His Love - Cassandra Dee Page 0,29

scent was all over me still, that musky, masculine aroma that was all his. But smoothing my hair back into a prim bun, I set my lips into a grim twist. This wasn’t going to be easy, not by a long shot. The path before me was unclear, dark, and overshadowed with misery because I’d done nothing wrong except to love … and although my heart was broken, I wanted Mr. Lyons still.

6

Kitty

I didn’t go to Luke’s apartment last night, instead choosing to stay in my tiny rented apartment. I’d left a message with Mr. Lyons’s secretary, and gave an excuse about having to sort things out with my roomie. It was the truth because as soon as the front door closed, Sarah was on me, appearing in the kitchen doorway.

“Where have you been?” the blonde demanded, her nose in a scrunch. The scrawny girl was some random girl that I found off Craigslist. She was a student at a nearby school, although I have no idea what she studies. “You haven’t paid your half of the bills,” came her accusatory glare.

I nodded hastily, reaching into my bag.

“I’m sorry. Here, is this enough?” I mumbled, head down, holding out a fistful of cash. “Practice has been really killing me and I’ve been sleeping at the studio because it’s easier that way.”

Sarah gasped at the bills in my hand.

“Where’d you get all that?” she eyed the money suspiciously. “That’s way more than what we need.”

Because in my clenched fist, I was holding a rolled ball of hundreds. Oh shit. Hastily, I put my hand back in my purse and tried to count them discreetly. Three hundred. Four hundred. Five, six, … Wait, two thousand dollars? Luke has been giving me money over the last month, but I’d never stopped to see how much it was. And now in my hand, I held a pretty penny in greenbacks.

I lifted my head, staring back at Sarah.

“Sorry, I thought I forgot to pay rent too,” came my excuse. “That’s why I have so much on hand.”

But now that it was obvious that I had the cash, Sarah relaxed and her aggressive attitude dissipated.

“No worries,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “But I wouldn’t go around with that much cash on you because it’s dangerous. Aren’t you afraid of being mugged?”

I stood there, one hand still in my purse.

“I guess not,” came my stammer. “I’ll be more careful.”

“You should!” came Sarah’s voice as she sailed into the kitchen. “You never know what’ll happen, Kitty.”

And with that, my roommate disappeared. Taking a deep breath, I looked around the living room, or what passed for a living room. Because in NYC, they use every square foot of space, and in this case, we’d partitioned the common area to form another bedroom. As a result, the common area wasn’t much more of a ten by ten windowless box, narrow and cramped.

But still, it was my home, and I hadn’t been here for almost a month. Luke’s apartment was so luxurious that I missed it already. But I stopped myself with a jerk. THIS is where you live, Kitty, came the voice in my head. This is what your salary pays for, and you can’t expect more.

That was true. Slowly opening the door to my room, I stepped inside. It was exactly how I’d left it. Warm-up outfits were strewn about messily, with a saggy mattress on the floor and sad, water-stained walls. What I’d give to go back to the luxury of Mr. Lyons’s apartment. I’d love to roll around on one of those king-size beds again.

Suddenly, my mind hiccupped, things coming into sharp focus. The billionaire had five bedrooms with five king-size beds. Why the hell would a single man need so much space? I’ve heard of guys who do up their apartments so that there’s an entertainment room, a movie theater, and even a bowling alley sometimes. But five bedrooms? There was something weird, and suddenly, Miss Lane’s voice rang out in my head.

“One year there were two,” came her nasty cackle. “Mary and Marie. Remember? It was hard to keep the names straight.”

Oh god, oh god. There were other women, weren’t there? Mr. Lyons was possibly seeing other women right now, and I was no one special. The blue bedroom was the one he used when I was around, but what about when I wasn’t? There was the red bedroom, another one done up in pale green, and still a third with a gray interior. Holy