House of Payne: Rude (3 page)
It was from the main landing that Sass’s voice had emanated, and when he caught sight of her, standing with the stained glass behind her while she rested a hand on a brass-topped post at the top of the stair railing, he once again froze at the sight of her.
There his former foster sister was, in all her glory.
She shouldn’t have looked elegant, with her dark hair in a messy topknot, wearing gray sweatpants and a purple shirt that fell off one bruised shoulder, but she did. Then again, as far back as he could remember there had always been a whisper of elegance around Sass. Not that “Sass” was her real name. That was merely what she answered to. Her real name, Sage Ambrosia Stone, never failed to make him snicker. That was a name for some dippy, high-as-a-kite flower child, or a wholesome, freckle-faced farm girl who ran through wheat fields on sunny days, or whatever the hell they did for fun in the country.
Sass was none of those things.
The cynicism in her dark espresso eyes was as hard as the urban world in which she grew up. She had the thickest dark brown hair he’d ever seen, and she usually wore it loose to hang in a long V down to the middle of her back. Her defined brows arched haughty and high over large, exotic eyes, the heavy-lidded, slanted shape of them hinting at an Eastern European genetic strain.
But when she smiled, all the attention went to her wide, lush mouth. Unfortunately her smile was an exceedingly rare thing even at the best of times, and never when he was around. Sass voluntarily smiling at him would no doubt be the first sign of the Apocalypse.
He moved to the bottom of the stairs. “Rule number one when engaging the enemy—use whatever’s available to gain the advantage, and achieve the objective. And while you’re not my enemy, I’ll always do whatever it takes to get my way.”
The look she gave him told him that he was firmly listed in her books as The Enemy. “And what is it that you want to get your way on, exactly?”
“I’m hungry, I want a decent breakfast, and I want to know how you’re doing. So I’m consolidating all of that into a single, efficient invite to take you out to eat.”
“No, thank you. Don’t get lost on your way out.”
He began to climb the stairs, his eyes never leaving hers. “Do I have to mention Anthony, Gino and Frankie again? Really?”
“It’s amazing to me how siblings, raised under the same roof by the same parents, can be so different.” Her eyes were locked onto his as he ascended, and he was fine with that. Any man with a pulse would have been fine with having all that brooding, churned-up attention focused on him. “For instance, I like Anthony, Gino, Frankie and Izzi. And then there’s you.”
“And then there’s me.” At last he topped the landing and loomed over her tiny, five-foot-nothing frame. Her pipsqueak size made him feel as big as the Hulk, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Your old pal Rude.”
“You never gave a shit that we tagged you with the name Rude, did you?”
“You kidding? I was fucking
proud
of it. Proof that dipshit sixteen-year-old boys don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.” He would have grinned down at her except now that he was closer, he could see discoloration on the left side of her mouth and an obvious, painful looking fat lip he hadn’t been able to see due to the oxygen mask she’d had on the night before.
That fucker had corked her good.
Rage bloomed so hard, so fast it seized his lungs until the blood pounded in his ears. He held himself completely still, locking his muscles in place as he stared at that wounded lip, exercising a control that men like him needed so they didn’t kill everything that moved.
Sass’s eyes narrowed as she watched him, and she shifted away as if she suddenly sensed his lethal vibe. “As you can see, I’m obviously not ready to go out.”
“I can wait.” Trying to appear normal and not nearly as homicidal as he felt, he nodded down the carpeted, well-lit hallway where he assumed her apartment was located. “Go ahead and get ready, and I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
She lifted one of those high, haughty brows. “Anywhere?”
“Anywhere.”
“Okay. Just remember you said that.” With that, she turned and led the way down the hall.
What the hell was Rude doing, popping up in her life like he thought he had a right to be there? Clearly the man was confused. And maybe in need of medication.
The way Sass saw it,
she
was the one who obviously needed meds, since she was so willing to allow her enemy into her apartment. That was akin to offering Hannibal Lector a seat at her dinner table so she could serve him a juicy slice of her liver. Too bad she didn’t have any fava beans or a nice Chianti to go along with it.
“Nice digs.”
That snapped her out of her semi-hysterical ramblings long enough for her to glance around. It wasn’t a huge apartment, just a one bedroom with one and a half baths. But it had large spaces for entertaining and more building amenities than she could shake a stick at.
It was its location, however, that had sold her. Her apartment sat directly across from Millennium Park’s Cloud Gate, commonly referred to as The Bean. From her balcony she had a breathtaking view of the park and Lake Michigan beyond, something she would have been happy to pay an arm and a leg for. But she hadn’t had to; the apartment had been a never-to-be-repeated deal to a lifetime that even now she couldn’t quite believe she’d managed to swing.
Mahogany floors throughout contrasted with the sweeping twelve-foot-high white walls and Victorian-style coffered ceilings. She’d always been a texture fiend, and her living room furniture reflected that. An overstuffed deep purple velvet couch was flanked on either side by chairs upholstered in shaggy white sheepskin, with a matching sheepskin rug under a black tufted ottoman. An Oriental-style rug that she and Tonya found in a thrift store rested beneath a small black and gold lacquer table and chairs. When she wasn’t using the table as a set for the food photos she posted online, the table was kept set for two. Windows stretched the entire length of the open living and dining space, so that the view of the lake could be seen from every angle.
She shrugged, then winced when her shoulder protested. “It’s okay.”
“You must be doing all right with your columns and cookbook.”
“
Cookbooks
. I’m more than halfway through the first draft of the second one. That’s what I was working on when you showed up this morning.” No one had been more surprised than she’d been when her agent had told her that her proposal for a family-oriented cookbook had been eagerly accepted by her publisher. But considering how well the first book had gone, and how well it was still doing overseas now that it had been translated into several different languages, the publishing company seemed happy to ride the
Pinch Of Sass
rocket for as long as they could.
She waved a vague hand at the couch before heading toward the short hall that led to her bedroom. “Make yourself comfortable. I’m not moving too fast with these bruised ribs, so it’s going to take some time for me to get ready.”
“So that’s the diagnosis, then? Nothing broken? I wouldn’t know,” he added, sending her a dark look, “because I had to leave.”
“One possible cracked rib, which I doubt, the rest just bruised. Mildly dislocated shoulder, popped back into place and just sore now. A bump on the head, but no concussion thanks to the bun I was wearing at the time. The doc who treated me suspects the way I wore my hair may have saved my life. More bumps and bruises everywhere, but nothing major. They didn’t even tape up my ribs, which tells me I shouldn’t have gone to that stupid ER in the first place.”
“Would you have reported it if you hadn’t gone?”
“I wasn’t planning on reporting it either way. You, however, chose to be more of a pain in the ass than usual, and threw a monkey wrench into that plan.”
“You’re welcome.”
She would have thrown something at him if she hadn’t been so sure the action would have caused shriek-worthy agony. “You know what?”
”What?”
“I’ve just discovered there are days when you wish people came with mute buttons.” She frowned at him, this mountain of a man in jeans that fit him sinfully well in both the front
and
the back, a burgundy thermal shirt and black leather jacket. The more she stared, the harder it was to figure out if he was trying to drown her girlie domain in testosterone, or if it was just happening naturally. “
Some
people, anyway.”
“The one thing you can’t afford to do is be mute when it comes to bringing down an asshole who thinks it’s okay to use women as punching bags. Did you give the police his name?”
“You’ll be happy to hear that I did, plus all the gory details of that dickhead Liam smashing my face in before taking me by the shoulders and throwing me down the main staircase.” And for several horrific moments as she fell through empty space, she’d believed she’d reached the end of her unspectacular life. “Hope you’re happy.”
“Happy?” For a long moment he stared at her, and the sudden violence in his eyes had her wishing she could put more than the length of the room between them. “Are you fucking kidding me? That shithead threw you down those stairs I just came up? Those fucking huge-ass stairs?”
She nodded and decided she wouldn’t tell him how the so-called shithead had then spat on her as he’d jetted out the door, leaving her crumpled and unable to move for several minutes at the foot of the stairs.
The violence in Rude’s eyes began to coalesce into a terrible rage. “He could’ve killed you.”
“I actually think he was trying to.” Oh, good. She’d found just the right words to make him look completely insane. She shifted her uninjured shoulder and let her eyes drift to the windows beyond him. It was easier talking to them than to crazy-eyed Rude any day. “Liam was the guy I sort of strung along so I could have a plus-one to bring to Mama Coco’s and Papa Bolo’s anniversary party last year. But I didn’t really string him along, because I know I never lied to him,” she added, overcome with the need to explain that she wasn’t a total heartless bitch. Not that it mattered what Rude thought of her. His thought processes had long ago gotten stuck on her as an interloper and never evolved from there. “I told him that I never do relationships—no exceptions. The only reason we were together was to enjoy each other’s company, have some fun, and go our separate ways when it wasn’t fun anymore. That’s worked with every guy I’ve ever dated, so I’m at a loss as to why Liam showed up here yesterday insisting he needed me and wanted to get back together. Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough.”
“Laying out the rules didn’t work with him because he’s a piece of shit,” came the blunt reply. “He thought he was a special snowflake, so your rules weren’t going to apply to him. Then, when you didn’t follow that script, he got butthurt, showed his true pissy-bitch colors, and now that fucker’s going to pay the consequences.”
She ran her tongue along the split in her lip, remembering how Liam had gone from charming in his attempt to get back together to furious so fast she hadn’t had time to prepare. Then again, how could anyone prepare when someone went from zero to psycho in less than a second?
“Why didn’t you want to press charges?”
The question was voiced with such uncharacteristic care it brought her attention back to him. “It wasn’t to protect him, if that’s what you’re thinking,”
“Seems that way to me.”
“This is me, not caring what it seems like to you.”
He hitched his thumbs into his back pockets, and she noticed in an abstract kind of way how much broader this made his already-broad chest and shoulders. “You know, I don’t get you, Sassy Pants.”
“I
hate
that name.”
“You bust my balls every chance you get,” he went on, ignoring her, “but you won’t say boo to a no-good sonofabitch who tried to kill you. This Liam asshole doesn’t deserve your protection, or your guilt. You didn’t do anything wrong. Hell, you were straighter with him than most women are when they hook up with a guy. A lady being crystal-fucking-clear about having some no-strings fun is to be commended, not punished by being thrown down a goddamn flight of stairs.”
“With the exception of Liam Cadwallader, every man I’ve had in my life has agreed with you. I just don’t know where I went wrong with this one.”
“
You
didn’t go wrong,
he
did. If he tried to convince you that his actions were all because of
you
, and not because he’s an epic, spineless fuckwad, then you’re letting yourself be played. And that’s not like you.”
She slid Rude a measuring side-eye, fighting the relief that he didn’t hold her to blame for what happened. Since he wasn’t a fan of hers, it wouldn’t have surprised her if he’d made obnoxious noises about getting what she deserved. “You’ve been gone for a dozen years, and in that time we never spoke a single word to each other. You don’t know me well enough to make that statement.”
“So it
is
like you to be played, and that’s why you didn’t want to report him?”
Damn it
. “I just didn’t want to deal with anything that involved the authorities, or the system, or anything like that. The day I turned eighteen I swore I’d
never
let any of that shit into my life again. I’m still not comfortable with it.”
“Your level of comfort isn’t even a blip on my radar. What matters is that you get safe while that asshole gets a world of hurt brought down on him.”
Since she clearly wasn’t going to make any headway on that point, she decided to change the subject. “You never did tell me why you came to the hospital last night.”
He stared at her like she’d sprouted another head. “Your ass lands in the ER after getting tossed down a flight of stairs by some self-centered motherfucker who can’t handle rejection…and you wonder why I showed up?”
“It wasn’t your concern. You weren’t called.” Even if she’d had his number, she’d never call him. He had to know that.
“I was at my parents’ place making sure everything was okay when the call came in. I had nothing better to do, so I thought I’d drop in to see what went down. I’m glad I did,” he added before she could open her mouth. “I guess I can understand you’ve had your fill when it comes to Chicago’s social system, but letting this shit slide is no way to handle things. That situation needed to be taken care of, so don’t waste your time being pissed off about how I made you take care of it. He can’t get away with fucking with you. No one can. Now, are we going to go eat, or what? I’m starving.”
So much for pointing out the weirdness of him taking care of her, she thought on an inward sigh, her movements careful as she shook her head. “Like I said, I’m a bit on the slow side this morning. You’re going to have to wait while I feed the cat before getting ready.”
He looked around. “You have a cat?”
“I’m babysitting Scout’s cat, a calico named Red who doesn’t like people. I leave food out—it disappears. Put a litter box in the bathroom—it’s magically used hours later. Other than that, she’s a ghost. I’m giving her all the space she needs.”
He looked around, interested. “Scout never struck me as a pet kind of person.”
“The cat was a stray like the rest of us fosters, so Scout and Red are kind of kindred spirits.” She turned back down the hall, creaking all over her bruised body. “I’ll be ready when I’m ready.”
“Why can’t you go like you are?”
“I’m in my pajamas. Since I’m not anxious to wind up on the People Of Walmart website, I need to get dressed.”
“
Those
are your pajamas?”
“What were you expecting, a SpongeBob onesie?” Those things were cute, but totally not her style.
His eyes went half-mast as he took his time looking her up and down. “No, not SpongeBob. I always pictured you in bed wearing something frilly and girlie. Maybe see-through.”
The statement hit her harder than anything she’d dealt with the night before. Did he really just say that? Had he actually taken the time to picture her sliding in between the sheets wearing nothing but frilly lingerie?
Her pragmatic side slammed the door on her wandering thoughts, locked it up tight and threw away the key. Nope. She wasn’t about to fall for that again. Last night she’d suffered what she could only describe as a mini mental meltdown, because she’d imagined Rude had cared. But that had been nothing more than scheming manipulation on his part, just like he’d schemed his way into her apartment. How had he put it? When confronting an enemy, he would use whatever he could in order to gain the advantage. Appealing to her feminine vanity was cute, and she’d admit her heart had done a weird flip at the unexpected heat in those pretty eyes of his.
But she was on to him.
“Look at you, Rude, trying to be all charming to gain the advantage. I bet that works on people who don’t know you.” She tried to pack enough sharpness into her smile so it would cut him down to size. Sadly, he seemed just as huge and aggressively masculine as ever. “I’m curious, though. What kind of objective are you after now?”
“Sassy, that’s not how this game is played. You don’t just tell your opponent what you’re going for. Where the hell’s the fun in that? Now go get ready, even though you look great as is. I’ll wait.”
There, she thought, heading to her bedroom. That was what she was looking for, the confirmation that he was playing. Fine. If it was a game he wanted, a game was what he’d get. And since it was her turn to make a move, she’d do it with The Secret Garden.