Working Stiff:Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1)(47)

Because all that is holy was smiling that day, Cash lost the coin toss, and so Cash, Arthur, and Maxence were the "skins" team.

As the three men stripped off their shirts, revealing rippling muscle  stacked upon rippling muscle, Rox thought that several of the women in  the audience were close to having seizures.

Cash and the other guys played hard, sweat glistening on their bodies.  Tattoos flashed. The ball slammed into the asphalt and through hands and  swished down the hoops as the men turned and jumped, blocking and  ducking, for an hour.

Every striation of muscle was visible on Maxence. He had truly burned  down to zero percent body fat. Maybe he still had a few cells' worth far  deep inside, but none was showing.

The onlookers were relatively sure that Cash and his guys won the game,  but the scorekeeper got distracted and lost count twice, so no one  really knew for sure.

And no one cared.

Rox was distracted as heck because every time that Cash, Maxence, or  Arthur raised their hands over their heads to shoot, she could see the  matching tattoo that they all had on the insides of their right arms:  three shields joined at the tops around a Celtic knot.

She had to corner Cash and ask about that.

And other things. Man.

Afterward, Cash, Arthur, and Maxence went to Cash's gym around the  corner to shower, and Rox waited at the office for them to come back so  they could go out to supper.

About fifteen minutes later, Rox spotted Wren walking back to her  cubicle, and she herded Wren into the ladies' room, whispering, "I need  to talk to you."

"I can't believe you guys kicked Valerie Arbeitman out of a meeting,"  Wren whispered and started to reapply her cherry lip gloss. "She fumed  all the way to her office and slammed the door."

"I need to ask you about Cash," Rox said.

"Oh?" Wren's gaze turned wary.

"When you were going out with Cash-"

"Why?" Wren asked, holding her lip gloss aside.

"Just a question. No reason."

"Are you involved with him?"

"Maybe a little," Rox admitted.

Wren dropped her lip gloss and scrambled to grab it before it dropped off the counter. "But you're married!"

"I'm actually not. I kind of made that whole thing up."

"What do you mean, kind of made that whole thing up?"

Wren was a damn good paralegal. Rox should have known that she would  define the terms before anything else. "It means that I totally made  Grant up. The pictures are headshots from a friend of mine who's an  agent. The vacation pics were photoshopped. I'm not married. I've never  been married. Grant doesn't exist."

"But I met him!" Wren exclaimed.

"No, you didn't."

"I did! At the barbecue last summer!"

"Nope. Must have been someone else." Rox had never brought a date to anything.

"I met him, and he told me about auditioning for something."

"Yeah, that could have been anyone in California."

"I could swear that I met him," Wren said, her long, blond hair swishing as she shook her head.

"I guarantee you didn't. I've never brought any guys to any events because Grant doesn't exist."

"Huh. I wonder who I met, then. Maybe Brochelle's fiancé."

"Yeah, maybe. Look, about Cash-"

"I can't believe that you're finally having your fling with him. We all  thought that you were immune or something." She batted her eyelashes at  herself, checking for mascara flakes. "Well, we all thought you were  married."

"Did he ever call you anything while you guys were going out? Like a pet name?"

Wren frowned. "Like what?"

Like lieveke. "I don't know, like sweetheart or honey? Or something in Dutch?"

Wren's frown slipped to the side, uncomprehending. "Why would he call anybody something in Dutch?"

"Or whatever? Something British or German or something?"

Wren's gaze rose toward the white stripes of the ceiling lights. "I don't think so. How come?"

"He's-" Rox searched her own eyes in the mirror. Her eyes looked afraid,  overly large and dirt brown. "It seems like he's coming on strong."

"Is he pressuring you to do things that you don't want to?" Wren asked, her hand moving across the counter to touch Rox's wrist.
                       
       
           



       
"No, no. Not like that."

"Yeah, he doesn't have to pressure anyone," she smirked.

"Did he make you believe that he was in love with you? Is that why  everyone walks around all mopey and with a broken heart afterward?"

"He never did anything like that," Wren mused. "He never said that he  loved me, that's for sure, and I've never heard anyone else talk about  love with him, either. He's not a lovey-dovey duck, you know? He never  talks about himself. Never told me anything about his childhood or  growing up in London or what England was like."

Evidently, Cash had never told her that he was Dutch.

"We never went out with anyone else, either. It was always just him and me, and it was more intense that way."

"So you never met his friends or anything."

"Oh, Lord, no. We always went to hotels. Who were those guys, playing basketball with him?"

"Just some guys he knows. So you never went back to his house?"

"No. Never his house. But we didn't hang out much in L.A., either.  Either we flew somewhere or he drove us somewhere. I have a theory that  he doesn't even have a house, that he spends all his salary on that car,  his clothes, and dates."

Oh, that wasn't true, either.

"If anything," Wren continued, "I was very conscious the whole time that  it was just fun and games, and nothing that intense and shallow could  last very long. He's like a laser that way, intense light, but it only  touches the surface and bounces off anything hard, and it has no mass,  no gravity."

Rox curled her hands into fists. "Then why is everyone so miserable when he ghosts on them?"

"He's like catnip, you know? He's fun and a little freaky, and you have a  great time laughing with him. Hanging out with him is wild. I never got  into the office before ten-thirty. Sometimes eleven. It does feel like a  game when you're with him. Not a winner-loser type of game. A  non-zero-sum game where you both win, but it's definitely a game. And  the dates! I didn't even have a passport when we started dating, and he  got one expedited for me so we could go see a symphony in Milan that  first weekend. And it was fashion week there, too, so he bought me a  bunch of clothes."

"So, that's it? It's just that he buys girls a bunch of stuff and takes them on expensive dates?"

"It's more like getting on a roller coaster for a couple of weeks or  months. When you get off, your legs feel funny for a while, and you want  to ride it again because you were laughing and screaming the whole  time."

"So you just liked riding him."

Wren laughed. "Yeah, there was that, too. He's a fun ride."

Rox flinched.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to talk about him like that to you. While  you're in the moment, it's a rush, and you should enjoy the game while  it lasts."

She bit her lower lip. "What did he do before he ghosted on you? How did you know that he was going to?"

Wren glanced at her from the sides of her dark eyes. Her voice  tightened. "I didn't. He blindsided me. He blindsides everyone, every  time. He just closes up."

"But he must have given you some clue. There must have been something," Rox insisted.

"Nope." Wren fluffed her blond curls.

"He didn't meet someone else? He didn't start getting mysterious texts or phone calls or have other places that he had to go?"

"Not at all. I don't think he had anyone else lined up. Everything was  light and laughter, and then he was gone. It was like any other day,  until it wasn't."

"Yeah," Rox said, staring at her own brown, haunted eyes in the mirror.  "It's always like that, just like any other day, and then they're gone."





EUROTRASH





After Rox and Cash abused Maxence and Arthur with nuclear-hot Thai food  during an early supper, they sat around the table, and Arthur announced  that he and Maxence were catching a cab for the airport and they would  be back in the morning.

"How come?" Rox asked before she saw Cash waving her off. "Not that it  matters. You're big boys. You don't have to report to me."

Arthur laughed. "Did you warn her, Caz?"

Cash glared at him. "Warn her of what?"

Arthur laughed again.

Maxence, however, was staring at his empty plate and rearranging his  used silverware slanted across it, not making any eye contact.

Okay, they were obviously up to something truly sordid.

Sometimes, Rox was not a nice person. "So, are you going, too, Maxence?"