Cinderella Busted (The Cinderella Romances #1) (20 page)

Lily hated the man’s ugly insinuation, but she couldn’t win here. There was no good answer to his question, so she opted for evasion.

“I have work to do, Mr. Armstead. If you’ll excuse me?”

He stepped in front of her cart. “On another floor?”

A stubborn set to her chin, she met his contemptuous gaze. “That’s right. The third floor is next, so if you’ll let me pass, I’ll be on my way.”

“Of course.” He made a great show of stepping aside, as though brushing up against her would get him dirty.

She clenched her teeth, unsleeved the sole
Spathiphyllum
she had remaining on the cart, and hustled back to the elevator.

Armstead watched her go and turned to the receptionist. “I’m finished here, Kathy. Be a dear and call Mr. Buchanan’s secretary and have her tell Rhett to meet me on the
third
floor instead of up in his office, then have her call Aiden Cross and tell him the same thing. I’ll be on three with Lucas Van Dorn. We can have our meeting in his private conference room.”

Lily had tortured herself every night since the charity gala with visions of Rhett and Delia in bed together. He had left the gala, his arm tight around Delia, without a backward glance in Lily’s direction. Their fledgling relationship had ended at his mansion, but that flagrant gala exit put an exclamation point on the finale.

Now, standing in the lobby of BDC and reloading her cart for the third floor, she had to fight back images of Rhett. Though she’d never been here before, this building was his headquarters, and she could almost see him everywhere she looked, coming and going for his regular workdays.

She told her herself over and over that Rhett had destroyed any feelings she’d had for him the minute he had tossed her out of his house, but her mind and her memories teamed up with other ideas. Memories of their romantic week in New York stealthily evaded her best defenses and slipped into focus at off times throughout the day. Snippets of memories to make her breath catch in her throat or trip her up as she moved through the greenhouses.

Rhett holding her hand in the horse-drawn carriage in the moonlight.

Rhett buying an orchid from a street vendor and tucking it behind her ear as they boarded the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty.

Rhett sharing a chaise lounge with her on their balcony at the Waldorf Astoria, and the two of them kissing and talking till three in the morning.

One by one, the memories all paraded past to taunt her with their soul-deep joy, tantalizing with their promise of a real-life fairy tale. Yet the memory of Rhett that made her ache the worst for
what
might have been
didn’t involve any physical interaction with her.

On the last day of their trip, Rhett had taken her to New York’s most famous cathedral—St. Patty’s he’d called it—and introduced her to an elderly priest who came rushing over to greet them as soon as they stepped into the cathedral’s darkened interior. After shaking Father Tom’s hand, Lily had proceeded down the center aisle and was immediately taken aback by the magnificent architecture of the edifice and the incredible stained glass windows, but even more so by the
bodies
lying prostrate in the pews. She stared for a moment before she realized they were all homeless people, sleeping where they could be cool and dry.

Lily turned to ask Rhett about this and noticed he was still back in the narthex with Father Tom. As she watched, Rhett covertly placed something in the older man’s hand before moving ahead to join her in the aisle.

Later when they were leaving the sanctuary, Rhett had been pulled aside to greet another younger priest, and Father Tom had approached Lily to say good-bye.

“You have a fine man there, Lily,” Father Tom said, intimating their relationship to be more permanent than it actually was, and she couldn’t find the will to correct him. She liked the priest thinking of her and Rhett as permanent.

“He always stops in to see us when he’s in New York, and he never forgets them,” Father Tom was saying and angled his head toward the pews that held the sleeping homeless.

“Never forgets them?” she parroted in question.

The priest leaned back to study her face. “Didn’t you know?”

Clueless as to what he was talking about, she shook her head.

Father Tom smiled gently. “Well, I don’t suppose he’d mind me telling you since he said you were
special
.”

Rhett had said she was
special
? She nodded as though granting permission, though she really wanted to keep him talking, and the priest smiled.

“When Rhett stops by to visit on his trips to New York City, he always asks ‘
How many?’
Then he leaves enough for each of them to have a hundred.”

Bewildered, she asked, “A hundred what?”

Father Tom chuckled. “Dollars.”

“He handed you money?”

Father Tom nodded. “Always does. Says he remembers all too well what it’s like to be poor and hungry.” The elderly priest grinned, and his cheeks folded into numerous wrinkles. “Never matters how many are present. He never misses one. Sometimes we have three dozen or so in here.”

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Lily said past the lump in her throat and turned to look for Rhett, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyelids.

Out in the narthex near the door, Rhett stood straight and handsome and tall, and nothing had ever looked so wonderful in all her life. He caught her eye and motioned for them to go, and she knew that was the moment she fell head over heels in love with Rhett Buchanan.

She sighed deeply and glanced around the tastefully decorated lobby of the BDC headquarters. Did Rhett come through the front door of his office building and ride the elevators each morning, or did the brilliant CEO have a private back entrance? Was his secretary drop-dead gorgeous? Probably. Yet Rhett didn’t seem the type to dabble with his direct reports.

At the thought of dabbling, Lily’s mind swung back to cursed Delia. Did the witch visit here like her father upstairs? And how often? Lily crushed her eyes shut to force out the painful images flitting across her brain.

Concentrate on your work
.

The elevator dinged, and the doors parted to let Garrett and Rob exit with their cart. Garrett checked his watch and followed Rob and the cart to the remaining staged plants.

“We’re through on the fourth floor,” Garrett said.

“Was he up there?” Lily couldn’t help asking, and her stomach did a little flip-flop.

“No, I told you he wasn’t expected back for a couple hours.”

For some inexplicable reason, Lily felt a splash of disappointment, which was ludicrous. If Rhett showed up during this delivery, he would no doubt explode like he had at his mansion. Why would she want to live through that again?

“What’s so funny?” Garrett asked when she suddenly smiled.

“I was just wondering where Rhett would throw my plants if he walked in. There’s no pool.”

Both Rob and Garrett barked with laughter.

Lily filled the last vacant spots on her cart. “I’m headed to the third floor. I’m finished on two.”

“Great. We’ll take care of the Admin area down here, then pack up the last of the plants and meet you up on three,” Garrett said. “Those
Chamedoria
palms would look good in the finance reception area.”

“Sure thing,” she said and turned her cart for the elevators.

“Oh, and Lily?”

She glanced back.

“No plants go in the finance division executive offices at the end of the hall, especially Lucas Van Dorn’s office. That damn bean counter keeps cutting my landscape budget, and it’s payback time.”

She laughed and headed for the elevators. At the third floor, she tugged her cart out and pushed it off to one side. The reception desk on this floor was occupied by a young and very beautiful receptionist who beamed when Lily explained who she was and what she was doing.

“I already heard. My friends on the first floor called me. This is great.”

“Glad you’re happy,” Lily said and pulled the two largest
Chamedoria
palms off her cart, then set one at each end of the lobby. “These are to go in here,” she told the still beaming receptionist.

“Mr. Buchanan is so sweet to bring me plants,” the girl said, with a wistful expression.

Lily recognized that look, and she felt a sharp pain on the right side of her heart, right next to the stress tear the perfidious organ suffered last week at Rhett’s mansion. The beautiful receptionist had an obvious crush on her CEO. How often did he visit down here to create such blind adoration?

Lily removed the heavy brown-paper sleeves from the
Chamedoria
palms and immediately spotted some dried yellow fronds she hadn’t noticed when selecting the makeup stock back at the nursery to fill in for the drowned palms at Rhett’s mansion. Unwilling to leave any plants less than perfect at BDC for Rhett to complain about, she started peeling the spent fronds from the stalks of both palms. Several more dried fronds were visible at the top of the palms, and Lily groaned when she couldn’t reach them.

The elevator suddenly dinged, and Lily spun around to see who had arrived. Garrett and Rob pushed their full cart out into the reception area, and she blew out a sigh of relief.

The young receptionist turned her radiant smile on Garrett and waited to be noticed. Fickle little thing, wasn’t she? Lily couldn’t imagine why, but she felt an inexplicable stab of irritation at the young woman for her sudden disloyalty to Rhett.

“Why the scowl, Lily?” Rob asked.

“I need a stepladder or step stool to reach the dried fronds at the top of these palms,” she said.

“I’ll go down to the truck and get the stepladder for you,” Rob offered.

Garrett glanced at his watch, then over at Rob. “No, you take the cart down that left hall and start unloading these plants we brought up. I’ll get Lily a stepladder and then unload the rest of her plants down the hall to the right. This is taking longer than I thought.”

“Sure thing,” Rob said and guided his cart down the left hall lined with more anterooms and doored offices.

Lily felt a wave of panic at Garrett’s urgency. “Please hurry,” she said as Garrett headed down the opposite hall.

He was back in a few minutes with a three-step ladder. “Here you go,” he said and placed it in front of her, then maneuvered her cart away from the wall.

“I’m so sorry about these palms,” she told Garrett. “I could have sworn I checked every one before I pulled the stock.”

He held up a hand. “It’s okay, Lily. I’m a landscaper, remember? There’s nothing wrong with the
Chamedorias
.”

She hoped he was right
and climbed up the ladder to strip the miscreant fronds at the top.

Garrett’s cell phone rang. He checked the readout and answered, “Hey.” He smiled. “Like clockwork.” He glanced at Lily, then away. “Peeling dry fronds off the top of two palms.”

Lily’s head snapped up. Who was Garrett talking to?

“You bet. I’ll call you and let you know.” He clicked off, pocketed the phone, and reached for the cart.

“Garrett?” Lily called.

He turned.

She hesitated, embarrassed now to ask him who was on the phone.

He grinned. “That was Tammy checking up on you.” He pushed the laden cart toward the opposite hallway from the one Rob had pedaled through.

“Oh,” Lily said, mostly to herself since the receptionist had gone back to her typing.

Why had Tammy called Garrett and not her, she wondered and watched him push the cart across the lobby. She pivoted on the top step to resume her manicuring when the elevator dinged and the doors parted. She jerked at the sound, only this time she felt a small wave of panic. Garrett was here in the lobby with her, so who had just arrived?

Her peripheral vision caught Garrett turning toward the elevator—looking nervous—and that only fueled Lily’s anxiety. She refused to be caught staring at the elevator occupant and pivoted on the top step to reach for a dried frond in one continuous motion. Her shifting weight bobbled the miniature ladder, and she felt the stubby legs lift off the tile. Grabbing for the tall palm to steady herself, she missed and clawed only air as the little ladder tilted up and over.

Lily flailed in midair and awaited the inevitable crushing contact with the marble floor, praying nothing would break. She heard Garrett yell, and her peripheral vision caught movement as her body was miraculously snatched up and crushed against a suited muscular frame. Her arms flew out to cling and hang on like a little rhesus monkey, ecstatic she hadn’t slammed into the marble floor and overwhelmed by an intoxicating scent of male and aftershave from where her face lay buried against a shirt collar and neck.

Neither she nor her savior moved for a several long moments. She opened her eyes and peered over a broad shoulder to see Garrett frozen in place and gaping at her. The little receptionist looked like a goldfish with her mouth opening and closing repeatedly.

The adrenaline rush subsided, and Lily felt her savior slowly lower her to the ground without breaking contact with his torso. She felt every inch of her chest and abdomen slowly ease down her savior’s suit, and her eyes nearly rolled back in her head from the intoxicating scent and erogenous shifting of two perfectly aligned bodies.

Her feet touched the ground, and two strong hands cupped her elbows until she secured her balance and, more importantly, jumpstarted her lungs to normal oxygen-seeking mode. One large and embarrassingly noisy gulp of air did the trick. Two more deep breaths, just to be on the safe side, and she slowly tilted her gaze upward to see who had streaked to her rescue. She wanted to look, yet she didn’t want to look for fear of who was holding her at this moment.

First came a strong chin, then a sensual mouth, two intense green eyes, and Lily went deathly still.

Rhett
.