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I pull him close to me and brush his hair with my hands as his eyes meet mine. “The whole time that she was sick, my father was cheating on her. And she knew it. He did it all the time. Secretaries, women he met at bars. I’m not sure if it was after she got her diagnosis that it began or if he started earlier. Like he was punishing her for dying.” Cash’s voice is laced with disgust and anger.
“You have another brother though, right?”
He nods. “Chase. Dad found a nanny to watch us…to take care of us after Mom died…and then he started screwing her. She was only seventeen. My grandparents stepped in, obtained guardianship of all of us, and sent my dad to rehab. He never forgave them; he believes they stole us from him. And now he believes I stole his right to the company. After all this time, he’s come back and thinks that he can run James Spirits.” Cash’s voice is tense. “Carter won’t fight him. He wants nothing to do with him, but he also can’t bear to fight with him. Maybe because he remembers Mom. Maybe he understands better since he went through it with Dad. And Cat was never interested in the business, but she’d take my dad down before handing over the company to him, so she asked me to do it. She and my grandparents. It’s why I’m the one in charge. I’m sure you were wondering.”
It all starts to fall into place. The tremendous pressure he’s under, the reason why he’s leading the company, and the begrudging interest he’s shown in all of it. “You didn’t want any of this,” I say, not in question.
Cash looks at me, really looks at me, as if he’s begging me to take it all away. To bring back his mother, to allow him to be the irresponsible boy, to stay here with him and make it all better. And I want to, but I also know that I can’t.
“So, what is your father’s plan?”
“I’m not sure. That’s why my grandmother wanted me to settle down. We don’t need bad publicity. We need to show the companies we are trying to partner with, the Sintacs of the world, that we are a good bet. My grandparents managed to keep my dad’s misdeeds out of the press. But how long until a juicy story like that sells if he sticks around? I promised my grandfather I wouldn’t let the company end up in Dad’s hands, or worse, end up a victim of the gossip rags and tank our investments. So that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Understanding overwhelms me. He needs stability. He needs someone to guide him through all of this. Someone who isn’t complicated, who doesn’t have that baggage that I do. Cash believes that I’m the one to walk through this storm with him, but I’ll only attract more lightning.
“So, you’re getting a divorce,” Cash says as he rubs his hand up and down my arm in a reassuring manner.
My eyes feel heavy from all the alcohol Tessa and I imbibed today, followed by the hours of dancing and then lovemaking with Cash. But I can’t possibly fall asleep. I will my eyes to stay open so that I can soak up every minute with Cash. I know they’re limited.
“Yes,” I reply, sighing against his chest. Just a few more minutes. That’s all I need is a few more minutes of this fantasy.
Cash kisses my forehead. “What happened?”
I shake my head against his chest. “I’m not what you need right now, Cash. You can pull the plug on the matchmaking thing and decide you don’t want to settle down right now, but it still won’t change that we can’t be together. Not right now. Not when the entire business community is watching your every move.”
Cash tenses below me. “This is my personal life. I don’t give a shit what people think.”
I try hard not to laugh, but it comes out just the same. “That’s incredibly naïve.”
I expect Cash to let go of me. To drop my arm, remove himself from my body, and get angry. But he does just the opposite. He pulls me closer and angles our bodies so we are facing one another, nose to nose. “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”
I stare at him defiantly. “If you know what I’m doing then let me do it. It’s for your own good, Cash.”
“Just like when you lied to me and told me you were in a happy marriage? That was good for me?”
I blow out a breath and pull my hands over my breasts, suddenly feeling as naked as I am. “I never lied to you, Cash. I never told you I was happy. I told you I was married. Which I am. I told you that you knew nothing about my marriage, which you didn’t. And I told you that I was almost happy.”
He scoffs at me. “Right, you’ll be happy when I find a wife. Those were your exact words, I believe.”
Cash’s eyes flash in pain, and the hurt I’m causing is on every inch of his face. I want to kiss away the tension to ease his mind and make him smile like he was earlier when we were in the shower.
Tentatively, I reach out my hand to his face and smooth out the lines around his eyes. He leans into my hand and closes them. “Cash, I told my husband that we needed to fake a happy marriage until this contract was over. Until I found you a wife. So yes, I believed that once you were settled, I would get my promotion and could quietly divorce Steven. I’ll be rid of him and his philandering ways and I can start over. That will genuinely make me happy. Don’t you get that?”
Cash eyes me. “So we find me a fake relationship for a bit, you get your promotion and divorce, and then we ride off into the sunset together.”
The way he says it, with so much hope and sincerity, really shows his age. Nothing is that simple. “Cash, we don’t live in a romance novel. This isn’t some fake dating rom-com that will tie up all the loose strings and turn into a beautiful blanket. This is messy, and with your career you can’t be involved with messy. Can you imagine if the press gets wind that you’re fake dating someone so that I can get a divorce? You’ll be painted as the one who was cheating with the married woman. I’ll be pinned as the woman who slept with her client and couldn’t even set up a real relationship, so I had him fake them. Eventually we’ll hate each other when it all falls apart. I don’t want that for us.” I meet his eyes and try to impress upon him the real-life complications.
Cash rolls his eyes. “So what’s the alternative? I date someone for real. I fall in love with someone else and you get a divorce, and we both wonder for the rest of our lives if we’re with the wrong person? Is that what you want?”
I let out a long sigh. “None of this is what I want. You have to know that. You can’t be with me and save your family’s company. It is one or the other. Right now, I don’t have anything to give you.”
Cash grunts in frustration. “Don’t say that, Grace. We can make this work.”
I bite my lip, scared to get my hopes up. Hope is the most dangerous thing. It costs next to nothing but can cost you everything. But since I met him, Cash has given it to me freely.
Sensing my hesitation, he leans down and kisses me, his tongue snaking its way into my mouth.As if he believes that his touch, or his tongue, could change my mind. That our sex could rewrite the future.
I know better. Even only a few years older, I’ve seen the cruelty of love and the impossibility of working in this city under a microscope. We don’t have a shot, and I’d rather be the woman that slipped through his fingers than the one who tore his world down brick by brick by staying. I won’t be the one who destroys him.
