Chapter Eighteen
Sabrina
I WALKED OUT OF CASH’S guest bath in my flannel pj’s with a clean and moisturized face to find he’d already made up his couch and, if I wasn’t mistaken, had laid a sleeping bag down near it. Was he afraid I would fall off the couch and need a safe landing? I tiptoed toward the couch, carrying my overnight bag, hardly believing I was doing this. But I needed some sleep, and I knew I would get none alone in my cottage. This wedding was exhausting me, as was this fake relationship that felt all too real. Dang sexy man.
“I’ll be right down,” Cash called out from the loft.
Uh ... “Okay.” I hurried to set my bag down and get settled under the covers on the couch. I didn’t know why I was so nervous. Nothing was going to happen between Cash and me—I was just here to catch up on some much-needed sleep. Yep, that was all. Nothing else to it. I snuggled into the blankets and rested my head on the pillow that smelled like Cash. His yummy scent filled my senses and my head with nonsense. Nonsense, like maybe one good night kiss wouldn’t hurt, even though I knew it would be excruciating when I found myself wishing for his good night kisses every night of my life. Been there, done that.
In my head, I formulated a plan to pretend to fall asleep before he came downstairs, but that went out the window when he started sauntering down the steps in my line of sight. I gripped the blankets tightly, unable to avert my gaze. Hello, pajama pants and bare chest. Holy ripples. I think I might have drooled a little on my pillow. I coughed and spluttered. “Um ... the deal was you keep your clothes on.”
Cash landed on the first floor, sexily smiling. “The deal was for me to wear underwear at all times, which I am.”
“Oh yeah,” I said so breathlessly I sounded like I was auditioning for a soap opera.
Cash chuckled and planted himself on the sleeping bag next to the couch.
“What are you doing?” I asked, breathing in his shower-clean scent and envying a few of the leftover water droplets that were making their way down his smooth, carved-to-perfection chest and those washboard abs. The urge to wipe the drops away had me clenching my fists before I did something I would thoroughly enjoy, but would most likely regret later.
“I’m watching over you.”
Why did he have to be so sweet? It made it awfully hard to hate him. “You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”
His brow quirked. “Are you offering to share the couch?”
“No,” I spluttered. “I just meant you can sleep upstairs in your bed.”
“Not happening.” He unholstered a gun from his leg and placed it on the nearby coffee table.
I stared at the gun. I knew he packed heat, but now I had proof. What else was he hiding under those pajama pants? You know what? I didn’t want to know.
Cash noticed my apprehension. “Does the gun bother you?”
“No.” I grew up in Tennessee, so I knew all about guns. Pops had even taught Lexi and me how to handle a gun properly and shoot one, but I had to wonder if the gun lying on the table had done things I would rather not know about.
“It just allows me easier access if I need it,” he explained.
I swallowed hard. “Do you think you’re going to need it tonight?”
He tapped my nose. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay,” I said, semi-relieved.
“Do you need anything? Water? Back rub?” he asked with a teasing air.
“Nice try.” I grinned.
“I gave it a shot.” He kissed my forehead, sending a wave of warmth through me. “Good night, Sabrina.”
“Good night.” I snuggled down farther, wondering now if I could sleep with him in such close proximity.
Cash stood and turned off the lights on the lower level until all that remained was the glow of a light left on in the loft.
I watched as Cash settled himself on top of the sleeping bag.
“Are you cold?” I whispered.
“No.”
“Do you want a pillow?” I couldn’t help but think he had to be uncomfortable.
Cash smiled with his eyes closed. “Believe me, I’ve slept in much worse conditions.”
“Oh. Right. Okay. Good night. Again.”
“Good night, Sabrina.”
I lay there with my eyes closed, trying to fall asleep, but the chemicals Cash had been stirring inside me all day long conquered the exhaustion. They were making me think of crazy things and long for his touch. I tossed and turned and let out an audible sigh, trying to overcome the desire bubbling up inside me.
“Are you okay?” Cash whispered.
No. No, I wasn’t. But I couldn’t tell Cash how I truly felt. Instead, I admitted something else to him. “Do you remember how you used to call me every night, even if you’d just left my place, and you’d read a poem or book to me until I fell asleep?” Oh, how I’d loved it. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me.
“Yes, of course.”
“I got so used to it, I had to get one of those apps that tells you stories, just so I could sleep. I mean, it was no you, but Harry Styles and Tom Hiddleston were decent replacements. You know who they are, right?” I wasn’t sure if Cash knew things about pop culture.
“I am aware of them.”
“That’s good,” I nervously tittered, wondering what I even wanted out of this conversation.
“Would you like me to tell you a story?” Cash offered.
Ooh. That was a thought. I turned and peered down at him. “Would you mind?” Perhaps it would help me fall asleep. Yes, that’s why I wanted to hear his gravelly, let-me-own-you voice whisper beautiful words to me. What was I thinking? I was just begging to fall in love with him again. Or admit I’d never fallen out of love with him. Which I definitely would not admit to.
His eyes met mine with such intensity, I felt it down my spine. “I wouldn’t mind at all. Do you want me to recite ‘The Lady of Shalott’ by Tennyson? You loved that one.”
“Recite? Do you know it by heart?”
“Every story I ever told you was from memory.”
Whoa. “Are you like a genius?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“What would you say?”
“That I have an above average IQ.” He grinned. “So, Tennyson?”
I shook my head. “Actually, I’d like to hear the story of how you became a spy.” I was more than curious.
Cash’s face fell.
“I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” Cash was quick to say. “It’s just that I’ve told no one that story.”
“Is it top secret?”
Cash ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. “I don’t know about that, but I doubt my director would like anyone to know how he recruits people to his organization.”
“SPI?” I laughed.
“Yes, SPI,” Cash conceded with a smile.
“So, how did he recruit you?” I desperately wanted to know.
Cash stared up at the exposed wood beam ceiling and sighed. “I haven’t thought about it in so long. I was a different person then.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I said, even though it would disappoint me if he didn’t.
Cash turned, his gaze capturing mine. “I don’t know why, but I want you to know.”
I reached my hand out to him like it would lend him some courage to confide in me, not even thinking about the consequences of my actions or how Cash would construe them. It just seemed like the right thing to do.
Cash captured my hand like I’d offered him a lifeline.
Our connection was scary good.
Cash gathered his thoughts before saying, “You asked if I was a genius. The truth is, I’m what is referred to as near genius or potential genius. It was basically all I had going for me growing up. No matter what foster care situation I found myself in, I threw myself into school, knowing it was the only way I was going to get out of the hellholes the system had placed me in.”
I let out a squeak, hating the thought of any child in a hellish situation. “What happened to you?” I couldn’t help but ask.
Cash pulled my hand to his lips and kissed it. “I don’t want to burden you with the details. It was mainly indifference and neglect. It was better than the abuse I suffered at the hands of my parents.”
Tears filled my eyes. “Cash, I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that. No one does.”
“Please don’t cry for me, Sabrina.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t deserve it after what I did to you.”
“I will never say the way you left me was right, but I never want to be the kind of person who refuses to mourn with those who mourn.” Nana Rose would be so ashamed of me if I became that person.
He placed my hand over his heart. Oh, baby, did his chest feel good. But his words were even more intoxicating. “You are beautiful, inside and out.”
“Well, you are definitely beautiful on the outside,” I teased him, even though I had a sneaking suspicion there was a beauty inside the likes of which I’d never seen. Perhaps he didn’t even realize it existed.
He chuckled, pressing my hand deeper into his skin, making me want to hyperventilate. “Finish your story,” I stammered, hardly able to catch my breath.
Cash exhaled heavily. “The foster system took note of my academic achievements, and by a stroke of luck, or whatever you call it, they sent me to Des Moines for a large college fair. I was being courted by places like MIT and Colorado School of Mines.”
“Wow,” I gasped.
“They weren’t the only ones interested,” Cash said with meaning. “SPI, as you say, had their eye on me. I’d triggered their radar with a paper I’d written in history class about the eavesdropping tunnel the FBI had built under the Soviet embassy and the spy who exposed it. My assessment of the situation and how they should have known the mole’s identity within our government much earlier somehow made it to the desk of the director of SPI.”
Cash had my rapt attention. This sounded like something right out of a movie. “So they had a booth there or something?”
Cash laughed. “Not exactly. They don’t advertise. It’s not like the CIA or FBI trying to recruit people on college campuses. These guys are much more subtle. They bring in ‘counselors’ who take you to lunch and tell you about this amazing opportunity to do something even better than college. You get to travel the world and have adventures like you’ve never dreamed of. For a kid who’d gone nowhere, it sounded like a dream. Until ... you get far enough into the process, and then they tell you the truth.”
“What was the truth?”
Cash closed his eyes and sighed. “That I was perfect for the job because not only was I intelligent, but I had no family connections and basically no emotions.”
“That’s not true, at least the no emotions part.”
Cash opened his eyes and turned his head toward me. “It is true.”
“No. It’s not. I don’t care what you say; you feel things, Cash. I know you do. There’s no way you could have made me feel what I did in Bordeaux if you didn’t have emotions. And the fact that you’re here protecting me tonight, not expecting anything from me, says you are anything but emotionless. It’s a shame you bought the lie they sold you.” I didn’t know why I needed to tell him that. Clearly this relationship wouldn’t go anywhere. But how sad it would be to live your entire life under the guise of a lie. I couldn’t let that stand.
Cash stared blankly at me as if it had never occurred to him that these recruiters had lied to him.
“I’m sorry the adults in your life failed you. They should have protected you.”
“It’s my job to protect people,” he whispered.
My hand crept up his chest to his face, where I rested it on his stubbled cheek. “I know you think that, and maybe you’re right—it is your job. But don’t you ever want something outside of the job? Maybe somebody to protect you ?” My voice hitched like I was asking for the position.
Cash ran his hand up and down my arm. “I can’t think like that. It’s deadly.”
“Cash, I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think you’re really living. To live a life without people to love and be loved by, that’s more deadly than anything.”
My words seemed to weigh heavily in the air as we just stared at each other in the semidarkness, the thump of my heart pounding against my chest, waiting for him to say something. His blue eyes swirled with every emotion from sadness to anger while his silence pierced the air.
Finally, he said, “I didn’t tell you tonight’s story had a happy ending.”
My hand dropped from his face. “No, you didn’t,” my voice shook. I turned away from him and threw the covers over my head, feeling as if someone had just hijacked my story and stolen my happily ever after.
Cash’s voice cut through the sadness. “On either side the river lie. Long fields of barley and of rye,” he recited “The Lady of Shalott.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. Dang spy. He did an excellent imitation of a man in love.