was no wonder he found it hard to be nice to her.
“I’ll just gather the rest of your groceries,” he said, and bolted toward the door. He wasn’t sorry he’d stopped to help her, but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend an extra minute in her company if he could avoid doing so. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could leave.
A few seconds later, he returned with soup, frozen vegetables and a loaf of bread. “Where do you want these?”
She forced a smile. “Oh, just leave them on the table. I’ll put them away.”
“No, no. I don’t mind helping,” he assured her, also forcing a smile.
But to Kassandra it sounded as if he would rather be wrestling an alligator than helping her, and she didn’t want his help, anyway. She was tired. She had some major problems to think about, and worse, Candy would be here any minute. Kassandra had never tried to hide her eight-monthold daughter from Gabe Cayne, but she’d never gone out of her way to introduce them, either. If Gabe had ever given any thought about Candy, he would put two and two together and figure out Candy was the reason Kassandra always complained about his noise. As president of the company that owned this building, Gabe had the power to alter the building’s general lease to exclude children, and that wouldn’t just hurt Kassandra, it would hurt other people, as well. As long as Candy wasn’t too obvious or too visible, Gabe might never make the connection and no one would have to worry.
“I think I can handle things myself from here,” she said, trying hard not to sound like she was kicking him out, though she was. “So, you can leave now.”
“Gladly,” he said, and pivoted away from her. But just as quickly, he turned to face her again. “You know, you’ve done nothing but harass me for the past several months. You call me if my stereo gets too loud and call the police almost every time I have a party. It was actually very nice of me to be so considerate of you tonight. The least you could do is appreciate it.”
“I appreciate it,” Kassandra said, straining for a courteous tone as she stowed her groceries and wished he’d just leave.
“No, you don’t,” Gabe insisted, and Kassandra’s temper began to sizzle. “You don’t appreciate anything. Sometimes I think you’re nothing but a spoiled brat who has to have everything her way….”
Her temper leaped from sizzling to boiling to bubbling over in about three seconds. “Well, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black,” she yelped, spinning to face him. “You, Mr. Born-With-a-Silver-Spoon-in-His-Mouth, have no right to call me spoiled or a brat.”
“Then how do you justify kicking me out?”
“I’m tired,” she said honestly. “But more than that I have problems. Big problems I need to think about. My roommates are gone…or going. Janie eloped last night. Sandy’s leaving for Boston next week, which means I’m stuck with six months of a lease I can’t afford. Then my car broke down this morning and had to be towed. Unless I find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, I won’t be able to attend this semester of college—can’t afford to,” she said, gathering steam as rehashing her problems fueled her anger. “Which is something you wouldn’t understand because you don’t know the first thing about trouble. You’ve always had everything handed to you!”
“Oh, really, Miss-High-and-Mighty,” he shot back. “Try this on for size. I had to wrangle my family’s company away from an overpossessive board of directors. I still have a few enemies on the staff. And my grandmother is dying. Dying! My favorite person in the world has terminal cancer and she may not live past Christmas.” He didn’t even pause for breath, but kept on speaking as he took slow, measured steps toward her.
“And if all of that isn’t bad enough,” he continued, “I now have to go down to Georgia for Christmas vacation and explain to the woman I love most in the world that I don’t have a fiancée.”
Though his situation was bad—sad—the last of his tirade struck Kassandra as funny, at the very least out of place with everything else he’d said. She didn’t smile, wouldn’t smile over something so tragic, but she couldn’t stop her retort. “What a pity.”
“It is a pity,” Gabe angrily said, pacing away from her. “I’d made up a story that I was engaged to make my grandmother happy for the past few months, but now it’s backfiring. She called me this afternoon and told me that her only wish before she dies is to meet my fiancee.”
If his story hadn’t involved a dying grandmother whom he obviously loved, Kassandra knew she might have gloated over the fact that he’d made his own bed and now he had to lie in it. Instead, Kassandra felt more than a stirring of compassion. She cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry.” She paused. “Really sorry.”
Gabe was really sorry, too. Not merely sorry for antagonizing her, but also sorry that he’d told her so much. No one, but no one, knew about his made-up fiancée except the people he’d made up the fiancée for—his parents and grandmother. Now Kassandra something-or-another, the grouch from across the hall, knew his deepest, darkest secret.
“I’m sorry, too,” Gabe said, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have burdened you with my troubles, but it just hit me like a ton of bricks today and I couldn’t seem to stop myself from taking my anger out on you.” He paused and caught her gaze. “In fact, that’s probably why I yelled at you about not appreciating my help. I’m sorry for that, too.”
“That’s okay,” Kassandra said quietly.
A strange, uncomfortable silence settled over them. They’d never had a civil conversation before, and it appeared to Kassandra that neither one of them knew what to do or say next.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Kassandra finally asked, filling the awkward pause.
Gabe shook his head. “Not unless you’d like to go to Georgia with me and pretend to be my fiancée through the Christmas season.”
The absurdity of the suggestion made Kassandra laugh. They couldn’t get along for the five minutes it took to gather her groceries. There was no way they could spend three weeks together—particularly not as two people in love. She almost laughed again. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Yeah,” Gabe agreed. Evidently following her line of thinking about the absurdity of the situation, he smiled. In fact, he smiled at her.
She found she rather liked it.
He realized it didn’t kill him.
They’d actually made some progress.
Ill at ease, he rubbed his hand across the back of his neck again. “So, your roommates are leaving, huh?”
She nodded, regretting that she’d revealed so much to him. Then she realized it didn’t matter. She didn’t have a fairy godmother. There was no gold at the end of the rainbow. And she wasn’t going to be able to keep this apartment. Period.
“I’ll probably be turning in a request to get out of my lease.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, and Kassandra could tell he genuinely meant it. “This is a good building, a safe building.”
“I know,” she agreed. “That’s why I liked living here. To tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure
