Unworthy (The Worthy Series Book 1) Read online

  “What are you going to do?” Drew asked. “She obviously didn’t want to work here, Ian.”

  Ian stared at a spot on the wall behind Drew’s head. “Don’t know.” And he didn’t. The truth was, Cat had every right to be spooked. He’d hurt her badly, crushed a young girl’s dreams, and now was expecting her to fall right back into hero-worshipping him as she’d done in high school.

  She was also correct about him enabling Danny. She had every right to be mad at him. He’d been lucky on Sunday that she hadn’t grabbed a knife off a table to throw at him. It was partly his fault Danny was where he was, which meant it was his fault Catherine had ended up here applying for a job. She should be in law school or some other amazing career in New York, not in Miami applying for a job that was one step up from a call girl.

  The morning following the disastrous interview, as Cat was coming to think of it, she was striding down the shops along a stretch of Red Road in South Miami. The neighborhood was a mecca for cute boutiques and restaurants. Almost all the stores were mom and pop or a local chain. Back when her parents were alive, this neighborhood had been a daily fixture in her life, where they’d shop for shoes or stop for a frozen yogurt.

  She tried not to window shop as she walked. What was the point? She could barely afford the hourly parking rate let alone the actual goods in the stores.

  Her brain was still in an Ian Lawrence fog and had been for going on seventy-two hours now. She needed to take her mind off him, and this was the first step. This morning she’d called Drew and accepted the job offer with I.D. Productions. Five minutes after hanging up with Drew, a private number buzzed on her pay-as-you-go phone. It was Ian calling to say he was happy she’d accepted the job, and he’d be happier if she’d consider moving out of her shithole.

  Since she’d had the same thought, she agreed. Hence her journey to South Miami to meet a potential roommate who’d listed a room for rent in a single-family home in this neighborhood. The monthly rent seemed too good to be true, so Cat was here feeling like it was a suicide mission. In the off chance it wasn’t, she could be living back in her old neighborhood.

  She approached the store where she was supposed to meet the potential roommate and narrowed her eyes as a woman caught her eye through the glass of the shop. Tears streamed down the woman’s face and she was yanking armfuls of clothing and tossing them off the racks haphazardly.

  Cat froze. Please don’t let this be Amy. Amy was the name listed as the landlord. She glanced around, and despite the clusters of shoppers, no one else seemed to notice or care what was happening in the store.

  The other woman was obviously in serious distress or she was some kind of lunatic bent on destroying the store. Where were the shop owners? Should she call the police? And then Cat did a double take. Holy shit. She knew the woman having a meltdown. They’d gone to school together but hadn’t been friends. And her name was Amy. Crap.

  She stood still with indecision. On one hand, it was an affordable room in a great part of town. On the other, Amy looked cuckoo. Ah, screw it. At the very least, she should make sure Amy was okay. Her feet ate up the distance to the store, and she rapped on the glass.

  Amy froze. Their gazes connected and it took a second before the woman pointed to the door. Cat stepped to the glass shop door and entered. “You’re Amy, right? The same Amy who listed the room for rent in a two-bedroom house on Seventy-Fourth Street?”

  Amy wiped the back of her hand across her wet face. “Yeah, that was me.” She eyed Cat with seemingly no recognition. “You’re the person who called?”

  Cat nodded, swallowed, and swept a hand around the shop, lacking words to describe the chaos. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Obviously. I’m dandy. I always destroy stores in my free time. You should probably leave, Catherine.” Her tone was bitter and angry.

  “So you do remember me?”

  “Of course I do. You and your friends made my life hellacious in seventh grade.” Amy had always been bigger than Cat, but then again, who wasn’t? Cat remembered with a sour turn of her stomach that Amy had been mocked in school for being fat. She guessed most people would still call the woman fat, but as someone who’d lived her whole life with a label based on her body shape, she hated doing it to other people.

  Cat hadn’t been one of Amy’s bullies, but she hadn’t been one of her champions either. She’d been too busy with dance classes and cheerleading to seek out a friendship with a girl who was always hanging out in the art room, and then her parents had died and she’d gone through the rest of high school in a numb bubble.

  Cat bit her lip. Technically she’d never done anything to Amy, but she hadn’t stopped some of her so-called friends from being mean. “I’m sorry. There was no excuse, other than thirteen-year-old girls are assholes. I’ll leave.” She started to turn to follow orders, but as she did, the back of Amy’s hand swiped across her face again, coming away damp, indicating she was anything but fine.

  She turned back. “Listen,” Cat said, “I can’t leave you like this. For one, I don’t think the owners would want you destroying their shop. And two, I really do need a new place to live. If it helps, I’m not the girl you remember from school.” Understatement of the century.

  Amy laughed, but there was a derisive edge to it. “The owners? I’m the owner or do you not remember mocking me because my mom owned the Big and Tall store? I’ll destroy whatever the hell I want.”

  Cat felt her eyes widen. Oh shit. Now she remembered. As if being a chubby thirteen- year-old in a sea of Miami beach-bodies wasn’t hard enough, Amy’s mom had owned a store catering to plus-size women. Their peers had been vicious. She started to rethink renting a room from Amy who probably hated her. “Okay then, I’m just going to…” She pointed behind her to the door and took a step back, but then Amy burst into a set of sobs that tore at Cat’s heart. She’d heard those kinds of sobs before. They stemmed from grief. She should know, having lost both her parents at age fourteen.

  …And she was staying.

  Carefully she stepped over the piles of strewn clothing and gingerly placed her hand on Amy’s upper arm. “Want to talk about it?”

  “With you?” There was a hint of scorn in her tone as if Cat was incapable of compassion or higher-level cognition.

  Cat didn’t turn her back and instead nodded. “Yeah, with me.”

  “What would a miniature Barbie know about anything?” she asked, referencing one of Cat’s old nicknames. She’d stopped tossing the clothes and the sobs had slowed.

  “You’d be surprised at the things I know. If you want to go back to crying alone and destroying your property, have at it.” Cat gestured to the store at large. “Or, I can try to help.”

  The two women eyed each other in an appraising silence for a minute.

  “Why are you being nice to me?” Amy finally asked. She had long, brown hair swept into a messy bun. A funky thin stripe of red and another of purple was hidden among the silky strands. A colorful tattoo peeked out from underneath the neckline of her blouse. She was in cute capri jeans that Cat wished she could wear, but without hemming herself, capris were hard to find.

  “Why shouldn’t I be nice to you?” Cat asked.

  “Because you never were before. I remember the rules from school. Girls who look like you ignore girls who look like me.”

  “What do I look like?” Cat asked evenly.

  “You still look like a freaking cheerleader or a Zumba instructor.”

  Cat had to laugh. “Well, I’m actually a broke waitress about to be homeless.”

  “I’m sorry.” Amy revealed a sympathetic smile, brightening her face. Cat had always thought Amy was really pretty and the other girls were bitchy ‘cause they were jealous that Amy had boobs and they didn’t. “I guess we’re both a mess, aren’t we?”

  “Yep, but you’re the one who went all Hulk Smash on your mom’s store.”

  They both laughed, but Amy’s giggle combined with a small whimper. “How
did you know?” she asked, and Cat understood immediately what she was asking.

  “I’ve made that sound before,” she said. “The sound of total loss and grief. I heard it in your voice, and I couldn’t leave you alone.”

  “Thank you,” Amy whispered.

  “Who’d you lose?”

  Amy wiped her nose on the sleeve of a red plaid shirt she’d pulled off the floor. “My mom.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Cat said. “There really are no words, are there? When did she die?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “Two…weeks? Oh, my God. Honey. I’d be throwing clothes, too.” She swallowed over the sudden lump in her throat. It had been ten years since her own parents had been killed, but the ache didn’t go away. It got hidden away most of the time but could be taken out at the drop of a hat. She let Amy have another bout of sobs, then curling her arms around her knees, she asked, “I’m embarrassed to ask about the rest of your family, ‘cause I feel like I should know the answer, but I don’t. What about your dad? Any siblings?”

  Amy wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “My parents got divorced when I was five. My dad lives in Tampa with his new wife, but we’re not very close. I see him on Rosh Hashanah and Passover. I have an older stepbrother and a younger half brother. I barely know them.”

  No close siblings. Cat couldn’t imagine. Sure, her own sibling was a true pain in her ass, but she couldn’t imagine being totally alone like Amy. “I’m so sorry, Amy,” she said. “I’m sure you remember my parents were killed when I was fourteen, so I totally get where you’re coming from.”

  Amy’s eyes softened. “I’ve never forgotten. God, I remember feeling so bad. We all thought you were Little Miss Perfect with never a problem in the world. And then your parents got hit by those stupid drag-racing teenagers. I slept in my mom’s bed for a week after it happened.”

  Cat blinked back sudden tears. “Yeah, well…” How was she supposed to respond to that? Lucky Amy got to sleep in her mother’s bed while Cat actually had to live the nightmare.

  They lapsed into silence for a while.

  “Do you want to see the house now?” Amy finally asked.

  Obviously Cat had passed an unwritten test. “Yes. I’d love to.”

  They rose and she waited as Amy shut off the lights and locked up the store. It was kind of a joke to secure the place seeing as how she’d all but destroyed the contents first. The women walked together down Sunset Drive, then crossed, leaving the shopping district behind. Boutiques gave way to garden-style apartments and then another block farther and they were on a quiet street with single-family homes, each sitting on about a half-acre of land.

  The homes on the street hadn’t gone through the Miami Makeover yet. These homes were all still one-story with driveways instead of garages and no ten-foot fences surrounding the properties.

  Amy’s house was pale yellow with white hurricane shutters at each window. The large stretch of grass needed to be mowed and was broken up by a U-shaped driveway. A mango tree was off to one side. Amy unlocked the front door and gestured that Cat should enter.

  Dead ahead was a wide rectangular living room and behind that was a wall of sliding glass doors that led to an outdoor patio that had no pool. Unusual in Miami.

  “Kitchen’s to the left. Bedroom’s to the right.” Amy pointed and started to the right. Cat followed.

  “Is this where you grew up?” Cat asked.

  “Yes. I moved out for college and lived in New York for a while, but came back when my mother got sick.”

  “Oh. Do you miss New York? I haven’t been there in a really long time, but Miami’s really different, isn’t it?”

  Amy gave a harsh laugh. “That’s an understatement.” She paused in the hall. “This is my room.” She pointed to a door at the end of the hall. “That would be your room.” A pause. “It was my mother’s. It’s bigger and has the better bathroom, but I can’t bring myself to live in there.”

  “I totally get it,” Cat said. She glanced at Amy’s room, then went to explore the room that would be hers. It was fully furnished with a king size bed that was centered on the worn beige Berber carpet.

  “That was my mom’s mattress,” Amy said apologetically. “We can arrange to get rid of it if you want.”

  Cat pondered the idea of sleeping in a dead woman’s mattress for a moment. “Did she…pass there?”

  “No. She was in a hospice center at the end.”

  “Okay. It’s not like I can afford a new mattress that size or any size. I’ll think of it like sleeping in a hotel. They don’t replace the mattresses with every guest.”

  “Good plan,” Amy said and wandered over to lean against the low built-in dressers that took up the wall across from the bed.

  Cat went to explore the bathroom and was psyched to see a tub. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a bath.

  “I’m embarrassed to ask,” came Amy’s voice from the other room, “but what happened to you? You were one of the rich girls.”

  Cat emerged from the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bare mattress. “Don’t be embarrassed. You probably want to know if I can afford my rent,” she said wryly.

  Amy smiled. “The thought did cross my mind, but I’m getting a roommate because I can’t stand living here alone, yet I can’t fathom selling the place either. I was more curious about what’s going on with you. You keep mentioning your financial situation.”

  Cat crossed her legs under her, bouncing slightly on the bed. “My parents didn’t leave much after they died,” she said vaguely. After seeing the king size bed and tub, she really wanted to live here. Telling Amy that there was a good shot a vomiting, stoned six-foot male in her brother’s body would be invading every so often was a surefire way to lose the room.

  “I’m sorry,” Amy said. “I’m learning all about parental finances, unfortunately.”

  “Your mom left you a house and a store,” Cat said. “I’m officially jealous.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Cat thought Amy was crazy. If she’d been left a store in a hot neighborhood, she’d be dancing among the clothing racks, not throwing them. “What’s the problem? You don’t want to own the store? Or is the rent too much?” Another thought occurred to her. “Um…” She paused, not sure how to phrase her question. “Does the store do okay? I mean, I know there’s men’s big and tall stores, but I feel like women might not love the name.”

  “Ya think?” Amy asked sarcastically. “Not only was the name awful, but the clothes are worse. I only bought my underwear and bras there. I mean seriously, look at this.” She reached into one of the drawers and tugged out a blue and brown…something. “Check this out. Hideous, right?”

  Cat nodded, eyeing the fabric. Women’s plus-sized clothing wasn’t something she had much experience with, but she’d assumed it’d be kind of like what she dealt with in the petite department: regular clothing just smaller, or bigger, as the case may be. Obviously she’d been wrong. “Is that normal? Are all…”

  “Say it. Plus size. Ain’t no shame.”

  “Plus-size clothes ugly?” Cat continued. “Is it a thing that the clothes are awful?”

  “No.” Amy sighed. “It was my mom as the buyer. She was a little old-school and thought women of a certain size or shape shouldn’t try to wear fashions that someone like you would wear.”

  “Me?” Cat pointed to her chest. “You were dead on with the Barbie comment. I literally could shop in Barbie’s dream closet. The pre-teen department fits me best, which is okay for casual clothes. But what happens when I want to go to a club or a party? I look like I’m dressed for cotillion.”

  Amy laughed, then got sober again. “The good thing is that the property has been in my family for two generations. My grandmother used to run a five and dime there and then my mom took it over after her divorce.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Cat asked.

  “I don’t want to own a big and tall store for women. I gr
aduated from the Fashion Institute. I want to be designing clothing,” Amy said, referencing the prestigious fashion school in Manhattan. “My mom got sick after I graduated and I’ve been working here for the past few years helping out. I never planned on this being the rest of my life.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cat said. “Maybe you should sell everything and get out of town.” She crossed her fingers under her thighs that Amy wouldn’t do that.

  “I can’t sell the store or give it up. My mom begged me while she was in hospice to keep up the store. She said the bigger women of Miami needed me.”

  “Wow, yikes, a death bed wish,” Cat said. “Seems like bad karma to go against it.”

  “I know, right?”

  They lapsed into thoughtful silence again. Finally Cat worked up the nerve to ask, “So did I pass? Can I rent the room?” It felt as if her lungs would burst from waiting on Amy to answer her question.

  “I’ll have the bedroom cleaned out. How soon do you want to move in?”

  Cat leaped off the bed and bounded over to give a bemused Amy a giant hug. “Is tonight too soon?”

  Cat dashed through the back door of the bar, cursing under her breath. Shit, she was late tonight and it was her first day on the new job. She’d agonized all day about what working with Ian would be like. Twice she’d pulled out her phone to text him that she wasn’t taking the job, but in the end, practicality won out.

  That Drew guy had called and offered her more money than she’d ever been paid before, and with her bills, she couldn’t afford to say no.

  It had been tempting to ask if she’d have to see Ian, but she didn’t want to lose the job before starting. It was kind of a duh situation. Of course she’d have to see Ian.

  She could ignore him and that was her plan. She’d treat him like her boss who was a virtual stranger, not the boy she’d once spied on when he’d changed into a bathing suit. And definitely not the man who’d kissed the pants off her a few days ago.