by E. L. Todd
“Yes, sir,” she said with a giggle.
“And…will I be getting some special attention for this?” I winked at her.
She narrowed her eyes. “I knew the gesture wasn’t selfless.”
“When there’s a possibility for sex, it’s never selfless.”
She smirked then threw a pillow at my stomach. “Jerk.”
I laughed. “Your point?”
She jumped on the bed then threw another pillow at my head. “You’re lucky you’re so hot, Mike.”
I grabbed her ankles and pulled them out from under her, making her fall to the bed. “You think I’m hot?” I gave her the cockiest grin I could muster.
“No.”
“Sure…” I winked at her. “You know you want this all night long.”
She pushed her feet to my chest while she arched her back. “You got a problem with that?”
I kissed her ankles and her shins. “Not a single one.”
“Good.” She watched me cherish her body with kisses. “Quickie before we go?”
I climbed on top of her with the speed of light. “I knew I fell in love with the right girl.”
“And I know I’ve fallen for the right man.”
When we arrived at the bar, I threw my credit card on the counter and put everything on my tab. The girls could order whatever they wanted, as long as they wanted.
Veronica and Lana still eyed me with disapproval. I knew it would take me a while to win them over. Hopefully, when Zeal made her appearance, she could warm them up for me. Zeal was definitely the alpha of this group of girls.
“You want another one, baby?” I asked as I placed my arm over the back of her chair.
“I shouldn’t. You’re going to get me so drunk.”
I pushed the almost empty glass closer to her. “That’s the point.”
“Because that’s the only way you can get laid?” Veronica jabbed.
Ouch. That was low. Good. But low. I had nothing to say in my defense. After all, it was true, partially.
Cassandra sighed. “Come on, guys. Be nice.”
“Why?” Lana asked. “Our best friend is with a total jerk. Why should we be nice?”
“He’s not a jerk,” Cassandra argued. “He used to be when I didn’t know him.”
“Baby, it’s okay.” I appreciated her defense, but that wasn’t how I wanted to win them over. “I’ll be right back.” I walked to the bar and got her another cosmo. As soon as I left the table, I knew they were talking about me. Cassandra would defend me while her girlfriends ripped me to shreds.
“Hey.” Zeal appeared at my side, wearing a black cocktail dress. Compared to her usual attire, her outfit was very conservative. Her ass wasn’t hanging out and her tits were tucked away.
“You took my advice to heart.”
“Well, if I don’t want to be treated like a whore, I shouldn’t act like one, right?”
“Wiser words I’ve never heard,” I said with a smile. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Cosmo.”
I ordered it and handed it to her. “Anything else?”
“I’m good.” While she had terrible manners and an attitude, she was still civil to me. And that was enough.
We walked back to the table and I pulled out the chair for Zeal. She sat down without argument, and Lana and Veronica watched us in surprise. I took my place at Cassandra’s side and placed the drink in front of her.
“Hey,” Zeal said. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” Veronica said. “Why are you late?”
She shrugged. “If you’re important, people will wait.”
“Well, you’re getting less important,” Veronica snapped.
Zeal chuckled but retained her posture.
Cassandra eyed her. “Mike told me you guys had a talk.”
“We did,” she said. “He’s not so bad.” She winked at me.
I smiled back.
“What?” Veronica did a double take. “I thought you hated this guy?”
“I did,” Zeal said calmly. “But he won me over. I think he genuinely loves Cassandra. We should be happy for her.”
I liked where this was going. By the end of the night, Cassandra would be doing dirty stuff to me because she’d be so thrilled. I couldn’t wait.
“Talk about a 180,” Lana said.
Zeal shrugged. “It’s rare, but it happens.”
We settled into a conversation about the magazine they worked for. I tried as hard as I could to focus and participate in the conversation even though it was incredibly dull. But I made the effort for Cassandra. I wanted her to marry me, and I had to work my ass off for her to realize she should.
“Mike, are you high in that company you work for?” Zeal asked. “You have a nice office.”
Cassandra clearly hadn’t told them I was loaded. I was actually happy about that. She didn’t care that I was rich, and she respected my privacy. But I was throwing all my cards on the table tonight. “I own it.”
Her eyes widened, as did everyone else’s. “Oh…”
Yep. You better like me now.
“Cassandra didn’t mention that.” Zeal gave her a threatening look.
“I’m pretty quiet about it,” I said modestly. “When you have money, people act differently around you.”
Both Veronica and Lana leaned forward, suddenly interested in me.
“My brother and I run it together.”
Zeal looked at Cassandra. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
She shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.”
“So…” Veronica placed her hand on her throat. “Are you a millionaire?”
“Something like that.”
They looked at Cassandra with new eyes. I didn’t want to be liked because of my money, but I was willing to do anything and everything to get her friends on my side. I knew they would gossip about me the moment I was gone, and I needed them to push for me, not tell Cassandra to find someone else. And I needed them to tell her to marry me.
Veronica nodded her head in approval. “Cassandra, you did good with this one.”
She looked pissed. “I love Mike for who he is, not his money.”
“Sure.” Lana winked.
“He’s the sweetest, most caring man in the world,” Cassandra said. “Even when I feel hideous on my worst days, he makes me feel beautiful. When I talk, he listens. He makes me feel loved every single day. And I trust him implicitly. I never wonder what he’s doing when I’m not around. He could be dirt poor and I would still love him forever.”
I moved my hand to her waist. “I know, baby. You don’t need to convince me.” I gave her a gentle kiss over her ear.
“Whatever you say,” Veronica said.
“You shouldn’t like Mike because he’s rich,” Cassandra said firmly. “There’s more to him than you’ll ever know.”
Lana eyed me. “Your brother still married…?”
“Happily,” I said quickly. I turned to Zeal and gave her the eye, pressuring her to reach the topic I was interested in discussing.
“You should totally get married,” Zeal said in a rush. She made it pretty obvious that it was a forced comment.
Cassandra’s eyes widened.
“I’d marry him,” Zeal said. “I think it’s a good idea.”
Veronica clapped her hands. “For your wedding gift to the guests, you could give them money.”
“And jewelry from Tiffany’s,” Lana added.
Wow. These girls were materialistic.
“We aren’t getting married,” Cassandra said quickly. “We’ve only been dating for a few months.”
“Then you should do it eventually,” Zeal said. “I think it’s a good idea.”
God, she was a horrible actress.
Cassandra got uncomfortable. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Judging the pissed look on her face, I knew this subject really got under her skin. And that broke my heart. How could she defend me to her friends and say I was the m
ost wonderful man in the world but not want to marry me? Why was she so scared? I hoped she would understand I would never hurt her by now. She was the most important thing in the world to me. I did everything to prove that to her. What more could I do?
9
Sean
“Why are you being such a bitch today?” I asked when I dropped the papers on Mike’s desk.
“Why are you a bitch every day?” he countered.
I gave him a firm look. “Seriously, what’s going on? You’ve had a thong up your ass all day.”
“It’s nothing,” he said dismissively.
I was annoyed he told my wife everything without hesitation, and he only filled me in on certain topics. It wasn’t because I was jealous he spent time with my wife. Actually, it was because he spent more time with her than me. “Come on, man. What is it?”
“It’s the same thing I said before. Cassandra doesn’t want to get married.” He sighed. “And that’s never going to change.”
Pity rose in my heart while I watched his shoulders sag. He spun his pen in his fingers while he stared at it. My brother worked his ass off to get Cassandra in his life, but it was just a dead end. “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re going to stay with her?”
“I love her. What else would I do?”
I knew this was going to be a difficult conversation. “You have to weigh your options, Mike. What’s important to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“If marriage wasn’t important to you, then this wouldn’t be an issue. But I know it is. Can you really be with someone for the rest of your life and not be married to them?”
“I don’t know. It’s really not that different.”
“But what about kids? You want kids, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah…a lot.”
“Do you think Cassandra will ever change her mind? Honestly?”
Mike sighed as he twirled his pen. The depression came into his eyes. “No.”
I felt so bad for my brother. “You can stay with her, but you’ll probably resent her later down the road. If you really want a marriage and kids, you should break it off before the two of you get sucked any deeper.”
“Any deeper?” he asked incredulously. “I’m at the bottom, Sean. I can’t go any further.” He gripped his skull. “I love her, like, really love her. I don’t want anyone else. She’s perfect for me, you know?”
“I know,” I said gently.
“I just can’t imagine my life without her.”
“Can you imagine your life with her, while everyone moves on and has their wedding and their children?”
Mike wouldn’t look at me. “What would you do if this was Scarlet?”
That was a tough question. “I can’t answer that objectively since I’m already married to her.”
“Just do it,” he barked.
“I didn’t care about marriage until I fell in love with her. I proposed to Penelope because I knew that’s what she wanted, but I didn’t realize how much I really wanted a wife and kids until Scarlet became mine.” I shrugged. “So, if she didn’t want to get married, I’d accept that. As long as I had her, I could deal with that. But now that I know how awesome it is to be married to her, how hot it sounds when people call her by my last name, how sexy she looks when she’s pregnant with my kid…I couldn’t live without that.”
“You didn’t answer my question at all.”
“Because there isn’t a right answer. It all depends on you, Mike. If that’s the future you really want and it’s not going to happen with Cassandra, you need to end it. But if you can really accept the small amount she’s willing to offer, then stay with her. But if you want my opinion about this whole thing, it’s this; if she really loved you and trusted you, she would marry you.”
He finally looked at me. “You don’t like her.”
“No. I like Cassandra a lot. She’s a good girl and she’s perfect for you. But I don’t think it’s right for her to punish you for something that has nothing to do with you. She may have had a bad marriage before, but you’ve proven you’re nothing like that. She needs to get over it. Plain and simple.”
“Did Scarlet just get over it?” he countered.
“Actually, yes. The moment she took me back, she said everything was forgiven. But it’s different with you guys.”
Mike looked more depressed than I’ve ever seen him.
“I’ll support whatever you decide. But I want the best for you. When you started dating women in a serious way, you said you were looking to settle down with someone. I know you can make the argument that you pretty much are married because you live together and love each other. A signed piece of paper doesn’t make a difference. Only it does. It makes a huge different. My wedding day was the happiest day of my life, and every day after that has come in a close second. I lived with Scarlet before we got married, and I can tell you right now, it was totally different when we got married. And I’d be devastated if she didn’t want to have kids. And you can’t make Cassandra change her mind. That would be wrong. Asking someone to be a parent who doesn’t want to be one automatically makes them a bad parent.”
“I get it,” he said defensively. “You made your point.”
“What are you going to do…?”
“I’ll talk to her again.”
“And if she says no?”
“I—I don’t want to think about it.”
When I came home from work, Scarlet wasn’t in the house. I searched for her everywhere but couldn’t find her. Her car was in the garage and my dad was in his room. Where the hell did she go?
I called her.
“Hello?” she said.
“Where are you?” I snapped.
“On the beach,” she said quickly. “Everything alright?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “I couldn’t find you in the house.”
“So you immediately panic?” she asked incredulously. “You’re going to have a heart attack before you’re thirty.”
I walked out the back door then moved across the sand. I saw her sitting on a towel near the waves. “Because you’re going to rock my world a little too hard.”
She hung up and waited for me to reach her. She moved over on the towel so I could sit beside her. “How was work?”
“Not my best day.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“Mike’s pretty upset about Cassandra’s resistance to get married.”
“She still hasn’t changed her mind?” she asked sadly.
“It doesn’t appear so.”
“Poor Mike,” she said with a sigh.
“I told him he should end it.”
Her eyes widened. “Wow.”
“If she never changes her mind and my brother stays with her, I know he’ll resent it down the road. If he doesn’t have kids, he’ll regret it when it’s too late. And, if she isn’t willing to marry him, it makes me question her love for him. She’d rather lose him than get married? That’s how important it is to her? My brother deserves better.”
“Sean, I know you’re looking out for your brother, but this is his relationship and he needs to work it out on his own.”
I smirked. “Coming from the woman who sticks her nose in everyone’s business.”
She glared at me. “People ask for my advice. I don’t actively butt in.”
“Sure…”
She rolled her eyes.
I grabbed her hand and kissed each knuckle. “Thank you for marrying me. You’ve made me happier than I ever thought I could be.”
A small smile and a red blush appeared on her face. “Thank you for being the greatest husband in the world.”
“I haven’t earned that title yet, but I’m working on it.”
“I think you have.” She kissed my cheek.
We stared at the ocean together, hand in hand.
“I’ll see if I can talk to Cassandra.”
I looked at her. �
��What happened to not sticking your nose in other people’s business.”
“This is different. I want Mike to be happy. I’m going to do whatever I can to make it happen.”
“You think she’ll listen to you?”
“I’ll tell her our story and maybe she’ll see reason.”
I laughed. “Or you’ll scare her off.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Not everyone is as forgiving as you.” I leaned my head against hers.
“They should be.”
I slowly pushed her down to the towel and leaned over her. “You know what I’m thinking?”
She smirked. “We should get a milkshake?”
“No.”
“We should go eat?”
“No.” She knew exactly what I was implying.
“We should watch the game?”
“How about I come inside you and make that baby?”
“Well…that was romantic.”
I chuckled. “We’re past the romantic part of our relationship.”
“I think we passed it a long time ago.”
I moved my hand up her dress. “Let’s rekindle it.”
A sadness crept into her eyes. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Okay…”
“Since Ryan is going to propose soon—”
“He’s proposing?”
She nodded. “He hasn’t decided when, but it will be happening.”
“Okay.” What did this have to do with us?
“I think we should…wait a while.”
What? “Why?”
“I don’t want to be obese for my brother’s wedding. And Cortland will probably get married soon after that.”
I rolled my eyes. “You won’t be obese. You’re beautiful when you’re pregnant.”
“But I don’t want to wear a bridesmaid dress and my ridiculously big boobs pop out.”
I smirked. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“You know what I mean. I want to be thin and able to enjoy the moment without feeling sick or ugly.”
“You don’t feel ugly now?” I teased.
She glared at me. “Can we just wait a little while?”
I didn’t want to wait. “If that’s what you want.”
“You sound sad.”
“Because I am.”