Chapter Nine
John’s words continued to haunt her, but so did her own.
Go fuck yourself, Cash Evans.
She heard them every time she saw Cash around the shop, every time he asked her stiffly about appointments or she passed him the phone. They danced around each other like strangers for almost a week, and she spent her time off wondering how she’d ever come back from the gauntlet she’d thrown down.
Not that he’d retaliated at all. Infuriating fucker.
He just looked at her in that way of his, with those gleaming predator’s eyes. She developed a worrying obsession with cataloging his ink. He only ever wore T-shirts, so all she’d seen so far was the full sleeve on his right arm—which disappeared up under his clothing and spread down to his knuckles—and the piece on his left forearm. The former was an inverted landscape, from the cloudy night sky on his hand and wrist, rising up to black, jagged trees—bare of leaves—and then further into the earth, where gems and fossils hid. The latter was an underwater scene, featuring an octopus that wound its way around his thickly-muscled forearm. She studied the artwork covertly, drinking in snatches every time he passed by the front desk, lowering her gaze when he looked over at her.
And when he was working, she rifled through the magazine she’d found on her first day at Fallen, reading the feature on him.
He’d denied an interview—as was his habit, apparently. It was his social media presence, his direct and unassuming contact with clients and fans, that had propelled him into the spotlight. His distinctive style and undeniable skills had kept him there. His gorgeous face and bad boy charm had made him all his money.
And he had a lot of money. The article took pains to make that clear. It mentioned something else, too: his mysterious, dark past, the details of which were largely unknown. The fact that his privacy was widely considered to hide an internal conflict that his art only hinted at. And his love for his family, his mother and sister. Apparently, the first major purchase he’d made with his newfound riches was a big old house for his mother in some quiet, country village.
This knowledge highlighted the issue that was really getting under her skin: who the hell was Cash Evans? Because, for all her pseudo-stalking, Bailey could honestly say that she had no idea.
A week after her night in with John, Bailey was just slipping in her earphones and opening her music app when his name flashed up on her caller ID. She grinned. His irreverence was just what she needed right now.
“Night, guys,” Gem called as she and Steve left, heading for the pub, no doubt.
“Night.” Bailey waved back absently. Then, accepting the call, she demanded, “Spill! Tell me all! Immediately!”
“Give me a second woman, bloody hell!” John laughed down the phone, his broad, Northern vowels filling her ears. “You still at work?”
“Are you still at work?” John had aced his interview, and today had been his very first day at his brand new job as an administrative assistant.
“I just left,” he said smugly. “Working life, you know.”
“Oh, yes, darling,” Bailey drawled jokingly. “Quite.”
“Is Cash around?”
At the mention of Cash’s name, Bailey felt her smile slip. “Um… I think so? Last I saw him, he was heading up to the office.”
“Great. Go and get him! I need to tell both of you about this at once.”
Bailey faltered, her mind working frantically to come up with some excuse. But she couldn’t let whatever petty issues lay between her and Cash ruin John’s big moment. With a resigned sigh, she slid off her chair and walked out from behind the welcome desk.
“Alright,” she relented. “Give me a sec.”
“Hurry up! I have so much to tell you, honestly.”
“I bet, Mr… Mr Professional Man.”
“Ah, Bailey. That razor-sharp wit never gets old.”
“Shut up.” She jogged up the stairs and along the corridor, her nerves mounting at the sight of the closed office door. Taking a deep breath, she stepped towards the foreboding entrance…
Only for the door to swing open, light spilling out for a fraction of a second before it was blocked by Cash’s large body. He stepped out into the hall, his movements as decisive as ever, and barrelled right into her.
Bailey cried out as she stumbled back. Though she’d long since swapped sensible heels and skirt-suits for jeans and Converse, matching the casual style of her colleagues, her feet appeared determined to embarrass her.
But just before she truly fell onto her arse, Cash’s big hands shot out to grab her. And, of course, he managed to get a firm handful of the biggest damn part of her. His fingers sank into her wide hips as he dragged her up against him, bringing her firmly into the safe zone of his body. Her hands rose automatically to press against his chest, broad and firm and hot beneath her palms.
She took a moment to catch her breath, her head spinning. Hesitantly, she looked up… And found his mesmerising eyes on her. His lips parted as he stared at her like she was the biggest surprise of his life.
“Bailey,” he said softly, his hands tightening around her.
“Cash,” she breathed.
“What the hell’s going on?!” John squawked in her ear.
Fuck.
Sharply, she stepped away from the tempting heat of Cash’s body, planting her feet firmly on the ground this time. Slapping a plastic smile onto her face, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and held it up to him, shaking it awkwardly as if to say ‘Ta-dah!’
“Guess who I have on the phone?” She asked, her voice artificially light.
Cash cleared his throat, the vulnerability in his expression disappearing like sunlight behind the clouds. He folded his arms and leaned against the doorway, his usual smirk firmly in place.
“Let me think. John?”
“How did you know?”
“I can hear the screeching from here.”
“Are you talking about me?” John demanded. “Put me on speaker!”
Bailey rolled her eyes. “Wait a minute, will you?” And then, to Cash: “He wants to tell us both about his day at the same time.”
“Very egalitarian,” Cash murmured. He turned and led her into the office, where Jay was working over at his desk in the corner. The younger man gave her a distracted nod before focusing on his laptop screen once more.
“Keep the earphones in,” Cash said as he sat down. She perched on the edge of his desk, a quizzical frown on her face. Then he reached up and tugged one earphone from her ear. Quickly, she understood.
Her heart suddenly thumping, she shuffled around until she was sat facing him, she on the desk, he in his chair. She leaned forward, face in her hands, elbows against her knees, until they were close enough to share. She could feel the heat of his breath brush past her cheek, but she kept her eyes down, which was a mistake. Had his thighs always looked so fucking good in a pair of jeans? And was that his—
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Bailey reigned in her rampant thoughts and focused on the conversation at hand.
“Alright,” she said. “Cash is listening.”
“Hey John,” Cash chimed in. “How was it?”
“Oh, you’ll wish you never asked!” John launched into an excited play-by-play of his first day on the job, his enthusiasm contagious. As he gushed about his experiences, Bailey found herself sharing more than just space and a phone with Cash. They laughed together, exchanging amused looks and happy smiles. By the time the call ended, she felt as though the ghost of her temper was finally laid to rest. The trap of her own anger disappeared, and so did her resentment towards Cash’s on-off attitude. She remembered what John had told her about baggage.
It was possible that her own issues played a role in this too. Because when it came down to it, she wanted Cash. Badly. And if she was honest with herself, she hated that.
Still chuckling at John’s bubbling wit—his impressions of the people he’d met that day had been hysterical—Bailey slid her phone back into her pocket and clambered off of Cash’s desk. And she knew by now that she wasn’t imagining things when his gaze darted momentarily down to her arse.
He wanted her. And maybe he hated that, too.
“You guys are doing a great thing, you know.”
Bailey’s head whipped around at the sound of Jay’s voice, smacking herself in the face with her own hair. Jay’d been so quiet, she’d forgotten he was there.
“What do you mean?” She asked.
He gave her a look. “With that guy you’re helping. The homeless guy.”
Bailey shrugged, uncomfortable. “He’s my friend. Anyway, I’m not doing anything. It’s Cash.”
But Cash hooked his thick arms behind his head, tossing his hair out of his face. She couldn’t escape his piercing gaze as he argued, “I’ve got money to burn. You’re paying for his phone.”
“It was an old phone. I just put credit on his SIM.”
He arched a brow.
“Everyone needs a phone,” she insisted, fiddling with her hair self-consciously. “You can’t keep a job without a phone.”
“Whatever,” Jay interjected, closing his laptop and standing up. “All I’m saying is, most people wouldn’t make friends with a homeless person. They’d just write him off as some drug addicted loser and say he should pull himself up by his bootstraps.” He paused on his way out of the room. “And I know that Cash always does this sort of thing. Share the wealth. But you, Bailey? I don’t know. Most people wouldn’t take the time.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I better go. I have Bake Off reruns to watch.”
“See you,” Cash called.
Bailey said nothing. She was too busy thinking about what Jay had just inadvertently revealed.
Cash always does this sort of thing.
It was just a small piece of the puzzle that was Cash, but a certain picture was beginning to take shape.
They sat in silence. Cash leaned comfortably back in his chair, watching Bailey in that predatory way that usually made her want to blush—but she refused to give into that impulse now. Instead, she faced him head-on, making her own leisurely perusal, revelling in her newfound freedom. All this time, she’d been catching the odd ray of his beauty, when all she really needed to do was grow a pair and bask in direct sunlight. He raked his gaze unapologetically over her chest—not that there was much to see—her hips, her thighs. And then her lips, always back to her lips. She conducted her own bold study, her focus shifting indecisively from his hands—so big and yet so dextrous, fingers stained with ink—to his broad shoulders, to the hair she longed to run her own fingers through. The air stirred, shimmered.
Then the door slammed downstairs, sending ripples through the molten heat that grew between them.
“Were you ever homeless?” She asked. The words ran into one another like train carriages, and she fought the urge to wring her hands, to take the question back and return to polite distance.
There was a moment when she thought he might tell her to piss off. But then he heaved out a sigh.
“Yep. For a little while, as a kid.”
“I see.”
“My mother, my sister and I. We were homeless for a while, nomads in between. It’s not quite how people envision it to be, or it wasn’t for us—maybe because we were a family, a woman and her kids. And my mother was terrified that social services might take us away, so she—well. She got creative. It was less homelessness, more an abundance of other people’s homes. Long rides on the night bus to places we had no business being, and then another long ride back, just so no-one could report a woman sleeping with her kids on a park bench.”
Cash didn’t stop talking so much as he ran out of words. He looked shocked at his own verbosity, and he wasn’t the only one; she didn’t think she’d ever heard him talk so much.
He drummed his fingers against the desk, reached for a pen, and grabbed the nearest scrap of paper. She knew what he’d do next, or she thought she did.
But he didn’t do it. He didn’t draw himself into a whole new world. He dropped the pen, and he looked up at her with fire in his eyes, and he spoke.
“Why were you held back?”
“What?” She frowned, confused at the sudden change in topic.
“You told me once that you were held back at school. I want to know why.”
Ah. I showed you mine, now show me yours.
Well. Maybe she owed him that.
But she wasn’t sure how to begin.
“We… Moved around a lot. My mother had a problem, I suppose. With men. Not even men—she was addicted to… Romance? Romantic love. She wanted to be adored. But adoration doesn’t last. It’s like champagne; you have to drink it to enjoy it. Keep hold of it for too long, just to watch the bubbles dance, and it’ll go flat.”
She sighed, already feeling disloyal. But something about setting these words free felt... Cathartic. After a moment, she forged on. “See, my mother was very beautiful. She had, you know… Curly hair, coloured eyes. She used to watch Disney princess films. We’d watch them together. Her favourite was Cinderella.”
“What was your favourite?” He asked, startling her.
But she smiled, when the question sunk in. “Beauty and the Beast. My mother said it was boring. And she didn’t understand why anyone would want a beastly prince.” Bailey laughed softly at the memory of her mother’s theatrical scoffs. “But she liked the songs. So we’d get to watch it often enough.
“Mother—I called her Dorothy. So people wouldn’t think she was old. She was married four times, the first time to my father, who died. In between marriages, she ran around looking for the next prince charming, you know? She was very glamorous. A jet-setter. When she was young, she worked as a croupier at a casino. That’s how she met my father. By the time he died, she was the one draped in diamonds at the gambling table—but the diamonds didn’t last very long. Dorothy had quite atrocious taste in men. So we would move and move and move—because she had to live with her latest love, who happened to hail from Portsmouth or Manchester or Cambridge. Or we would move because we found ourselves financially embarrassed, as she used to say, and we had to disappear on our debtors.” Bailey licked her lips, her mouth dry.
“So you were homeless too,” Cash said.
She blinked. “No. No, we never were.”
But he looked at her steadily. “Doesn’t sound like you ever had a home.”
She stared for a moment, her mind turning that statement over and over.
And then she said, “I have to go.”
And she felt his eyes on her as she fled.