“Let me go!” I struggled to get away from Cash. As soon as he uncuffed me the next morning, I lashed out and headbutted him again. While he was holding his nose, I made a run for it. I got to the door and that was it.
Cash’s arms had locked around me and he yanked me back to the bed. “No! Stop fighting me, Clara!”
I fought for all I was worth. I flung my body back and forth and kicked my legs out and back in an attempt to kick his legs out from under him. I tried everything I could. “You’re being stupid! Let me go and I’ll fix everything. Why won’t you listen to me?”
He fell with me onto the bed and rolled on top of me. He held my wrists to the bed and looked down at me. “Because your plan is a bad one. Antonio isn’t going to let you walk back into the palace like you’re his long-lost queen. He probably already put a hit out on you. You need to realize that your best bet at staying alive and keeping Helena safe is working with me to stop Carver.”
I glared up at him and still fought. “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything. And even if he kills me, it’s not your concern. Helena would be safe!”
“No, she wouldn’t.”
I hated the way he seemed so sure of himself, like he knew more than I knew. “You’re a fucking asshole. I hate you, Cash. I don’t want to be trapped here with you!”
“You’d rather be trapped with Carver?”
I went limp under him, all of my energy spent. “Better to be with the devil I know.”
Cash let go of my arms and sat back. “What?”
“You’re no better than him right now. You’re holding me hostage and telling me what a screw up I am. You push me around and treat me like shit. You’re no better.” I was crying before I could help it. “You were never any better. There’s no wonder I was so easily taken in by Antonio. Between you and my father, I didn’t know a man could choose to be nice to the women around him.”
He sat back even farther and opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally being able to speak. “I married you when you didn’t have any other way to live. I didn’t have to do that.”
I shoved at his chest until he sat back on the bed and let me crawl away from him. “No, you didn’t. But you did. You married me and then you stopped being my best friend. You stopped being anything to me. You avoided me. You never came home. You’d be in town and never come to see me. You made me feel like the lowest piece of shit there was. That’s never changed. I had to see all the other people in town laugh at me because everyone knew you were fucking everything that moved, but me. And then you did. Tell me, Cash, how is it that a monster like Antonio can find it in himself to be gentle with me the first time and you couldn’t? How is it that a monster made me feel loved when you couldn’t?”
Feeling raw and exposed, I marched into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. There was no lock on it, but I had serious doubts about Cash wanting to come in.
I was sobbing loud enough that the couple from next door could probably hear it. There was no controlling it. Everything was out of control and I’d just shifted so much of my own blame onto Cash that I felt like I couldn’t breathe from the confusion in my head. I was angry at him, angrier than I knew. I didn’t want to put anything on him that wasn’t his fault, though. My decisions were my decisions. I left with Antonio. I did that. I got our daughter kidnapped.
It was so easy to shove some of the guilt I felt at Cash in the heat of the moment, but I didn’t actually believe anything was his fault, beyond his actions since finding me again. He’d been a victim. A victim of Antonio’s and a victim of mine.
To blame him for not showing me love was ridiculous. He’d never said he would love me. He didn’t have to. He married me at eighteen, when I was sixteen, to get me away from my father. He’d done it because I came to him with my sob story and begged him to get me away. He didn’t owe me love. He didn’t owe me anything more than doing what he’d done. He’d made sure that I didn’t have to see my father again.
I’d run into the evil old man once while pregnant with Helena, but it was the only time he’d managed to get close to me. I hadn’t seen him since. And I knew that was Cash’s doing.
Pulling myself back together, I cleaned my face and sucked in a few deep breaths. I was just reeling. Everything had changed so fast, but I could fix it. I just had to convince Cash to let me go back. I could leave Cash in the past, where he had to stay, and keep Helena safe. I didn’t know if I could survive under lock and key with Antonio for the rest of my life, or even if he’d want me back, but I had to do what I could to pay penance for all the wrong I’d done.
I opened the bathroom door and came face-to-face with Cash. He stared down at me and opened his mouth, but I shook my head. “I’m sorry. You’re not to blame for anything that happened. I messed up. No one else. That doesn’t matter, though. What matters is Helena. I can keep her safe, Cash. Just let me go back to Antonio and convince him that I’m done looking for her. He’ll forget about her eventually. I can do this. I can make it all go away.”
“No, you can’t. There are things you don’t understand. You can’t make it better.” He dropped his head and when he looked back at me, his eyes were softer than I’d seen them since we were kids. “I’m going to find a way to get Helena back to us. She’s going to need a mother. I’m not going to tell our daughter that I let you get yourself killed. You stick with me. We’ll take Carver down together.”
More tears filled my eyes, but I ignored them. “How, Cash? Antonio’s house has more security than the White House. He’s got so many men and they’re always around. He’s always carrying. Trying to take him down in a death wish. We can’t do it. You can’t do it. You don’t know him like I do. He’ll kill you in a second.”
“But I’m supposed to just let you waltz in?”
I nodded. “Whatever happens, I deserve it. I know you agree with me, Cash. I know how much you blame me for what happened to Helena and you’re right. It was all my fault. I let our daughter get taken and then I let her kidnapper take me, too. I have to be able to make it right.”
Cash braced his hands on the door, boxing me in, and lowered his face until he was looking at me eye-to-eye. “I’m going to put a bullet in Carver’s head. I’m going to end his life and make it impossible for him to hurt anyone else. You, included.”
I grabbed the front of his shirt and shook my head. “You’ll get yourself killed, Cash.”
“No, I won’t. Because I’ll have you with me. You’re going to help me get past his security and figure out when I can do it.”
I let go of his shirt and stepped away from him. “You trust me enough for that?”
He frowned, but nodded. “I don’t have a choice. You’re the only one who knows his schedule and life well enough to help me.”
“If you trust me enough to let me send you into a possible death trap, why don’t you trust me when I say that my way is better? I can get to Antonio and make him leave her alone. Why won’t you let me do it?”
“I’m not sending you to your death, Clara. And that’s what it would be.” Cash stepped away from the bathroom and looked around. “Come on. We need to get on the road. I want to catch a plane out of here soon.”
I looked at the door and debated the intelligence behind running for it again.
“Don’t do it. I don’t want to have to handcuff you to me, or put a leash on you. I will, though.”
Deflated, I gestured at my clothing. “Can I at least get a change of clothes?”
He nodded at the desk, where a bag I’d never seen before sat. “More truck stop clothing, but it’s something. I don’t know about that shower, though.”
I immediately shook my head. “I’m not showering in there.”
“Fine. Just get dressed. We need to get going.”
I changed in the bathroom, into a tight pink t-shirt, advertising Gator’s Swamp Things, and a pair of cut-off blue jean shorts that rode so high on my ass, they gave me the feeling of a permanent wedgie. I looked at myself in the mirror and grimaced before pulling my hair up into a bun and going out to face Cash.
His eyes widened slightly when he saw me.
I put my hands on my hips and scowled at him. “These are not meant for a woman, Cash. These wouldn’t fit someone without any curves. Maybe I can pick out my own clothes next time?”
He stayed quiet and nodded. He had enough brain cells to know that I wasn’t going to hear any comments from him kindly.
As if I didn’t feel ridiculous enough, we ran into the couple from the room next to us when we were leaving. Both of them looked sated and like they’d just spent a weekend getting deep tissue massages and seaweed wraps. I noticed the woman’s clothes weren’t obscenely tight on her.
The man’s eyes ran over my body in a way that made my skin crawl and the glow fade from his lady’s face. She slapped the back of his head and stormed off. The guy was too dumb to chase after her. He kept making eyes at my chest.
“Gator’s Swamp Things, huh? I’ve never been. Is it fun?”
Cash grabbed a handful of the man’s shirt and dragged him forward, so he could practically growl in his face. “Don’t say anything else. Just go.”
He backed away as soon as Cash let him go and then hurried after his mistress. I could hear him apologizing to her from where we stood.
Cash looked down at me and frowned. “We’ll stop as soon as we land to get you something different to wear.”
I almost smiled at him. “Thanks.”
He took my wrist in his hand, careful not to touch the parts that were beat up from trying to get out of his cuffs, and pulled me after him. Into the truck, out of the truck, into a plane, and then off of the plane. He really didn’t trust me not to run, clearly. Especially since we landed at a small airport a few hours away from Antonio’s house.
He was true to his word, though. He drove me into the closest city and walked me into a store to buy clothes. I managed to find jeans and a shirt that didn’t advertise anything across my chest. I changed in the dressing room after Cash paid and met him back in the store, feeling a hundred times better. I felt like myself.
The jeans fit well, the shirt fell off my shoulders in a way that made me feel good about myself. I was close to getting something under control and as simple as it was, I felt a bit better.
Walking with Cash’s hand on my wrist across the parking lot, I couldn’t help trying once more to get him to let me go to Antonio. “How about I go to Antonio now? You brought me this far. You did me that favor. Now I can go face him.”
He stopped and turned to face me in the parking lot. “I’m not letting you go.”
My cheeks heated and I rolled my eyes to hide that his words got to me. “Cash, you’re not the boss of me.”
He stepped closer to me and raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you ever listen?”
I pouted. “Yes! All the time! Do you?”
His big hand wrapped around the side and back of my neck and gently squeezed. “It’s not going to happen. Carver wants you dead. He thinks you crossed him.”
Just as I was about to ask how he knew that, his eyes squinted as he looked at something over my shoulder. After just a second, they widened and he wrapped his arms around me before spinning us and taking us both to the ground. I heard something ring out, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
I was almost convinced that it was my brain, rattling around my head from the pressure of Cash’s arms grabbing me and swinging me around. He’d landed on me and I felt like I’d been squished into nothing.
Cash was saying something to me, something important if the size of his eyes meant anything. He pulled himself up and then yanked me up after him. He held me in front of him and forced me to run to the truck. My heart was beating like a jackrabbit the whole time, but all I could think about was the fact that I was pretty sure I’d just ruined the new clothes that actually fit me.