Page 67 of Beg for You

I followed, cool night air hitting me. It did nothing to cool the heat burning and prickling my skin. After shutting the doors behind me, I leaned against the glass and waited.

Her hands went to the railing, her back to me, her profile to the side. The breeze ruffled her hair, messing up the perfect style. I preferred it that way.

I preferred it spread on my pillow.

Moving up behind her, I crowded her smaller frame, hands going to the railing either side of her but didn’t touch her. “Well, Cassandra?” I said, purposely using her full name, my heart pounding in my chest.

She spun to face me. “Don’t call me that,” she whispered, so quiet her words were snatched by the breeze, but I heard them.

The first time she came into my shop she said the same thing, only it was Cassy she didn’t like. Her big blue eyes were looking up at me, filled with hurt and sadness and fear. Shit, I had to fight the urge to reach out and touch her, to soothe that look in her eyes. Fuck, I needed to rub the pain building in the middle of my own chest just looking at her.

Not fake. Not a lie.

My gut, the fucking clawing in the center of my chest was screaming that I was seeing the real Cassy. I gritted my teeth as her scent invaded my head, as images flashed through my mind of her looking down at the design I’d drawn for her ink, the tear sliding down her cheek, the way she’d looked in my bed, the smiles, the warmth she’d given me.

She’s engaged to someone else, asshole.

It didn’t matter what I thought I saw. There was another man’s diamond on Cassy’s finger.

Her breathing had quickened, color high, and, shit, her nipples were hard little peaks against the silk of her dress. She was turned on. She still wanted me.

I’d expected anger from her when she led me out here. I deserved it. I hadn’t let myself hope for anything else.

“You still want me…don’t you, Princess?” There was a rawness to my voice I had no control over, and she flinched. “You’re good, I’ll give you that. You have everyone down there fooled”—I took her chin between my thumb and finger, tilting her head back—“but you can’t fake away how hot you still are for me, can you, Cassandra?”

She didn’t pull away, or shove me off. She met my eyes, a desperate need in them that made me fucking dizzy with hope.

I searched those blue eyes, but I couldn’t read her.

“You’re wrong,” she said finally. “About what’s going on here.”

God, I wanted that to be true. “Enlighten me,” I bit out.

“Yes, I agreed to marry Spencer—”

I growled hearing his name on her tongue. I couldn’t stop myself.

She licked her lips, and the strength needed to stop myself from leaning in and doing the same to that perfect mouth was immense.

“I agreed to marry him to save my father from financial ruin. I don’t love him. I have never loved him. In fact, I despise him.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I thought you and I…I thought…then I found those newspaper clippings.” She shook her head and several strands of pale blond hair came loose, drifting around her face with the breeze. “There was no reason for me to fight it, to refuse.”

Now it was my turn to jolt.

Her fingers curled around my forearm and I sucked in a sharp breath through my nose.

“It’s true.”

“No one would do that. No one would sacrifice themselves like that, not even for family,” I said and pulled away, striding to the other end of the balcony, heart in my throat.

“Are you telling me you wouldn’t for Dane, for Bull?”

“It’s not the same—”

“I owe my father,” she whispered. “I owe him a life.”

I froze. “What?”

“I knew Chris was using drugs, I knew he was getting into trouble, and I kept it to myself. I thought I could help him…save him. Because of me the opposite happened.”