Hot Wheels and High Heels (9 page)

“Let’s put it this way. You’re considerably younger than Warren.”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Fourteen years.”

“You know, I’ve always wondered something. Maybe you can help me out.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Why do you suppose beautiful young women marry men old enough to be their fathers?”

Darcy was stunned. Over the years, she knew friends and acquaintances had wondered the same thing about her, but no one had ever come right out and asked. And certainly not a total stranger.

“Love is unpredictable,” she said. “Who knows when it will strike?”

“Ah. Now I understand. It’s all about
love.
I assumed you married Warren for his money.”

Her mouth fell open. “I did
not
marry Warren for his money!”

“You’re pretty uptight about losing the material stuff. What about losing the man you love?”

Darcy glared at him. “When a woman finds out her husband is a criminal, it’s amazing how quickly love fades.”

“When a beautiful young woman marries an older man, I’m thinking love doesn’t have much to do with it.”

“You don’t know
anything
about my relationship with Warren!”

“Hey, take it easy, will you? You’re assuming I think that’s a bad thing.” He shrugged offhandedly. “Personally, I’ve never had much luck with love, either. It requires at least a little bit of selflessness, and just between you and me, I’ve never lived a selfless day in my life.” He smiled. “I have a feeling we’re a lot alike. Two people with their eyes always on the bottom line.”

“If my eyes are on the bottom line,” she said, her voice escalating, “it’s because Warren left me with nothing. Do you know what it feels like to live with your parents in a mobile home? To drive a car so old it leaves a trail of oil on the street behind you? To pass right by Starbucks because you can’t even afford to stop for a cup of
coffee?
”

Jeremy drew back. “No Starbucks? My God. Please tell me it isn’t so.”

“This conversation is over.”

Darcy turned to get out of the car, wanting to put as much distance as possible between her and Richie Rich. There was nothing she hated more than a microscopic examination of her motives, especially from a man, and especially when that man was right.

“Wait a minute,” Jeremy said.

Slowly she turned back, glaring at him. “What?”

“Does this mean you won’t be looking for another man to take Warren’s place?”

As he spoke, he slid his hand along the top of the seat behind her head. Darcy froze, watching its advance out of the corner of her eye. He hooked his finger around a strand of her hair, then pulled back slowly until it fell away and fluttered to her shoulder again.

“Darcy, don’t you know there are men out there who can offer you far more than Warren ever did?”

He continued to stare at her, his eyes full of promise. Somehow the tide had turned, making Darcy’s stomach quiver with excitement. She pictured lounging around his palatial home. Dining at the Mansion on Turtle Creek as often as other people ate Big Macs. Tooling around town in this very limousine, cursing the tinted windows because they kept the world from seeing her inside it.

Wearing a wedding ring that would make her current four-carat stone look like something she’d pulled out of a box of Cracker Jack.

Jeremy Bridges could buy and sell Warren a hundred times over, making all her problems go away with a single swipe of his pen. Was it possible her luck had turned? That maybe, just
maybe,
she was on the verge of finding a gold-plated way out of this mess?

She lazily looked him up and down, letting a soft, sensual expression ease across her face. She dropped her voice to a seductive murmur.

“Are you applying for the job?”

His eyebrows rose with interest, and when his gaze went to her lips and hovered there, Darcy knew for a fact what was on his mind. Just the thought of it made her mouth go dry.

Then, inexplicably, he leaned away, settling back against the seat with a knowing smile. “No, but it’s interesting to know you’re hiring. How about I put a notice on the job board at the next Millionaire’s Club meeting?”

Humiliation shot through Darcy, and it was all she could do to keep her chin up and her gaze steady. He’d dangled the bait, and she’d snapped at it like a starving carp.

Well, the cat was out of the bag now. Further denial would only make her look like a bigger fool.

“You might want to reconsider,” she told him. “You wouldn’t
believe
the benefits that come with the job.”

“I don’t doubt that for a moment.” His gaze drifted to her breasts, then slowly rose again. “If you’d consider hiring on a short-term contract, maybe we could talk.”

“Sorry, Bridges. I
marry
rich. I don’t give it away on a one-shot basis.”

With one last go-to-hell look, she opened the limo door and got out, resisting the urge to slam it behind her. She never thought she’d be glad that Warren had bilked his boss out of three hundred thousand dollars, but she sure as hell was now.

She only wished it had been three million.

As the driver started the car, Bernie slid back into the seat across from Jeremy and shut the door behind her.

“Does she know where her husband is?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“You sure about that?”

“He was her meal ticket, and dinner’s over. If she sees him again, I have no doubt she’ll bust his balls.”

Jeremy tapped on the Plexiglas between him and his driver, and he pulled away from the curb. “So, what did you think of her?” he asked Bernie. “On a scale of one to ten.”

“What criteria?”

“Looks.”

“Seven. Too much phony stuff going on.”

“I don’t mind the phony stuff, as long as it’s well done. I’d give her a nine.”

“What would have bumped her to a ten? A D-cup instead of a C?”

Jeremy grinned. “Of course not. That would make me a very shallow man.”

“She’s a gold digger.”

“They’re all gold diggers.”

“She’s a gold digger at rock bottom. Dangerous combination.”

“I was at rock bottom once.”

“Then you’ve found your soul mate. Shall I make reservations in Vegas?”

“Now, Bernie. You know marriage isn’t my thing. By the time my lawyers got the prenup drafted, we’d both be dead and gone.”

“You’ll be dead and gone eventually, anyway. You have more money than God. Why not spread it around a little?”

“I’ve never been very good at sharing.”

“In other words, you’re selfish.”

Jeremy smiled. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Bernie?”

“What’s to like? I don’t give a rat’s ass about your money.”

“My scintillating personality, maybe?”

“You have the personal habits of a frat boy. You think
Jackass
is quality TV programming. You go through women like a chain smoker goes through a pack of Camels. The next time somebody moves in to grab you, I’m just going to stand back and let it happen. That’ll teach ’em.”

“Nah. You’d never pass up an opportunity for a little hand-to-hand combat.”

“Don’t bank on that.”

“This is gross insubordination. You’re fired.”

“Right. Good luck finding somebody else who’ll put up with you.”

She folded her arms and turned to look out the window, scouring the landscape for evildoers. Jeremy couldn’t help but smile. So few people in his life did anything but kiss his ass; a bodyguard with a bad attitude was actually a breath of fresh air.

Darcy McDaniel had a bit of an attitude herself.

Sorry, Bridges. I marry rich. I don’t give it away on a one-shot basis.

That had been a blatant, in-your-face, I-am-what-I-am remark that he hadn’t seen coming. Once he had people nailed, they generally backed away, groveling and making excuses. Not this woman. Even when she didn’t have a dime to her name, she stuck her nose in the air and looked at him as if he were a slug slithering down the sidewalk.

He took the last swig of his beer and tossed the bottle into the trash, trying to decide what was next on his agenda for the day. Over the years, he’d discovered that he didn’t much like the day-to-day operations of running a conglomerate of companies, so he hired smart people in suits who popped Maalox like candy and let them do what they did best. He took meetings here and there to keep his finger on the pulse, spent a few hours every day monitoring things, and that was about it. Playing the young, eccentric millionaire in the business world had always given him an edge with his competition because they never took him nearly as seriously as they should, but even that was getting to be a bore.

His hands-off approach worried people sometimes, but even if the worst happened and it all fell apart tomorrow, he had so much put away that he’d still be set for life. It was as if he had a fistful of Monopoly money and landed on Boardwalk every time around, so why knock himself out to make more?

Darcy, on the other hand, had just lost every dime she had, and that was fertile ground for all kinds of interesting behavior. Warren had dealt his wife a really crappy hand, and Jeremy couldn’t think of anything more entertaining than keeping tabs on her to see how she played it.

Chapter 6

T
he moment Darcy stepped back in the trailer, her mother dragged her to the kitchen table, sat her down, and started in with a barrage of questions, all of them centered around why a wealthy and important man like Jeremy Bridges had taken time out of his day to come see her.

“He thought I might know where Warren is,” Darcy said.

Lyla’s expression became panicked. “But you don’t. You have no idea. He doesn’t think you had anything to do with Warren embezzling from him, does he?”

“To tell you the truth, Mom, I don’t give much of a damn what Jeremy Bridges thinks about anything.”

“Oh, God. You didn’t
tell
him that, did you?”

“In so many words.”

Her mother gasped. “But he’s a very wealthy man!”

“Like a man can’t be wealthy
and
be a jerk?”

“I can’t believe you’re blowing this opportunity. I can’t
believe
it!”

What her mother didn’t realize was that it was only an opportunity if her target was at least a little open to the possibility of being hooked. This man . . . no way. So why hang around and be humiliated?

“You’re broke,” Lyla said. “Your husband is clearly not coming back. A man like Jeremy Bridges comes to see you, and you refuse to turn on at least a
little
charm?”

Fortunately, Darcy’s cell phone rang in the middle of the inquisition. She looked at the caller ID. Carolyn. She pressed the TALK button and got hit with yet another round of questions. Carolyn had seen the article that morning about Warren, which begged the question: Since when did Carolyn read the business section?

“Oh, you poor thing!” Carolyn said. “Why didn’t you let me know what was happening? You have to tell me everything!”

Darcy sighed at the thought of going through it all over again. But given a choice between that and hanging around listening to her mother’s incessant harping, she decided it was the lesser of two evils.

“Meet me at our Starbucks,” she told Carolyn, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”

A few minutes later, Darcy was driving west on Park Boulevard toward Central Expressway, the boundary between east and west Plano. The moment she crossed over it, she felt like Dorothy opening the farmhouse door and seeing Oz. Everything seemed to go from black and white to Technicolor.

She may have been raised on the east side, but
this
was her place.
These
were her people. Shopping malls and shiny new office buildings and gas-guzzling SUVs and huge houses with lush landscaping and decorator window treatments and high-definition TVs.

And Starbucks.
Ahh
. That little slice of heaven where you pay for your coffee by the adjective and inhale pastries fit for royalty. With almost no money in her pocket, Darcy knew the last thing she should be doing was spending a good percentage of it on a cup of coffee, but right now she needed her table by the window with sunlight streaming in and the aroma of coffee and brownies and macadamia-nut cookies to make her feel normal again, at least for a little while.

When she arrived, Carolyn was already there, sipping her usual Mocha Frappuccino. She was a woman prone to excessive gossip, wearing out her credit cards, and doing the kind of charity work that involved lots of teas and galas and silent auctions. But since almost all the women Darcy knew had those same characteristics, she figured she might as well hang out with the one with the most fashion sense.

Darcy went to the counter and ordered a Caramel Macchiato. She took a sip and let her eyes close, the sweetened caffeine hitting her system like an anvil dropped from a fourth-story window. Ah,
God,
it was good. For a moment, it almost made her forget just how destitute she was.

“Okay,” Carolyn said when Darcy sat down. “You have
got
to tell me what’s been going on.”

Darcy filled her in on the whole story, and when she got to the part about the family living in her house, she thought Carolyn was going to stroke out.

“And now I’m living with my parents,” Darcy said.

“Oh, God. In their trailer?”

Darcy sighed. “Yeah.”

“You know I’d let you stay with me, but Ralph is so unreasonable.”

She had that right. The Lord of the Manor didn’t like Carolyn’s friends dropping by socially, much less taking up residence.

“So what are you going to do now?” Carolyn asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’d loan you some money, but . . .” She sighed. “Ralph is so unreasonable.”

She had that right, too. Once when he thought Carolyn was spending too much money, he took away her credit cards for a whole month. Carolyn would have fared better trying to kick a heroin addiction. If she loaned money to a friend, he’d probably cut her off for life.

“Do you have anything left that’s worth anything?” Carolyn asked. “Something you can sell?”

Darcy thought about the jewelry she’d taken with her to Mexico. Unfortunately, they’d stayed at a beach resort, so she’d brought along mostly costume stuff. She wouldn’t be able to sell that for much.