Читать книгу Riches to Rags Bride / The Heiress's Baby: Riches to Rags Bride / The Heiress's Baby - Lilian Darcy, Lilian Darcy - Страница 11

GENEVIEVE LOOKED at her watch. Rats! She was running behind again. Ever since she’d moved in, ever since Lucas had kissed her, the two of them had been working at a feverish pace to finish everything before they opened the doors to Angie’s House and Lucas moved on to France.

And until I … do what? she wondered. But there wasn’t even time to worry about that. Thank goodness. Thinking about her future filled her with determination but also with trepidation and doubts. At least doing her job kept her mind off all that.

And off the memory of Lucas kissing her.

“Stop that,” she ordered herself.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught Jorge looking at her, and she gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry. Sometimes when I’m tense or rushed, I talk to myself.”

He shrugged and returned her smile. “I noticed. You’ve been talking to yourself a lot lately. Lots of stress around here. Even Lucas has been talking to himself and that’s not like him. I worked with him here when he opened one of his stores. I think this place—” Jorge gestured toward the wall “—means a lot to him. He told me it was special. I wonder if there really is an Angie. Why did he choose that name?”

“Maybe it’s just a name, Jorge. And anyway, I’m sure that Lucas would have told us if he wanted us to know more.” But she had wondered the same thing, she thought, as Jorge agreed and went on his way.

Truly she had wondered about whether there was an Angie too much, too often. Repeatedly. Especially since she knew that this was the first such project Lucas had taken on and he spoke of it with such fervor. Especially since she’d glimpsed that pain in his eyes. She hoped that all of the wondering she’d been doing didn’t have anything to do with how Lucas had made her feel when he’d kissed her crazy.

Because that kiss couldn’t matter. It was almost as if it had never happened in Lucas’s eyes. Because once he’d apologized, he made it a point to keep his distance from her. He’d very politely told her that in order to speed up the project, she should feel free to use him in whatever way she needed to. Then he’d given her a curt nod and walked away. Now, although they saw more of each other than they had in those first few days, they kept their personal interactions brief. Nonexistent, really.

He handled the financial end of things, some of the more technical aspects of structure. She handled the big picture, the “what do girls like?” items, the pizzazz end of things.

Those areas might have normally crisscrossed. They should have. Somehow, however, she and Lucas managed to keep a polite distance between them.

At least she hoped she gave the appearance of polite distance. She hoped he never caught her staring at his mouth or his chest and remembering how it had felt to be in his arms.

A buzzer went off at that moment, sending her thoughts flying. “Darn it,” she said, looking at the reminder that appeared on her phone. She was supposed to be meeting with some of the neighbors over coffee tomorrow and she needed to finalize the food. That she could manage. The other item on her to-do list, sending out the invitations to the “meet the elite” party Lucas had requested was more problematic. Her throat closed up at the enormity of the task. The people he would want and expect might have come at her parents’ calling. They wouldn’t come for the “no artistic talent” daughter of the Patchetts. They especially wouldn’t want to come to a party she was throwing if they had heard any of the rumors Barry had spread, and they surely had. Gossip expanded like bread dough in her parents’ inner circle. She was going to fail Lucas.

For now she would concentrate on the coffee, the easy task. At least she’d thought it would be easy … until she showed up the next day and found herself fielding a barrage of questions.

“Would you consider marrying me? These cookies are better than any I’ve tasted and you’re an extremely pretty lady. I think I’m in love.” Those were the words Lucas heard as he entered the backyard where Genevieve was holding court with the neighbors. He glanced to where she was talking to a handsome aging man.

She was wearing a mischievous smile, and for a minute Lucas stood transfixed. It was hard to believe that any man—that rat ex-fiancé of hers—would intentionally hurt a woman like Gen. But then, I’ve hurt plenty of women, haven’t I? And if he followed his inclinations and chased Genevieve’s smiles, he would hurt her just like Barry had. Because in the end, he would still leave. And when they were done here, she needed her freedom and confidence, not some man born to disappoint her.

He leaned on the fence and listened.

“William, how many women have you asked to marry you today?” Genevieve said to the elderly man. “I’ll bet it’s been at least a dozen. But thank you so much for the compliment. If I could marry any man today, you’d be right at the top of my list. Unfortunately, I can’t marry anyone. And I’ll tell you a secret. I didn’t bake the cookies. I bought them.”

The man clapped one hand over his heart in mock horror. “No marriage? No home-baked cookies? Oh, you’ve broken my heart, Genevieve.”

“I know. It’s sad, but I’m sure another cookie or two will heal your heart. Even a store-bought cookie.”

The man’s laugh rang out, ending the exchange, and Genevieve moved on to another group of people. Lucas watched as she charmed them, keeping the conversation light. This was to be a social gathering only. Nothing serious. Just putting people’s minds at ease by being friendly. He didn’t really even have a place here, but she had asked him to stop by just in case anyone insisted on asking questions she couldn’t answer.

“Genevieve, thank you for inviting us,” one woman said. “This is so nice. I love all the pretty green and ivory umbrellas, and the food is delicious. I tell you, I’m glad to hear that you’re happy with the size of the house. We were afraid someone was going to tear the place down and build something even bigger.”

“No. The footprint will remain the same,” Genevieve said, “and we’ll make this pretty yard even more luscious by adding plenty of flowers and some benches.”

“Will you be living here then, you and your husband?” the woman asked. “I told William there that the two of you were most likely married. Or going to be married. You both spend so much time here.”

That was when Genevieve faltered. She looked up into Lucas’s eyes, as if seeking him out. Or maybe she was just afraid that he had heard.

Slowly, she was shaking her head, that pretty blush spreading up her throat. For some totally foolish, insane reason Lucas couldn’t understand, he wanted to hide her. He didn’t want anyone other than himself to see that intimate color that disappeared beneath the collar of her blouse. Which was, of course, ridiculous. He had no more right to think intimate thoughts of Gen than anyone here.

“Lucas and I merely work together,” Genevieve finally managed to say. “I suppose I should explain a bit about why we’re here.”

He couldn’t help smiling. She was always so honest. The script called for a brief neighborhood social hour followed by a mailing and then another question-and-answer meeting, no explanations given today.

Well, so much for the script. This was a lot like Genevieve’s foray into painting. Wild and uninhibited and … interesting. She was always interesting. And so were her cookies, he thought, looking down at the plates filled with miniature works of art.

But by then, she’d begun to speak. “This house is being transformed into a very special place,” she began. “A place that will offer hope to people who need it very much and a place that will, I’m sure, be a credit to your wonderful, beautiful neighborhood.”

“Hmm,” one man said. “That sounds like a lead-in to something I’m not going to like. This is going to be some sort of home for people we won’t want in our neighborhood, isn’t it?”

Lucas frowned at the man. Maybe he even growled or took a step forward, because Genevieve immediately sent Lucas a pleading glance. Which did no good. All Lucas could think of was his mother, who had been a lost soul, of Angie, who had had abuse heaped upon her, of … Genevieve living in a place where there were bars on the windows. A man like that one could raise an outcry, turn people against this project, stop it from happening.

Stop Lucas from doing this thing he desperately needed and wanted to do. Lucas opened his mouth.

“I suppose that might be true,” Genevieve said softly, halting Lucas’s speech. “That is, if you think someone like me would be bad for the neighborhood. This home will be called Angie’s House and it will house eight women like me. Ones who’ve had some hard times but want to raise themselves up. Women who need good, kind neighbors. Women who will work hard to win your trust and to become contributing members of the community.”

She was putting words into the mouths of women she didn’t even know and yet … that was the goal of Angie’s House, wasn’t it?

For two seconds, she looked into Lucas’s eyes. Was she looking for encouragement? He didn’t know, but he nodded. Although what he really wanted to do was challenge any man who questioned her, he knew that wasn’t what she wanted. Encouragement was all she would want to accept. You’re doing fine. He tried to convey the words with his expression.

Which was ridiculous. He was not a sensitive man. He’d been told many times that he looked cold and foreboding. Reassurance wasn’t in his library of expressions.

“So … are you Angie? Metaphorically, I mean,” a woman asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe I am.”

“Is there a real Angie?”

“Must be. Why would they call it that if there wasn’t an Angie?” a man said.

The questions came hard and fast, but most of them fixated on the name of the place. “Will the real Angie be coming here?”

“Is she alive?”

“Is she dead?”

“Why did you call the place Angie’s House? What’s the story behind it?”

Lucas felt himself closing up inside. He cursed himself for not anticipating this. Of course, people would be curious about the significance of the name. What had he been thinking doing things this way?

And Genevieve … He’d put her in an uncomfortable position. She was supposed to be the all-knowing, all-seeing leader of this project and he had made her look bad by not giving her all the tools she needed.

“I—” She looked up. He thought she was going to look straight into his eyes, but just as her gaze almost met his, she quickly looked away. “I’m sorry. I don’t know all the answers to your questions,” she said. And she didn’t promise that she would seek out the answers, either.