Page 34 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

Shep’s eyes widened before he schooled his face into something casual, let go of her, and slumped back around in his chair.

With something like horror, Cass realized she was kneeling in the seat of her chair. She sat back down on her bum, knees under the table, and was relieved to feel Shep’s arm still draped over her chair. They’d gotten caught, but he wasn’t retreating outright, and that meant something.

Across the table, Raven’s gaze pinged between them, huge, and blue, and alarmed. She blinked once they’d settled, shook her head, and laughed down at her plate. “Goodness, you two are in a mood tonight. No more champagne for you, Cass.”

Relief left her weak-kneed. “I only had one glass.”

“One too many, apparently,” Raven said, as she went back to picking through her salad.

“Ugh.” God, that had been close. That had been…

Too late, she noted the way Toly was staring at her, narrow-eyed.

~*~

They cut the cake, and then Raven announced it was time for presents. Toly stood to gather the plates, and Raven set a series of beautifully-wrapped boxes on the coffee table in front of her.

A sideways glance proved Shep was frowning at the wrap job, corner of his mouth tucked in that way Cass had learned meant he was self-conscious. She wanted to snap a photo, but refrained. Pulled the first box into her lap instead and tugged the bow loose.

Raven was never going to tire, it seemed, of trying to get Cass to adopt a chic personal style. She unwrapped a whole pile of clothes from Raven’s personal line: spring sweaters, trousers, blouses, skirts, and even several dresses. All of it was beautiful, and none of it felt like Cass.

“I really think that green top will suit you nicely,” Raven said from her perch on the arm of Toly’s chair. “It has a bit of blue undertone in the weave and it’ll bring out your eyes.”

“It’s beautiful.” Cass folded it carefully atop the others. “Thank you.”

“Alright,” Toly said, lighting a smoke. “Give her the big one.”

Raven rolled her eyes, but went to the console table and came back with a small, plain black envelope. Bemused, Cass lifted the flap, fished inside…and came out with two tickets to the Met Gala.

“ What ?”

Looking mighty pleased with herself, Raven returned to her seat with Toly and his arm went around her waist, casual and automatic.

“Toly and I are going. It’s obligatory on my part.

And Ian’s going as well, as Jean-Jacque, of course.

” She rolled her eyes, then grew serious.

She still looked tired, because she always did lately, but a spark of freshness lit her gaze as she said, “I think this could be a wonderful opportunity for you, Cass. I know you’ve waved me off, but I’m quite serious about you designing a junior’s line. ”

As quickly as her excitement had exploded—a mental burst of jewels, and flashbulbs, and acres of celebrities; an enticement for anyone—it dimmed. “Oh. This again.”

“What?” Shep sat forward and took the tickets from her hand to examine them.

Raven’s jaw set at a mulish angle. “Yes, this again. Every time we talk about it, you act as though I’m torturing you, when really I’m offering you an opportunity that most twenty-year-olds would kill for.”

“Raven,” Toly said, softly.

“What are you talking about?” Shep said.

Holding Raven’s gaze with a stubborn one of her own, Cass said, “Raven wants to take some of my art and print it on super expensive t-shirts and dresses.”

“Uh…isn’t that a good thing?”

“It is,” Raven said, cutting over Cass’s response. “It would be an exclusive line, listed in Cass’s name, under whatever label name she decided upon. She’d make a killing, I’ve no doubt.”

Cass folded her arms. “I’m an artist, not a fashion designer.”

Raven threw up her hands, as though she were hopeless. “You can be both! The designs would be your art . It would appeal to an entirely new market—”

“See?” Cass pointed at her. “That’s why I don’t want to do it. It’s about the market, and the brand, and expanding the business.”

“I can do those things and help you launch a real career!”

“I don’t want to live in your world, Raven! I don’t want to be rushing off to meetings, and shaking hands with creeps, and cutting ribbons in front of stores! I want to do my art and be my own person!”

Toly made a dispelling gesture with his cigarette-laden hand. “Ladies—”

Raven got to her feet, arms folding tight across her middle.

“You’re so bloody stubborn, do you know that?

I’m not saying you have to sign your whole youth away.

Go to the gala.” She gestured to the tickets, which Shep still held for some reason.

“Bring one of your girlfriends, bring a cute boy from school you’re trying to impress. ”

Shep made a choking sound, tossed the tickets on the table, and headed for the kitchen.

“Meet a few people. Design some mockups. That’s life , Cassandra. I’ve let you live in the dorms, and play at schoolgirl—”

“You’ve let me?”

“Who do you think is paying for your tuition? For your food, and your clothes, and—” She cut herself off, hands pressed over her eyes a long moment. It gave Cass a chance to take a few deep breaths and blink her eyes dry.

“I don’t want to fight,” Raven said, hands flopping to her sides like she was too exhausted to hold them up. She shook her head. “I won’t mention it again. Just…I want you to be happy. You deserve that. God knows this family’s yanked you around enough.”

She looked so miserable that Cass wanted to take back all that she’d said.

“Keep the tickets. Go to the ball.” She attempted a smile. “You’ve seemed awfully cheeky lately. Has someone at school caught your eye?”

It was a supreme effort not to look toward the kitchen. “Maybe.”

Raven nodded. “Bring him, then. It’s a once-in-lifetime experience, for sure. And you don’t have to sit at our table if you don’t want to.”

“Raven—”

Nat’s ear-splitting cry crackled through the baby monitor, and Raven turned for the hallway.

“I’ll get her,” she said, waving Toly back down when he moved to stand.

When she was gone, Shep returned to his spot on the couch, fresh beer in hand. “Hey,” he said, leaning in close to her. “I don’t know shit about fashion or art or any of that.”

“Obviously.”

“But maybe don’t write it off just yet, yeah? Your sister’s super successful, maybe you could…okay, or not,” he said, when she shot him a look. He lifted his brows, free hand held up for peace. “Why can’t you do both? What’s so wrong with making a buck?”

“Because—because it’s—”

“You’re not gonna feed me a buncha artist integrity bullshit, are you?”

“Fuck you , Frank.” She stood, and made a point of stomping on his toe.

“Ow! Stop that.” He snagged her by the belt loop before she could stalk off, and she rounded on him. “Don’t you hit me, you little shit,” he warned, “or I’ll put you over my knee right here.”

The image of that, paired with the wild look in his eyes, hit her square in the libido. She was suddenly, madly turned on.

Chest heaving as she fought for breath, she said, “I don’t care about the money.”

He let go of her to spread his arms wide.

“Yeah? Maybe not now. How much money do you think I have? You think I can buy you a place like this?” Beer sloshed out of the botte when he gestured to the flat around them.

“You think I can send you to fucking”—a gesture at the table, the tickets—“Cinderella’s ball or some shit? ”

Now she was turned on and devastated. Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t need that.”

“Like I said, you say that now, but give it a little time. Give me a little time, and—”

A throat cleared.

Oh God. Toly.

Shep’s expression would have been comical at any other time. As it was, Cass’s heart was slamming too hard for her to find any humor in the situation.

Slowly, dread curdling her stomach, she turned toward the chair where Toly still sat, watching them with narrow shark eyes, cigarette trailing smoke ribbons into the air.

“Toly,” Cass started.

“Shepherd.” Toly’s voice was very flat, and very cold, and terrifying. “I’d like a word with you out on the balcony.”

“Eat my dick,” Shep shot back.

Toly tilted his head, and the gesture wasn’t at all human. “Cass,” he said without looking at her. “Go see if Raven needs help with the baby.”

“Please—”

“Go see,” he insisted, without raising his voice, “and make nice with her. Hug it out.” He stood. “Shep and I are going onto the balcony.”

“Fuck off,” Shep said, but he stood, and Cass could see, with a sinking feeling, that he was in fact going to follow.

Cass skirted around the table and grabbed at Toly’s arm. “Toly, please, I can explain, don’t tell Raven, please just…” She trailed off when he glanced down at her, because he was no longer her brother-in-law in that moment. She let go of him, and swore her palms were burned.

“Go on,” he said, almost gently. But only almost. “Help Raven. Shep and I are going to have a nice chat.”

~*~

Either Shep had eaten too much pasta, or he was having a heart attack. The punishing cold out on the balcony was a welcome scrape across his face, and he didn’t have to feign anger when he growled, “I’m not afraid of you, string bean. I’ll snap you in fucking half.”

“You could try.” Toly was bare-armed and barefoot and didn’t seem at all bothered by the cold.

Fucking Russian. His cigarette cherry glowed, and even if Shep had almost twenty years and thirty pounds on the guy, he couldn’t deny that his absolute calm was spooky as hell.

“And it doesn’t matter if you’re afraid of me.

You’re afraid enough of Devin and his Foxes that you’ll listen to what I have to say. ”

Shep suppressed a shudder and blamed it on the weather.

“How long have you been fucking her?” Toly asked.

“Jesus, don’t say it like that.”

“How long?” he insisted.

Shep sighed. “About a month.”

“At the club apartment?”

There was no use lying, was there? He really didn’t want to. She wasn’t some dirty secret, wasn’t anything he was ashamed of. “Yeah. We’re living together.”

That earned a single, sharp jerk of Toly’s head. “She’s not in her dorm?”

“No. She didn’t wanna stay. Some shit went down with the roommate, but that’s her business to tell, not mine.”

Toly nodded, as if to say fair enough . “Does she know you’re in love with her?”

He hadn’t expected that . It shocked the breath out of him. “Yeah.”

“You told her you are?”

“Yes, goddamnit. Are we done?”

Toly held up a finger. One more thing. “What will you do if and when she decides she wants to move on to better things? To a better man?”

Punch you in the fucking face , he thought. But that wasn’t the real answer to that question. The real answer was, throat getting stuck halfway through, “Let her go with my blessing. And then eat a gun.”

Toly nodded again, and turned for the door.

“Wait. Are you gonna tell Raven?”

“No. You are. Not tonight, if you can’t stomach it. But I won’t do your dirty work.” He slipped inside and left Shep standing in the cold.

~*~

“I wasn’t trying to pressure you back there,” Shep said twenty minutes later in the hallway.

He’d gone back inside after Toly, gathered up Cass’s shit and put it in her bag, and been waiting when she finally emerged from the hallway, wiping at her face but dry-eyed…

and troublingly distant. “I won’t bring it up again, that design shit, if you don’t wanna talk about it.

” When she didn’t respond, he added, “You okay?”

She stared down at her boots as she walked, backpack dangling from one strap, free hand toying with her hair.

Shep stopped, and touched her arm. “Cass.”

When she glanced up, he nearly took a step back. Her expression was all wrong: imperfectly shuttered, so that anguish cracked through, anguish of a kind he couldn’t begin to classify, but which he worried that he’d caused.

“Hey.” His hand shook a little, when he cupped her cheek, and rubbed his thumb beneath her dry eye. “What’s up?”

Give me a little time , he’d said, and had it really been so little? Was she already tired of him?

He didn’t realize his heart had stopped until she leaned into his touch, and then reached out to touch in return, hands on his forearm. Then it kicked back to painful life, so hard it left him dizzy.

“I don’t want to go home yet,” she said.

“Okay.” He would have taken her to damn Vegas if she’d asked. “Where do you wanna go?”

Her lashes lowered while she thought it out; they were very dark, and very long, her cheeks flushed with emotion she was trying hard not to show. When her gaze lifted, her blue eyes were the sort of imploring that men started wars for. “I want to go get a drink. Just you and me. Like couples do.”

Still newly-started, his heart lurched. He had the sense he was wading into deep water, and that maybe he wasn’t as good of a swimmer as he thought. But he said, “Okay, we can do that,” and she pulled his hand from her face so she could drag his arm around her shoulders.