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Her usual modus operandi for a new client.
Sure, he’d called her to set up a consultation, saying he was having trouble sleeping. That didn’t mean he’d actually ever tell her what was really going on. That was why she’d developed her strategy with all her new clients.
Show up unannounced at a bad time to start therapy. The client was always super stressed, and she usually got a very good idea of what she was dealing with.
There was a reason why she’d been written up in the New York Times as an excellent stress therapist. She was brilliant. How could she feel bad about herself if she kept pumping herself up like this? She couldn’t. Was she smart or what? It was a good thing she was so talented and got her own advice for free, or she’d be an emotional mess. And she wasn’t an emotional mess, if anyone was asking.
Cassie drummed her fingers impatiently on the dashboard, waiting for the light to change.
What if her new client had been at the dance and seen her display? It was bad enough she’d shown up at the event dateless, but making out with some stranger in front of everyone? Imagine the damage that could do to her professional reputation…unless she could figure out a way to call it research. Hmm…
Then again, was heavy-duty lip action with a really gorgeous guy so bad? No doubt everyone was talking about how Drew had stormed out and how Cassie was totally together and emotionally magnificent after such heartbreak.
It wasn’t as if anyone at the dance knew how close she’d actually come to vomiting all over Drew. Perhaps all was not lost…assuming she decided being known as a roving temptress was better than being known as “the woman who had a nervous breakdown and never recovered.” She could just imagine when she was ninety-two and doddering about town, people pointing to her and saying, “She had such a promising future once and now she just sits home alone picking lint out of her carpet. What a shame. What a shame.”
Instead, she’d be sauntering down the street at ninety-two with a horde of eager young bucks hoping to get a chance with the town’s sexual dynamo trailing after her.
A ninety-two-year-old prostitute. Somehow, that just didn’t have quite the ring she was looking for.
No matter. She’d just avoid men in every capacity and life would be good. Perhaps she should go back to the Bahamas and learn how to run from the giant bugs. Probably be less stressful than sorting out the oh-so-fabulous changes in her life.
Cassie whacked her forehead as she turned right onto Ridgeway Road. What was she thinking? She wasn’t stressed. She was fine. Fabulous. Wunderbar.
Perfectly capable of normal everyday things, like noticing what a nice neighborhood she’d just turned into. She frowned. Actually, it was really nice. Like, her dream neighborhood. Old, charming and classically New England. Houses with big wraparound porches, exuding character and personality.
Then she saw her destination: 153 Ridgeway Road.
That was it. She was officially in love with this house.
It was her dream home. Six dormers, three brick chimneys, huge windows. How could she possibly have lived in this town for her entire life and never known of the house? It should have called to her and forced her to find it.
Not that she could have afforded it, but still, she could have at least tried to find the money. Maybe she could have sold her body to wealthy old men for a few nights…yeah, right. No way could she sacrifice her body to dirty old men, no matter how nice the house was. The guy from the New Year’s Eve dance was another matter entirely.…
Ack! What was she thinking?
Ty had been a mistake, albeit a fun one given Drew’s reaction, but a lapse in judgment nonetheless. He was still a man and, as such, didn’t deserve to be thought of fondly. Starting now, men didn’t exist except as target practice when she was driving her car. Oh, and as clients and, therefore, as a way to fill her bank account.
And people thought she was bitter. Hah!
She was fine and ready to work, dammit. So she pulled into the driveway of her dream house and shut off the ignition.
She pushed her car door open with her foot, testing the driveway for traction.
Ice hidden beneath a dusting of snow.
Looked friendly. Treacherous beneath the surface. Just like a man.
But she meant that in the most complimentary way possible, because she really didn’t have baggage that was going to destine her to become an ill-tempered, unwanted old lady who chased little children with her cane just to hear them scream.
Not that she was paranoid that she’d never have another chance to get married again. That was a ridiculous notion. The last thing she wanted to do was date another man, let alone get married. The fact that she was starting over in the dating arena at age twenty-seven? No problem. She couldn’t have planned her life better if she’d tried. Everything was perfect.
She planted other foot solidly on the ground, grabbed her personal digital assistant that was oh-so-handy for downloading straight into her computer, straightened her suit, dug her heels into the snow for traction and prepared herself to march up to the door of her new client and change his life.
Hmm…maybe she should get a dog. Drew had always been antidog, but he was gone now, wasn’t he? If she got a dog, at least there would be one male who would share only her bed at night. Floppy ears, thick fur, four legs and a tail now topped her list of desired attributes in a man. Wouldn’t that be entertaining, if she started asking her dates to drop their pants so she could inspect for a tail?
See? There was humor in her miserable life.
Dammit. She’d used that word again: miserable. If she kept doing so, someone was bound to think she actually felt that way. She must eradicate it from her vocabulary, effective immediately.
She watched her breath puff out in white clouds as she hurried up the steps, carefully balancing her weight so her feet didn’t slip out from under her. Think about the client. Right. She could do this. Concentrating was no problem. She was a highly sought after professional genius, right? Of course right. She was never, ever wrong.
Okay…so find the significance of the icy steps.…Wow. It was like her brain was in a deep freeze. Come on, Cassie! Think! No, don’t panic that you’ve lost your talent. Close your eyes. Take deep breaths. Relax the muscles. Think about the client. Icy steps. Client. Stress.
Got it! Obviously, Malcolm Tyler Parker was too busy to put sand on his steps. Very interesting.
Cassie pulled out her PDA and jotted down the information. The man couldn’t sleep and didn’t take care of his property. Good to know. She entered the information in the “failure to perform basic home maintenance” column and proceeded to the door.
Hopefully, her new client would be an easy fix.
She wasn’t sure she was up to a monstrous challenge with a recalcitrant client, not with her soul still splattered on the pavement and trampled by a herd of rampaging cattle.
Scratch that.
She was fine.
Her soul was intact.
Her ego…maybe a little frayed around the edges. Nothing that a quick hem job couldn’t fix. If only she knew how to sew…
She forced herself to take a leisurely moment to admire the old horseshoe that had been converted into a door knocker, then banged on the door.
One minute after seven. Perfect timing.
No one came to the door.
She knocked again.
Still no one.
Cassie frowned. Surely he hadn’t left already? She clicked on “work schedule” to double-check her file. Yes, he’d told her he left for work shortly after seven. He should still be there. Her notes were never wrong.
She knocked again, harder, pretending it was Drew’s head she was pounding against the wood. Ah, how soothing. Taking her own advice to identify her stresses and visualize resolution, however socially inappropriate or legally prohibited.
She was definitely a genius.
A door slammed inside the house and Cassie straightened. She patted her hair to make sure it was neat, checked her nylons for runs, clamped her teeth together so they wouldn’t chatter from the cold, ignored her desire to rush home and put on flannel-lined blue jeans, fleece-lined boots and a wool sweater, and readied herself to face her new client.
With any luck, he would be extremely annoyed by the interruption and she could see what he was really like. She was on a roll now. The old Cassie was back. She should become an inspirational speaker on how to recover from emotional devastation. She was that amazing.
The unmistakable click of a lock being opened cued her to don a demure smile that would neither propel her new client into more stress nor dissipate stress that might already be present. Was she good or what?
The door opened and she forgot everything. “You’re kidding.”
“Cassie? What are you doing here?”
It was Ty.
From New Year’s Eve.
The same Ty with whom she’d tongue-tangoed eight days ago.
This was so not turning out to be her month.
3
MALCOLM TYLER PARKER.
Ty.
Duh.
Was she an idiot or what? So blinded by his gallantry that she hadn’t noted the possibility that “Ty” and “Malcolm Tyler” could be the same person.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
“You’re Malcolm Tyler Parker, aren’t you?” As if she needed to ask.
He scowled. “How did you know my name? Or where to find me? I’m not in Information.” His voice was cautious, his body blocking the doorway as if to keep her out of his house.
“You gave it to me.” Sure sign of his stress. Didn’t even recall hiring Halloway Consulting to save him. There you go, Cassie. Think about work and not about how completely embarrassed you are to be standing here on his doorstep thinking about what his tongue feels like against yours.
He raised an eyebrow and shifted in the doorway, then shifted again. Too tense to relax? He was in such need of her services. “I told you my name was Ty. Didn’t give you my full name or my address.”
“Sure you did. How else would I have gotten it?”
Ty frowned and, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t help but notice that he looked quite sexy in his suit. In the light of day, it was apparent that Ty’s eyes were not black. They were a deep brown and they were narrowed in…disgust? Irritation? Raging desire for her body?
And he smelled so good. It was the same scent that had embedded itself in her sweater on New Year’s Eve…and hadn’t left the fibers all day Sunday.
Not that she’d pressed the sweater to her face all day or slept with it under her pillow just so she could smell him.…
Definitely not.
Cassie! What was she doing? Ty’s enticing scent was clearly not what she should be concerned about. A much bigger issue was his stress. And how she was going to explain sexually assaulting him a week ago.
Damn. She was going to have to explain that one.
But he really did look good in the light of day, didn’t he? He was the epitome of a wealthy businessman heading into New York City for work. A ridiculously sexy capitalist who undoubtedly had stolen many a woman away from her man.
Not that Cassie was attracted to him. She didn’t go for the corporate type. Except for Drew, and that had worked out oh-so-well. She’d always fantasized about the down-home boy who’d sling the kids over his shoulder and take them to work with him. A man who’d come home during lunch to build a new tree house. But Ty, with his sleek suit and efficient haircut, was giving her second thoughts on that particular stance. Maybe it was because she had no trouble picturing him with a kid hanging from each arm and a cat clawing its way up his leg. Either she was ultraperceptive or it was the first sign of the gradual deterioration of her grip on reality.
Perhaps it was his slightly crooked tie that was softening his image. Hmm…the off-kilter tie was probably a sign of his stress. A man who took such obvious care with his appearance couldn’t quite get the details right.
He needed her.
Ty’s eyes narrowed and Cassie realized how thick and dark his eyelashes were. So sexy they nearly made her pass out.…Well, if she were the fainting type.
“Why are you here? It’s not about New Year’s Eve, is it? Because that didn’t mean anything. It was to make Drew suffer because he’s a jerk.”
Oh, wow. He thought she was stalking him. Super. What an excellent first impression for a stress management therapist. Hi, I’m your therapist. Let me suck on your tongue and then stalk you.
No problem. She could handle this, right? Of course right. It wasn’t as if she was an emotional wreck or anything from the wedding that never happened. She lifted her chin and smiled calmly, ignoring the swirling whirlpool in her belly. “Ty. Listen, I’m not here about the kiss.”
“You aren’t?” His eyebrows were raised in visible skepticism. “Then why are you here?”
“To do you. I mean to do your stress. I mean…” Oh, if only the porch would collapse under her right now and bury her beneath two-hundred-year-old boards. No such luck, as the house was apparently built much too solidly for her convenience. She cleared her throat. “Six weeks ago you hired me to de-stress you. I’m here. Therapy has begun.”
He stared at her.
The man was like a mountain. An immovable mass of heaving masculinity. Oh, great. There went her hormones again, dancing ‘round the campfire doing the “seduce me” dance. When she got home, she was going to have a little chat with them about behaving appropriately when in public places.
“I hired you.” He did not sound convinced.
“Yes.” She patted his shoulder, refusing to notice how hard his muscles were beneath her hand. Okay, fine, so she noticed a little. She was human, wasn’t she? “Ty, that’s a sure sign of stress, when you forget appointments.”
He narrowed his eyes. “There’s no way I forgot an appointment this morning.”
Ah, he had her there. “Well, that’s true. I was intending to surprise you this morning.” From the deepening of the scowl on his face, he didn’t appear to take kindly to surprises.
Probably still fretting that she was a stalker.
“Hang on.” Cassie whipped out her handheld PDA, called up the original e-mail Ty had sent her to request her services, then turned the screen toward him. “Read.”
He grabbed her hand to steady the screen, and Cassie’s stomach did a little jump. What was her problem? He was a client, not some man put on this earth to give her thrills.
She didn’t even like men anymore, remember? She certainly wasn’t about to be attracted to one of them, even if she could still feel the heat from his hand infusing hers with…
“Huh.” He released her hand suddenly, as if he’d just realized he was touching her. Jerk. Just because he thought she was a dangerous lunatic was no reason to treat her as if she had cooties. Or maybe he wanted her so badly he couldn’t risk touching her. Good to know her imagination was still functioning.
“Now are you convinced you hired me?” Cassie flipped the screen toward herself and glanced at his e-mail. “You’re having trouble sleeping, your fiancée insisted you contact me or else she wouldn’t come home.…”
Whoa! Fiancée! Cassie had forgotten about that! Since Ty was Malcolm Tyler Parker, her new client, he had a fiancée. That really sucked.
Or it would suck, if she were interested in dating ever again. Which she wasn’t. So she didn’t care. Professional interest only. The burning in her gut? The result of consuming only coffee for breakfast. Not the feeling of disappointment, misery, loneliness or anything stupid like that. “You’re engaged?”
His lips tightened and his eyes darkened. For a long minute, he said nothing.
And then Cassie realized it was the Moment.
