7. Cassie
Cassie
F riends. Carter Harris was her friend. And she owed him baked goodies.
“Fuck me sideways,” she muttered on her way down to her office.
She probably said it a little too loud, because the guy she was sharing the elevator with gave her a funny look.
The new development didn’t make a blink of sense to her. Unless…
She dismissed her thought immediately. If a friend of hers had told her about a man behaving like Carter just had, she would have concluded that he must be interested in her. But it was Carter Harris – she was Cassie Franklin. End of story.
Right?
Carter
C arter cursed under his breath when Lucy announced the arrival of the woman she not-so-affectionately liked to call the Wicked Witch of the East. Tara. He’d completely forgotten: he’d made arrangements to take her to the ballet two weeks ago.
Outings of that sort were part of their agreement: he took her on a date twice a month, and she also had a credit card he paid for. In exchange, she ensured she always was… available to him.
It sounded pretty bad, said that way, but she wasn’t a prostitute; Tara was an associate at Pierce, Norman, and Trend, a respectable law firm.
She loved her career, she loved sex, and, like him, she didn’t have the time for a relationship; she also didn’t have the funds to indulge in her love for expensive shows and handbags.
What they had was a win-win for all parties.
Anyway, it felt that way most of the time. Today, Carter wasn’t so sure.
Tara came in, barely sparing a glance towards Lucy, and not bothering to return her greeting. Instead, she went right to him, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Carter normally reacted to her practiced lips, so he frowned, wondering why he wasn’t growing hard. It might have been her overbearing perfume.
She must have felt he wasn’t into it, because she took a step back and observed him with her keen eye.
“Let me guess,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’d forgotten about today.”
Damn right he had, or he would have cancelled. He really wasn’t in the mood for her.
“You normally call to confirm,” he replied reproachfully.
“You’d think your secretary would keep on top of your schedule,” she retorted immediately, shifting the blame.
As she glared daggers at Lucy, suddenly acknowledging her presence, Carter wondered how he’d put up with her for three years. The responses he could come up with didn’t paint a flattering assessment of his character.
“Lucy is an executive secretary of Harris Toys, Tara. She doesn’t keep track of whom I fuck and when. Now let’s go before I change my mind.”
If he’d had half a valid excuse, he would have cancelled on her, but the only thing on his schedule would have been takeout, a walk with Buddy, and a one-on-one with his Kindle; he had three new books to read.
Three books that would have his acquaintances questioning his sexuality if they ever saw them. Teach Me If You Can, Sue Me If You Can and Save Me If You Can.
Honestly, he’d looked forward to catching up on little Cassie’s bibliography, but he wasn’t so cold as to abandon his date in favor of something he could do any day.
“What was it that you said we’d watch today?”
He all but groaned. He hadn’t said anything, she’d been the one to request tickets to the premiere. At first, he’d assumed that she was fond of ballet, but if she couldn’t even remember what they were seeing, it was probably just because she knew there would be some press around the event.
“The Nutcracker , Tara,” he replied, just as the door of the elevator opened on the ninth floor, in front of a slender blonde whose green eyes went from his date to him, before she redirected them to the floor.
Shit.
He wasn’t sure why he felt awkward; he had absolutely no reason to – but seeing Cassie and his bedmate in the same confined space was… odd.
It made him compare the two women. Many a man might have disagreed, but in his opinion, Tara really had the short end of that stick.
Tara wore a short, tight red dress that left very little to the imagination; her long, slender legs were on display, accentuated by four inch stilettoes she had no problem working with.
The garment was tight against her chest, making it obvious that the two humongous bullets sticking out, clearly disproportionate to the rest of her body, were man-made.
In contrast, Cassie was all woman, all natural, all softness. Her grey shift dress reached her knees, and while he could see a hint of the swell of her breast and the curve of her shapely ass, it wasn’t on display; the mystery made him ache to peel the layers off. Slowly. With his teeth.
Jesus H. Christ, this was becoming too close to an obsession.
“Doing anything nice tonight, Cassie?”
Carter’s head snapped up. He hadn’t noticed the man who’d come in with her until he spoke to her, with a familiarity he didn’t like.
Carter recognized the guy; he’d seen him on her floor a couple of days earlier. It was one of her colleagues, no doubt. He was attractive, and clearly interested.
That pissed him off. A lot.
“Nothing much,” she replied, meeting his gaze and smiling up at him as Carter’s fists tensed. “A bubble bath, maybe.”
Great. Now they were all imagining her wet and naked.
“Oh, and I want to catch up on X-Men before the next one comes out.”
“Ah, you haven’t seen Apocalypse yet?”
“No, I didn’t get to see it at the cinema and they pushed the release of the DVD,” she pouted.
Carter wasn’t surprised when the guy offered, “I have all of them. You wanna watch them at my place? We could get some takeout.”
The next ten seconds were tense as fuck; he didn’t think he breathed until she opened her mouth.
“Actually, I remembered I do have some work to catch up on.”
The eyes were back to their evasion, dropping to her tiptoes.
“Alright. Maybe some other time, then.”
They’d made it to the ground floor. Fucking finally.
Everyone got out of the elevator; as Cassie walked past him, her arm brushed against his, and through the layers of fabric, he felt a tingle that shook him to the bone.
She turned to him, startled, as though the current had hit her, too. As she held his gaze for one timeless instant, his body fought against his mind, willing him to close the gap between them and take her plump lips.
“Carter, darling?”
Tara’s syrupy sweet voice pulled him from the spell, and with some willpower, he managed to turn to his date.
W hat the heck was that?
All he knew was that he had two choices: he had to stop this train wreck right now.
Or run with it.
He was pretty certain he knew what he was going to do.
Cassie
W ell, that answered her question.
After meeting the CEO and his date, Cassie felt extremely silly for even contemplating the idea that he might be into someone like her. Of course he wasn’t; he belonged to the realm of drop-dead-gorgeous, sensual brunettes who didn’t get IDed to buy a bottle of wine.
Fuckity-fuck, that was humiliating.
No matter. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Now she knew to take what he said at face value.
He wanted to be friends, and what he was after was a bit of conversation and some cupcakes.
She knew she could learn loads from him; his critique of her book had been on point, nailing everything she might have missed.
She would count her blessings, and stop herself from ever hoping for more.