang under the hood.

He wanted to touch her again, even her hand, even just her forehead against his suit jacket.

The last few days, they had begun to push at their boundaries. Every flirt was taking on a new dimension in his mind, moving from the pathos of futility and reaching for something shimmering.

She. Was. Married.

The asphalt swung right in front of his car, and the other cars and trucks took the turn in formation.

Casimir drove around the curve, staying in his lane. Even through the car’s high-end suspension, the asphalt jittered the tires. The other cars flew with him.

Slam.

Cars spun outside the windshield, flying through the air, and the asphalt and the Earth flipped overhead.

Metal and glass and cutting, breaking pain sliced his chest and head.

Not again.

Dear God, not again
.

Burning. The scent of fire and smoking gasoline.

Darkness closed around him.

CRASH

Rox was watching Cash’s dark silver Mercedes Maybach, one lane over and two cars ahead of her, when the red beat-up sedan swerved into him, sending his car spinning and then flying.

She pulled her steering wheel hard, jumping onto the shoulder of the road and jamming her foot into the brakes.

The semi-truck in the next lane barely moved when Cash’s Maybach slammed into it, but his car tumbled sideways, and then it flipped end over end above the packed traffic.

Rox’s car slid to a stop, gravel clattering under the wheels and over the metal.

Cars squealed all around her, fountaining off to the sides to avoid crashing into the twisting metal ahead.

“Phone Chick!” Rox yelled. While the phone intoned,
Yes, Your Imperial Majesty,
she screamed over it, “Call nine-one-one! Call nine-one-one!”

Cash’s crushed car rocked to the side, almost rolling again, but it slapped back down on its tires. Fire reached around the crumpled hood.

Rox fell out of her car and ran.

She dodged between the stopped cars. One woman was shouting into her steering wheel, and another wide-eyed woman was holding her phone to her ear, pointing ahead across the hood of her car.

Steam billowed from the wadded hood of Cash’s Mercedes. White airbags filled the windows but deflated as she got closer.

She slammed against the hot metal of the door, burning her palms. “Cash! Answer me!
Cash!”

Jerking on the door handle did nothing. The car was smashed shut as tightly as if the whole thing had been welded by raining hellfire.