Читать книгу Lady And The Scamp - Dianne Drake - Страница 13

TO CASSIE’S HORROR, the scheduled rendezvous with the expensive English prince from London was a total calamity. Not only would Duchess not let the courtly stud get near her, she also bit the yapping powder puff squarely on his royal nose, prompting his snooty owner to threaten a lawsuit of his own. Thankfully, when Cassie upped the already preposterous stud fee, which had to be paid whether the dogs mated or not, she’d managed to calm the man’s ruffled feathers.

Now the only hurdle that remained was the ultrasound Dee was going to perform to see if Earl had been successful in making Duchess a mommy.

Forcing thoughts of fleeing to South America from her mind, Cassie reluctantly handed her keys to the valet parking attendant at Asheville’s impressive Grove Park Inn. The last thing she’d wanted to do that evening was attend the annual fund-raiser for the local historical society. Especially since Mark Winston would be there in all his glory with his new lady on his arm.

Cassie’s pride, however, wouldn’t allow her to stay at home. She knew the rumors would be bad enough if she made an appearance. But if she stayed away, she figured she would forever be dubbed as “the idiot who let Mark Winston get away.”

Crossing the lobby, Cassie took a deep breath before stepping into the large ballroom that was housing the charitable event. As luck would have it, the first person she saw was Evelyn Van Arbor, Asheville’s biggest gossip.

Hurrying to the cocktail bar on the far side of the room, Cassie purposely ignored the old snoop, and thought she’d been successful until the woman’s shrill voice rang out behind her.

“Cassandra, darling. Wait up.”

Steeling herself, Cassie turned to face the blue-haired piranha, knowing Evelyn would feast on her every word. After the old woman kissed the air on both sides of Cassie’s face, Cassie said, “You look glamorous as usual, Evelyn.”

“And so do you, dear,” Evelyn gushed, then added, “I can’t tell you how delighted I am that you decided to come, Cassandra. I was afraid you’d let this horrible misfortune with Mark Winston turn you into a bitter recluse.”

It took all of her composure, but Cassie managed a smile. “I’m not sure I know what you mean, Evelyn.”

The woman patted Cassie’s shoulder sympathetically. “You don’t have to act so brave with me, you poor little thing. Mark’s an idiot. And you’re so much prettier than that flighty Dianna Nugent.”

Cassie’s smile was now so forced it threatened to make huge cracks in both sides of her face. “I know there’s been a lot of speculation about me and Mark the last few months, Evelyn, but we’ve never been anything more than good friends. I assure you, I couldn’t be happier for both of them.”

“Oh, you’re much too gracious for your own good,” Evelyn complained as she nodded toward Mark and Dianna, who were twirling around the dance floor. “Besides,” she whispered, leaning close enough to make Cassie nauseous from her overpowering perfume, “Dianna’s father might be a doctor, but he isn’t a good doctor, judging from the malpractice suits that have been filed against him. Mark would have been better off staying with you, where he belonged. At least your father and your grandfather share his interests in politics.”

Cassie started to comment, but froze when a pair of black eyes she hadn’t counted on seeing at the fund-raiser locked with her own. As if her evening hadn’t started out badly enough, she now found Nick Hardin standing at the opposite end of the bar.

Her heart skipped a beat when he sent her a cordial nod, then graciously lifted his glass in her direction, offering a toast. God, please don’t let him come over here, she prayed silently, then quickly dismissed him by turning her back.

Aware that her hands were shaking when she accepted a glass of champagne from the attentive bartender, Cassie swallowed most of the expensive liquid in one easy gulp, then reluctantly turned her attention back to the lesser of two evils. “I’m sorry, Evelyn. What was your question again?”

“I asked what part of Europe your parents were touring now?”

Before Cassie could answer, the old woman leaned forward and grabbed her arm. “Don’t look now, but that horrible Nick Hardin is headed our way. I can’t believe he had the nerve to show up here, can you? Especially after that episode at the country club. Why, the very nerve of him riding his filthy motorcycle up on the country club lawn and parking—”

“Good evening, ladies,” Nick interrupted, silencing Evelyn Van Arbor’s rant.

Cassie took a deep breath, reluctantly turning around to face Nick. Immediately, she felt her knees buckle. Dressed in a snazzy designer tux with his shoulder-length hair slicked back in a perfect Steven Segal queue at his nape, he looked like a cross between Cinderella’s Prince Charming and a modern-day action hero. And despite her first impulse, which was to punch him in the nose for the lewd comment he’d made on the telephone about “letting nature take its course,” he was so wickedly handsome Cassie wasn’t sure she could trust herself in his presence.

Ignoring the cold reception he was receiving from the upper-crust matriarch standing beside her, Nick nodded a cordial greeting to Evelyn, then openly appraised the strapless black cocktail dress that fit Cassie like a second skin.

“You certainly look ravishing tonight, counselor,” he drawled in his deep, honey-smooth voice.

The fact that he was openly undressing her with his eyes while a room full of her peers looked on made Cassie curse herself for giving into a whim and wearing the extremely short frock that was capturing his attention. She’d only worn the stupid thing because Mark detested her in anything flashy. Now it seemed her silly attempt at revenge on Mark had ultimately backfired in her face.

When his eyes left her cleavage long enough to look her in the face, he asked, “How about a spin around the dance floor, counselor? It is, after all, for a very noble cause.”

“I’d rather walk barefoot on hot coals, Mr. Hardin,” Cassie assured him through clenched teeth.

She’d meant to insult him, but instead he laughed good-naturedly at her rebuff, then shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, you can’t blame a guy for wanting at least one dance with the sexiest lady in the room, can you?”

“Of all the nerve…” gasped Evelyn Van Arbor.

Cassie ignored the old snob’s outburst and sent Nick a lethal look that said “go away.” It was bad enough that everyone in the room was already buzzing about Mark throwing her over for Dianna Nugent. But if the elite of Asheville caught her conversing with the devil himself, she knew the rumors would take on a whole new life of their own.

When she sent him another frosty glare, it seemed to do the trick. Nick smiled, made a cordial little bow, then said, “Since it’s obvious I can’t interest you in a dance, then I’ll do the honorable thing and clear the way for someone you might find more suitable.”

When Cassie refused to comment, Nick sent her another mocking grin. “Have a nice evening, ladies.”

He turned and walked away, leaving Cassie feeling extremely guilty. Especially since he’d been so gracious when she’d purposely tried to embarrass him. Normally, she wouldn’t have acted so rude, but her gut instinct told her it was safer if Nick Hardin thought she was a kindred spirit to the mass of insufferable snobs who were gathered together for the evening. The taunting look in his sultry black eyes told Cassie he already knew she found him attractive. And she did. Even though they were complete opposites.

She almost smiled, thinking that referring to her and Nick Hardin as opposites was certainly the understatement of the century. They were like oil and water. Like fire and ice. They were the most unlikely match Cassie could possibly imagine. And for her own sake, she knew it was better to keep it that way.

Still reeling from the close encounter, she motioned for the bartender again. The man quickly refilled her glass, but as Cassie brought the glass to her lips, Evelyn Van Arbor leaned forward and said loud enough for the entire room to hear, “You did the right thing, Cassandra. It’s time a derelict like Nick Hardin realizes that he’ll never be accepted at a social gathering in this city.”

Cassie sputtered in her champagne and jerked her head around in time to see that the woman’s rude comment had brought Nick to a mid-stride stop. Turning slowly back to face them again, he wore the same cocky grin she remembered from the morning she first found Nick swimming naked in his pool. She shivered.

“Oh, by the way, counselor,” Nick called across a room that was now so quiet Cassie could hear her own breathing. “You never did telephone me with the results of that pregnancy test.”

“Dear Heavenly Father…” Evelyn Van Arbor wailed, and dropped the champagne glass she was holding in her wrinkled, diamond-laden hand.

Cassie instantly sprang forward and grabbed Nick by the arm before he could slither off into the sea of people, who were all now staring in their direction. Pulling him toward the exit door, she managed to push Nick outside onto the large veranda that ran along the back side of the inn. But by the time she hurried out the door behind him, Cassie could already hear the excited whispers skipping across the crowd.

“Yeah, I like this much better,” Nick announced when Cassie stomped up beside him. “Excellent choice, counselor. And it’s such a beautiful night, too. Much too pleasant to waste inside with all those stuffy friends of yours.”

“How dare you say something like that in front of that old gossip.” Cassie fumed.

“What? Did I say something wrong?”

“You know perfectly well you said something wrong,” Cassie snapped. “And by the time Evelyn Van Arbor spices up the story, it’ll be all over Asheville tomorrow that I’m pregnant with your illegitimate child.”

“But that’s how I prefer my women, remember? Barefoot and pregnant.”

“You’re impossible,” Cassie said, resisting the urge to reach out and strangle him. “How did you get invited to this benefit in the first place? You know these people despise you.”

Nick winked, unruffled by her comment. “You’d be surprised what the right amount of money can buy in this world, Miss Collins.”

Cassie sent him a murderous glare. “I hate to disappoint you, Mr. Hardin, but all the money in the world can never buy you class.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Nick assured her. “Take that rich old bat you’re so worried about now. If she had one ounce of class, she wouldn’t dream of repeating any gossip about you.”

The truth in Nick’s statement kept Cassie silent for a moment. Knitting her perfectly arched eyebrows together in a deep frown, she leaned back against the old stone wall that surrounded the veranda, wondering how long it would take her mother to hear through the grapevine that Nick Hardin had sired her first grandchild.

Cassie feared that, with that kind of news, Lenora Collins really would have the coronary she’d been threatening all these years.

“You know what you need?” Nick asked, studying Cassie’s grave expression.

“A submachine gun might come in handy at the moment,” Cassie shot back, but her caustic wit didn’t discourage Nick from lending his advice.

“You need to lighten up a little, counselor. Don’t take life so seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive, anyway.”

Cassie rolled her eyes. “Spoken like the true scholar you aren’t,” she chided.

“I might not be a scholar,” Nick agreed, taking several steps closer than Cassie felt was necessary. “But I’m smart enough to know that old biddy will believe you over a…what did she call me?”

“I believe it was ‘derelict,”’ Cassie provided gladly.

Nick grinned. “Yes, I’m sure she’ll believe you over a derelict like me the minute you go back inside and tell her I was only talking about your prissy dog.”

Cassie didn’t bother to tell Nick she only wished it were that simple. She would rather have the entire city of Asheville think she was pregnant than have her mother find out that her precious dog with the award-winning genes had accepted a bad seed under Cassie’s supervision.

Ignoring the splendid full moon that was shining above them and the dreamy music that was now floating out to the veranda, Cassie glared at the incorrigible man who was directly blocking her path. “For your information, I’d rather face a firing squad than walk back through that room,” Cassie told him. “And since you’ve already done enough damage to my reputation for one evening, if you’ll move your obnoxious self out of my way, I plan to get out of here before you pull another stunt that makes us both the topic of conversation for the night.”

To her surprise, Nick’s ink-black eyes instantly flickered with anger. “Now, wait a minute, counselor. Don’t try to blame me for making you the topic of conversation in that room this evening. Your boyfriend, old Markie, did that all by himself when he showed up with a different lady on his arm.”

Cassie reached out to slap him, but her heel caught in a crack in the flagstone porch and landed her face-first against Nick’s massive, rock-hard chest. Angry looks flashed between them as he gripped her bare shoulders with his powerful hands to steady her fall. Entwined in an awkward embrace, neither of them expected the wave of passion that erupted between them.

But it did.

And it carried both of them along like a fast-moving train.

Before Cassie knew what was happening, Nick crushed her even closer to him and sent a tingling explosion rippling through her body. When he brushed his lips against the sensitive hollows of her throat, he left her defenseless, lost in a magical place that Cassie never knew existed. Helpless, she surrendered, but only momentarily. When his hungry mouth inched closer, threatening to claim her own, she finally came to her senses.

“I can’t do this,” Cassie gasped, forcing herself to push him away.

Their eyes locked briefly before Nick released her, allowing her time to see desire fade and a look of mischief take its place. “But we both enjoyed it, didn’t we, counselor?”

The weak “hah!” Cassie mustered was almost as shaky as the two legs that were trying to keep her standing. “The only thing I’m going to enjoy, is taking a huge chunk of your bank account if Duchess ends up pregnant,” Cassie lied, tossing Nick a smirk of her own. “I’ll know the test results tomorrow,” she added, “and if Duchess is pregnant, then we’ll see if you don’t start taking life a little more seriously.”

Before Nick could answer, she pushed past him and marched toward the outside stairway at the opposite end of the veranda.

Within seconds, she disappeared into the darkness without looking back.

CASSIE’S HANDS WERE still shaking when she accepted her keys from the uniformed parking attendant. She quickly handed the man a crumpled bill, then slid behind the wheel of her Lexus, trying to slow her thumping heart and regain her lost composure. Afraid her current rattled state of mind might result in destroying half of the luxury automobiles that lined both sides of the lot, she eased cautiously out of the parking lot, cursing the day she’d been stupid enough to stomp up Nick Hardin’s front steps.

How the man had the ability to arouse her one second and make her capable of murder the next was totally beyond her comprehension. He was the most arrogant, the most insufferable, the most exasperating man she’d ever met in her entire life, yet he had the power to reduce her to a sniveling schoolgirl with one glance from those wicked eyes of his.

Oh, he excited her, all right. He excited her more than she ever thought possible. But the type of raw desire he aroused inside her was pushing her into uncharted waters. Waters she knew could be extremely dangerous. To say her experience with the opposite sex had been limited was putting it mildly. Oh, she’d had her share of pimple-faced boyfriends in high school. She’d dated occasionally in college, and she’d even spent the past few months fighting off the unwanted attentions of a would-be senator. But the male persuasion had never been powerful enough to steer Cassie away from the personal goal she had set for herself the summer she turned sixteen.

It had all started with a conversation she overheard between her father and her famous senator grandfather. The realization that the distinguished Senator Edward Collins resented her for not being a grandson had hurt Cassie deeply. Referring to her as “a silly female who would care more about her coming-out party than she would about the family law firm” had devastated her to the point that her mission in life had become her determination to prove the old man wrong.

She had graduated at the top of her class both in college and in law school, and had surpassed any of the academic records either her father or her grandfather held. When Cassie proudly joined the family law firm, she had also brought with her enough expertise in contract and corporate law to add an impressive number of new clients to the firm roster. Until now, she had always believed that her professional accomplishments would be sufficient to sustain her throughout her safe, predictable life.

But that had been before Nick Hardin had arrived on the scene and punched a gigantic hole in her silly facade.

Leaving the Grove Park Inn far behind her, Cassie headed for the south end of town, preoccupied with the way Nick had made her dizzy the minute he took her in his arms. She let her fingers find the warm flesh of her throat and marveled that her skin still tingled from the ravishing kisses he’d placed along her neck. Just thinking of him now, in fact, made her pulse lurch again and sent even a warmer glow straight to the center of her stomach.

Shuddering, Cassie tried not to think what might have happened if she hadn’t somehow found the strength to push him away. A few hasty kisses on her neck had rendered her defenseless. If his fiery mouth had captured her own…

She snapped out of her fantasy when an oncoming car blasted its horn. Somehow, she managed to get the Lexus back into her own lane, but the quick movement slid the car sideways and promptly landed it in the ditch. Shaking now from fright, instead of her brief fantasy about Nick, Cassie gripped the steering wheel and took long measured breaths until she could force her heart back into her chest.

“Dammit,” she said, pounding her fist against the steering wheel. “What else can possibly go wrong tonight?”

After flipping on her emergency signal lights, Cassie launched herself from the Lexus and stomped to the back of the car. Glaring at the right back tire that was currently sitting in the deep rut by the side of the road, her first impulse was to take her frustration out on the car. Pretending it was Nick Hardin’s mocking face she was abusing, she gave the tire a swift kick and promptly broke the heel of her four-inch stiletto pump.

“Would someone please tell me what I’ve done to deserve so much grief?” Cassie howled. “This was supposed to be my six weeks of fun-filled freedom. Remember?”

When she didn’t get an answer, she jerked the shoe off her foot, then let out a loud yelp when the sharp gravel shredded her new panty hose and took a quick bite out of the bottom of her foot. “Just shoot me now and get it over with,” she mumbled, glaring at the shoe whose heel was now twisted at a silly angle and just as useless as Cassie felt standing by the side of the road, shoe in hand.

After several cars passed without slowing down, Cassie was prepared to throw herself across the pavement when the next pair of headlights appeared in the distance. Fortunately, her sacrifice wasn’t necessary. What appeared to be a small sports car suddenly slowed down, then pulled off the road and stopped a few feet behind her.

“There is a God,” she mumbled under her breath.

Shielding her eyes against the bright headlights with her right hand, she saw the silhouette of a man get out of the car and start walking in her direction. “Hey, thanks for stopping,” she called out, putting on her brightest smile. But her smile quickly faded when she saw who it was.

Sauntering up beside her, Nick leaned against the Lexus, then sent her a silly grin. “This must be your lucky night, counselor. You’ve had the pleasure of seeing me twice in one evening.”

“Are you following me?” Cassie snapped.

“Think about it, sweetheart,” Nick jeered. “We both live in the same neighborhood, remember? Or did you think this highway was for your exclusive use only?”

Cassie’s only answer was a she-devil glare.

Pushing himself off the car, Nick bent down and examined the tire. Glancing back over his shoulder, he grinned again. “What happened? Did you run off the road daydreaming about me?”

The truth in Nick’s statement reddened Cassie’s cheeks faster than a blistering arctic wind. “The only dreams I have about you are of the nightmare variety,” she informed him.

Nick chuckled, then stood up and held out his hand. “Give me your keys and I’ll see if I can get you out of this ditch.”

“Don’t bother, I’d rather walk.”

Nick’s eyes swept from the shoe in her hand to her one bare foot. “That should be amusing, since you seem to have only one workable shoe.”

Cassie was tempted to take off her one workable shoe and make a neat hole in the center of Nick’s forehead with its knife-sharp heel. Instead, she nodded toward the car. “The keys are in the ignition.”

Nick opened the car door and slid behind the wheel, then motioned for Cassie to step away from the car. He pulled the Lexus forward a few feet, then backed it up, and as if by magic, drove it safely up on the graveled shoulder beside the highway.

Cassie waited until he opened the door and got out before she hobbled in his direction doing a perfect imitation of a peg-legged pirate with a sawed-off wooden leg.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, choking on the word.

“Hey, what are neighbors for?” Nick teased, but Cassie refused to look at him again.

When he remained leaning against the driver’s side door blocking her escape, Cassie made a dramatic production of looking at her watch. “Look, it’s getting really late, and…”

“I owe you an apology for what I said in front of Evelyn Van Arbor,” Nick interrupted. “I couldn’t care less what those idiots think about me, but I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

Cassie slowly raised her eyes to meet his, deciding she was much safer in his presence when he was being rude and nasty. “Well, there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

“For what it’s worth, I did try,” Nick told her. “I went back inside to explain the situation to the old bat, but she was too busy giving an Academy Award performance for anyone who was willing to listen.”

Caught off guard by his sudden show of sincerity, Cassie managed a tiny smile. “Careful, Mr. Hardin, your bad-boy image is losing out to those fine Georgian manners of yours.”

Nick instantly raised an eyebrow. “Why, counselor, if I didn’t know better I’d think you’d been checking up on me.”

Trapped by her own smart remark, Cassie felt the heat penetrate her cheeks again. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she sputtered. “It’s no big secret that you moved here from Atlanta. I simply read in the paper that you…”

Nick interrupted Cassie’s explanation when he reached out and pulled her to him. She did a little hip-hop dance across the ground when he dragged her into his arms. After kissing her so thoroughly that the cloud walk she was doing didn’t require the aid of both shoes, he opened the car door and guided her safely into the driver’s seat.

Leaning down, he whispered close to her ear, “Now, this is the part where you say ‘Follow me home, Nick, so we can finish what we started earlier on the veranda.”’

Outraged that the oaf would have the audacity to think she would hop into bed with him the minute he crooked his little finger, Cassie pushed him backward, then promptly slammed her car door shut. “No, this is the part where I say ‘You’ll come closer to being served Popsicles in hell than you will to finding me in your bed, Nick Hardin!”’

Cassie tore off down the highway while Nick blew her a sweet little kiss.

NICK WAS STILL CHUCKLING to himself as he walked back to his classic ’57 Corvette, which he kept covered in the garage except for special occasions. Feeling the lower half of his body stir at the thought of how good the angry Cassandra had felt in his arms, Nick removed his tux jacket and noticed it still held the faint sent of her expensive perfume. Tossing his jacket on the passenger’s seat, he slid behind the wheel, trying to remember when he’d ever been so taken with a woman.

He couldn’t.

Cassandra Collins had entered his life like a menacing whirlwind, and since the day he found her standing by his swimming pool, everything about her confused his thoughts and made him doubt what he thought were his deepest beliefs. He’d only attended the fund-raiser in the hope of seeing her again, though he had expected her to be on the arm of the stuffy senatorial candidate she’d been dating. To find out she was no longer involved with anyone both pleased him and bothered him that it did.

Nick certainly hadn’t been prepared for their collision on the veranda earlier. In fact, he couldn’t even remember pulling her to him—only that he had. And once her voluptuous body was pressed against his own, nothing else seemed to matter.

For one brief moment, Nick had actually felt complete.

But is this spitfire attorney typical wife and mother material? Nick kept asking himself as he drove along the highway. Not a chance. She was, after all, twenty-eight and still single, which led him to believe that her career came first in her life. She would probably even be the type of woman who refused to damage her perfect figure in order to give him the children he so desperately wanted.

No, Nick already had an image of the type of woman he wanted for a mate. She would be down-to-earth, fun-loving, warm and giving. And she would love him beyond all reason, always placing him first in her life, preferring to raise a family instead of having a career. Even if he had preferred the social, career-oriented type, everything about the sassy attorney’s actions told Nick she wasn’t interested.

Or was she?

Despite her silly protests, Nick hadn’t missed the wanton look his kisses had produced in those blue-green eyes of hers. Or how visibly shaken she’d been when she finally managed to get control of herself and push him away. As different as they were, Nick knew Miss Uptight Socialite couldn’t deny the electricity that existed between them any more than he could. He only hoped Cassandra Collins would continue to keep her distance if they were forced to deal with the dog issue.

Heaven knew he wouldn’t have any control over his actions if fate kept throwing them together.

Nick passed the street address he remembered from the notes he’d taken on the feisty female and caught a glimpse of taillights turning into a driveway. He was tempted to follow her home and try his luck again, but this woman had a strange power over him Nick couldn’t fully explain.

She’d even invaded his thoughts to the point that Nick was afraid he was developing a conscience. Rarely, if ever, had he apologized to anyone for his brusque behavior. Yet, he’d apologized to her without a second thought. And the fact that he’d apologized so easily scared him more than he cared to admit.

Turning into his driveway, Nick punched the remote button for his garage door opener, then guided the Corvette into the safety of the garage. Grabbing his tux jacket from the seat beside him, he brought the jacket close to his face and took another deep whiff of her intoxicating perfume.

And then he laughed.

Despite the havoc the woman was currently wreaking on his emotions, Nick couldn’t help but enjoy the mental picture that kept flashing through his mind of the captivating Miss Collins running naked through a fiery ring of hellfire and brimstone to hand him the multiflavored Popsicle she held in her outstretched hand.