Chapter 32 – Cooper
Chapter Thirty-Two
Cooper
“ Y ou brought it, right?” I ask my mother for the millionth time since I walked into my place before dinner.
Dinner was a fucking disaster. Beau spent the entire meal pretending like I didn’t exist, making conversation with everyone at the table but me. Obviously, he was still mad. I can’t say that I blamed him, but it made for an awkward dinner for the rest of us. Momma eventually got sick of it and declared dinner over. We all grabbed dessert to go and went our separate ways.
“Yes, son. It’s nicely wrapped on the kitchen counter right next to the roses you ordered for her.” She pats my cheek softly as I grasp her hand and help her out of my truck.
Beau took everyone else back to the arena to grab Alise’s car. Apparently, everyone is having a birthday sleepover at Beau’s house. Better him than me. I can’t wait to have some alone time with my girl.
“Sorry, Momma. I’m just nervous.” I wrap her arm around mine before pushing the door shut and heading toward the lobby entrance.
“It’s okay, my sweet boy. I understand your nerves, but you have nothing to worry about. Ramona is going to love it.” The minute she presses the button, the elevator doors open immediately. The minute the doors closes, my mind spins out of control.
After what happened with Annamarie earlier at the arena, I’m second-guessing all of my plans for Beauty and me. I never thought anyone would go as far as trying to hurt Darius to get closer to me. Annamarie is crazy, but not the average unpredictable crazy you hear about in the tabloids. She’s the scary kind of crazy. The kind of crazy that people don’t know about until that person does something horrible to someone. It isn’t until after that fact everyone learns about what that sick and twisted person is really capable of.
I have every intention of calling Henry first thing in the morning to let him know what his daughter’s been up to for lord knows how long, but will that be enough to stop her? Did my words about being in love with Ramona get through to her, or did I just set us up for even more heartache?
“I hope so.”
A soft ding fills the car, signaling that we’ve arrived at Beau’s floor. “I know so. Now give your momma a kiss and stop worrying.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I lean down and press a soft kiss to her cheek before she steps off the elevator.
I hold the door-open button down, watching her slowly make her way to Beau’s door before using her key to enter. She gives me a quick wave before heading inside.
Is this even a good idea? The ache in the center of my chest that has been dormant since I met Beauty springs to life. This is going to be my dad all over again, isn’t it? Annamarie is going to take her away from me and Darius because I’ve been too selfish to let her go.
You have to let her go. “I don’t want to,” I croak, gripping at my Henley and pulling it away from my neck. I gasp loudly, trying to will air into my lungs as the panic takes hold.
You have to let her go. You have to let her go. You have to let her go.
The words keep playing over in my head as my back slams into the walls of the elevator. I can’t. I won’t. I need her. I love her. But can I keep her safe? I want to believe that I can, but if Annamarie convinced a child to injure Darius for a fucking PlayStation 5, what lengths won’t she be willing to go to get Ramona out of her way? I’d never be with her, but Ramona would still be gone. And it would be all my fault.
My body slides down to the floor of the elevator. Every possibility of what Annamarie might do to the people I love for a chance to be with me, one horror after the other, runs through my mind on a movie reel. Bile bubbles in my throat as I lean forward, pressing my hands to the floor. Beads of sweat dot my forehead as my eyes snap shut, my lips moving slightly as I slowly count backward from ten in my head. I continue counting, willing my body to calm down, only getting to three before sucking in a gasping breath.
“Fuck. Cooper!”
My head snaps up, and I come face to face with my beauty, her worry for me written all over her face. She falls to the floor, tears streaming down her face as she looks me over, trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. I want to tell her I’m fine, but I don’t want to lie to her. But what else can I tell her? The truth? That Annamarie is a lunatic that’s trying to get between us because she has some deluded idea that she and I are meant to be together? I should, but I want one more night. One more night to let her know exactly how I feel about her before she leaves me for good.
“Everything is going to be okay, Cooper. Just breathe with me.” She helps me ease back on my knees, placing my hand in the center of her chest. She counts backward from ten, asking me softly to continue to breathe with her. My heart eventually slows, and the panic recedes.
I blink a few times and take in my surroundings. The door alarm is ringing loudly as the door to the elevator sits open. I don’t even remember the elevator arriving on my floor, but I guess Ramona was waiting for something when I arrived and pulled the emergency stop button.
I don’t want to do this, but it’s the right thing to do. I need to think of what’s best for someone else and not my selfish needs if I’m going to save her. “We need to break up.”
She flinches away from me. “What?”
“We need to break up. It’s the only way I know to protect you.”
She flinches away from me, grasping at her heart as if it is shattering into a million pieces, just like mine. “Why? What are you protecting me from?”
I open my mouth to respond before a strange voice fills the elevator. “Is everything okay? We had an alert that someone had pulled the emergency stop button.”
“Everything is fine. I slipped and pulled the alarm by accident on the way down,” I say, pushing to my feet and reaching my hand out to her.
She eyes it wearily before taking it and climbing to her feet but immediately drops it. “I’ll see you inside,” she whispers, turning to head toward my front door.
“Do you need medical attention?”
“No, I’m fine. Just clumsy.”
“Very well, sir. We’ll reset everything from here. Have a lovely evening.”
“Thanks,” I grunt, moving slowly toward my place.
Beauty left the door wide open, no doubt more focused on trying to make heads or tails of my declaration than safety. I push the door closed behind me to find her sitting on the bench at the end of the entryway, her eyes focused on the floor.
“Beauty,” I whisper, pressing her chin to force her to look at me. Tears stream down her cheeks, but she doesn’t say a word. “She’s going to hurt you and Darius. There’s no way there will be anyone else for me, but she won’t listen to reason.”
“Who the fuck is she ?” She smacks my hand away from her face as she pushes to her feet. Ramona shoves me hard in the chest, and I stumble backward. “Am I the other fucking woman or something?”
I grip her hands in mine and pull her into my chest. She thrashes in my arms, slamming her fist against my chest before all the fight drains out of her and she drops to the floor. I follow her, pulling her into my lap and rocking her back and forth. Painful sobs rack her body as I try to find the right things to say to her. The best way to explain what has happened in the last couple of hours.
“Annamarie. She’s fucking delusional and believes we belong together. I just found out that her dad is the owner of my team, and she’s been manipulating him to get closer to me. But she didn’t count on you.”
“What?” She sniffles, tilting her chin to look up at me. There is so much pain and heartache in her eyes that I put there.
“Annamarie cornered me in the locker room. She has been playing games since I stepped back into Redwood Falls. The only reason I was ever there was because of her.”
“That fucking bitch! Alise and I have been trying to tell everyone she was nuts, but no one wanted to listen. She’s good at hiding that shit, but we knew it was there.”
Beauty climbs out of my lap and to her feet, pacing back and forth as she tries to make sense of what I just told her. “Now, what are we going to do about it?”
“What do you mean? I told you. We need to break up so she’ll leave you alone.” I push to my feet and move toward her, my hand itching to be wrapped around her. I want to commit every part of her to memory because this will probably be the last time I’m able to hold her like this.
Ramona holds her hands up in front of her, halting my movements. “Oh, no. No, no. We don’t give Crazy what she wants. You are not breaking up with me, Cooper Hendrix.”
“But it’s the only way I can protect you.”
“Stop with all the ‘protecting me’ bullshit. We’re in this together, Cooper. I love you too much to leave you high and dry to take care of her crazy ass on your own.”
My brain short circuits as I try to process what she just said. “What?”
She whips around, her hands pressed firmly to each of her hips. “Are you even fucking listening to me? I’m not leaving you alone to deal with Crazy.”
I stride toward her, wrapping my arms tightly around her waist. My heart feels like it's going to beat out of my chest as it bangs against my rib cage. I’ve been so terrified of how she was going to react when I told her I was in love with her, it didn’t even cross my mind that she might also feel the same way about me. But I need to be sure that’s what she means because I was prepared to let her go when she had no idea how I felt about her, but now, knowing she might feel the same way, I feel invincible.
“Before that?” I smile down at her, leaning in and hovering my lips over hers.
Her knees weaken, her entire body turning to jelly as she sinks into my arms. Her fingernails dig into my skin as she searches my face for something. “The part where I said I loved you?”
“Yeah, that.” I brush my lips against hers, her entire body shivering in my arms. “But you”re missing the part where I said that I loved you, too, Beauty. So very much.”
We stumble backward, her knees hitting the small bench against the wall, and they buckle. I twist my body to the side, my butt landing on the plump cushion. Ramona straddles me, her knees pressing into my hips as she rolls her pussy slowly across my cock. My eyes roll into the back of my head as it slams against the wall. Pure pleasure spreads through my body, on the edge of coming in my pants like a teenager.
“I love you,” she whispers, ripping her shirt over her head and tossing it to the ground.
I run my hands up her bare legs, realizing for the first time what she isn’t wearing. I grip her ass tightly in my palms, dragging a moan from her lips as I grind her down onto my cock.
“I love you so fucking much, Beauty,” I grit out between clenched teeth as I push to my feet and storm toward my bedroom. I need so much more space for what I want to do to my beauty but not before sending up a silent prayer of thanks that I fell head over heels in love with a stubborn woman.
When the elevator door opened, I was ready to tell the love of my life we couldn’t be together, but now I know she loves me almost as much as I love her. I don’t think life can ever get better than this.