Cinderella Busted (The Cinderella Romances #1) (13 page)

That hurt more than anything. She considered him no longer worth the effort to play her role, to cry her tears. Time for her to move on. The knife in his gut twisted anew. The embers of his anger flared white-hot.

“You’re finished now!” he roared. “Get out, and take your damn plants with you! I don’t want them.”

Lily and her helper stared for a moment, both stunned at his outburst. Lily’s eyes locked with his. Agony seeped into them and then fresh tears. Her tiny hand swept up to cover her mouth, and she ran off the terrace and around the side of the house.

“Get out,” he yelled after her, “and don’t come back!”

Lily’s partner hovered an instant longer, still clinging to his damn
Ficus
tree. He finally let go of the trunk and streaked after her. Rhett never took his eyes off Lily’s path of escape.

Chapter 6

Jason caught up to Lily at the truck, and they both scrambled inside.

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” he asked.

“No.”

He cursed under his breath.

Lily stared straight ahead, and felt the tears streaming down both cheeks.

“Geez, Lily, I’m sorry. He caught me off-guard. You want me to go back and deck him?”

She shook her head vehemently, but refused to look at him.

“Man, he was the absolute worst customer Bloom & Grow ever had. What an asshole!”

More tears slipped from her eyes, no doubt leaving tracks in the smudges of potting soil on her cheeks.

“Okay, I’ll just shut up and drive.”

She nodded, but still wouldn’t look at him.

Rob glanced up when the greenhouse door opened. “How’d it go? I finished up at the bank fairly quick and intended to meet up with you guys, but Tammy called and said you were ahead of schedule, so I came back here. You get all the plants delivered?”

His shipping supervisor shook his head. “We were doing fine at first. The buyer was there, had the house open, and even gave us a floor plan for where to put everything.”

“No kidding? That was good thinking. Why are you shaking your head?”

“It went south fast,” Jason said soberly. “The real owner showed up and threw us out.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Rob dropped his cuttings and jumped to his feet.

“The guy acted like he knew Lily. Said he didn’t want the plants,
her
plants to be specific. He called her a liar and shouted at us to get out. He was a real asshole.”

“Oh damn.”

“Lily clammed up in the truck and wouldn’t say a word. But she knows the guy. I could see it on her face. He hurt her feelings bad when he started yelling and made her cry. Made me want to punch him.”

“Do you have a copy of the purchase order?” Rob asked and held out a hand.

Jason pulled the paper from the clipboard and handed it over.

Rob glanced at the buyer name and groaned. Armstead, Anne. “This is all my fault. I never even looked at the buyer’s name,” he said, feeling sucker-punched. “Now, I know who the owner was.”

“Would you mind telling
me
?” Jason asked. “I get chased out of someone’s house, I’d sort of like to know why,” he added sardonically.

“The owner is Lily’s new boyfriend,” Rob said grimly. “And keep that to yourself.”

“You mean
was
,” Jason said. “He told Lily he didn’t want her and not to come back.”

“Oh Lord. I knew this was going to happen. How is she doing?”

He shrugged. “Hard to say. She just stared straight ahead through the windshield all the way back to the nursery, and when I stopped the truck, she beat a path to the cottage.”

Rob handed back the purchase order. “Give this to Tammy and tell her to meet me at Lily’s house.” He pointed a finger at Jason. “And you, not a word about this to anyone.”

Garrett pulled up in Rhett’s driveway and stared at the darkened mansion. Not a single light flared. One of the garage bays stood open, and he could see Rhett’s Navigator parked inside.

“Well, at least he’s here and not driving around somewhere,” he muttered under his breath.

He parked his Escalade and cut the engine. Nothing had surprised him more than the panicked call he’d received from Delia telling him Rhett had gone crazy and she was worried about him. Friend or no, he doubted Rhett would appreciate him barging into his house tonight. Garrett eyed the mansion. That is, if he made it inside.

From the meager facts she supplied, he’d garnered some idea of what had transpired this afternoon. The witch Delia had purchased houseplants from Bloom & Grow for Rhett as a housewarming gift, and his little
slut,
as Delia called her, had delivered the plants. Seems Lily Foster actually
owned
the nursery, and that had been the source of the turmoil. That little tidbit had Garrett shaking his head. Why didn’t Rhett know? And why had Delia purchased her plants from that particular nursery?

Garrett smelled a rat in that woodpile.

According to Delia, Rhett had gone on a rampage, called Lily a liar, and ordered her and the deliveryman with her off his property. He’d ranted long after the two had left, and Delia couldn’t calm him down. She said he’d started drinking, and that part did worry Garrett.

Rhett never had more than drink or two, always said he didn’t want his judgment impaired. More like he intended to go back to work in the middle of the night was the reason. The man spent way too much time at work, which was one reason Garrett was so glad Rhett had met Lily. Garrett was usually oblivious about such things, but even he could tell Rhett had fallen hard, which probably explained the fiasco this afternoon.

What a mess.

Eventually, Rhett had thrown Delia out, too, and therein lay the rub, at least for Delia. She had ordered Garrett to call as soon as Rhett was okay, so she could come back and comfort him.

“Like that would ever happen,” he muttered grimly.

Garrett had his own ideas about the afternoon fiasco and had a strong hunch Delia had planned the whole thing. How had
she
known Lily Foster owned Bloom & Grow, and why didn’t Garrett know? Geez, he’d been at the nursery a half-dozen times and never noticed Lily. He would have remembered a woman that beautiful. Of course, the redhead Tammy usually escorted him on the grounds.

And why hadn’t Lily just told Rhett she worked at the nursery? Rhett wouldn’t have cared. The man was no snob, far from it. He only maintained his aloof, aristocratic, and sinfully wealthy aura as a shield from the press. And women.

He sighed deeply and rested his head against the steering wheel
.

Rhett has fixed me a dozen times over the years. Let me fix him, just this once. I think he might really be broken this time.

Garrett got out and made his way to the front door. He breathed a sigh of relief to find the door unlocked. He pushed through and past the foyer. The kitchen down the front hall was dark, save for a single nightlight deep within. The upstairs halls ventured no lights either.

He caught the unmistakable clink of ice cubes in a glass and followed the sound. No lamps were lit in the great room, but enough moonlight had penetrated the French doors and skylights to illuminate shapes, including the head that rested against the back of a chair and the long legs stretched out in front.

The ice cubes rattled again, and an arm rose briefly to salute with the errant glass of cubes. “Are you going to sit down or just hover back there and stare?” Rhett growled from the bowels of the overstuffed chair.

Rhett’s words came out slurred, and Garrett knew he had his work cut out for him.
He moved past the occupied chair and strode to the enormous wet bar across the room, flicking on the small bar lamp on the counter.

“Mind if I have a drink, too? Looks like you’re way ahead of me.”

“Actually, I do mind. What do you want? And what are you doing in my house?”

Garrett ignored him and fixed a scotch rocks. “Delia called me after you threw her out. She’s really worried about you, and frankly, so am I.”

“She’ll get over it. So will you.”

“Question is, will you?”

The arm came up again and cubes rattled. “How’d you get in?”

“The front door. You left it unlocked.”

“Maybe I was asleep. Did you think of that?”

“Right.”

“Well now that you’re here, make yourself useful and get me another drink.” He held out his now empty glass.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough? You’re going to feel like hell in the morning.”

“You let me worry about that. Get me a damn drink or get lost.”

Garrett retrieved the glass and went back to the bar. He considered adding water to the scotch, but that would only make the grizzly bear mad. Garrett was here to help, so he carried the drink back, handed the glass to Rhett, and took a seat.

“Want to tell me what happened?” he asked.

“No,” Rhett said angrily.

“Delia says she bought you some plants for a gift.”

Rhett snorted in disgust. “Which reminds me, landscaper. Call someone to come get the damn things. I don’t want them in my house.”

“So, Lily works at the nursery.”

Rhett reared up and scowled at him. “Damn you for not telling me!”

For a split second, Garrett thought Rhett would take a poke at him. That would be a first. In all their years as friends, Rhett had never taken a swing at him though he’d given Rhett plenty of reason on occasion, especially when they were younger. This looked bad, real bad.

“Look, I didn’t know either. Hearing that surprised the hell out of me, too.”

Rhett glared at him for a moment and then sank back in the chair again.

“Did Lily know this was your house?” Garrett asked.

“You mean did the
liar
know?”

“Okay, did the liar know? Had she ever been here?”

“Yes, but she didn’t know it was my house. After we left Delia’s party, we snuck through my yard to get to the beach.” The arm came up quickly, and the cubes rattled hard.

“Why didn’t you just take her through the house?”

Rhett’s head turned, and his eyes narrowed. “One can’t be too careful, you know?”

“Oh, I get it. You didn’t want her to know
how
rich you were, so you didn’t tell her you lived here. Have I got that right?”

“I thought she was different,” Rhett mumbled, so low Garrett could hardly hear him, “but she’s just like all the others. She’s only after my money. At least,
she
made a game of it.”

“So, you’ll find someone else. You always do.”

“No!” he roared and came half out of his chair.

“Take it easy.” Garrett let the silence draw out to calm Rhett down and sampled his own drink. Lord knew he needed the scotch tonight.

“I just wanted someone to want me for me,” Rhett muttered. “Was that so much to ask?”

“Not at all, but being rich is who you are. You can’t change that.” He cleared his throat. “Well, you could, but I hope you don’t.”

This time the silence seemed to stretch for an eternity. Rhett slouched so deep in the overstuffed chair Garrett feared he’d passed out or fallen asleep, except for the fact the glass remained upright.

“Remember Gloria Conover back at Princeton?” the slurred voice sounded from deep in the chair.

“The girl you were madly in lust with during our freshman year? The only girl you ever dated for long in college? Of course, I remember.” Garrett took another hit of his scotch. “I was homesick for my grandfather's ranch, and you, my new dorm roommate, were never there to keep me company. You were always out with Gloria. I always wondered why you dumped her. She was hot if my memory serves me correctly.”

“It does, and she was. Except she dumped me.”

“What? You’re kidding.”

“Damn near made me leave school. I thought maybe I loved her, young fool that I was.” The cubes rattled hard again.

“So what happened?”

“I let Gloria think I was at Princeton like everyone else, bought and all paid for by someone back home. And one Friday night, near the end of the semester, she and her friend Kersey Weldon wandered into the pizza parlor where I bussed tables and washed dishes. At first, she just looked shocked when she saw me, and then the two of them laughed and pointed at my apron. As they were going out the door, Gloria said, ‘At least you screwed like a rich boy. I couldn’t tell.’”

Garrett winced. “What made you think of her?”

“A year ago, I ran into her at a charity event in Palm Beach.”

“I didn’t know she lived down here.”

“Well, we got to talking that night, and she apologized for dumping me at Princeton, something about being young and foolish. Said she’d learned her lesson, married badly and for money. I had her checked out. She got enough money in her settlement, I figured she didn’t need mine. One thing led to another, and I convinced myself the old spark might still be alive.”

Garrett hated hearing all this personal stuff and would hate it more in the morning when Rhett realized he had confessed all this. The man kept everything to himself. The only tidbits Garrett had ever heard had come at the few times in Rhett’s life when he’d gotten drunk.

Rhett held out his glass. “Another drink, barkeep.”

This time, Garrett gladly refilled the drink in the hope Rhett wouldn’t remember any of this tomorrow. Common sense took hold and stopped him before he handed the drink over. “Come on, Rhett, no more. You’ve had enough.”

“I’m not driving, and I haven’t had nearly enough.”

Still Garrett didn’t carry the glass back to him.

“Do you want to hear the end of my tale or not.”

He needed to hear this if he was going to figure out how to help Rhett. He grabbed the glass off the counter, added water to it this time, and brought it back.

“All right, finish it. Your story, not your drink. You better make that one last. I’m not fixing you another.”