Page 15 of Rumor Has It

He’s turning from me when a second white truck enters the circular driveway. I watch, riveted, as this delivery driver opens the back and removes a long white box.

“Delivery for Cassidy Cavanaugh?”

“That’s me.”

“Please sign here.”

I’m awkward taking the oversized box under one arm and the suit under the other, scribbling my initials on a signature pad. I express the same gawky thank you I gave the first driver. Like a complete idiot, I ask the second driver to wait when the first has already pulled away without me even wishing him a Merry Christmas. I hang the garment bag on a coat rack. Jostling the contents of the box, I jog to a nearby secretary desk for petty cash.

“Have a wonderful holiday!” The driver and I say in unison as he accepts the tip.

I rejoice having gotten the final nuance right.

Perhaps there’s hope I won’t be sitting across fromtheIsaiah Roomer at an elegant restaurant with broccoli stuck in my teeth.

Or worse… yawning. Because nothing says I’m having a great time, like falling asleep in your dinner plate. Three minutes worth of interactions with other humans has taken an eternity, and I could use a nap.

I carry the box into Gracyn’s office and balance it on a cherry wood drop-leaf table behind the leather sofa. Lifting the lid, I suck in a breath.

“Is that a good gasp, or did someone send you a severed head?” Rhiannon moseys into the office.

She peeks into the box to see a dozen long stemmed red roses. Her gasp is subdued compared to her antics in my bedroom. I’m flabbergasted. Rhiannon does the honors, picking up the card from the flowers and opening the envelope.

Her tongue finds her back tooth. A Cheshire smile spreads over her cheeks when she hands it to me.

If my jaw wasn’t already scraping the carpet, it hangs lower reading:

Looking forward to our date tonight.—Isaiah

I glance at my best friend, who holds onto the lace insets on the hips of a pair of red cheeky underwear. “Now that that’s settled, you’re wearing these,” she says.

Chapter Six

ISAIAH

I slap on aftershave and set the glass bottle between the double sinks in the Jack and Jill bathroom. Making certain I smell better than the dope who high-tailed it across the entire estate in time to shower stops me from pacing between the adjoining rooms. I may already have pit sweat, which I don’t get unless I’m on stage… Or apparently when I run through the fields at a ranch, so I’m not late for a date with a girl I feared would refuse the offer.

Like the backdoor to the inn, the suite has a keypad. However, when I arrived at Kingsbrier, Gatlin snagged a very low-tech antique key on a ribbon from a secretary desk to unlock the suite’s sitting room on my right because there was no employee available to key in the new code. I keep patting the weight it carries in my pants pocket. A sure-fire sign I’m anxious.

I enter the bedroom, glimpsing the unmade bed. I’m not a slacker. I can pull up the sheets and straighten the covers. But doing so seems presumptuous. I don’t want Cassidy believing I’m an arrogant celebrity who expects she’ll put out after an expensive meal.

Making the bed makes me feel pompous and overconfident that any woman would spread her legs for me. I’m not positive Cassidy’s even a fan. It might be as simple as she recognizes me from all the press last summer. She’s probably Kylie’s fan and too polite to mention that.

I’d also have to think long and hard to remember the last woman I had sex with besides my wife. So I’m not sure if I have any intention of sleeping with Cassidy.

Of course, you want to sleep with her, dumbass.

Cassidy mentioned one of these rooms was her father’s, and that adds to my second thoughts. I’ve passed her parent’s tidy ranch twice today. No one around the estate so far has given me shotgun vibes. But with a family this size, you never know. Something about laying Cassidy down on a bed in her dad’s old bedroom doesn’t sit well with me.

Maybe I have values. Maybe I’m experiencing the cold feet I should’ve felt on the way to the altar.

I fold the dirty clothes I changed out of and set them on the dresser. At this rate, I’ll have to use the laundry room again. Then I double back through the bathroom to find my phone.

It’s exactly where I left it, placed on the coffee table to break my incessant need to check the time. I told Cassidy seven and six-fifty eight and thirty-seven seconds is pushing it.

With my cell and the key in my pockets, I’m scrutinizing my reflection in the mirror, straightening my tie, mussing my hair—again because my stylist swears it’s sexy like this and I trust his expert opinion given the guys he’s dated since joining my team.

“You can do this,” I say out loud. Shaking my head, I immediately follow it with, “I can’t fathom that you’re giving yourself a goddamn pep talk, you fool.”

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