A Bad Boy is Good to Find (3 page)

Con licked his lips awkwardly and ran his hand through his hair again. He picked up his black pants off the floor and put them on. No underwear.

“Why are you getting dressed? It’s two a.m.”

He walked back to her, took her hand and lifted her from the desk chair opposite the bed. Guided her to the middle of the room and pushed a stray curl out of her eyes.

“Lizzie. My lovely Lizzie.” He squeezed her hands and reassuring warmth rose through her. Then he shook his head, and a pained smile flashed across his face. “I’m not a mechanical engineer. I never said I was.”

“I don’t understand… I thought…” She searched his face.

“I said my expertise is mechanical, and you guessed what you wanted to believe.”

She racked her mind to remember the conversation. “So what
did
you mean?”

“I’m a mechanic.” He looked at her, soft apology in his brown eyes. “I work on cars.”

She blinked rapidly and felt her forehead crease. “But that time we tried to meet for lunch—Wheelock Engineering LLC, the sign said. Isn’t that where you work?” She still remembered waiting for him outside the glass-fronted high-rise just off Lexington. Waiting and waiting, until she’d finally given up. Caught in a meeting, he’d said later. They’d never actually made the rain date for that lunch.

He rubbed his upper arm. The desk light highlighted a taut bicep. “I don’t work at Wheelock Engineering. I do some work in the garage across the street. That’s where I’d meant to meet you.”

What?
“There’s a garage on that street?” She racked her brain and couldn’t even picture it. As far as she could remember, all the other buildings were brownstones. That’s why she’d assumed…

“Yes. Maybe you never noticed it. It’s a small place.” He shrugged, his expression guarded.

None of this makes sense.
Lizzie shook her head. She’d never doubted for a second that he was successful, well-off, educated…

“But aren’t your family Louisiana landowners, descended from French aristocracy?”

He hung his head for a second, hair falling into his eyes. He lifted his chin and met her gaze again. “I’m from Louisiana alright. And my family’s been sitting on the same patch of swamp for as long as anyone can remember, but I’m about as aristocratic as that cockroach there.” He nodded his head at the wall behind her.

She wheeled around and saw a small roach scaling the striped wallpaper. On sudden instinct she picked up a slipper and threw it, left a brown smear on the wall.

Her breath came in heaving gulps. “I don’t understand… You said…”

“I didn’t say all that much.” He wiped a hand over his face and looked at her, his eyes so sad. “I let you do most of the talking. I love listening to you talk. When I’m with you I really do feel like some old-money Creole aristo with an avenue of live oaks back home.” He lifted his hand and stroked her cheek.

His soft touch felt as good as ever
.

She recoiled from it. “Who are you?”

“I’m Conroy Beale.”

“That’s your real name?”

“Yes.”

She stared at him. “But you’re not wealthy.”

He paused, then shook his head. “No.”

“What about that Range Rover you were driving when we met? Those don’t come cheap.”

“It belonged to a friend.” He hung his head a little. “I never said it was mine. I helped you get your car going that first time we met, remember? I never said I was anyone but who I am.”

The hero who’d saved the day by putting Evian in her empty radiator. She’d broken down on Third Avenue on her way back from the Island. Her rescuer had been dressed in Armani and driving a Range Rover—what was she supposed to think?

“I just made all this stuff up in my head?” Her head spun in all directions, trying to make sense of the cataclysm of information it couldn’t quite process. One minute she was a wealthy woman with a charming, successful, fiancé, the next she was—

She didn’t know what the hell she was.

A dupe.

He looked apologetic. “I guess you did make it up, a little bit. Believed what you wanted to believe.”

Her heart contracted at the sight of his kind brown eyes.
He looked like Con
. The wonderful man who’d brought her out of her protective shell and turned her into a self-confident, sensual, loving woman. Who’d taken her dreary existence and blown it open like a window thrown up in a dusty attic.

Her chest heaved under her satin dressing gown. “So when you said I was… I was beautiful…” her voice cracked. “It was all a lie?”

“No. You’re the loveliest woman I’ve ever met.” He looked right at her.

“No, I’m not.” She squirmed, suddenly conscious of her big breasts, her big thighs. “I should have known.”

“You are beautiful. You’re also a loving, passionate woman with a big heart.”

Am I
?

She stared at him. So breathtakingly handsome with his dark hair tousled and his chiseled features shaded by two days’ beard. She couldn’t help the stirring of warmth—more—at the sight of him.

“You’re a special woman, Lizzie.” His hands hung by his sides and in spite of everything she found herself wishing he’d reach up and touch her. That look in his eyes—he did love her, didn’t he?

So he wasn’t a mechanical engineer or a French aristocrat. Was that the end of the world? He was smart, no doubt about that. “Your college degree, what’s it in?”

“I didn’t go to college.” Contrition in his eyes.

“What? But you said you went to… St. Swithin’s. I thought that was where you studied mechanical… mechanic—” She racked her brain, trying to remember exactly what he had told her.

“St. Swithin’s is a reform school in Natchez, Mississippi.”

Her mouth dropped and an undignified “oh” escaped.

She gasped for breath. “So you took auto shop there and I somehow translated that into a summa cum laude degree in engineering?” Her voice shook. “Why did you let me believe all those lies?”

She stared at him, unable to reconcile the seductive image before her with the ugly reality unfolding behind it’s shimmering surface.

“Oh, Lizzie. We were going to be so happy. I had it all figured out.”

“But now I don’t come with a lot of zeros in the bank, the deal is off, huh?” The room pulsed in hideous Technicolor clarity.

The sad look in Con’s eyes almost affected her.

“I don’t have anything to offer you,” he said quietly.

“Is that so? What exactly were you planning to offer me prior to this latest wrinkle in your plan?”

“Happiness. I did make you happy, didn’t I?”

Yes.

She swallowed. “An illusion. I thought I was happy because I thought you were someone else. You lied to me, maybe not in so many words, but in the things you didn’t say. And maybe you lied to me another way with all those gentle touches and long, heartfelt kisses I’m apparently such a sucker for. I
loved
you.”

Her words hung in the air, ringing with raw pain and already in past tense. Everything had changed irrevocably. Totally. The happiness of the last few weeks—the life-transforming joy—lay in ruins.

Conroy Beale—whoever he really was—didn’t say a word.

“What a freaking joke. I’ve been skipping around in my own world of delusion, happy little Lizzie, while everyone who supposedly loved me was coming up with some way to milk me like a cash cow. What was I thinking? Why would anyone actually love
me
? As my father so kindly said, I’m just a
fat little nobody
.”

“You are not fat.” He looked her in the eye. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that. You’re perfect.”

His voice dropped as he spoke. Like he meant it. For a second she felt a prick of warmth, a surge of the loving support that transformed her from a shuffling caterpillar into the beautiful butterfly she’d become.

Or thought she’d become before her wings were rudely snapped off again. Right now she’d like to climb back into her chrysalis and hide forever.

All those warnings from her parents about being “careful” and avoiding “the wrong sort of people.” She’d scoffed at their small-minded cynicism—

And fallen headlong into the trap of a scheming con artist
.

“You never did say you loved me, did you?” She stared at him through narrowed eyes. Trying to ignore the perfect features of his noble-looking face. “I said it over and over, like a freaking parrot, but you never did say it back to me.” A panicked laugh rattled her chest. “Tell me, Con, with no bullshit or beating about the bush. Did you ever, just for one moment, love me too?”

He blinked and a muscle twitched in his arm.

“Come on. The truth for once.” She held her breath. Horrible hope bloomed in her chest. Did his hesitation mean…

He hung his head and his silence deflated the last of her ego like a rapier.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She dove for the living room and slammed the bedroom door behind her. Scrabbled to find the clothes she’d torn off in her embarrassing frenzy of lust. She struggled to tug up her tangled pantyhose as the door opened and Con emerged from the bedroom, shirt half-buttoned. Him catching her there, undignified in her underwear, her unlovely body exposed in the harsh fluorescent light, made her cringe with shame.

“Lizzie.”

Her heart leapt at the sound of her name on his lips. Her fingers fumbled with the nylon waistband. “Go away!”

He didn’t love her.

He just wanted her money.

She picked her rumpled dress off the floor and pulled it on over her head. When she emerged from the fabric their eyes met and a pang of emotion rocked her.

We’re getting married today
.

No, we’re not.

The whirlwind four-week courtship that felt like a fairytale come true…was over.

Fake.

A scam.

She jerked her eyes from his gaze and they fell to a half empty champagne bottle in the ice bucket on the coffee table. She seized it by the neck, spilling cold champagne down her arm.

“What the—” He slumped to the floor as the bottle thunked against his head.

Lizzie snatched up her wallet and shoved her feet into her uncomfortable high heels. Why not more pain?

Without a backward glance at the body on the floor, she slammed her apartment door and took off down the fire stairs, banging her heels on the concrete as hard as she could.

Look out, world. The wheels have come off and I’m coming full speed ahead
!

Chapter 3

C
on parked his car outside the adobe walls of the Zen Mind Spa in Las Gordas, Arizona, and entered the front yard through a decorative wrought-iron gate. The forbidding desert stretched for countless miles outside, but lush grasses and bubbling fountains marked his arrival in an oasis of luxury.

“I’m here to see Lizzie Hathaway.” He addressed the aerobicized receptionist. Her blonde ponytail bobbed as she picked up the phone. Plinking samisen music fell around him like drops of water and confident people in workout clothes cruised through the lobby as he waited.

“I’m afraid she’s not picking up.” She turned and glanced at the wall of keys. “Would you like me to page her? What’s your name?”

He cocked his head. “I’m here for her birthday. It’s a surprise.”

He held her gaze ruthlessly.

“Oh.” She blinked several times.

“Would it be okay if I just went up there and knocked on the door? I have a present.” He lifted the gift bag he carried and the tissue paper inside it rustled.

“Of course.” She smiled and pushed her chest out. “It’s room sixteen. At the end of the corridor.”

He smiled. “Thanks.”

Polished wood doors with brass numbers lined the Saltillo-tiled hallway. Would she try to knock him unconscious again? Probably, and he couldn’t blame her. He still woke up at night, sweating at the memory of her question.

Did you ever, just for one moment, love me too
?

And his chilling silence.

He still wondered what would have happened if he’d said
yes
. He’d fought that urge with every cell in his body and in his heart he knew he’d done the right thing. He’d let her off the hook.

What did he know about love? Everyone he’d ever loved was gone. He was all loved out for one lifetime.

He took a deep breath. He hadn’t seen her since that fateful night over a month ago and excitement mixed with apprehension as he raised his fist to knock.

Muffled music—Katy Perry?—crept out around the door frame. He knocked louder.

“No, thanks! My inner yogi is on vacation today,” came a rude shout from the other side of the door.
Lizzie
. His pulse picked up.

He knocked again. The music jerked off, and he heard feet clomp over tiles. The door flung open.

Then slammed shut.

“Lizzie.” He grabbed the handle. Was that really her?

“Get lost.”

“Please, let me in for one minute.” He needed to see her and reassure himself she was okay. He ached to hold her again, but he knew better than to get his hopes up.

“Go to hell.”

“I drove all the way from New York to see you.”

“You shouldn’t have bothered.” He heard something clatter to the floor.

“Can I at least get a look at you?” From what he’d glimpsed through the crack, an appeal to her pride might work.

He was right. The lock clicked and the door opened a crack.

“Look but don’t touch, buster.”

She pulled it open.

Joy roared through him at the sight of her—alive, whole, healthy. But the hardness in her eyes made his throat tighten. “You look different.”

She let out a hollow laugh, peered at him through mascaraed lashes. “I’ve been pursuing a little self-improvement. What do you think?”

A damn shame
! That’s what he thought. Knew better than to say it, though. “You look… amazing.”

“I think so. Who knew I had it in me?” She did a twirl, then teetered on her high-heeled sandals. His heart seized and he resisted the urge to grab and steady her. “Champagne?”

She seemed completely unaffected by the sight of him. Had he thought that one look into his brown eyes would make her fall at his feet?