A Bad Boy is Good to Find(66)

“No, Lizzie, listen.” He winced, apparently in pain. Good. “You still get your money, all of it, I made a deal with Maisie—”

“You made a deal with Maisie!” The words tore from her throat, raw. “About the money? Everyone knows about this, absolutely everyone except me!”

“No, yes… I can explain—”

“I’ll just bet you can explain! You’ve always got a tall tale to tell—or not tell—when the occasion suits you. Well, I’ve heard enough of your filthy lies! I hate you! I wish I’d never met you and I hope you rot in hell!”

“Lizzie—” He reached out an arm to grab her and missed.

Before she could get suckered into anything by those dangerous dark eyes, she grabbed her wallet off the night table and fled.

Doors opened and faces stared as she thundered down the stairs, tears of rage and pain streaming down her face.

That bastard!

She shoved out the front door and ran to the Jeep, praying the key was in the ignition as usual.

Yes. She started it up, agony searing through her as the engine turned over and the car shuddered to life.

She’d been dreaming about their wedding being the real thing, and he didn’t even want to go through with the fake one! How could he do that to her? After all they’d been through? She let out a low animal sound of anger and despair that fought with the noisy Jeep engine as she burned rubber through that accursed avenue of live oaks.

A thin morning mist still hung around the road, filtering the sun as she pulled onto the main road.

He would never see her again. Of that he could be sure. If he tried, she’d kill him.

The car ate up the road as she tried to shove Con, and everyone she’d ever known, out of her thoughts.

He was just going with the flow to get his money. Stringing her along and sweetening her up. Planning all the while to cut her loose.

And like a complete idiot she’d fallen in love with him all over again.

Houma.

Grey.

Thibodaux.



She sped through strange towns. At first it was all she could do to focus her thoughts enough to stay in lane. But as the sun rose higher and the muggy heat kissed her skin, she started to breathe deeply.

Vacherie.

Sorrento.

Gonzales.



She worked hard to clear her mind. To figure out a strategy before the car ran out of gas and she had to try to get some with a maxed-out credit card.

Next exit Baton Rouge. She’d sell her Bulova watch and rent a motel room, lay low for a few days. Right now if she had to so much as look anyone in the eye she’d go right to pieces. But she’d had her heart crushed to a bloody pulp before and survived. She’d figure out where to go, find a design or PR job, get an apartment and start over again as if none of the past few months had ever happened. As if she was a completely different person than the downtrodden ex-heiress Lizzie Hathaway who’d be the butt of every joke when that damn television show came out.

It was all your idea.

We all make mistakes. She lifted her chin. She’d made more than her share, and she’d make more before she was done, but she certainly wouldn’t be making any more that concerned a certain silver-tongued, sleek-muscled, dark-eyed con-man named—

Conroy Beale.

She blasted the horn, just for the hell of it. Damn him to hell! And his brother too and all the rest of them for lying to her and laughing at her and…

Tears blurred her eyes as she pulled off the main road into Baton Rouge.

This time she wasn’t going anywhere near any bottles of champagne.

She was all grim practical reality from now on. Shame she hadn’t made Con pay her for the spray-paint job on the Corvette. Probably worth a few hundred dollars that would come in handy right now.

And people thought she had no survival skills and no talents of her own? Ha! She’d show them. She didn’t need any of them and she’d prove it. She’d pay off all her credit card bills by herself and start over. Maybe she’d even change her name—you could do that without making the horrible mistake of marrying a man, something she didn’t intend to do—ever.



Maisie couldn’t seem to open her eyes. There was a heavy weight on her chest and something scratchy underneath her.

And something was ringing.

Her cell phone.

Her eyes popped open, then snapped shut under siege by sun knifing through the curtain of Spanish moss overhead.

The heavy weight on her chest was a large human arm, brown skin dusted with little blonde hairs sprinkled over a large circular symbol inked in bluish lines.

Her head hurt.

“My cell, where is it?” she rasped.

“S’up sugar?” The heavy weight lifted a little, and a larger mass next to her shifted.

“It must be around here somewhere, I can hear it.” She hissed a curse as the ringing stopped.

It was grass tickling her back. That nasty dry prickly stuff they had down here. She groped around in it as the ringing started up again. Almost as soon as her fingernails tapped on the hard casing she flipped it open.

“Hello?” She sat up, realizing she was totally naked, the skin on her belly creased by the heavy weight of Danny’s arm.

“This is Leeza from Eyewitness news,”

“Oh, hi, Leeza.” She pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. Danny lifted a big hand and placed it on her thigh in a proprietary manner. She tried to ignore the surge of heat that caused. “Any news on the DNA test?”

It was purely a formality. They all knew Con was the heir, but they planned to show the test on screen, with a brief explanation of the cutting edge technology involved. Once that was done they could pretty much wrap up and get out of here. They’d already shot a bunch of establishing shots of Con in the house and garden; they had their touching reunion. As soon as they got these last shots she could get back home and—

Danny’s mouth closed over her wet *. His tongue flicked and made her hips buck.

Maybe she’d have to take him home in her suitcase too.

He was twenty-one and totally uneducated. He knew what to do with that tongue, though.

“What is it, Leeza?” she said impatiently into the phone. Her nipples were tingling. She had better things to do than listen to dead air.

“I’m sorry.” She heard papers rustling at the other end of the line. “I’ve got the test results, and I’m trying to make head or tail of them. This doesn’t seem to make any sense.”



“Con, what are you doing? You don’t have any clothes on!”

Gia’s voice penetrated his consciousness as he reached the front door. Holy shit, he had the hangover to end all and Lizzie was roaring off down the drive in the Jeep. His muscles itched to go leap in the van and chase after her, but as Gia had observed he was buck naked.

Idiot. He couldn’t have grabbed some pants before running downstairs?

“Shit.” He banged his fist on the doorframe. “Where is she going?”

“It doesn’t really matter,” murmured Dino, who stood at the top of the stairs next to Gia wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. “We don’t need her anymore. Only a few last shots to wrap up and we can get out of here.”