4. Cassandra
CASSANDRA
H e was joking.
He had to be.
This whole day was a nightmare. At any moment, I would wake up in my bed in Manhattan.
Why wasn’t I waking up?
“I’m sorry the cabin wasn’t ready,” Christian said as he moved about the house. “Trust me, Jackson’s gonna get his ass chewed out for it.”
I stifled the urge to drop my head into my hands. That wouldn’t be very good for the optics.
Fuck Tripp.
My engagement ring burned my finger. I wanted to take it off and leave it for that fucking cow to shit on.
I had cried when Tripp proposed. Actually cried. Now here we were, two years later.
He left me here without an “I love you” as he disappeared for work … again.
Christian paused in the kitchen when he saw me staring at my ring. Dammit.
“You alright, Princess?”
I swallowed. “Fine.”
He arched an eyebrow. “That look on your face wouldn’t have anything to do with that bag of ass who sped off and left you here, now would it?”
“This is my assignment. Him leaving just means I can get to work without the pleasantries. I don’t need him here to do my job.” Somehow it was one hundred percent true, but also a complete lie.
“Good. I hate him.”
I was a straight shooter, but I was surprised at his bluntness.
The front door burst open and two small humans barreled through in a cacophony of voices. Bags were thrown about, shoes were kicked off, and casual shouts of, “Hi, daddy,” rang out.
I stood amidst the flurry of activity, half surprised and half horrified.
Christian’s attention immediately left me. “There are my squirrels,” he said as he doled out hugs. “How was school?”
“It was fine,” the older one said. “Grandma already checked my homework. Can I have a snack?”
“No. Grandma’s making dinner,” he said without skipping a beat. “Change clothes and wash up. How was dance class?”
It was strange, standing in the middle of an unfamiliar house, watching someone else’s life play out.
Christian was a dad.
I didn’t know why I was surprised. He seemed like the type.
That was when I realized there was a fourth person in the family photos on the walls. A woman—blonde and smiling—holding a toddler and a baby.
At some point, the photos turned to just Christian and the two girls.
“Gracie—how was your day?” Christian asked.
“Fine,” the smaller one said.
“Tell me about it. What’d you do in school?”
“I can’t remember,” she said nonchalantly.
He raised an eyebrow. “You were there for seven hours and you can’t remember anything you did?”
She shrugged again.
“Tell me with your words, not your shoulders,” he said calmly as he opened a backpack and started thumbing through a folder.
“I hate Macy. She’s the worst.”
The sharp look that shot out of Christian’s eyes surprised even me, but his tone was gentle. “We don’t say that we hate people.”
“Yeah, but she’s?—”
He lifted an eyebrow, and the girl clammed up.
“Who are you?” The older one had reappeared and was staring at me with curiosity.
The other one—Gracie—spun, realizing a stranger was standing in her living room. “Whoa. You’re, like, really pretty.”
I lifted my chin. “Thank you.”
Christian tucked Gracie under his arm. “This is Ms. Parker. Grandpa hired her to work here.”
Ah, the distancing language of someone trying to avoid taking responsibility.
“Cass,” he said, addressing me. “These are my daughters, Bree and Gracie.”
“It’s Cass andra ,” I said, correcting him yet again as I offered a handshake to the older one.
She stared at me like I was insane, then gave me a sideways high-five. “Nice to meet you.”
“You don’t look like a ranch hand,” Gracie said.
Christian groaned. “That’s because she’s not. Go change out of your dance clothes and put something on to go up to Grandma’s.”
The room cleared out at the prospect of dinner.
When it was just the two of us again, I crossed my arms. “You teach your kids not to say they hate people?”
He tipped his chin up. “That’s right.”
“You said you hated my fiancé.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, well, I can interact politely with people I don’t like.
Once you’re grown, it shouldn’t be hard to compartmentalize being mature even if you have the desire to watch a human turd return to his roots and wade in a pool of shit.
Be polite and let karma handle things. It can be a real bitch. ”
I crooked a finger, drawing him closer. “So can I.”
His beard split, and he flashed a grin. “You want me to think that, don’t you?”
The truck ride back to the ranch house was significantly better than the horseback ride to Christian’s house.
I sat in the front while the girls giggled in the backseat. I still had no idea what I was going to do about my current living situation. That cabin was not habitable.
I also wasn’t about to have a prolonged sleepover in a house that included children.
Maybe Becks could do me a solid … again … and let me crash with her and her husband.
Then again, she was pregnant. Pregnant people grossed me out.
The truck stopped and the girls barreled out of the back.
“Ah—what do you think you’re doing? Get back inside,” Christian said.
I watched the situation unfold as Bree and Gracie climbed back into the truck, even though dinner waited for us inside.
Christian closed the door, waited until they settled, then opened the door again.
They climbed out exactly how they had the first time and immediately ran inside. I reached for my door handle, but he beat me to it.
“Rule number one. You ride in my truck; you let me open the door.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that what that was about?”
He nodded. “One day they’re gonna be old enough to go on dates. That means I have to teach them about acceptable treatment. I don’t know how you were raised, but my parents taught me to open doors for ladies. That’s what my daughters will expect.”
I slid out. The heels of my Manolos sunk into the dirt. “And here I was, thinking you’d be the ‘wait on the porch with a shotgun’ type. Or just lock them in their rooms until they’re forty.”
He chuckled as he slammed the door shut. “Don’t tempt me.”
I smoothed down the wrinkles and wished I could erase the dust smudges that streaked my favorite white power suit. It was low-cut and lethal.
I loved it.
I had been in these clothes for the better part of eighteen hours and desperately wanted to change, or at least put on fresh underwear.
I smelled like airports, horse shit, and spite.
Christian put his hand on my back as we made our way up the stairs, but I sidestepped his touch and caught a raised eyebrow in the process.
“I could run a marathon in these shoes. Stairs are nothing.”
But Christian didn’t argue. He merely faced forward. “Jackass did a real number on you,” he muttered into that beard of his.
I had never been into beards. I liked seeing the chiseled jawline of a man. But the way Christian ran his hand down the side of his beard stirred something dormant inside of me.
His was smooth and neat; trimmed an inch beneath his jawline. As he ducked inside the front door of the ranch house, he removed his cowboy hat, giving me another peek at the man bun that held loosely tied brown hair.
How long was his hair?
I settled into the role of an observer as I followed Christian through the house. Something stew-like smelled incredible.
The sound of giggling girls echoed upward into the tall-pitched ceiling. Christian hung his hat on a hat rack, careful not to knock the other ones down.
“Hey,” Becks said from a recliner in the open living room. She looked miserably happy.
I never understood the baby thing. Why would a woman voluntarily put herself through nine months of hell and eighteen years of parental prison?
I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was not a baby person. Or a kid person. Or a teenager person. Or a young adult person.
I mostly tolerated the twenty-six and up population.
“Did you get settled in?” she asked, taking a bite from a bowl of mashed potatoes that rested on top of her enormous baby bump.
I brushed my hair over my shoulder and lifted my chin. “Not exactly.”
“Whoever sees Jackson next, tell him I need to have a conversation with him,” Christian said, cool as a cucumber.
The room froze.
Becks’s mouth dropped open. “Holy crap.”
“What?”
When Christian turned his back and delved into a conversation with someone who looked almost exactly like him, Becks spoke quietly. “I’ve never seen him that angry before.”
“That’s angry?”
Becks smirked and shoveled in a spoonful of potatoes. “Oh yeah. Chris is as even-tempered as they come. I’ve never heard him so much as raise his voice.” She pointed across the room at him. “ That’s fury.”
Once, I had thrown a crystal vase across my office because I was pissed off at a client.
At least I didn’t throw it at the client.
Such was the life of a publicist.
Well … an ex-publicist.
“It makes me wonder how he gets out all his stress,” Becks whispered.
But she didn’t elaborate. Christian and his look-alike headed for us.
From the back, they were the same height and build, but from the front, the differences were easy to spot.
Christian had a brown man bun, beard, and heavy dad bod with a curved belly. The other guy was more of a dirty blond with hair buzzed short in a military cut. His face was mostly clean-shaven, except for a light layer of sandy stubble. He was built like G.I. Joe.
“Cass, this is my brother, Nate,” Christian said.
“Cass andra ,” I clipped under my breath.
Christian just smirked.
“That Griffith brother belongs to me,” Becks said, pointing the potato spoon at Christian’s brother.
Nate extended his hand. “Nice to meet you. Becks has told me a lot about you.”
He didn’t strike me as the cowboy type. His posture and presence screamed military.
“Well done,” I said out of the corner of my mouth when Christian’s girls tackled Nate.
Becks grinned and gently smoothed a hand over her bump as it moved like an alien was inside of her.
Oh God. My stomach roiled. That was so fucking gross.
“Are you okay, Miss Cassandra?” Gracie said, leaping off her uncle like a monkey swinging from a tree. “You look like Bree when she’s about to throw up.”
I took a steadying breath and put on a smile. “I’m fine.”
“Daddy says that when women say they’re fine that it’s a lie, so we’re not supposed to say we’re fine.”
Becks snorted.
I braced my hands on my knees and bent to be just above her level. “Did your daddy also tell you it’s not nice to demand a different answer when someone has already given you one?”
Gracie didn’t flinch. “No, but my therapist says that it’s better to say how we feel so we can deal with it and move on rather than letting it soup.”
“Rather than letting it stew ,” Bree corrected from across the room.
Gracie shrugged and skipped away, blissfully unbothered. “I like soup better. Chicken noodle is my favorite.”
What kind of father encouraged his kids to go to therapy like an emotionally available, self-aware parent?
Didn’t Christian know he was supposed to ignore all expressions of personal feelings like the rest of the dads out there? Or at least like mine had.
“You must be Ms. Parker,” an older woman said from behind me.
I turned just fast enough to catch a glimpse of silver hair before arms wrapped around me.
My back went ramrod straight.
Therapy and hugs. This family was so fucking weird.
“I would’ve been here to greet you when you got in, but I was taking the girls to dance class. How was your trip, honey?”
“Just fi—” And because I knew that child would correct me if I said “fine,” I said, “It went smoothly.”
She beamed. “Oh, that’s just great to hear.”
“Hey, Momma,” Christian said with an incredible tenderness in his graveled voice. “Thanks for getting the girls.”
Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled. “Anytime. It gave me an excuse to go into town.”
“Cass, this is my mom,” Christian said with his burly arm still around her shoulders.
I nodded. “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Griffith.”
“Please, call me Claire. Or Momma. Everyone does.”
“Claire,” I said decisively.
Calling someone who was not your mother “mom” was bizarre.
Claire looked around. “Where’s CJ?”
“I’m here,” a slightly younger-looking version of Nate said as he strolled in. He was positively filthy.
Like Christian had done, the man hung his hat on the hook and kissed his mom on the cheek.
She raised her eyebrows. “Who raised you to walk into this house when you’re that filthy?”
He smirked. “The same woman who taught me to never be late for dinner.”
Claire rolled her eyes. “Go wash up.”
“That’s Carson,” Christian said. “He’s the youngest. He’s the ranch’s cow boss. Oversees the ranch hands.”
I didn’t want to be a part of this family reunion. If this was the only place to eat, I would take my dinner to-go and get to work. The sooner I got the job done, the sooner I could get back to my life and away from whatever this nightmare was.