Page 31 of Damaged Billionaire Daddy
“Is she always like that?” I asked Roger abruptly.
“Like what?” he returned. “Oh, you mean the pouty come-on. Yeah, her ma died when she was a little kid. Her dad has tried to raise her, but she’s kinda run wild. It’s beenworse since she had her twenty-first birthday in May and moved out on her own.”
Well, she was legal at least. But I’d called it right. She was just a wild kid, and probably much loved by the locals because she was an orphan. A quick fling with her would scare off my preferred prey: the boss’s granddaughter. Lost in my own thoughts, I almost missed Roger’s next remark.
“I’d kind of like to ask her out, but it’s sort of like asking out your kid sister, you know?”
“You grew up together?” I asked, absently.
“Yeah. Used to have acorn wars in the grove down by the river. Who knew she’d grow up so, so. . .” Roger struggled for words.
“Ask her,” I said, pulling into his drive. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
Chapter thirteen
Kandis
I went home, feeling, well, upset didn’t quite cover it. The feel of Richie’s palm on the side of my face had sent shivers down my spine.
It had also warmed up my lower abdomen in ways that weren’t exactly foreign to me. Especially after he’d spent the night in my room. But I’d never felt that kind of intensity from a simple touch.
But that wasn’t all. There had been an odd look on his face, something beyond his usual facile sense of humor, or look of sardonic mischief. Nor had he appeared to have his cold businessman attitude.
There had been something, not exactly unsure. No, maybe that was it. He had not been certain I would go with him to do whatever it was he had in mind.
Maybe he did have some nefarious scheme in mind. After all, didn’t they say that serial killers usually looked just like everyone else? Anyway, it didn’t matter. Unless I wanted my grandparents to know what was going on in my bedroom when I should have been coming down to breakfast, I had better do as he asked.
I pulled my car into the driveway at my grandparents’ house, parked in my usual place, turned off the motor and then locked up. Yes, with a key, not one of those fancy key fob things.
Say what you will about older model cars, the parts are cheaper on them, and there is less to go wrong. Anyway, I loved my car. It was one of the few things I had kept from my old life.
In a fog, I made my way toward the house, hardly noticing the flowers blooming along the edge of the lawn. Mimi loved flowers. Most of these were bee plants, intended to attract bees from local hives and the tiny jeweled hummingbirds who zipped from blossom to blossom in the late afternoon sun.
The shade under the porch awning dropped the temperature by at least ten degrees. I could hear the hum of the heat pump around the corner of the house. Mimi had the air conditioner on.
As I stepped in and closed the door behind me, she called out from the kitchen. “Package came for you today, Kandy. I put it on your bed. Were you expecting something?”
“Not really,” I replied. “I’d better go make sure it really is for me.”
I went on down the hall to my room, reveling in the cool air from the mini-pump unit at the end of it. My room was warm. I left the door to the hall open, closed my window, and switched on the swamp cooler attached to the other window. The combination of dry, cool air from the hall and moist cool air from the cooler met creating a pleasant chill.
I picked up the package. It was long and narrow, and about six inches deep. The address label peeping out from under the reinforcing packing string was definitely addressed to me.
Oddly, it did not have any postage affixed to the corner, nor did it have a return address. It was done upwith an abundance of packing tape, as if put together by someone who was not used to wrapping parcels.
Wary of damaging the contents, I went over to the table that served as my desk and picked up my letter opener. I cut the string, and slid the slim blade under the packing tape, managing to prize off the paper without nicking anything inside.
I need not have worried. Beneath the brown paper was a plain, white box. I took off the lid, revealing a green velvet bodice nestled in an ocean of matching green chiffon. A large, square white envelope lay on top of it. My name was written on it in bold, masculine script.
I laid the envelope aside and lifted the dress out of the box. I shouldn’t have. I knew I shouldn’t, because wherever this dress came from, there was no way I was going to wear it. It had to be returned.
The chiffon rustled and slithered, and I realized that it was not the usual taffeta or rayon froth applied to prom or bridesmaid dresses. It was silk, of the finest and most beautiful grade.
Instead of bunching or frothing away from the sweetheart bodice with its almost modest neckline, it floated and drifted, as did the sleeve draperies that lifted in the air from the cooler. What on earth? Who could have sent such a thing?
I picked up the envelope and opened it. The creamy, heavy paper inside held a message written in the same excellent masculine hand.
“Dear Kandis,
