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“I am not treating you as if you have the plague.”
“All right, just a bad case of the flu, then,” she said, attempting to lighten the mood enough that he’d relax with her.
“Very funny,” he said, though he certainly wasn’t laughing. “To you this is just a big joke, and in this case I’m left holding the bag. We’re going to fail because I don’t know a damned thing about kids and I’m supposed to have been dating you long enough that I would be accustomed to your daughter by now,” he said, revealing to Kassandra that he might not have been reading through the ninety-minute plane ride to Georgia, but rather thinking about their predicament and not liking the conclusions he had drawn. He combed his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “Hell, I don’t know why I bothered bringing you. Once I saw the baby, I should have realized this wouldn’t work.”
With that, he turned and stormed to the door. “I’m going to get Candy’s things,” he said, bounding from the room.
Kassandra dropped to the bed, dispirited. She’d never thought of that. A man engaged to marry a woman would have been dating her long enough to know her child. And Gabe didn’t know her child.
He was right. They were destined to fail. And it was her fault. If she couldn’t come alone, be what he wanted, then she never should have come. He had every right in the world to be angry with her.
“What the hell is wrong with Mr. Cayne?”
Kassandra glanced up and saw a short, white-haired woman standing in the open doorway. She wore a simple gray dress and sensible shoes. She clutched a thick black cane in one hand, but her other hand and arm were weighted down with clean linens. “I said, what the hell is wrong with Mr. Cayne?”
For a full ten seconds, Kassandra sat openmouthed, staring at the woman, not quite sure how to respond. Kassandra might not be a member of the ruling class, but she knew one didn’t talk about the family’s troubles with the maid.
“Uh, thank you for the linens,” Kassandra said, hoping she’d changed the subject.
The woman hobbled to the bed and laid the linens on one corner. As she did, sleeping Candy rolled onto her belly and rubbed her face into the comforter. “Well, what have we here?”
“That’s my daughter, Candy,” Kassandra said.
“Oh, let me guess,” the old woman said. “I’ll bet this is why Gabriel Cayne went storming out of here a few minutes ago.” Leaning over to get a better look at Candy, she added, “He doesn’t like complications in his life. Wants everything to be perfect. I wouldn’t worry about what he thinks, though. He can be a real uppity pain in the butt sometimes.” She pointed at the towels. “Here, honey, put these towels in the bathroom for me, would you?”
“Sure,” Kassandra answered, taking the stack from the bed where the maid had set them. Walking to the bathroom, she realized that though she, herself, wasn’t actually saying anything, the maid could be drawing all kinds of conclusions from this conversation, and Kassandra knew she had to nip them in the bud. “Mr. Cayne just wasn’t expecting me to bring Candy along,” Kassandra explained. “At the last minute, I decided I didn’t want to miss Candy’s first Christmas. He wasn’t angry. We were both simply stressed out from the trip. Not only does Candy have more luggage than six adults, but she cried for most of the plane ride. Candy’s not the most wonderful traveling companion,” Kassandra added as she walked out of the bathroom.
“Nonsense,” the old woman said. “I think she’s perfect. Why, look at her,” she said, smoothing her gnarled fingers along Candy’s feathery hair. “She’s adorable.”
“Yeah, I think so,” Kassandra agreed, gazing at Candy’s rosy cheeks and velvety skin. Her hair had been matted into little tufts, and the spot right beside her ear held the imprint of Kassandra’s coat button, but in spite of that Candy managed to look beautiful. “It is hard to believe Mr. Cayne doesn’t find her as adorable as we do.”
The maid looked at Kassandra quizzically. “Do you always call him Mr. Cayne?”
“Not really,” Kassandra answered, unwittingly thinking of the hundreds of things she’d called him in the past year, particularly the things she’d called him when he woke Candy with one of his parties. “I’m only trying to be respectful.”
“Well, the hell with that,” the maid said with a cackle. “You can be honest with me.”
Not thinking that a very wise idea, Kassandra glanced at the linens. “Were you going to change the bed?”
“Yeah, but you beat me up here,” the maid said, still gazing at Candy who was sleeping soundly. “And now one of us is going to have to hold the little one while the other one works.”
“Fair enough,” Kassandra agreed, glad to be off the subject of Gabe Cayne. “You hold Candy,” she said, motioning the old woman to the rocker by the bay window. “And I’ll change the bed.”
“I like the way you think,” the old woman said, her eyes shining. “I could use a few minutes off my feet.”
Kassandra was half tempted to ask the poor thing how long she’d been working for the Caynes and how much longer she’d have to work before she could retire, but she thought the better of that one, too.
“Why don’t you tell me where you’re from while Gabe’s out getting your bags?”
Bags wasn’t the half of it. There was an odd assortment of baby things too numerous to mention. She didn’t want to think about that any more than she wanted to carry on a personal conversation with a member of the staff, but at this moment the conversation was the lesser of two evils. Besides, the question itself was harmless.
“Pennsylvania.”
“You work with Gabe?”
“Not really. Actually, I live in his apartment building.”
“I see,” the maid said quietly.
Kassandra shook her head. “No, I don’t think you do. I didn’t start dating him because his company owns the building I live in. I started seeing him because he wanted to see me,” she said, realizing how easily a story could be created by using the actual facts. “Things just sort of fell into place after that,” she added, deciding that this really was simple. Easy enough that they could pull this off—even with Candy—if Gabe would just loosen up enough to give her a few minutes to prime him for his part.
“No kidding,” the maid said, genuinely impressed, then she cackled. “To tell you the truth, I’m surprised the old scrooge brought you with him. He never brings his girlfriends down here. From what I hear, he’s ashamed of them. In fact, I’m real surprised he’s dating a woman who not only has a brain in her head, she also has enough class to give an old woman a break by making her own bed.”
Wide eyed, Kassandra gaped at her. “You shouldn’t be talking about him like that.”
The maid batted her hands again. “Oh, hell, when something’s true I think everybody’s got a right to say it. Gabe’s a chauvinist,” the old woman added candidly. “After seeing one or two of his girlfriends, even you would have to admit he’s a chauvinist.”
Not wanting to touch this conversation with a ten-foot pole, Kassandra frowned.
The maid gave her a crafty look. “You’ve seen some of the women he’s dated, haven’t you?”
Kassandra couldn’t help it, she winced.
“Awful, weren’t they?”
“No, not awful,” Kassandra began, scrambling to think of something positive to say about Gabe to counteract her wince, but she stopped herself. The woman just admitted Gabe never brought a girlfriend to Georgia before. Kassandra was the first. So, the maid couldn’t know about Gabe’s girlfriends.
Just as quickly as Kassandra reasoned that out, she also realized Gabe’s grandmother would know about his girlfriends, if only because of visits to Pennsylvania. She slumped on the bed. “Oh, God.”
As she said the last, the bedroom door swung open. “Judas H. Priest,” Gabe said, puffing as he dragged the playpen and swing into the room. “I’m surprised you didn’t roll up her bedroom carpeting and bring it along.”
He looked at Kassandra and then looked past her and saw his grandmother sitting on the rocker by the window, holding sleeping Candy. “Grandma!”
“Don’t you grandma me,” The woman said as she motioned for Kassandra to take the baby. “You have about four hours of explaining to do, young man,” she added, hoisting herself out of her chair. “What kind of man gets angry with his girlfriend because she doesn’t want to miss her baby’s first Christmas?”
Taken aback, Gabe glanced at Kassandra. Her eyes had widened, and her face had frozen into a look that said quite clearly she’d fallen for one of his grandmother’s traps. Seeing this, Gabe smiled. Two could play this game.
“I wasn’t angry that she wanted to spend Candy’s first Christmas with her,” Gabe explained. “I just didn’t want to spoil your holiday by having a baby around when we’re not used to children.”
Before Gabe realized what she was about to do, his grandmother swatted him across the back of his knees with her cane. “Poppycock. Don’t try to fool the master. I see what’s going on here.. If I hadn’t already realized you gave poor Kassandra a hard time about bringing Candy, I would have known it when I saw you bring Candy’s gear in.”
She drew a long, life-sustaining breath, and in that second Gave remembered that this woman who talked a good game was in the final minutes of her final quarter. The whole purpose of this visit was to spend some time with his grandmother before she died. And happy time. The purpose was not to argue or antagonize her. Or beat her at her own game.
“Apologize,” she said simply.
Without hesitation or qualm, Gabe turned to Kassandra. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, and suddenly realized he meant it. Not only had his silent treatment been unfair, but the child sleeping in Kassandra’s arms wasn’t all that bad. A little noisy, maybe, he thought, remembering the plane ride down, but not bad. “I yelled before I thought,” he added, leaning toward her. He brushed his lips across Kassandra’s for his grandmother’s sake, and though the move had been so unexpected Kassandra hadn’t responded at all, Gabe got a surprising little jolt.
Telling himself he was testing this only for his grandmother’s sake, he took Candy from Kassandra’s arms and laid her on the bed. Then he hooked his hands under Kassandra’s elbows and forced her to stand before he went back for another taste of her mouth. Not quick, or without thought, this kiss was long and lingering…and purposeful. The way Gabe had life figured, there was a reason behind everything, and once he uncovered the reason, then the problem had no power over him.
But as he kissed Kassandra with purpose and deliberation, he found himself getting lost, forgetting his purpose and losing his deliberation. There was something about the sweet, spicy taste of her mouth that drew him in until he wasn’t thinking anymore, he was only feeling. If his grandmother hadn’t cleared her throat, Gabe didn’t know how far he would have gone, how lost he would have become.
Trying to get himself out of the situation gracefully, he pulled away, but when he did he saw confusion in Kassandra’s eyes that mirrored his own. He also saw a sparkle of desire that he knew mirrored his own, too. Both of which he had to think about.
Clearing his throat, he turned to his grandmother. “So, were you going to make Kassandra dust, too?”
“Well, I figured a chauvinist like you better find a woman who enjoys making a house a home,” Gabe’s grandmother said. She faced Kassandra. “By the way, I’m Emm alee. You can call me Emma if you wish.”
“Thank you,” Kassandra responded politely, but, inside, her heart was beating so fast she wondered why no one noticed. She hadn’t had an overabundance of boyfriends in her life, but she’d had enough to know that kissing Gabriel Cayne wasn’t a normal experience. It was like falling out of an airplane, a rush of excitement followed by several minutes of sheer pleasure. Fortunately, she was wise enough to realize the crash to the ground at the end wasn’t worth it.
Emmalee began walking toward the door. “Oh, and Gabe,” she said as she slowly made her way out of the room. “I hope you’re not planning on sleeping in the same room with the baby,” she said pointedly.
Gabe smiled. “Grandma, we are always very careful of Candy’s feelings, but I’m also very careful of yours. I know your preferences and this is your house. You do not have to worry. Kassandra and I will respect your wishes.”
“Good boy,” she said, then hobbled out of the room.
Gabe immediately closed the door behind her. “Well,” he said, sighing slightly, as if suddenly uncomfortable around Kassandra. “That’s one hurdle out of the way. At least no one will question why we’re not sleeping together.”
Kassandra cleared her throat. “No, they won’t.”
“On the plane,” Gabe said, “I got a little worried that we might have had to—you know—share the same room for appearances’ sake.”
“I don’t think your grandmother would have liked that.”
“I was banking on that, but just in case she might have forced us into the same room as a test of our relationship, I knew we could have worked something out, with me sleeping on the floor or something.”
Kassandra nodded. “That would have worked.”
“Not that we would have to worry about being in the same room. You can trust me,” he hastily assured her, but though Kassandra knew Gabe believed himself to be very dependable, what happened between them when they kissed wasn’t as manageable as the very controlled Gabriel Cayne would like to believe.
Still, because their sleeping in the same room wasn’t an issue, Kassandra smiled. “Yes, I know I can trust you.”
Gabriel smiled, too. He smiled his best, biggest, most wonderful smile as he grabbed the doorknob behind him and began to pull the door open. He was certainly glad he’d convinced her he could be trusted, because that meant he only had to convince himself.
The door bumped his back. Gabe stepped out of its way so he could open it completely and slide behind it. Then he waved slightly as he slipped into the hall. For the first time in his life, he was relieved, very relieved, his grandmother was such a prude, because if he had to spend eight or ten hours in the same room with Kassandra, watching her undress, knowing she was wearing very little only a few feet away from him and on the same bed, and remembering what it felt like to kiss her, neither one of them would be safe.
With those thoughts, he headed toward his room and a very cold shower.
Chapter Four (#ulink_25ca60eb-7999-5f37-9dda-d6f1a1959afa)
They were already late for dinner when Gabe knocked on Kassandra’s door that evening. She let him in while bouncing into her right shoe and trying to fasten an earring simultaneously.
“This isn’t good,” he said, glancing at her bathrobe.
“I’m sorry, but Candy slept until a few minutes ago and any wise mother knows you never dress yourself before you dress your baby.”
From the playpen, Candy gurgled at him. Though he didn’t have a clue about why a wise mother dressed her baby first, Gabe turned to Kassandra and said, “No, I suppose not.”
Awkward, he stood in the middle of the room, not exactly sure what to do. He couldn’t very well wait for Kassandra in the hall while she put on her clothes—that would be a dead giveaway. Yet he didn’t quite feel comfortable waiting in here, either.
Kassandra made his decision for him by stepping into the bathroom to finish dressing. “You know, Gabe,” she called, “I was thinking this afternoon that this charade doesn’t have to be all that complicated. When I was talking with your grandmother I discovered that the truth works for us in a lot of places. The only thing is, we need to make up some stories about us dating, how we decided to get engaged, even about how you got to know Candy.”
“Okay,” Gabe agreed absently, sitting on the bed while he studied the brown-eyed wonder in the playpen. Dressed in a red-and-white striped dress, her dark hair adorned with a red flower which was held in place by a half-inch red elastic ribbon that circled her head, Candy looked cute enough to pose in a magazine.
“I’ve already told your grandmother we live in the same apartment building.”
Gabe smiled. “Did she accuse you of dating me for my money?”
Leaning out of the bathroom, Kassandra peered at him. “Almost. I nipped it in the bud before she could.”
“Good girl,” Gabe said, then Kassandra slid behind the door, going back to doing the things women do in bathrooms. Gabe looked at Candy again. Patting some sort of bright plastic toy, the baby gurgled loudly, reminding him that Kassandra was right. This situation had some anomalies in it that would have to be covered with stories—maybe more lies.
Resting his elbow on his knee and his chin on his closed fist, Gabe shut his eyes. He didn’t like the idea of lying to his parents and grandmother, not one damned bit. But he also didn’t have any choice. Because Emma worried that he’d never get married, Gabe had invented the story that he was engaged to ease his grandmother’s mind. Now, because it was her dying wish to meet the woman who had stolen his heart, Gabe had to introduce Emma to his fiancée. True, this fiancée was fake, but a fake was better than nothing. And in this case, the fake was also a cover for a lie—a bad lie that started with the best of intentions, but a lie nonetheless. Now he was stuck with the consequences—a semitoothless gurgle machine. As he thought the last, Gabe opened his eyes and found Candy studying him. When she realized his eyes were open, she smiled broadly, revealing gums and two, maybe three, teeth.
He decided she looked like an eight-month-old, almost bald flapper from the Roaring Twenties.
Her grin widened.
“I was thinking we could just tell your grandmother Candy’s the result of another relationship, and leave it at that,” Kassandra said from the bathroom, intruding into Gabe’s thoughts.
“My parents might buy that,” Gabe admitted honestly, “but I’m not sure my grandmother will.”
“You’re not suggesting that you’re going to claim her as your own?” Kassandra asked, stretching out of the bathroom to look at him again. The baby gave him a hopeful look and said, “Da-da.”
Feeling strangely hypnotized by the little nymph in the playpen, Gabe rose to pace and broke the spell. “No, I don’t want to make the story go that far. We were only supposed to have been dating for four months or so….”
“So you don’t have anything to worry about, and we can just keep this simple,” Kassandra said, then slid into the bathroom again. “If your grandmother asks about Candy’s father, I’ll just tell her the truth.”
For a good thirty seconds, Gabe stared at the bathroom door, wondering why Kassandra didn’t tell him the truth. He wasn’t really curious in a prying sort of way. Just curious. After all, they had to spend the next three weeks together. It was only fair that he know.
He glanced into the playpen again and Candy grinned at him.
On a whim he reached inside for her. “Come on,” Gabe said, pulling her out of the playpen. “I’ll just hold you here for a few minutes so you get adjusted to me.”
But this baby didn’t have any adjusting to do. She willingly went to him, even patted his fact as if delighted with the texture of his whiskery stubble. With his hands beneath her arms, resting on her rib cage, Gabe held her in a loose standing position. “Anybody ever tell you you’re too friendly?” he asked the happy little girl who gazed up at him dreamily.
“She doesn’t know fear yet,” Kassandra said from the bathroom. “Give her another month or so, though. From what I’ve read, she’s about to tumble into a shyness phase and I won’t be able to leave her with my own parents.”
Still staring at Gabe, Candy stuck her hand in her mouth. Gabe couldn’t quite figure out what to do with her legs, so he just let her dangle in front of him. Candy didn’t seem to mind. The closeness gave her the opportunity to study his face.
“Your parents keep her a lot?” he asked, unable to hide his curiosity any longer, and deciding this was as good a way as any to probe discreetly.
“Always,” Kassandra replied from the bathroom. “I couldn’t make it without them.”
“Actually, I’m surprised you got this far,” Gabe said, then realizing she might have taken that the wrong way, Gabe hastened to amend it. “I’m not surprised in a bad way,” Gabe quickly assured her. Candy said something that was a cross between a “boo” and a “goo,” and when she did a little stream of slobber slipped from her mouth to his jacket sleeve. Knowing he would probably be used to this kind of stuff if he really was dating Kassandra, Gabe didn’t react, except to swallow a yelp just dying to leap from his lips.
“I’m surprised in a good way. My God, Kassandra, husband and wife teams sometimes have trouble raising a child. And you’re doing it all alone. That’s quite an accomplishment.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Kassandra said, stepping out of the bathroom. Kassandra’s red jumpsuit matched her daughter’s red-and-white-striped ensemble. Her thick blond hair was down, curving into a loose wave that sat casually on her shoulders. She wore enough makeup to accent her features, but not so much as to look overdone.
