Chapter 13

CASH

 

 

I’m sitting at my desk in my home office, my back to the picture-window bathing everything in light, my eyes trained on the documents in my hands.

I’ve been going over and over the same fucking report for the last hour or so, my mind constantly going to where I really want to be.

In the living room where Aria is napping on our sofa, wrapped up in her, but I can’t do that.

Since we left the ranch two days ago she has been so quiet and distant-looking.

I tried to find out what’s going on, but every time I ask, she shrugs and looks away, saying she is only tired.

But I know it’s more than that, she seems so very unhappy, there’s an air of resigned sadness about her that breaks my heart every time I look at her.

The only moments there’s no distance between us is when we are naked and fucking, but even then I can see there’s no joy in her eyes.

The wedding is set to take place tomorrow in the early afternoon.

I glance down at the signed prenup lying on my desk and I sigh, taking my head in my hands.

God, I can’t go through with this, not if it means hurting her so much in the process.

I might have been able to convince myself that I could manage to buy my own happiness, to believe the lie, but even if Aria is the only thing I want on this earth, I can’t have her like this. I can’t have my happiness if the price is hers.

I also can’t let her go, I couldn’t survive without her.

So I’m pretty much fucked.

There’s only one way to get out of this mess, but it’s fucking risky, yet there’s nothing else I could do and the risk is fucking worth it.

I have to follow Carson’s advice and try for the real thing, open my heart to her, make Aria stay because she wants to, not because she needs to.

I pick up the prenup and with a shaky breath I rent the stack of papers in two and start to get out of my chair to go wake Aria up, I need to tell her now.

I soon as I walk around my large, oak desk I hear a hesitant knock on the door and I feel a hand painfully twist around my heart: the moment of truth has just gotten a lot closer before I was ready for it.

“Come in,” I say, barely keeping my shit together.

I’ve never been this fucking nervous in my life.

Aria stands in the doorway, barefoot and wearing leggings and an oversized t-shirt, hanging off one of her creamy shoulders, her curls in a messy braid.

“Hi…” she whispers tentatively.

I look her up and down and feel such a surge of love run through me that it nearly makes me stagger back and then roots me to the spot. All the words I was going to say cramming in my chest.

God, I can’t lose her, I love her so much and I could make her so happy. I’ll do anything, anything…

“I was… I was just coming to get you, baby,” I tell her and force my legs to cooperate and bring me a little closer to her.

Aria nods, but says nothing to that. She has red-rimmed eyes and she’s looking at her tiny feet.

“Cash, I… I should have told you sooner, but this isn’t easy for me. I… I thank you for your offer, it meant the world to me, but I… I changed my mind. I can’t marry you. I won’t marry you tomorrow,” she blurts out, her voice faltering.

I feel hurt, disappointment and rage war inside of me and stalk furiously toward her, but I’m only mad at myself in the end.

“Why?” I ask harshly and it takes all my strength to muster that single word; my voice so hoarse I barely recognize it.

Aria looks up at me and I can see tears running down her cheeks, I automatically reach one hand toward her face to dry them, but she takes a step back.

“It would kill me, Cash. Staying would kill me in the end,” she says softly and I feel her words stabbing painfully at my heart with the bluntness of a dull knife.

I clear my throat and retrieve the rented pages of the prenup to show her that she is free, she owes me nothing.

“You can go and you won’t have to give up your ranch, you can have it anyway, I know what it means to you,” I manage to say, my chest constricting sorrowfully at the thought of waking up without her in my arms tomorrow.

Aria bursts into tears of what I assume is relief and starts to leave the room.

Before she reaches the door, I stride toward her again.

I will let her go even if it kills me, but I have to know one more thing first.

“Why, Aria? Why can’t you even try to like me? Am I such a monster? Why would be with me be so horrible that it would kill you? Am I so despicable?”

She takes a rapid breath.

“You don’t quite get it, Cash,” she says bitterly, new tears staining her cheeks and tugging at my heart. “It’s not that you’re despicable, it’s that you’re wonderful, just… just not in love with me. You are only after one thing. You only want my body, but I cannot stay. I could have tried, if I didn’t— but I can’t be your plaything, I’m flesh and blood, and thoughts and heart and I’m so in love with you I cannot stand to have you not loving me back. Don’t you see? I have to do this? It will be too painful to stay.”

Her big doleful eyes are gazing upon me with such an unwavering blaze of love in them, that I’m momentarily too elated and too stunned to speak.

My world stop, rewinds and starts over as soon as I see her going for the door again.

I grab her forearm and spin her around until she is looking at me and I kiss her with everything I’ve got and with all the love I feel.

Aria pushes back against my chest, breaking our connection.

“Please don’t… you’re just making things worse.”

I cup her lovely, dejected face and smile down at her.

“Do you really love me, baby?”

She gasps, breathing hard. “I do, Cash.”

I start to shake my head and chuckle. Once again I have to admit that when it comes to her I am a lucky bastard. I can’t believe this.

When I look up again, I see a flash of hurt pass through her expressive, dark eyes and I immediately realize how my reaction could look to her. After all, she is not a mind reader.

I gently pull her to me and hug her close, my head resting on top of hers.

I’m very emotional right now and not a little confused, speaking is very difficult, but I know I have to try.

I kiss her hair. “I didn’t know. I didn’t understand, Aria and the same is true for you right now: you don’t know and you don’t understand. Remember the other night when you told me your favorite flower would be a blue rose, if there were such a thing?”

“Yes,” she says against my chest, her voice muffled.

“I thought I could buy my own little slice of happiness when I saw you, but I was blind to all that you are. I’ve been looking for something as rare and pure all my life, but I didn’t think I was the kind of man who could really have it. You, baby, just proved me wrong: I’ve found a blue rose in you. I love you more than I could ever say, Aria.”

She pulls back, her eyes filled with tears. “You do?”

I smile at her. “I do. Will you marry me tomorrow, my love? I will make you the happiest woman in the world.”

She jumps up in my arms, her body wrapping around mine.

“I will, Cash, I will marry you and I will spend the rest of my life making sure you find a blue rose every step of the way.”

We meet in an unspoken kiss, lips clashing, tongue chasing, laughter bubbling around us and tears staining our faces.

“I want you, Cash,” Aria moans urgently on my mouth and before she knows what hit her, I’m pressing her against the wall, undressing her from the waist down, pulling up her t-shirt to reveal her full, naked tits and slamming my cock all the way home in a powerful upthrust that makes her pussy immediately clench, triggering the fastest climax in the history of mankind in her lovely, curvy body.

I pound her to the wall, making my framed diplomas shake all the while kissing her, her cries of pleasure devoured by my mouth as I stick my tongue as far as I can.

As she comes down from her high I start to inevitably reach mine, the contractions of her hot, tight cunt coaxing the seed from my balls.

“Fuck, love, I love you so much, so much!” I groan, speeding up my strokes.

“Oh, God, Cash, yes! I love you… I love you! Don’t stop, I want it harder and harder still!” she mewls.

I, of course, am more than happy to oblige and start to fuck her as hard as she can take and then some, my eyes riveted to the sight of her fantastic breasts jiggling up and down with every thrust of my hips.

I feel the strongest orgasm of my life, grab me by the balls and I ride it to the end, thrusting every inch of my big hard cock inside Aria’s willing pussy, until I feel my hot cum shoot out of me in thick streams and I growl, throwing my head back, emptying my seed and my soul inside of her.