The Billionaire Boyfriend Trap (12 page)

"Hungry?" he asked me.

I glanced at the elevator door closing on the
caterer. "You want me to have lunch with you out here?"

"No. It's too public and I didn't make a
trillion dollars in the last half hour. It looks like you have to
hide away in my office and eat in secret until my broker
calls."

"Ha ha. Funny guy."

He picked up the basket and followed me into
his office. He had a picnic blanket laid out in the square of
sunlight near the window and a bottle of white wine chilling in a
cooler tub at the edge. He put the basket down and invited me to
sit, then served me lunch from the selection of cheeses, salads and
cold meats.

"This is very sweet, Reece. Thank you."

He eyed me over the rim of his glass. "You're
looking at me as if you didn't expect me to do something like
this."

"I admit that I didn't."

"My reputation as an asshole precedes me
again, I see."

I chewed the inside of my cheek and decided
to be honest with him. Or partly honest. "I've heard all sorts of
things about you, but the words ruthless and cruel have come up
repeatedly."

"Cruel," he muttered. "Is that from
Cassie?"

I didn't want to give him an answer. If I
told him no, he might continue to ask and I couldn't tell him about
Ellen. I just couldn't. "Reece, what happened between the two of
you? Why does she hate you so much?"

"She thinks I'm going to tear down her
house."

Wait, what? "She
thinks
you're going
to tear it down? Does that mean you're not going to?"

"I admit I'm having second thoughts."

Whoa
. "Since when?"

"Since Saturday."

I frowned at him but he didn't meet my gaze.
What had happened on Saturday? I'd been with him the entire time
and he hadn't mentioned backing down on the proposal. Maybe one of
those phone calls had changed his mind, or maybe something Ash had
said did the trick.

"Has the building contractor fallen through?"
I asked. "Or did one of the other stakeholders pull out?"

He shook his head. "I haven't told them yet.
I'm still debating the best way to break the news. They won't be
happy."

"You'll lose a lot of money."

He shrugged.

I waited, but he gave me nothing more. The
man was an enigma wrapped up in a mystery. He seemed to care deeply
about making money for his stakeholders on the one hand, then on
the other, he did a complete flip and was prepared to face their
wrath to save an old friend's house. An old friend who seemed to
hate him now.

"Cassie's dislike of you goes further back
than this," I said, half-guessing. "In fact, she mentioned
disliking your entire family."

"Not all of us. She gets along well with Ash.
Mind you, everyone gets along with Ash."

"You're avoiding the topic again."

"Not very successfully," he said wryly.

"It's okay if you don't want to talk about
it. I'm your PA, not your…confidant."

"I want to tell you," he said quietly. "But
there are some things that can't be spoken about. Do you
understand?"

I did and told him so. Some issues ran so
deep that their roots were wrapped around bedrock and to talk about
them would be akin to wrenching out the bedrock and pulling the
entire sorry saga to the surface again where you did not want it to
be.

"Thank you." He clasped my hand and twined
his fingers with mine. "I like you, Cleo. I don't want you to think
you're still just a PA to me, because there's more between us now.
Isn't there?"

He sounded vulnerable and so unlike the Reece
Kavanagh of the last few weeks that I was taken aback. What had
happened to this guy to change him so completely in just a few
days? Since Friday night, in fact.

Surely it wasn't anything to do with me.

I wanted to nod and tell him yes, there was
more between us than boss and PA. I wanted to kiss him until the
uncertainty left his eyes. But I couldn't. I needed to replace the
warmth with coolness again. I needed the distance and controlling
manner of the old Reece Kavanagh back. It was easier like that.
Safer.

A knock on his door saved me from answering.
He swore under his breath and called out. One of his senior
managers answered back.

"I better get to my desk," I said, hastily
packing away the picnic things in the basket. "My boss is a tyrant
and hates me taking long lunches."

He chuckled and helped me. Together we
removed all evidence of our picnic and I opened the door, pen and
notepad in hand.

"Sorry," I said to the man standing there.
"We had to finish dictation."

The man looked over my head at Reece and
winked. I bristled and maneuvered past him and shut the door on
them. I worked at my desk until five when Becky called me on my
cell.

"I'll be at Cassie's for awhile longer," she
said. "She needed someone to talk to and I offered to stay back
after class."

"Is she okay?"

"She's still upset about the house and
studio."

"Wasn't there someone else she could talk
to?"

"Why can't she speak to me?" she snapped.

"No reason," I said quickly. "It's just that
she knows you've been sick and shouldn't burden you."

"Jesus, Cleo, I'm okay now."

"You still get tired."

"I'm just talking to her, not running a
marathon!"

"It's still another thing on your shoulders
when you've got so much to deal with already."

She huffed and muttered something I couldn't
hear under her breath. "I only rang to tell you. Wish I hadn't
now."

"I'll pick you up at seven."

"I can get the bus home."

"No, wait there for me. It's not for you," I
said before she could protest. "I have something I want to ask
Cassie." It was out of my mouth before I had a chance to think it
through, but I quickly warmed to the idea. If Reece wouldn't talk
to me, maybe Cassie would.

The only problem was, how to ask her with
Becky there and not let them know why I was interested.

***

The suburb of Serendipity Bend housed a blend
of old and new homes with one thing in common—they were all
enormous. The blocks of land alone were acre upon acre of manicured
gardens, sometimes with lakes and follies situated for best viewing
from the house. I knew all this because I'd seen a documentary on
the Lifestyle Channel where the owners took the host around their
two hundred year-old mansion.

My only acquaintance with the suburb was the
street on which Cassie lived. The saying 'worst house on the best
street' couldn't be more accurate. Willow Crescent loosely followed
the river bend with the properties on one side stretching down to
the bank. It was these homes that commanded the highest prices. Not
that the owners ever sold them. The houses on Willow Crescent got
passed from generation to generation, much to every realtor's
horror. Cassie's was an exception, although that sale had been
handled privately.

Her front gate was wide open, unlike those of
the other houses on the street. I drove past it to the Kavanagh
family home next door. Beyond the iron gate topped with sharp
finials wound a paved driveway lined with thick trees that hid the
house from view. There was no sign of Ash or anyone else. I circled
back and drove through Cassie's gate.

Her house was certainly old, but unlike the
other grand dames in Willow Crescent, she was showing her age.
Cracks ran like stress fractures along some walls and a window
upstairs had been boarded up for as long as Becky had been having
lessons at the house. I knew that Cassie lived in the eastern wing
only, having closed up the rest when it became uneconomical to heat
in wintertime. Her studio was located in the conservatory on the
river side of the house, the light being the best there.

I found Cassie and Becky sitting on the wide
back porch enjoying a drink, Cassie with white wine and Becky with
lemonade. The light had faded, bathing the tangle of overgrown
trees and shrubs in an otherworldly golden glow. Roses and other
summer flowers bloomed in the garden beds, their bright colors
offering inspiration to the artists. It was the sort of garden
where little girls expected fairies to live.

Cassie greeted me with a kiss on my cheek and
disappeared inside to fetch another glass. "You okay?" I asked
Becky while she was gone.

"Sure. Why wouldn't I be?" She tucked her
hair behind her ear only to have it spring out again. I resisted
the urge to pin it back for her.

"Just asking," I said, trying to sound
cheerful.

"I don't get why you're here, Cleo. Is
something wrong?" She gasped and lowered her glass to her lap. "We
can still afford classes, right?"

"Of course. No way would I force you to give
this up, Becky. I know you love it."

"I do, but if it's money—"

"It's not." I waved off her concerns as
Cassie returned.

She handed me the glass and sat in the big
wicker chair next to me. She flipped her long red hair over her
shoulder and shot me a grim smile. "I suppose you're here to ask
about my plans. I know you're concerned and I want to thank you for
all your support."

"I am concerned," I said, leaping on the
opening she'd handed me. "But maybe it would help if I knew why you
were so reluctant to leave. Why can't you just set up another
studio elsewhere in Roxburg? Your students would follow you."

"I can't do this anywhere else in Roxburg. I
just can't. This is my home. It's been in my family for
generations. My sister…" She took a long sip of her wine, but it
didn't hide the shine in her eyes.

"I know," I said, sympathetic. "It must be
hard for you to think of Reece Kavanagh coming in with his
bulldozers and taking away your home."

She nodded.

"Maybe you can explain something to me
because I don't get it. Why is he intent on knocking this lovely
old place down and replacing it with a hotel? It can't be just a
money making scheme or he'd do it somewhere else, somewhere away
from his own family home. There
must
be another reason."

"Cleo," Becky hissed. "It's none of our
business."

"It's all right," Cassie told her.

"Surely his own family is against it," I
said.

"So they tell me," Cassie said wryly. "But
Reece Kavanagh doesn't listen to them. He hasn't in a long time.
Not since…" She pressed her lips together and studied her wine.

"You don't have to answer." Becky glared at
me.

Cassie turned huge eyes on me. "It's no
secret. Besides, I want the world to know that Reece Kavanagh is an
asshole."

I held my glass tighter until I was afraid
the stem would snap. "What did he do?"

"He killed my sister."

CHAPTER 9

Reece
killed
her? I didn't believe it.
No way did that man kill anyone. He might be hard-nosed on the
surface, but I'd seen a different side of him and I knew he
wouldn't hurt anyone. This had to be a mistake, or a
misunderstanding.

Becky shifted forward on her seat, her
interest clearly piqued. "You mean he
murdered
her?"

Cassie sighed and tucked her feet up under
her. "Not murder in the traditional sense."

"An accident," I said, my mouth dry.

"It wasn't an accident. According to official
records, Wendy killed herself."

Becky gasped. "Oh, Cass, I'm so sorry." Her
gaze shifted to me. I could see in her face she was wondering how
that could be Reece's fault. "Did he drive her to it? It's what
you'd expect someone like him to do."

"Becky," I scolded. "Cassie, you told me your
sister and Reece dated a few years back."

Cassie nodded, her gaze focused on the garden
in the distance, now steeped in long shadows that made it look
forbidding, dangerous. "For about six months, but she'd had a crush
on him for years. He finally asked her out and she was so happy.
Happier than she'd been in a long time. Her eyes would light up
when he came into the room. She was besotted with him. When he
wasn't around, she moped and waited for him. She'd keep watch from
her room and if she saw his car drive past, she'd race across the
lawn and climb through the hole in our connecting fences. She was
totally in love with him. But he wasn't with her."

"I'm guessing he broke up with her," I said.
"And that sent her into a downward spiral."

Cassie nodded. "I know what you're thinking.
That it's not his fault. That she was mentally unstable."

I
was
thinking it, but I didn't tell
her that. It wasn't what she wanted to hear.

"Reece knew she was delicate," Cassie went
on. "We all told him he had to handle her gently, and yet he still
tossed her away like she meant nothing to him. He started seeing
someone else."

"That's terrible," Becky said. "The poor
thing."

"How did she find out?" I asked.

"He told her. She was hysterical all that
day. She cried so much until she had no energy left to cry anymore,
then she just lay on her bed, staring into space. She wouldn't
drink or eat or speak. She just stared. It was like her body was
alive, but the person inside had already died. Nobody could get
through to her." She trailed her finger down the stem of her
wineglass, a delicate fingernail on fragile glass. "We found her
the next morning floating in the river." Cassie sniffed and wiped
away a tear.

I touched her knee. "I'm sorry. I can see
this is very hard for you, even now. You clearly loved your
sister."

"Not enough," she whispered.

It seemed to me that nobody could ever love
poor, tragic Wendy enough to make her happy.

Becky shook her head and I thought she was
going to say something, but she remained quiet, frowning
deeply.

"How long ago did it happen?" I asked.

"Twelve years next month. She was
eighteen."