Best Friends With the Billionaire (The Rochesters) Read Online Free PDF Page A

you stay with her. Only until the wedding, of course.”
    Cassie blinked. “You’re kicking me out?”
    “No, I’m not. You don’t have to stay with Mrs. Gruzman if you don’t want to. But, well”—Audrey lifted her narrow shoulders—“it might ease the tensions here if you did.”
    “You understand, don’t you?” Lillian shone her baby blue eyes at Cassie in what was supposed to be a winning manner but only wounded Cassie more. “Mom and I, we don’t want to bore you silly with our wedding talk. We’re only thinking of you, really.”
    She shouldn’t feel so hurt. After all, only an hour ago she’d been complaining about her family to Kirk, had even contemplated moving out to preserve her sanity. Now, it seemed her mom and sister felt the same way.
    “We’ll still want you to come with us to all the appointments, fittings, and rehearsals,” Lillian added. “You’re still my bridesmaid.”
    Well, at least her sister still wanted her at the wedding. Probably because her bridesmaid gown was already set and couldn’t be altered in time for someone else. No, that was an unworthy thought. She had to believe her sister still had some feelings for her. Maybe this was for the best, even though it stung.
    Without a word, she got to her feet, hauled out her suitcase, and began tossing her belongings into it.
    “Should I call Mrs. Gruzman?” Audrey asked.
    “No need,” Cassie said. “I’ll move in with a friend. In fact, he already offered.”
    Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “He?”
    Cassie picked up a sweater and folded it carefully. She’d never told her mother about Kirk Rochester. When she and Kirk had met during her sophomore year, she hadn’t been on speaking terms with her mother, and later, when their relationship had thawed somewhat, she’d still kept silent about her friendship with Kirk.
    Because her mom would be all over her like a rash if she knew she was friends with one of the Rochesters. Audrey had been born into a wealthy, well-connected family. She’d been raised as an heiress, with nothing expected of her except to look and act the part. But not long before her twenty-first birthday, her father had lost his fortune to gambling and bad investments. Audrey was no longer a somebody, but she soon married an up-and-coming young lawyer, whom everyone said was going to make partner soon. Unfortunately he died before that could happen, leaving her with two young girls to raise and enough life insurance by most standards but not nearly sufficient to keep the widow in the style to which she was accustomed. Audrey Cooper’s life had been a succession of great expectations followed by great disappointments. She might have been as wealthy and influential as the Rochesters, with the same social carte blanche, but instead she was an interior decorator, working for the socialites who’d once been her contemporaries.
    So Cassie wasn’t about to tell her mom she was moving in with Kirk Rochester, the billionaire bachelor of San Francisco, or she’d incur her mother’s all-consuming curiosity and none too subtle prying.
    “He’s an old friend from college, Mom,” she said, placing the sweater in the suitcase and then shutting the lid. “The one I had dinner with tonight.”
    “Oh.” Audrey pursed her lips. “I hope he won’t expect an invitation to the wedding.”
    Cassie suppressed a wry smile. If her mom knew she was talking about Kirk Rochester, she’d hand-deliver a gilded invitation to him on bended knee.
    “No, he won’t.”
    “Anything going on between you two?” Lillian threw her a coy look.
    “No.” Cassie couldn’t help frowning at her sister. “We’re friends . Good friends.”
    Nothing had ever happened between her and Kirk…except for that one night two years ago. But that had been a terrible mistake; Kirk hadn’t even realized it was her. No, that night didn’t count. She didn’t even want to remember it.
    Lillian shrugged, off-hand, interest waning. “Sure.