by Taylor Hart
She held up her hand. “Yes, it is.”
Glancing from Cam and then back to her, he lifted his shoulder at Cam. “Because of this guy? Is this that river rafting guy?”
Irritation coursed through her. “No. Yes. I mean, it’s over because I said it’s over.” Kat flashed Cam a look, then turned back to Steven. “Please go.”
Steven looked uncertain, but he pulled a little black box out of his pocket and opened it. A diamond stared back at her—the same princess-cut diamond she’d told him she wanted.
Without warning he dropped to his knee. “Katherine, I’ve been stupid. I know that now. I … I’m sorry. I want this. I want our life. I realized you make me better. You’re the woman I want.”
She didn’t speak, completely surprised. “Wh—” She turned and glanced back at Cam.
“Wait.” Steven stood and took a step toward Cam. “Are you Cameron Cruz, the quarterback for the Denver Storm?”
Cam reached for Kat’s hand. “Kat, I need to talk to you.”
Steven stepped closer, pushing Cam in the shoulder. “Get away from her! You’re that womanizing football player everyone’s looking for!”
Cam reacted to the push by pushing back. “Don’t touch me!”
Kat moved between them. “Stop!”
“You’ve dumped me for him? Do you even know how many women he’s dated?” Steven accused.
“You better shut you’re face if you know what’s good for you.” Cam’s voice was low, but Kat could feel his threat pulse through her gut.
For a moment, all the women she’d seen in her Google search when she’d put Cam’s name in—flashed into her mind.
Is that what she’d been—just another woman? Another toy? Is that why he hadn’t told her?
“Katherine, I can see that you’ve been taken advantage of. Let’s go back to your cottage and talk about it.”
“I’m warning you, shut up.” Cam put his hand gently on Kat’s arm. “Kat, let’s go talk.” He tried to pull her away.
Now that the truth was out, it felt … like a lie. Like it had all been a lie. Everything whirled through her mind and she felt unsteady. “Don’t touch me.”
Chapter 26
Cam stood there, unsure of when he’d started shaking. Trembling. His mouth had gone dry, and his palms were sweaty.
It was one of those moments when a man looks at his life and wonders how it’d worked out this way. How had it all blown apart?
All he could think about was that Steven had used his line. The line about her making him a better man.
No! Dang it! No! That was the thought that’d been going through his mind. That was what he was going to say when he told her he loved her. Anger coursed through him like the power of a lightning bolt.
Cam couldn’t find his voice. He was held captive by Kat’s gaze, which held for a long time before she looked down at the ring.
Steven’s eyes flitted toward Cam. “Why are you here?” He touched Kat’s forearm. “Did you know that he is—”
“Cameron Cruz?” Kat kept staring at the ring. “I know,” she said with irritation.
Cam noted that she was pale and still hadn’t looked at him. “You knew?” he asked.
Kat finally turned to him, her eyes sad. “I knew.”
His heart rate kicked up a notch. “When?” He demanded.
She shrugged. “My realtor told me you made an offer on the place.”
Blindsided. This blitz play had come out of nowhere, and his defenses were down. He’d been sacked by the other team and hadn’t even seen it coming. Now his ears were ringing, and he felt out of sorts. “Oh.” What did that mean? He looked between her and Steven. What play had he ended up in?
It all seemed frozen. Steven still held the ring out, and Kat hadn’t said yes or no.
But she was giving Cam a pathetic look. And he felt pathetic.
Cam gestured to the ring, unable to walk away. “So what’s the answer, Kat?”
Kat turned to him. “I don’t know, Cam. What do you think the answer should be?”
He let out a derisive laugh. “Are you kidding me?”
She stuck her chin stubbornly into the air. “I haven’t been kidding you the whole time, but you’ve sure been lying to me.”
Steven shot up a hand. “Wait. What is going on?”
“Shut up.” He and Kat said in perfect unison.
Cam would have laughed at this scene if it had been some romantic comedy, but it wasn’t a scene in a movie. It was his life.
He could feel the life he’d been dreaming about the past few days slipping through his fingers. Like the blades of grass after being cut on a football field, they still looked fresh and green, but they were completely lifeless.
No! His mind shouted at him.
Don’t do it, Kat. He wanted to scream. He wanted to pull his caveman move, a running back move. Pick her up and run away. There was just one little hitch: there was no play to be made. The ball was hers. She had to make a play. She had to go on offense or defense. It was her choice.
“Why didn’t you just tell me, Cam?” Tears were suddenly streaming down her face.
Cam felt put on the spot. “Tell you?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes. Tell me. Why didn’t you tell me who you are?”
All the reasons felt jumbled in his head. “I--”
“Why?”
Cam threw up his hands. “I don’t know.”
Steven took her hand. “Don’t trust him. He lied to you. Let’s get you back to the cottage.” He eyed Cam with the kind of distaste one might have if they went to their trash cans in the middle of the night and found a skunk. “I was worried someone might try to take advantage of you, Kat.”
Kat looked confused, she let Steven lead her.
“Wait.” Cam moved to push Steven out of the way.
But Kat put up her hand. “Please, let us go.”
Chapter 27
Kat sat at the cottage’s kitchen table staring at Steven through the kitchen window. He’d had to take a call, and he’d gone outside, saying he didn’t want to disturb her.
It felt like she was in shock. Like she’d experienced some kind of trauma. Her thoughts felt slow and sticky. At the same time, they were going a million miles an hour.
What was she doing sitting here? Her hands felt like cold lumps on the table.
The ring was still in the box in front of her.
The ring she’d wanted for so long.
The hurt and angry look on Cam’s face had been awful. She’d felt like a little kid again when Steven had driven her back to the cottage. Like a little kid that had her mother’s will imposed on her.
It’d felt the exact same as every summer when her mother had sent a car to pick her up at the airport and drive her home to her house in L.A. She’d felt powerless.
Steven came in, tucking his phone into his professor pocket on his tweed jacket.
Without meaning to, she compared him to Cam. He was shorter and less built. His facial features looked completely bland compared to Cam’s beard and piercing eyes. Cam had chiseled features. Steven’s were muted.
At this moment, she didn’t even know why she’d been the least bit attracted to him.
Then she remembered the first time he’d taken her hand at the hospital. He’d grounded her.
Suddenly, she laughed. Out of the blue.
Steven grinned and placed his hands over hers. “What, sweetheart?”
She shook her head. “I was so vulnerable.”
He frowned and pulled his hands back. “What?”
“At the hospital when we met. I was so—vulnerable.”
The center of his forehead wrinkled. “Yes, you were. But, we worked through it. Together.”
She knew life didn’t give people second chances most of the time, but she had one. She had that second chance to get answers. “Why are you really here, Steven?”
“What?”
“Why are you here?”
“Becau
se I want to marry you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?” He pushed his glasses further back on his nose. “Then why would I be here?” he asked in that oh so professor way.
“I don’t know. Fear maybe. I was just as convenient for you as you were for me.”
He gave her the look that he’d given her a lot. It was a look of suffering patience. The kind of look one would give a child when they explained a math problem over and over, but the child wasn’t getting it. “Kat, I love you. I want to marry you.”
“No, you don’t.”
He pointed to the table. “Then why did I bring you a ring?”
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
He leaned back and opened the inside of his jacket, producing two plane tickets. “The whole reason I took that extra teaching job this summer is so I could surprise you with this.”
Hesitantly, she looked at the tickets. Everything started falling into place. “Vegas and then Paris?”
His grin widened with satisfaction. “I’ve hedged on the date because I wanted it to be a surprise. I know you don’t want a big wedding, so I thought we could go to Vegas. We could get married and then go straight to Paris for the honeymoon. The ticket is open ended. We can stay the rest of the summer and be back for your last year at CU. Professor Talbot said I could have a spot in the language department if I want it.” He sighed and moved to her, gently taking her hand into his. “We can be together. We can have everything. I’ll help you finish your project and put it into place. I want you.”
Her heart had picked up speed. He’d done this. All of this. For her? But…but…
His hand was warm, and he squeezed hers. “Marry me, Katherine.”
She didn’t say anything, but all the old feelings rushed back into her. All the memories of being with him last year in London. Of him taking care of her. Of how safe she felt with him.
Steven brushed his lips over hers. “I don’t care about what happened with that Neanderthal. I can tell you’re confused. I know you’re still young. It’s natural to be confused, but I love you.”
On autopilot she nodded, unable to work out the life that’d been going on here with Cam. It’d felt like a dream.
It’d been a lie.
With Steven, it was imperfect, but it was real.
Brushing her hair out of the way, he kissed her cheek and then down her neck.
It was so familiar. What she’d been waiting for.
“C’mon, Kat. Say you’ll marry me!”
Cam had lied to her. About everything. All she could think of was how he’d said he used women as toys. Why would she be any different to him? How could she fit into his life? Did he even want that? Why hadn’t he told her?
“I’ll marry you.” She breathed out.
Chapter 28
Cam stared at the cottage, knowing Steven was in there.
Everything between him and Kat was in there too.
He banged on the door.
He didn’t have to wait long until Steven answered. The sly grin on his face made Cam want to bash his head. “Hello, Mr. Cruz.”
Of course this is the way this guy would speak, like he was getting ready to meet the queen at any moment. “I need to see Kat,” he said, sounding every bit like the caveman he was.
Kat appeared. “I need to talk to him, Steven.”
Steven lifted both brows and gave Kat an innocent smile. “Of course you do, Katherine.” He pronounced her name like he owned it and then disappeared into the cottage. “I’ll be back here.”
Cam thought he saw irritation flick over Kat’s features. Then she nodded and stepped out, closing the door behind her.
When she pulled the door back, Cam saw the ring. The real ring.
“You shaved?”
Cam touched his face. Unable to believe she’d really admitted she’d noticed. He shrugged. “Still checking me out, Foster?” he asked in a teasing, albeit controlled, whisper.
What he really wanted to do was grab her and rip that ring off her finger and throw it into the woods behind the cottage—to never be found again. After that, he wanted to pound a fist into that conniving, manipulating, nerdy professor only a couple feet away from him. Yes, that would be very satisfying.
Kat’s lip twitched up. “You look more like your real self.” Her voice had a hard edge to it.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew who I was?” He accused.
She crossed her arms. “I tried.”
“When?”
She pointed at him. “Practically every conversation we’ve had since I found out.”
Cam stared at her, thinking about how intense she had been. “Oh, when you were upset about losing your boyfriend, and I was trying to…”
“Trying to what, Cam?” She snapped.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “What did you think I was doing, Kat?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea. The realtor said the offer was in the day we first saw it.”
He sighed. “I was buying it for you.”
She hesitated. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you wanted it.”
“That’s…insane.”
“Billionaire, remember? Lots of space we don’t need.”
This slowed her down. She shook her head, looking hurt. “You lied to me. About everything.”
“Oh, I lied to you?” Wanting to explode, he glared at her and nodded to her ring. “So that’s it?”
She crossed her arms. “What’s it?”
“You kiss me like that. We…fall in love, then you go back to your fake fiancé?”
She pursed her lips. “My real fiancé.”
Hearing the words sent Cam into a tailspin. “You can’t be serious, Kat.”
The look she seared into him took him by surprise. “No, I can’t figure it out, Cam. I told you everything. I trusted you. But you couldn’t even tell me your job.”
“Decoy,” he spat out.
“What?”
“You had a decoy ring, claiming you didn’t want to worry about attracting all that attention.”
“Right.”
He shrugged. “You should understand that, Kat. I didn’t want to be me. I didn’t want to do the dog and pony show. I wanted to grieve. I wanted to be alone in my grief. Yeah, my sister was right. I wanted to hide. So I grew out my hair, and I wore a beard. I had a decoy life for a while.”
“So I had a fake ring, and you had a fake life.” She accused him. “Everything about us was fake, right? Even with me?”
He was so angry and furious at the moment. Didn’t she get it? A laugh jerked out of him. “Don’t you see Steven is manipulating you? Don’t you see how you act around him? Like a child!”
Her eyes widened, then she pulled in a long breath and crossed her arms. “Seriously, you’re talking to me about manipulating?”
Shaking his head, he let out a long breath. “Kat, listen, when I met you, I didn’t want to hide anymore. I wanted to live again.” He let out a strangled laugh. “And when you didn’t know who I was, it was even better. Dang it, Kat. I admit it. I liked not being me. I liked not being that me. The one that had to perform for the media all the time. I know most people would say, ‘boo hoo, poor little rich football player. You got the dream. Your life is so hard.’ But I just had to be real again. I had to find out who that guy was again. After I met you, I felt like I was finally finding me.”
A tear fell down her cheek. “I get why you couldn’t tell the media. But, if I was so important to you—I don’t get why you couldn’t tell me.”
He felt his own tears surfacing. He grabbed her and pulled her into him. “I wanted to.” Their breath mixed. “You were so beautiful and infuriating. You want to save the world, and when Steven said all that today, it ticked me off because that’s how I feel.”
She didn’t move. “When Steven said what?”
“You have made me better. Just knowing you. Just seeing the world how you see it. It’s changed me. I want
that life with you, Kat.”
For a moment she didn’t respond and he bent down, brushing his lips to hers. He had to have another moment, another second. But then he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her closer, demanding more, desperation pouring through him.
“Stop.” Kat pushed him back, letting out a breath. “I…I told him yes. I told him I would marry him.”
Cam wanted to laugh out loud. “Go tell him no!”
Tears fell down her cheeks. “I can’t. Don’t you see, Cam, none of this was real. It was all just…a fairytale.”
He felt wild and like he could practice tackle drills all day. “No!”
She shook her head and backed away. “I’m sorry.”
Then the pit of his gut slammed to his feet. “Kat, please…”
She looked at him with wide, tear-filled eyes. “My mother was right. He was right. I can’t live like that.” She put a hand on the door.
“Wait. I lied!”
Turning back, she frowned. “What?”
He shrugged. “I said I could be anything you wanted. I said I could play first string friend or second-string boyfriend.” He wiped his face and shook his head. “But I can’t. Goodbye, Kat.”
Chapter 29
A week later, Cam brushed out his horse’s coat, moving as if through a fog.
His sister, Alicia walked into the barn. “You’re up early.”
“So?” He hated the edge of tension in his voice when he spoke to her, but he couldn’t stop it. This was how it was. His sister and the boys had been there for three days, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t pretend to feel happy. He didn’t feel it.
“This girl really messed you up, Cam.”
Alicia had been trying to get the whole story out of him, and he’d reluctantly given it to her, piece by horrible piece, but he’d been unable to do much else except put on a nice uncle face for his nephews.
“Why don’t you go talk to her?” Alicia suggested.
After one final stroke, he turned and stalked to the windowsill, putting her brush down. “Did you not hear the story? She went to Vegas and got married.”