19. Reporters Ruin Lives
REPORTERS RUIN LIVES
PAIGE
I woke up with a hard body pressed against mine and a heavy arm draped over my middle. The memories of the previous night came rushing back, and I couldn’t help the beaming smile that came over my face.
I’d wanted Cash Leonard for as long as I could remember, and the real thing blew my expectations right out of the water.
His reputation did not disappoint.
I scooted back to burrow farther into him when a buzzing sound caught my attention, dragging my eyes to my glowing phone on the nightstand.
My phone stopped buzzing, and I sighed a breath of relief, but then it immediately started again.
By the third call, I sat up and looked at who was blowing up my phone this early.
My sister’s name lit up my screen and I started to panic.
I slipped out of Cash’s grip and swiped to answer it.
“Hello?” My morning voice sounded groggy as I cleared my throat.
“Oh, wow, she answers.” Lottie’s tone was laced with attitude which was very unlike her this early in the morning.
“Good morning to you, too. What’s your problem?” I laughed, trying to lighten the mood.
“How could you not tell me? We tell each other everything and yet you kept this a secret?” she said in a harsh tone.
My stomach sank. “What are you talking about?”
She started laughing frantically. “Have you not seen it? I texted it to you this morning.”
I put my phone on speaker and swiped to my text messages. My inbox was flooded with messages from family and friends, but I ignored them. I opened my thread with Lottie and froze, almost dropping my phone onto the hardwood floor.
Attached to the message was a link to an article titled Heartbreak Kids: Sponsor’s Daughter Smitten for Rugged Rodeo Husband.
The article was paired with a picture of Cash holding up the chain around his neck with my rings on it.
I scrolled quickly through the article and read the excruciating details of our interaction with the reporter—except it was all lies.
It detailed me cheering for Cash “with hearts in my eyes” before our grand reunion. It described in vivid detail how Cash held up his necklace and exclaimed to the crowd how proud he was to wear my rings around his neck.
I felt the bile rising in my throat. “I can explain.”
An article from a tiny newspaper in Montana should not have mattered. It wasn’t Page Six or the LA Times. It was practically a blog post, but that didn’t matter. It was on the internet, which meant anyone could see it—everyone could see it.
A sob broke in my chest. This was a disaster. I fell to the ground, unable to breathe as Cash appeared next to me.
“Pip? Baby, are you okay?” he asked, placing a soothing hand on my back. I shook my head no and handed him the phone.
“Holy fucking shit.” Cash ran a hand over his jaw and looked at me with sheer panic in his eyes.
“Um, hello? Upset sister still on the line.” Lottie’s voice rang out over the speaker.
“Everyone knows?” I asked, slightly hopeful that maybe only Lottie had seen it.
“Yeah, babe, everyone knows.”
“Fuck,” Cash shouted.
“This is a shitshow, P. How could you be so reckless?” Lottie’s words hit me hard in the heart as the tears continued to fall.
“I know. I’m sorry. I—”
“We didn’t want to bring attention to it until we were ready to tell the family. Together, and in person,” Cash interjected as I dropped my head into my hands. He pulled me over to the bed and onto his lap.
I curled into a ball against his chest.
“Well, you’re coming back to a mess. Walker punched a wall. Dad has gone quiet and broody. Mom cried. Reid called me in a panic that you have Stockholm syndrome.”
“We’re coming home tomorrow. What are we going to say?” I asked through my sobs.
“Start with the truth? You guys had know this would get out eventually. You made the choice to get married. That shit doesn’t stay a secret. What was your plan?”
To fuck Cash for the summer, get divorced, and never tell a fucking soul.
“We were living in the moment,” Cash answered for me.
“I love you, Cash, but shut the fuck up, you moron. Walker is going to have your head, and I really didn’t want to clean up blood this week,” Lottie bit out.
“Charlotte, be nice,” Owen chimed in from the background, which caused me to laugh lightly. Owen was the only person on the planet that Lottie let call her Charlotte.
“Fine, but I’m coming home early. I booked a flight for this afternoon.”
I let out a breath. “I’ll tell you all about it when we get there, okay?”
“You better.”
“It was a pleasure as always, Lo, but Paige and I have some things to talk about so we gotta go. See you tomorrow,” Cash said.
“No, wait—”
Cash ended the call without another word. He tossed the phone onto the bed and stood, pacing the room.
“Fuck!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, which only made the tears flow faster. He turned to me with wide eyes. “No, baby, stop. It’s going to be okay,” he pleaded, dropping to his knees and slipping between my legs.
“None of this is okay,” I sobbed.
Cash ran his thumb over my cheek to wipe away my tears. “Yes, it is.”
“How are we going to face them?”
“Together,” he said, lacing our fingers together. “Is this unconventional? Yes. Is it a lie? Kind of. But, P, we’re married for real. That isn’t a lie.”
“I know it’s not. But what happens when they ask how we started dating?
How long this affair has been going on? What’s worse?
That we dated for years in secret, or that we got way too drunk, made out at a country bar, and got married like two young idiots?
Either way, there’s going to be screaming and probably blood. ”
Cash’s face paled slightly. “I think option one is cleaner. We can say we started dating last summer. Our love was so strong that we couldn’t wait another second but didn’t want to steal the thunder from Lottie.”
“Great, so you get to keep your job and I’m the bitch who lied to my entire family for a year.” I rolled my eyes.
“We have to do this, P. We have to be the loving, doting couple. It’s the only way we get out of this unscathed.”
“And then what? We can’t stay married forever, Jesse,” I snapped.
“We get back from the last part of the circuit and say our lifestyles were too different and it didn’t work out. People get divorced all the time. They’ll understand.”
I didn’t like the plan, but it was the only way that Cash kept his job—and his life—so it would have to do. Two weeks of pretending to be madly in love.
That wasn’t so hard. Right?
I nodded in agreement as Cash pulled me to my feet.
“Great, so now that the cat is out of the bag, I have something for you.”
He jumped onto the bed and stretched out his arm to grab something off his nightstand. He reappeared with the chain that was looped around my rings. He unclasped them, took my left hand, and slid them right back onto my left ring finger.
“They look better here anyway,” he said, running his thumb over the diamonds.
I looked down at the gleaming rock and had a sinking suspicion that, at this moment, they were more like handcuffs than a vow of commitment.