Tainted Heartbreak (Tainted Knights Book 3)

by Terri Anne Browning

  She shrugged carelessly. “I’m not allowed to say. It’s work-related for Emmie.”

  “Emmie?” I lifted my brows, unsure of what to make of this new development. “So, you took the job?”

  She shrugged again, keeping her back to me as she straightened a few things in the case. “She didn’t leave me much choice. And once I thought about her offer, I realized she was right. I do need to get away and clear my head.”

  I ached to touch her, and before I even realized I was doing it, I was wrapping my arms around her from behind. She stiffened then melted back against me. For ten full seconds, she let me hold her, let me breathe in the clean scent of her hair, the sweet smell of lotion on her skin. For ten seconds, I was at peace for the first time since I’d turned around and seen her standing outside my bedroom door. My entire world had collapsed and burned to ashes when I realized I’d officially fucked everything up with the only person who mattered.

  She belonged in my arms.

  I touched my lips to her neck. “Don’t hate me,” I pleaded softly in her ear.

  “Cash.” She turned her head, forcing me to remove my lips from her, so I touched them to the top of her head instead. “I don’t hate you,” she whispered after a moment. “Life won’t let me hate you.”

  Hope burned in my gut. “Really?”

  Her hands covered mine at her waist and pulled them from around her. “Really.”

  “Nothing happened with Lindsey.” I needed her to understand that. “I didn’t care about her. She was nothing to me.”

  Her shoulders tensed, but she nodded. “Yeah. I get it.”

  But I could tell that nothing had changed with her. I could see it in her eyes as she lifted her chin and met my gaze. “What do I need to do to get you back, Dreamer?”

  “I don’t know if you can,” she told me as tears filled her eyes. “I love you. I love you so much it physically hurts right now. But I can’t trust you. And I can’t trust myself. That’s why I’m leaving. I need to learn to trust my own judgment again before I can even think about you and me.”

  Pushing her cases farther back on the mattress, I dropped down on the corner of the bed and grasped her hands. I made sure to keep my hold on her firm but not hard, so if she tried to pull away this time, I wouldn’t bruise her. As I saw the fading proof of what had happened last time I’d been desperate for her not to walk away from me, a lump filled my throat. I kissed each small bruise, tears and panic choking me. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me. Let me show you that you can trust me. Just let me love you.”

  “Don’t…” she sobbed. “I need to do this.”

  “I love you, Amara. I fucked up, but I swear to you, I won’t ever hurt you again. I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t go.” My tears were blinding me now, and I let them fall unashamedly. “Whatever you want. I swear, I’ll do it. Just…please, baby.”

  “If you love me, then let me go.” Her voice cracked as she jerked away from me. “Give me time to think, Cash.”

  “What do you need to think about?” I demanded, anger rising in me because I was feeling fucking helpless. She was leaving me. Fuck, she was going to walk out of my life, and I had no way in hell of knowing when or motherfucking if she was going to come back. “You love me. I love you. I fucked up. You forgive me, we move on, and we live our lives together. Screw the rest of the world. Screw Lindsey and Gigi and every fucking person on the planet who wants to get in our way.”

  “You think it’s that easy?” She laughed without amusement. “You think you can lie to me for the entire duration of our relationship, and just because we love each other, I should just say ‘oh well’ and forgive and forget? You fucking cheated on me!”

  “The fuck I did!” I jerked to my feet, raking my hands through my hair. “I told you, nothing happened between Lindsey and me. Nothing.”

  “You didn’t fuck her, good for you.” She pushed her hair behind her ear, shaking her head in irritation. “But you still cheated, Cash. You asked me to be your girlfriend—you remember that, right? That first night in your apartment, you asked me to be your girlfriend and said we were going to be exclusive. To me, that means we don’t go out with anyone else. Whether that’s kissing, fucking, or just taking them on goddamn dates. You were dating Lindsey on the nights you weren’t with me. You took her out to dinner and movies, and fuck knows what else. She had feelings for you, and whether you were pretending to get what you wanted or whatever, she thought you had feelings for her.”

  “You think I wanted to do that?” The look in her eyes told me she didn’t know what to think. “I was doing what I’ve been taught all my life to get my father what he needed.”

  “And if that had required you fucking Lindsey? Would you have done that too?”

  “No!” I bellowed then scrubbed my hands over my face as I tried to calm down. “No, I wouldn’t have fucked her. I told you, Dreamer. I didn’t touch her once you came into my life. Not even to kiss her.”

  “Let’s say you never met me,” she began, and I glared down at her. “Hypothetically. You never met me, and you and Lindsey continued as you were. Would you have fucked her then?”

  “I—”

  She didn’t let me finish. “And say you fucked her, and you got what you wanted. What then? After your dad got his vote and you didn’t have to see Lindsey again, would you have continued to date her?”

  “It didn’t happen. I met you. I fell for you,” I tried to reason.

  “Just answer the question.”

  “The truth?” She nodded, and I bit back a groan. “Yeah, I probably would have ended up fucking her. And since Gigi was apparently trying to set me up with her all along anyway, we probably would have dated for a while longer.”

  Her face fell, and I wanted to call back everything I’d just said. She wanted the truth, but I could tell the truth had hurt her. “Thanks for your honesty,” she choked out.

  “Why does it even matter?” I demanded, grabbing her elbow when she began to turn away from me. “None of that happened. I did meet you. That is what was supposed to happen all along, Amara. It was fate. I was meant to find you because you’re my other half.”

  “And yet you still cheated on me.”

  “She was a friend. I took her out as a friend. That isn’t cheating.”

  “Have you ever looked up the definition of cheating?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Cheat. Verb. To act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage especially in a game or examination. To practice fraud or deceit.”

  “Your eidetic memory isn’t remembering all the definitions, babe. If that’s the definition you want to go with, then the only person I cheated was Lindsey.” I stepped into her face and lowered my head until our noses were nearly touching. “Cheating in a relationship means engaging in any sexual contact with a non-partner.”

  “You can cheat on someone emotionally. There doesn’t have to be sexual contact, jerk,” she argued, her nose flaring in irritation.

  “But I wasn’t emotionally involved with her, Dreamer. If anything, I could barely tolerate her.” I skimmed my nose against hers, making her inhale sharply. “I took her out as a friend, that was it. Ask her if you don’t believe me. I didn’t even hold her hand.”

  “The day my dad died, she told me you were taking her away for the weekend.”

  “No, I told her I was going out of town for the weekend. The guys were going to Vegas to try to cheer Jace up, and I was going to take you with me.” I wrapped my arms around her waist, my hands sliding down to her perfect ass and pushing her lower body against mine. “Kassa and Santana were going too. Probably Roanna and the rest of the Bombshells since they can’t seem to let Ro out of their sight for more than an hour at a time. Lindsey heard what she wanted to hear. There was no fucking way I was going to take her with me when she irritated the fuck out of me.”

  “Then why was she at your apartment that night?” she demanded, but her anger was losing steam.

  “Because we got
caught in the rain. It was pouring out, and we were soaked to the bone. She started sneezing, those dainty little noises that were annoying the ever-loving fuck out of me, and I decided to be a nice guy. Since my place was closer, we went there to get dry. That was it. Nothing more.” I kissed the corner of her mouth when she started to ask another question. “Maybe it was a ploy on her end, to get me alone and in my shower. Don’t know, don’t care. But I swear to you, Amara. Nothing would have happened if you hadn’t shown up. She could have paraded around my apartment butt-ass naked, and I still wouldn’t have touched her.”

  “But she’s so beautiful,” she whispered with a wobble in her sweet voice.

  “Maybe. I didn’t really notice,” I told her honestly. “All I see is you.”

  “Cash…”

  I pressed my forehead to hers. I was winning. I could sense her inner struggle and knew she was about to give in. I just had to be patient. Let her come to me. “I’m nothing without you, Amara.”

  “Cash.” She inhaled sharply. “I’m pregnant.”

  My blood turned to ice at those words, but I laughed them off as I lifted my head to look down at her. “That’s not funny, Dreamer.”

  Her face was set in tight lines, but her eyes were begging me. Begging for what? “I’m not joking. It was in my blood work when I was admitted to the hospital. I’m pregnant. They did a scan to see how far along I am. It… It happened sometime the week we met. Possibly that same weekend at the festival.”

  The panic I’d felt as I ran to Amara’s apartment earlier was nothing compared to what I felt at that moment. Pregnant? She was pregnant. I was going to be a father. Fuck. I wasn’t ready for that. I barely had my own life figured out. What the hell was I going to do with a kid?

  I stood there, staring at her but not seeing a damn thing. My life was flashing before my eyes. I wasn’t father material. I hated my old man, and I was pretty sure he didn’t have a single warm feeling for me. Kids had never entered my head, and right then, I was praying that Amara was only playing some sick joke to get back at me.

  “Wh-what are you going to do?”

  Her face paled. “What do you mean, what am I going to do?”

  “Are you going to keep it or…?” I broke off when she turned her back on me with a heartbreaking sob. “It’s a legitimate question, Amara.”

  She laughed dryly. “Yeah, it is.” She turned around to face me, her eyes damp but blank as she met my gaze. “And it’s a legitimate response for me to tell you to go fuck yourself, Cash Graves, or whoever the fuck you really are.”

  I scrubbed my hands over my face, unsure of what to do or say. Which meant I was saying all the wrong things, apparently. Proof of which when I opened my mouth again. “You’re keeping the baby?”

  “Of course, I’m keeping the baby!”

  “What will you do? Will you raise it yourself? Do you want me to help?” Each word out of my mouth made her body jerk in reaction, and I mentally told myself to shut the hell up, but I couldn’t seem to keep my damn mouth closed. “Do you expect me to help you raise this kid?”

  Two fat tears spilled from her eyes, but she shook her head. “No, Cash. I don’t expect anything out of you. Go, live your life. This baby and I will be just fine without you around.”

  “No!” The panic was trying to consume me now. “I didn’t mean any of that shit. This just surprised the hell out of me. I didn’t know what to think or say or do.” But she wasn’t listening. She was back to straightening her clothes in her cases, her back to me. There was a new tension in her, and I knew if I touched her now, she would shatter.

  She glanced at me over her shoulder. “Good thing I’m leaving, then. It will give you plenty of time to think.”

  “Amara, don’t go. Just give me a minute to digest what you said. A baby is life-changing.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware of that. But a baby is not something that can be pushed aside until its parents figure out what they’re going to do about its existence.” She turned to face me, touching her hands to her stomach protectively as she lifted her chin and stared me down. “You need to take the time I’m away to figure out what you want, Cash. Because I come as a package deal now. If you don’t want to be in your child’s life, then don’t expect to be in mine.”

  Chapter 19

  Amara

  I gazed around at the wooded area where the driver had just left me. There were no signs of life, not even a road to point me in the right direction. When I asked the driver where I was supposed to go, he merely shrugged his shoulders and said he had no idea. No one had informed him of anything, apparently. So now I was alone in the middle of nowhere Tennessee with nothing more than my phone for protection.

  The distant sound of an engine had my head swiveling around in that direction. Several minutes later, a caged ATV came out of the woods behind me. The driver pulled to a stop a few feet from me and got out, taking off her helmet as she did so.

  A cascade of long, auburn hair fell to her back, and I was suddenly assaulted by the bluest eyes I’d ever seen in my life. I knew who she was from having seen her face in the tabloids over the years and random social media photos. With her tall, willowy body and beautiful face, she could have made a career in modeling or acting. Instead, she stayed out of the spotlight as much as possible, keeping to the shadows in the craziness of her father’s and ex-boyfriend’s lives.

  Tossing the helmet into the driver’s seat, Kin Montez walked toward me with her hand extended. “Amara?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, hi, Kin… I can call you Kin, right? Emmie said that’s what you go by, but…”

  She snorted. “Relax. I would be totally pissed if you called me McKinley. The only person who ever does that is my step-monster, and if you suddenly turn into her, we’re going to have problems.” She glanced at my two cases. “Good. I see you’ve packed for the long haul. Not really sure when I’m going to be up to facing the real world again.”

  She took one of my cases, and we wheeled them to the back of the ATV. After they were secured, she handed me an extra helmet and showed me how to strap myself into the passenger seat.

  As she started the ATV and turned it in the direction she’d come from, she started chatting. “Tell me about yourself, Amara Marks.”

  I grimaced. “Nothing much to tell. I was at Caltech studying microbiology, but that was boring and not me. I met Emmie at a rock festival a few months ago, and she seemed to like me. Didn’t think she would ever like me this much, though.”

  Kin nodded as she expertly maneuvered around trees, making her own path through the foliage up the mountain. “Aunt Emmie is amazing like that. If she likes you, you’ve found yourself a new family. If she doesn’t, you’ve made a pretty powerful enemy.”

  “Aunt Emmie?”

  “My best friend is Lucy Thornton. That’s what she calls Em, and so I started calling her that too just to tease her.” She lifted a shoulder in a small shrug. “But it kind of stuck.”

  We were both quiet for a few minutes, but I could practically feel that she wanted to say something. As a small cabin appeared in the distance, she finally gave voice to what was on her mind. “You dated Cash?”

  My heart clenched at the sound of his name, and I turned my head so she wouldn’t see the look on what little of my face she could make out through the helmet. After everything that had happened the day before, just hearing his name was enough to make my entire body ache. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I blurted out the news of the baby, but his reaction broke me even worse than finding Lindsey in his shower.

  I never felt so alone in my life as I had when he asked if I expected him to help me raise our baby. I knew then and there that it was me against the world. Any lasting hope I might have had of us making it as a couple turned to dust and scattered across my bedroom floor.

  “Yeah,” I choked out. “We dated. That’s over now, though.”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to pry.” She sighed deeply. “I haven’t exactly been doing so
great with my own breakup, so I understand.”

  She stopped in front of the cabin and turned off the engine. As she unbuckled her harness, I grabbed her wrist. “Look, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. We shouldn’t have to tiptoe over the ashes of our bad relationships. If you want to talk, I’m here. If you want to rant and rave and rage and eat all kinds of bad things, I’m your girl. I’d like for us to be friends. Lord knows I don’t have many of those right now.”

  She gave me a small smile. “Yeah. We can do that. Just don’t complain when I take you up on the rant, rave, and rage offer.”

  Once in the cabin, I wasn’t expecting to find the luxuries I encountered. The place looked so plain and ordinary on the outside that the inside took me completely by surprise. The air conditioning was blasting, making it blissfully cool. The living room was spacious with a sectional against one wall and a huge flat screen mounted on the opposite wall. A coffee table sat between the two, with sheet music and notebooks scattered across it.

  The kitchen was a chef’s dream. The fridge blended into the walls seamlessly, but the thing was huge and stocked with enough food to last us for months. And my bedroom… Fuck, I was going to enjoy every second of sleeping in that soft-ass bed and soaking in the tub that was part of my connecting bathroom. My jet-lagged muscles were screaming for me to do just that, but first, I had to feed my growling stomach. If I waited too long, I knew the baby would get pissed, and I would be spending the rest of the day with my head in the toilet.

  There was shitty service up here, so my phone was basically useless when it came to calling anyone. But the Wi-Fi was strong, so I could at least text Riley and Emmie to let them both know I made it. I got a thumbs-up emoji reply from my best friend just as I was putting together a huge sandwich, and I blew out a tired sigh.

  Riley was still upset with me. Leaving wasn’t something that she did when she had a problem. Hell, it wasn’t something I normally did either, but I needed to clear my head and make decisions. Sitting around waiting for my life to magically fix itself wasn’t going to happen, however. I needed this job, and I needed the time away from Cash to figure out what I wanted. He needed the time too. Because if he couldn’t figure out what he wanted, then it didn’t really matter what I decided about us.