Chapter Nine

 

I did think about what Sal and Gio had said to me. All day Sunday my conversation with them was the only thing I could think about. I stayed inside, ignored the chiming of text messages on my phone as well as the few times it rang. I stayed in my pajamas all day and watched TV, though I had no idea what I watched. I basically stared at the damn thing blankly while mulling everything over in my head. I understood what they were trying to tell me but wasn’t sure that it could apply to me.

By Sunday night I made up my mind. I knew what I was going to do.

Cash was too good of a guy to have to deal with my brand of crazy. He shouldn’t have to. He liked to joke that his family was nuts, but he truly had no idea what crazy really looked like.

He deserved normal.

Something I was absolutely positive I would never be.

Around nine that night, I finally picked up my phone and pressed his name. When this was over, I’d have to delete his contact because it would be crushing to see it on my favorites list every time I used the fucking phone.

“Hey.” He sounded relieved when he answered the phone. “You OK?”

“I’m wondering if I can see you tomorrow?”

He let out a short breath. “Of course. Does after dinner work? I’m supposed help my dad on the farm. I can get out of it if you need me sooner.”

“After dinner works.” It gives me all day to freak out. No big deal.

We fell silent. There was the faint sound of a door closing on his end, but I didn’t know what that was. Had he been out? What had he been doing? The desire to know everything about him had not diminished, but I felt like I didn’t have the right to ask, given what was happening between the two of us right then.

“Gemma… ” His voice brought me right back to reality. “I can come over right now. Let me come over right now.”

I didn’t want to say yes, yet I wanted to see him.

What I wanted was to have another day to pretend that things would be fine, but I didn’t think that was in the cards. Probably better to get it over with so I didn’t wimp out or have another panic attack.

“Gemma?” he asked again, quieter this time. “Come on, Gemma. Talk to me.”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Today or tomorrow this had to happen. I supposed there was no point in waiting.

So I gave in. “Ok. Can you come over?”

As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back. Maybe I could do this over the phone and not have to see his beautiful face. Alas, it was too late.

“I’m already on my way. Give me ten minutes.”

I nodded, which, of course he couldn’t hear, squeaked out a quick affirmation, and hung up my phone.

We hadn’t been together long, this I knew, but the idea of him not being in my life sucked giant monkey balls.

Those were the fastest ten minutes of my life because when he knocked on the door, I so wasn’t ready to break my heart. I still hadn’t gotten dressed, my hair was down—brushed but not done—and I didn’t have a speck of makeup on.

He’d never seen me like this.

It didn’t matter at that point.

“Hey,” he said, stepping through the door almost as soon as I opened it.

I shut it behind him softly.

“I can’t see you anymore.” There, I said it.

He was four steps inside my house and I’d gotten it out. Couldn’t act quicker than that.

Cash’s face went from concern to something else in seconds. He looked pissed. But beyond that, he looked confused.

Why wouldn’t he be?

I never seemed to make any sense with regular people, but it was so much worse with him. He flustered me. My feelings for him were confusing and frustrating, though I could’ve worked up to telling him my decision, But no. I’d blurted it out there like I always seemed to do when he was around.

“What?” he asked.

He’d known this was coming. It was written all over his face, but clearly, he didn’t want to believe it, which made me feel guilty.

Maybe he thought if I saw him, I’d change my mind. He wasn’t far off, which was why I’d needed to say it the moment he was inside. I could only hope that he’d eventually understand I was doing this for him and couldn’t be selfish anymore.

Cash was normal and I shouldn’t fuck him up.

“You know what I’m saying. Cash, I’m not the girl for you. She’s out there and she’s not me. You need someone normal. Someone you won’t have to apologize for to your mother.”

Because that day would come, I could feel it in my bones. Sure, I’d done fine the first time, but eventually, someone would find out about my past or I’d do something stupid and that would be that.

His eyes lit on fire as he looked at me. His jaw turned to granite.

“I don’t need to apologize to her for you,” he said through clenched teeth before relaxing his mouth. “Look, I don’t know why you’d think that. My parents loved having you at the house.”

“Just… trust me. This is for the best. You don’t really know me.”

He needed to get a handle on this and leave. I was about to crack wide open. It wouldn’t take that long because out of everything I’d done in my life… this was the hardest.

“I know you,” he said.

“Not really.”

And that was my fault. I’d only let him in so far and I knew that I couldn’t have a real relationship with someone I wasn’t willing to tell the truth to. Cash took a step toward me and I let him take my hands in his because I couldn’t not touch him one more time.

Even I deserved that.

“Then tell me. Tell me everything, Gemma.” He was pleading with me.

I hadn’t expected pleading. It didn’t take much effort to wilt my resolve.

“I won’t run off just because you say something ugly.”

“No.” I snapped my hands away. There were things I promised myself I’d never tell anyone about. “I don’t want to see how you’d look at me after hearing it. Look, I’ve done things, leave it at that. Things that make me an inappropriate choice for you.” I sighed, trying to fight back my tears. “You’re a good guy. The best. And you deserve the best girl.”

“I’m trying to keep the best girl right now.”

I was already shaking my head, which seemed to be pissing him off. I could see him struggling to keep his anger contained while it was brimming right there under the surface.

“I love you, Gemma. There, I’ve said it. I fucking love you.” His voice cracked, as did my heart. “And I didn’t tell you before because I knew it’d scare the shit out of you. Now I’ve got nothing to lose.”

“You don’t love—”

“Don’t you dare try to tell me how I feel,” he yelled, causing me to take a step back.

That anger I saw moments ago was no longer under control.

But he didn’t scare me.

There had been people who, when angry, scared the living shit out of me. Like my mother. That wasn’t the case with Cash.

“Well, stop loving me then,” I snapped back, but he dug in.

He steeled himself. I could see it in his muscles, in his face, in the way he was holding himself. His spine went rigid, he stood taller. He was pushing me. Pushing me toward all the things I didn’t want him to know about me. But telling him would be the best way to get him to understand why he needed to leave me in the rearview as he drove away.

“I’ve never had sex just because I wanted to.” I slapped my hands over my mouth. I couldn’t believe those words had fallen out of my mouth. I’d opened a can of worms and I knew Cash wasn’t going to let it go.

I’d fucked myself even more.

“What the hell does that mean?” His eyes softened along with his tone. It was pretty clear what he was thinking. Even though I’d already denied it before, it had still been there lingering in his mind. “If you haven’t had sex because you wanted to, then who wanted you to?”

“My parents.”

Now his face contorted with confusion.

Shit, shit, shit.

His mouth opened and closed like a fish, like he was trying to figure out what to say, but what was there to say?

And since I’d backed myself into a corner, I knew I had to tell him everything. Waving my hand toward the chair across from my couch, Cash took the offer and fell into it. He looked like he needed to take a load off, but I couldn’t sit down. There was too much energy running through me.

“My parents owned The Trinity Corporation,” I said, as if it explained everything when in reality it explained nothing.

He nodded because of course he already knew that.

“But Gio, Sal, and I—”

Cash’s eyes snapped up to mine, effectively cutting me off. I didn’t like the anger I saw there. Or maybe I did because I was pretty sure it wasn’t directed at me.

“They made you three… ”

Oh, man, gross. That thought made me queasy.

“No. Not that. Although if they had the idea it’d make them money, maybe they would have.”

He didn’t find that funny, even if, with my darker sense of humor, I sort of did.

“Starting when Sal was fifteen, they had us working for them. But not the way you’d think.” I took a deep breath. “When they found a place they wanted to buy and the owner didn’t want to sell, they’d send one of us in, whoever was appropriate for the situation.” I wet my lips. This was easier than I expect but probably only because I thought telling him would chase him away, which was what I needed to happen. “To… um… ingrain ourselves into their lives to gain inside information and use whatever influence we had to get them to accept an offer. It was so shady. But now they’re in prison.”

“Ingrain yourself how?”

Damn it, I had been hoping he’d let that go. Cash sat all the way back in the seat, but before I could answer, he slid to the edge, dropping his elbows to his knees and letting his hands go limp in front of him. He was feeling cagey. I knew that feeling well; I could easily see it in others.

“Basically be whatever they wanted. Most of the time… ” Another deep breath to steel my nerves. “We had to seduce them.”

He’d known the answer before I’d said it. Trying to be discreet, I wiped tears off my cheeks. This was exactly what I didn’t want. I didn’t want him to look at me the way he was.

Like I was damaged. Like I’d never be normal.

All that concern and pity was disheartening. I didn’t need anyone’s pity. I wanted him to leave, but not after seeing me for what my mother had created.

“Hey,” Gio said suddenly in my living room. I hadn’t even heard the door open.

And he wasn’t alone. It was like the four of them moved as a pack. One unit.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, hoping the wetness on my cheeks had either dried or wasn’t noticeable.

“We got home and heard some yelling. Everything all right?” Gio eyed me cautiously, then did the same thing to Cash.

“Fucking fantastic,” Cash replied.

It was like I heard the truth click in each of their heads.

“Trying to convince your sister not to break up with me.”

“You don’t really want to do that, do you?” Bailey asked.

I knew it then. I knew they were trying to help, but the pressure was building in my chest and I felt like I was about to explode.

I needed them all gone.

I needed to finish this with Cash and bury myself under the blankets lying on my bed. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and spit out the one thing I thought would get them all out of my face.

“I lost my virginity when I was eighteen because my parents made me. It was for a job.” Swallowing hard, I watched Cash’s face go through so many different emotions, the biggest being confusion. “He was thirty and the year before had inherited a business my parents wanted. He liked… younger girls, so my parents sent me in to pretend to be sixteen. I cried the entire time. He thought it was from pain. But I wanted to die. I’d never be able to actually kill myself, but if I would’ve been taken right then… ” I swallowed hard and tried to shake it off. “I would have thanked him for it.”

It wasn’t the ugliest truth I had, but it was one of the most painful ones.

I’d been so focused on Cash that I’d forgotten the others were still in the room until I glanced over my right shoulder in time to see Gio punch the wall near the front door, cracking the wood, then exiting, Bianca right on his heels.

At the same time Sal disappeared, leaving Bailey watching us with raised eyebrows.

Until there was a deafening crash in the kitchen that made us both jump and snapped us out of this weird limbo we’d been in.

Bailey jolted, then turned on her heel and ran into the kitchen to find Sal.

It was only seconds later that I heard my back door slam.

If I was good at one thing, it was clearing a room.

One more person to go.

“Gemma, I’m so confused right now.” He looked it too as he dropped his weight back into the chair.

I shouldn’t have blurted it out. What else should I have expected to happen?

“Stop looking at me like that.” I rubbed up and down my arms as I paced. Cash Waterford seeing me differently was exactly what I’d wanted, but seeing the change made me itchy. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you!”

“Your parents made you… ” Cash mulled it all over in his head.

“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t my idea. And it was only the first in a pretty significant line of shitty things I had to do, Cash.”

“Did you get anything out of it at all? Like any… pleasure?” He was probably asking if I’d enjoyed it, if I’d had an orgasm with the guys I’d been with.

Probably normal curiosity as his brain tried to make sense of all of this.

“No. Aren’t you listening to me? Like at all? I was basically a prostitute that wasn’t paid. Or I guess I did get paid because my parents supported me.” I was crying freely again, the wetness running down my cheeks quickly. “The guys got what they wanted and our parents got what they wanted.”

“And you never got what you wanted?” He stood up from the chair.

“Cash. It wasn’t about me.”

He was focusing on the wrong thing here. And how he could be showing concern for me after what I’d told him was beyond me. He stood there far too calmly for the firestorm of crap that was burning me up on the inside.

Why wasn’t he recoiling? Or leaving? Or something.

“So these assholes took what they wanted.” It wasn’t a question. It was sort of like he was trying to reconcile everything I’d already said to him. “I’m trying to figure out what that means.”

“It means what it sounds like!” I yelled. I wasn’t yelling at him—I was yelling at the world.

And it felt wonderful. I always kept everything inside. Letting it out for once took a weight off my shoulders. I hadn’t told anyone this stuff.

“It means if they wanted sex, they got sex. Even if the guy was old enough to be my father. If they wanted to get freaky, they got it, and one guy really loved that. If they wanted anal, they got that, too. Cash I’m telling you, I’m all used up. You don’t want me.”

My breathing became erratic. My chest heaved up and down as I tried to regulate the oxygen entering my body.

But his eyes were gentle, looking at me with compassion, if not understanding—not exactly the way I thought he’d see me after knowing the truth.

“You’re not, Gemma.” He pulled my hands into his again. Even when I tried to yank them away, he held firm. “Gemma, you’re not.” He took another step closer, invading my personal bubble. “I love you and I’m not going anywhere. That shit…” He took a deep breath and held it for several seconds. A vein popped from his forehead and his face was turning red. “That shit you had to endure does not mean that you’re anything other than the beautiful girl who’s so funny when she lets herself be.”

My bottom lip trembled. I had to force my mind off the idea that he was saying these things because he wanted something from me. Something I didn’t think anyone ever would. He wanted me, no matter what happened in the past. I’d give Cash pretty much anything. The fact that he wanted to be with me out of love and not what he could get me to do pushed me closer to allowing my tears to fall.

No one had wanted that before.

Cash gently pulled me with him to the couch, forcing both of us to sit. But he pulled me close so he could wrap both of his arms around me tightly. I felt safe. I felt comfortable. I laid my head against his chest and I cried.

Like a baby with huge, ugly, crocodile tears.

It had to be unattractive, but still, he held me and kissed the top of my head a couple of times while telling me that everything was going to be OK. He’d also rub up and down my arm when I cried the hardest.

I hadn’t let go like that ever over anything. Even when I’d had to do the disgusting things I didn’t want him to know about. I’d numbed myself to what men did to my body and I couldn’t do it anymore. Right then I needed it. I needed to let the years of bullshit go.

Once I could calm myself down again, I sat up straighter. I’d let my emotions run wild for too long with him on that couch.

“You OK?” he asked quietly.

The room was almost dark. I’d only turned a couple of lights on when he’d come over.

I shrugged. “Probably not.”

Would I be all right? The jury was still out.

“Have you thought about talking to someone about all this?” he asked.

I turned toward him, then cringed at the idea of him seeing me this way. Right away I moved away, but he grabbed my chin between his thumb and finger, forcing me to keep still. Suggesting I see a therapist was probably in my best interest.

“I’ve never thought about telling anyone any of this, including you,” I said.

“I want you to talk to me about everything, understand? I don’t mean I’m going to force you to. I mean that you can talk to me about anything. But you might want to think about seeing someone who can help you, Gemma. I just want you to be OK with you.” Cash took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly. “I also want to go on a murderous rampage across the United States right now, killing every motherfucker who took advantage of you. So if I feel like that, I can only imagine how you feel.”

I didn’t think I had any more tears and yet… a few more started to eke their way down my face. I hadn’t cried this much about being used for sex in a long time. Not since my second job.

By then I’d resigned myself to my lot in life. Being used like a whore while pretending to be a good girl. Actually, I’d lost my virginity three times as far as the guys had been concerned.

“Sal and Gio found their way through all the crap using Bailey and Bianca’s magical vaginas,” I said.

He snorted, but I was still crying—mostly because the tears wouldn’t stop.

“But I don’t like vaginas.” I wish that would have come out like the joke the way I’d intended it to be. Instead, the words sounded serious and whiny.

“That’s good because I don’t have one.” His eyes dropped from mine to my lips, then came back. “I want to kiss you, Gemma. Would that be all right? Because I won’t do it if you say no.”

Even with my snotty nose, red eyes, and dry, cracked lips, Cash still wanted to kiss me. Even knowing I’d been a different kind of girl in my previous life, he still wanted to touch me. Who was I to keep him from doing that? So I nodded.

He kissed me exactly the same as he had before. It was as if nothing I’d said to him had changed how he felt about me. It couldn’t be true, of course. How could someone still love a person who’d done the things I had?

“Oh, man.” I pulled back to his surprised face and still-puckered lips. “You said you love me.”

“I did.” He smiled back at me. A confident, cocky little grin that said he remembered every word he’d said.

“I… I… ”

“No. Stop. You don’t need to say it back, Gemma. I know how you feel about me and even if you might not love me yet, I think you will. And I want to be around for that.” He locked his lips and swallowed hard. “Can I please be around for that?”

He was asking if I was still breaking up with him. Was I? I didn’t want to chase him away. It was more that I thought he would want run away as fast as he could once he knew the real me. Who was I to tell him he had to go if he desperately wanted to stay?

I smiled and nodded, which made him pull me tightly to him and I let him hold me a while longer because being selfish was my worst quality. With Cash I was an incredibly selfish person.

Things weren’t all right even if we pretended that they were. I’d dropped a shit ton of information on him; he had to have questions, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to answer them. I needed more time.

“This is going to sound super lame,” I said about a half an hour later. I needed to be strong. “But I’m going to need some time. I think I’ve got some things to work out.”

“Time?” he asked. I nodded. “I can do that. But, Gemma, I’m not going anywhere.”