Riches to Rags Bride / The Heiress's Baby: Riches to Rags Bride / The Heiress's Baby

Genevieve struggled to keep her hands from shaking. The last thing she wanted right now was attention. The last thing she was capable of was bringing in people on the mere mention of her name.

She tried to swallow, struggled to find her voice. “You have a famous name.”

He shook his head. “I have money and a successful business. With a few exceptions, famous entrepreneurs don’t become household names. But people like your parents? World renowned artists? Yes, they do. Their name is like a glowing diamond. It puts people in a good mood, gets them excited. And you happen to share it.”

Genevieve’s heart fell a bit. Her importance hinged on her parents’ talents as it always had. She wanted to back away. But she couldn’t afford to.

“Does that mean I really do have the job?” She managed to ask.

“If you want it.”

She wanted it, but she must have been slow to say yes.

“If you don’t, tell me now. I’m on a strict timeline.

I have another job waiting in France when this one is done, an opening of a new store in Japan after that and I intend to finish up here in six weeks. So, if you can’t do this, Genevieve, or if you don’t want to, tell me. You’re free to go.”

She wanted to walk away. There were things she didn’t like about this setup. Her name, unlike her parents’ names, would be of no use. She should tell Lucas that. She didn’t really even have the skills he needed. And then there was the man, this intimidating, far too masculine man. But … hunger gnawed at her. Her faintness wasn’t only from nerves. She wasn’t free. She had to have this.

“I’d like the job, please,” she said. “I’ll be your …”

“Project manager.”

She nodded. The title was that belonging to a bolder person, one who knew how to take charge of situations and not be tricked or bullied into doing things she didn’t want to do.

“I’ll be your project manager. I’m your woman.”

For a moment, those gray eyes turned fierce. Genevieve realized just how little she knew about this man.

“Good.” Lucas held out his hand, and Genevieve automatically reached out. His fingers closed around hers, his hand much larger than hers. She should have felt trapped, insignificant. Instead, as heat seeped from his skin to hers, she was suddenly aware of him as a man more than as her new boss. That could be a problem if she let it. She wouldn’t.

“You should know that I believe in being hands-on in a project like this, Genevieve,” he said, releasing her. “If you and I are going to oversee and sell this project, we have to know it from the ground up. Every higher level employee at every factory and store I own spent some time in the trenches so that they could fully understand the business, so we’ll get started on your ground-floor experience right away. I’ll pick you up tomorrow. We’re headed straight for Angie’s House. Dress for work.”

“What kind?”

“The dirty kind. Do you have clothing you can mess up?”

She had clothing. It was the one thing she still had in abundance. Whether or not she had what Lucas meant, however, was questionable.

“No problem,” she said, hoping her smile was reassuring. “Let me give you my address.”

“I have it already.”

Once again, Genevieve had that feeling of being overwhelmed, too small and insignificant next to this man. She felt vulnerable, and vulnerable was the last thing she wanted or needed to feel right now.

“I won’t let you get to me, Mr. McDowell,” she muttered to herself later when she scoured her closet looking for something that could rightfully be called work clothes.

But she knew she lied. The man seemed to know everything about her. He felt like a powerful dark tornado that drops out of the sky, wreaks havoc in your life and then roars off again. He had her at a disadvantage, and she had sworn she would never be at a disadvantage with a man again. She would have to work on that and just start ignoring all the unnerving things about Lucas. She hoped that was possible.

Lucas shook his head after Genevieve was gone. This might well be a disaster in the making. She was young, destitute and had never worked at a job in her life. Despite her telling him that she wanted the job, she might change her mind later if there were complications or strife or if something better came along. He’d spent most of his youth dealing with people who thought they wanted to do something good but later changed their minds when things hit a rough patch.

What’s more, she was far too pretty. Even with her hair scraped back from her face so brutally, or maybe because of it, her classic features were striking. And also … a vision of her legs and those luscious knees crept in, and he quickly slapped that right out of his consciousness. The last thing he needed was to get involved with a socialite who was down on her luck and looking to improve her situation. Women … and others had used him or tried to use him before. Repeatedly. As an orphan in the foster system, people had thought taking him in would earn them Good Samaritan points. As a man who’d fought his way to wealth and power, women like Rita thought he’d make a nice trophy or else they wanted his money and power. The only thing that none of them realized was that he had nothing to give them, emotionally or any other way. He’d spent all his emotional capital years ago, wasted it, burnt it, lost it. Now all he had—all he would ever allow himself—was work and guilt.

But he was not going to feel guilty about Genevieve Patchett. Their relationship would be work only, nothing personal. He wasn’t responsible for her problems, and she wasn’t going to be on his conscience.

And he wasn’t going to think about her legs, either, or those gorgeous green eyes. At least not much.

CHAPTER TWO

THE NEXT MORNING, Genevieve crawled from bed and faced the dirty, cracked and chalky walls of the small room she had rented.

Today is the day I start working for Lucas McDowell, she thought, trying to choke back the fear that accompanied the thought. Would she be able to be the kind of employee that Lucas wanted? She’d never even needed to work before. But now …

“I need—”

Her words were interrupted by an angry shout echoing through the paper-thin walls. Something hard hit the wall. Caught off guard, Genevieve jumped. Even though such sounds weren’t at all unusual, she had yet to get used to how close and heated everything was. How desperate. How different from the life of luxury that was all she’d known until a few months ago. Tension coiled within her. That old life was gone. It wasn’t just this place that seemed desperate. She was desperate.

The tension slid up a notch as, once again, the reality of her situation hit home. The sun had already risen and Genevieve knew that anytime now, her landlady might appear, screeching, demanding the rent that Gen didn’t have. Threatening.

Before now, no one had ever seriously threatened her in her entire life.

But Mrs. Dohenny would, and she had the right to do that. Genevieve was a full month behind on her rent. She fought the sickness that followed that thought and tried to rush. She hoped to be gone long before Mrs. Dohenny showed up. The last thing she needed was for her new boss to find out that she was, essentially, living here without paying. Gen remembered her father yelling at a doorman who had displeased him in some way. Firing the man as he pleaded for his job so that he could feed his family. Ignoring the man’s pleas.

“Stop it,” she whispered weakly. Don’t think about that. It’s not helping. She didn’t even know why she was thinking about that incident now.

No, that was a lie. She knew. She was afraid of failing, of becoming the doorman and having Lucas fire her on her first day.

Closing her eyes for a second, she dragged in a deep, shaky breath and tried to proceed with her tasks. Quickly, she showered in the small, cramped tub with its leaking, rusty showerhead and broken, institution-green plastic tiles, exited the bathroom and moved to the battered three-legged dresser that was the only piece of furniture other than the bed and one wooden chair.

Her reflection in the cracked mirror above the dresser was too pale, the meager items on it a sad testimony to how far she had fallen. An almost empty jar of expensive cleansing cream shared space with half a tube of lipstick in a golden, emerald-studded case and a tiny half-used vial of perfume she refused to touch except in emergencies, because it felt like armor, the last little bit she possessed. Once it was gone, there would be no more.

Staring at these remnants of her past life, Genevieve sighed. The cost of these three items new would have paid her rent in this little broom closet of a room several times over, but now they were merely some of the last precious remnants of a lifestyle she’d never, ever know again.

The cheap clock clicked loudly as another minute passed. Genevieve looked at the sagging mattress so unlike the luxuriously soft bed encased in crisp scented sheets she’d once had, and a drumbeat of panic began to pound in her breast. Lucas McDowell was picking her up soon. What if he saw this room with its holes in the plaster and the windows that had bars over them to keep the bad people out? Then he would know that she couldn’t even take care of herself, much less be a project manager.

She couldn’t let that happen. She grabbed the lipstick with shaky fingers and gathered the few other items. Carefully, sparingly, trying to make these last remnants of her once elegant life last a bit longer, she began to apply her makeup. Then, she picked out the most casual clothing she could find. When Lucas got here, she would need to find a smile and something that looked like confidence. Not for the first time in her life, she wished that she was the outgoing, confident type who won people with her dazzling personality and talent instead of being the quiet, behind-the-scenes type.

But wishing had never made anything happen in her life. It hadn’t made her parents love her. It hadn’t saved her from her con-man financial-advisor fiancé. All she had to help her right now was the determination to do whatever she had to in order to survive.

No, more than survive, she hoped. She wanted to be … more, to become a different person: bolder, more successful, independent. Make that completely, totally, “never rely or lean on anyone again in her life” independent.

That meant she had to please Lucas McDowell.

No matter what.

Lucas frowned as he pulled up in front of the dark, ugly apartment building that matched the address he had for Genevieve Patchett. He wasn’t a native to Chicago, but he’d lived here for a while as a teenager; he’d done business in this city on numerous occasions, and even if he hadn’t, he knew a bad neighborhood when he saw one. As a child he’d lived in them, nearly died in them, and this one had “get out of here if you can” written all over it. He’d recognized that before he’d gotten within three blocks of this place. This wasn’t your standard debutante living arrangement.

Genevieve had fallen even further than he’d guessed. But then, that wasn’t his problem, was it? His new project manager’s abode wasn’t any of his business. The only reason he was here at all was to escort her to the work site, and he wouldn’t even be doing that except for the fact that summer construction had temporarily disrupted public transportation to the area where Angie’s House was located.