Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 144435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
I wait for him to say it back…but he doesn't.
He drifts off to sleep, curled around me like a living blanket.
Then and only then do I realize that he never said it. He demanded I say it over and over again…but he didn't say it back. Not even once.
Does…does he not feel the same way?
A thousand doubts rush in all at once, knocking chinks in my armor. My mom's voice, the vitriol I've tried to block out for most of my life, rushes through those chinks like an evil wind, tainting everything.
Don't be so naïve, Cassiopeia. Real life isn’t a fairytale.
Men don't fall in love with mouthy women, Cassiopeia.
I don't want to believe her. I don't. But…he didn't say it back.
Why didn't he say it back? He said he wants me. That I make this place come alive for him. That I'm beautiful. But he never said one word about how I make him feel.
No one will ever love you the way you are, daughter.
Tears slip from the corners of my eyes, making silent tracks down my cheeks. I'm not sure what hurts worse. The fact that maybe my mom was right after all…or the fact that I think I still would have given Cord my heart anyway. Even knowing that he doesn't love me back, I still wouldn't have changed a single moment of the last few days.
But I can't stay here anymore. I don't want my last memory of him to be of him telling me goodbye. I don't want to have to hear him say the words that shatter me. If I have to spend the rest of my life without him, I want my last memory of him to be of tonight. Of him making love to me. Maybe that way, when I'm old and gray and dying alone, I can pretend for just a minute that he loved me too. I can pretend that, for once, I knew real love.
Chapter Ten
CORD
"Cam!" I shout, stomping across the resort toward my brother.
He lifts his head from the bags in his hands, meeting my gaze. I don't even ask whose shit he's carrying. I'm guessing it belongs to Cassia's friend, Paige. She's been camping on his property the last few days. His pale green eyes seem lighter than they have in a long time.
I'm guessing I have Cassia's friend to thank for that. I know a man in love when I see one, and my brother has the same look on his face that I see every damn time I look in the mirror. It looks good on him.
It feels like hell on me this morning.
"Where are they?" I growl. Last night, my pretty baby told me she loved me. This morning, I woke up to find her missing. When I get my hands on her, I'm spanking her ass. I don't know what possessed her to leave, but I intend to get to the bottom of it now. She's mine. She doesn't get to say she loves me and then walk out of my life. Whatever spooked her, we're settling it right now. The only place I want her running is into my arms.
"Second cabin on the left," Cam mutters. "She's been crying."
That stops me dead in my tracks. Cassia doesn't cry. She gets sassy and mouthy and raises hell, but she doesn't cry, at least not that she'll ever admit. What the fuck happened?
"Thanks," I say to my brother, hurrying toward the cabin to find out what the fuck is going on and why she left in the middle of the night. I know damn well that's what she did because no one saw her leaving this morning. I want to spank her for that alone. Anything could have happened to her out there. If it had, I'd never get over it, never get over her.
That wild woman is my soul. Spending the day looking for Hamburger yesterday was long enough without her. I won't spend the rest of my life without her in my arms. I wouldn't survive it. If something happened to her…Christ, I can't even think about something happening to her. My heart twists in my chest, my guts filling with acid.
Why'd she run? The fact that she's been crying worries the hell out of me. Cassia's one of the strongest people I've ever met. Her mother put her through hell growing up, and she still came out one of the sweetest, most selfless people I know. She didn't let it harden her heart or turn her bitter. She didn't let it break her.
Instead, it forged her little spine from steel, turned her into a warrior for good. This world is a better place because people like Cassia exist in it. She throws her whole heart and soul into everything she does, holding nothing back. She loves with everything in her. That takes a kind of strength most people don't comprehend, let alone possess.