Beg For You: Rocktown Ink, Book One

by Gray, Sherilee

  What on earth was going on?

  There was no way I could just sit around his apartment or in his bed all morning, not with the way my belly was churning. So I shoved the covers back and climbed to my feet, wincing a little when muscles I’d never used before ached. I pulled my clothes on, ignoring my torn bra, and was about to leave when my gaze moved to the paintings against the wall again. The beauty and emotion, the anger in every brushstroke blew me away. Drew me.

  I walked over, unable to help myself, and started looking through them, drawn in by Cal’s incredible talent and the way his work made me feel. I glanced at his easel covered with a cloth. I couldn’t resist it.

  Lifting the cover carefully, I peeked underneath and my breath stuck in my throat.

  It was me on his bed.

  The painting I’d posed for. It looked like it was almost done.

  And it was…

  Stunning.

  It somehow captured me, not just physically but where I was in my life. God, how I was feeling. My emotions radiated from the canvas. I traced the lines of my body, the way I was draped across Cal’s bed. The light streaming through the window of his apartment surrounded me, and my skin had a soft glow to it. The bed sheets were rumpled, dark. The background was also in darker, moodier tones.

  Light surrounded by dark.

  He’d told me I was beautiful…perfect, many times. He’d also called me untouchable.

  The way Cal saw me was all here, and it made my heart ache.

  My gaze moved over the half-finished tattoo on my back. To me, that ink represented wings. I was half out of my cocoon, nearly free, about to fly, but there was something holding me back, trying to take it all away from me.

  My hand started to shake, and I quickly covered the painting again.

  I needed to leave, but a canvas leaning against the wall beside the easel caught my eye. The back of it was facing out. I turned it around and stepped back.

  My gaze moved over it, not sure what I was seeing at first. A woman shrouded in darkness, flames, smoke…blue eyes, bright and haunting, glowing out of the shadows, blond hair flying all around her.

  It was me.

  I knew it was. But I didn’t understand it.

  This was nothing like the one on the easel. This one had been done with the same anger—no, rage, as the others I’d seen the night Cal lost his temper and told me not to touch his things.

  This was not a painting of a lover.

  No, Cal saw me as something else.

  What was this? What the hell was going on?

  My mind was spinning as I moved across his apartment. Something wasn’t right. He’d tried to tell me something several times but had either stopped himself or been interrupted. I’d assumed it was about our different backgrounds, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  I opened a drawer, and then another, and before long I was searching his apartment. For what, I had no idea.

  On the far side of the room was a small wooden chest and I was crouched down in front of it a few seconds later. I opened it and looked inside. There wasn’t much: some sketches, along with some old newspaper clippings by the looks. I was about to shut it when something caught my eye. A name.

  My brother’s name.

  I picked up the article on top with a trembling hand and read it.

  I’d never seen any of the coverage of the accident or what happened afterward because my father had forbidden it, had done everything he could to keep it from me. And frankly, I hadn’t wanted to know. I certainly didn’t want to relive any of it or hear what people were saying about my brother.

  Christopher Deighton, son of prominent businessman Lyall Deighton: dead after fatal car accident. His passenger, Joel Calero, is in critical condition. Mr. Deighton’s daughter was the first on the scene and suffered severe burns attempting to pull her brother from the wreckage…

  I stared down in shock and confusion. Why did Cal have this? I read the next few articles. They were all about the accident, my father, Christopher, me, what happened afterward. A couple even had pictures of me leaving the hospital with my father after my treatment.

  What the hell was going on?

  I went back to the first article, my eyes skipping over the words, trying to piece whatever this was together. My gaze landed and locked on a name.

  Joel Calero.

  No.

  I quickly sifted through the rest of the newspaper clippings until I found what I was looking for. A picture of Chris’s friend Joel. I vaguely remembered him. I’d only met him a couple of times in passing.

  I hadn’t paid him much attention back then. Chris had a lot of friends and not all were people I wanted to get to know. As I stared down at the picture in my hands, there was no mistaking who I was looking at. He’d changed a lot, of course. He was much bigger now, scarred, tattooed, but those eyes, those dark eyes that could look deep inside you, they hadn’t changed. No, there was no mistaking who he was.

  Cal.

  Joel “Cal” Calero.

  My hand flew to my mouth.

  Cal was Chris’s friend. His scars were from the same accident that killed my brother.

  He’d known who I was all this time, and he’d said nothing. I went to throw the newspaper clippings back in the trunk, ready to run from the room, when I spotted some letters in the bottom of the chest, all of them unsent by the looks. I opened one. It was from Cal to Dane. I read it quickly, my heart pounding in my chest, my head swimming with so many questions.

  Cal asking how Dane was, telling him that he missed him, that he would see him soon. They’d been apart for some reason.

  I got to the end.

  I promise you, Dane. I’ll make that bastard Lyall pay for tearing us apart. Whatever it takes, I’ll make him pay.

  Whatever it takes.

  Like sleeping with the daughter of the man you despise. Like pretending you care about her when all this time it was some sick plan to get back at her father for something he did to Cal ten years ago.

  I stumbled to my feet, running on shaky legs to the door. I yanked it open, hurt and anger propelling me down the stairs to the shop below.

  Cal was no different than anyone else. Using me for his own ends, to get what he wanted.

  Dane was at the counter, and as I reached the bottom of the stairs, his head shot up from his phone that he was typing quickly on. Whatever he saw when he looked at me made him stand straighter.

  “Cassandra—”

  “Where’s Cal?”

  “He’s just finished with a client. He’s cleaning up.”

  I spun around, strode to the curtained-off room, and shoved the fabric back. Cal was already facing me, his eyes on mine, jaw tight.

  “When were you going to tell me who you really are?”

  “I can explain—”

  “Well, Joel, I’m not really interested in the details of your sick, twisted revenge plan.”

  He took a step toward me.

  I shoved my hands up, warding him off. “No.” I shook my head. “Don’t you dare touch me. Don’t come anywhere near me.” My eyes started to sting, but I refused to cry in front of him. “So what were you going to do to get back at my family? Post pictures of me online? A sex tape on the Internet? Blackmail my father with them?”

  “No…fuck…Cassy, just let me…I wasn’t…”

  He was struggling with his speech, stumbling over words, and I took advantage of it, talking right over him. “Tell me you weren’t using me to get back at my father,” I fired at him.

  His fists curled tight at his sides, his chest pumping. “I-I…it’s n-not…” He growled and spun, smashing his fist into the wall. “Fuck!” Then he started toward me.

  I backed up. “To think I let you…that we…” I was about to cry, to humiliate myself in front of him. I wasn’t going to let him see how much he’d hurt me, that I had actually allowed myself to care for him like an idiot. I straightened my spine and hardened my voice. “You make me sick.” I refused to allow the pain
I was feeling through in my voice. “Stay the hell away from me or I’ll file a restraining order.”

  He curled his fingers around my bicep, completely ignoring me, and even after everything, his touch was like an electrical current moving from him to me.

  I yanked free. “Keep your filthy goddamn hands off me,” I said, voice cold, devoid of emotion. I was reverting back to Cassandra, using her as a barrier like I had so many times in my life. Cassy had well and truly left the building.

  Fire burned in his eyes—anger, frustration, and a whole host of other emotions I refused to even try to understand. “You need to…let me…”

  “I don’t need to do a damn thing, except maybe go home and scrub myself raw. I can still feel your filthy hands on my skin and it’s making me sick to my stomach,” I said, delivering my final shot as coldly as I could while inside I struggled to stay upright as my heart bled, tearing in two in my chest.

  He flinched, his hand shooting out, grabbing for the doorframe like he needed the support.

  He was just angry his plan had failed, that his chance at revenge had been blown wide open. That was all that agonized look on his face meant. Nothing else.

  I shook my head in disgust, turned, and ran out. I knew he’d follow me, so I ran as fast as I could, darting down between two shops, ducking behind a row of trash cans. The sound of Cal’s heavy boots pounding on the pavement, of him calling my name, came a short time later.

  But he didn’t see me and walked past.

  I stayed where I was for what felt like forever.

  There was no sign of him when I finally left my hiding spot, but my phone, that was on silent, had been ringing nonstop.

  I walked blindly down the main street of Rocktown. I was in my evening dress, the skirt torn, and bare feet, since I’d forgotten my shoes fleeing his apartment. I felt so much, was trying to process so much, I’d gone numb.

  Was this what dying felt like? I thought it might.

  I ignored people’s stares and my phone, and as soon as it stopped vibrating with another call, I hit Ted’s number and asked him to pick me up.

  It rang three more times while I waited and chimed with multiple text message notifications before I pulled my phone from my purse and silenced it. All the calls and texts were from Cal. I had no desire to listen to his lies and excuses. Why he wanted to even try was beyond me. I’d looked him in the eyes and asked him to deny that he’d planned to use me to get back at my father, and he couldn’t.

  As far as I was concerned there was nothing left to talk about.

  I waited for Ted in a diner at the opposite end of town. I sat and ordered a coffee, ignoring the stares and whispers—the way my heart felt like it had been torn to shreds in my chest.

  Ted must have sped all the way, because he was there in record time. I ignored his concerned look and climbed into his car, staring out the window, barely even seeing the countryside blur by.

  I’d worked something out during that awful confrontation with Cal…Joel. Or more felt something deep inside me, something I’d never wanted to believe.

  There was no escaping who I was.

  I was the daughter of a prominent man. I was expected to do and say certain things. I was Cassandra Deighton. Cassy didn’t exist, she never had. She’d never fitted into the world I was born into. And that world, the people that I thought I despised so much, they…it was all I had.

  I knew where I stood in that world. I knew what they wanted from me.

  What was the point of fighting it? I’d tried to break free and look what happened. Not only had I made a fool of myself, I’d more than likely given Cal—God, Joel—a way to hurt the only family I had left.

  Grabbing my phone again, I opened the messages and called up the last text from my father. It simply read:

  Dad: I need an answer.

  He’d sent it to me yesterday. My reply was equally short and to the point.

  Me: I’ll do it.

  Squashing the sick feeling in my stomach, I shoved my phone back in my purse and stared out the window again, letting the ice in my veins harden and spread, refusing to allow the emotion burning inside me to get free.

  This was what I’d been born for, to advance—or in this case, save—my family any way I could. I’d always known it and had stupidly tried to fight it.

  Not anymore.

  I was done fighting.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cal

  Chest heaving with my labored breaths, I stood in the middle of my apartment, surrounded by wreckage. Broken canvases were scattered across the floor. The paintings Cassy had found, the ones I’d painted during my recovery, the ones she kept going back to, I’d destroyed them all.

  My gaze was on the painting I’d done of Cassy, the one she’d posed for. Bare and exquisite…trusting. Before she worked out who I was, before she’d discovered what I’d planned to do at the start.

  Before I’d hurt her so damn badly she’d emotionally retreated right in front of me.

  Jesus, I was sure I could almost see ice forming on her pale skin. She’d transformed into the ice queen before my eyes and then she’d pushed back as hard as she could. She hadn’t said anything I hadn’t deserved.

  She’d given herself to me, had opened herself up to me in ways I knew she never had with anyone else.

  I ran my hand over my cropped hair, the scars uneven against my palm, and growled.

  She’d given her trust, her body to me.

  And I’d betrayed her.

  I slammed the heel of my hand into the side of my head. I’d tried to explain. I’d tried. But I’d stuttered and tripped over my own fucking tongue. My fucked-up brain hadn’t been able to form the motherfucking words to make her understand, and she’d walked away.

  I had to make her understand.

  I couldn’t let her think she was nothing to me but a means to an end, that she was nothing to me but a way to get back at her father.

  “Feel better now?”

  My gaze shot to the door.

  Bull stood there taking in the destruction around me, heavy brows low. He looked concerned.

  I dragged the back of my hand across my mouth. “Don’t need…shit from…you right now.” I growled in frustration over my stuttered speech.

  “Not here to give it,” Bull rumbled. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “She found out,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Can you fix it?” he asked.

  “Don’t know. But…I need to try.” Grabbing my jacket, I went to stride past Bull.

  His hand landed and locked on my shoulder. “You want me to ride with you?”

  I shook my head. “I think one Calero showing up at the Deighton ranch…will be more than enough.”

  Bull grunted in agreement. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  I wasn’t sure I could promise that, but I dipped my chin and headed out to my truck.

  I hadn’t been to Springhaven in close to ten years. I’d vowed never to go back.

  But thirty minutes later, I was driving along the town’s main street, past beautifully maintained storefronts. And a little farther on, their park and rose gardens, the golf club.

  My gut tightened as memories flooded me with every street I passed.

  I focused on the road ahead.

  Another five minutes of driving and the Deighton ranch came into view, sprawling and solid. It had rustic charm, but also the kind of elegance that said the fucker that owned that house had money, a lot of money.

  I glanced across the field nearest the house and my boot stomped down on the brake so fast I probably left half my tires on the road.

  I swallowed hard as I watched a pure white horse, sleek and fine boned, gallop hell-for-leather toward the house. Cassy was on the horse’s back, her white-blond hair streaming out behind her. Her slender thighs were tucked in tight, body bent low, spurring the beast on like she was trying to outrun something or someone.

  Watching her fly across the field
like that, my heart felt like it had stalled in my chest. I mean, I knew she could ride. But fuck me, Cassy could ride. She looked like she was born to sit on a horse.

  I couldn’t move, couldn’t take my eyes off her as she galloped toward the smaller but equally impressive guesthouse behind her father’s.

  I watched her until she was out of view, then I climbed back in my truck, taking the long curved driveway to get to her. The whole way I repeated over and over in my head what I wanted to tell her. I had to get it right. I had to make her understand.

  Fuck, I couldn’t lose her.

  Letting my emotions take over would only make talking a whole fucking lot harder. I had to keep it together if I wanted to explain this to her.

  She’d been hurt when she found those newspaper clippings, when she found out who I was. Confused. And I’d realized she had no idea what happened after the accident, that she didn’t know what her father did to Dane and Bull.

  Cassy sure as hell wasn’t the ice princess she pretended to be. Far from it.

  I took the tight tree-lined road that curved around the main house to the back and pulled up outside the guesthouse where I assumed Cassy lived.

  I climbed out, gravel crunching under my boots as I headed for the entranceway. I didn’t pause, didn’t give myself time to overthink what I was doing, and banged on the door.

  I let the words I wanted to say turn over in my mind again and again. I could not fuck this up. I had one chance to make her listen, to make her understand…

  The door opened.

  My nerve endings lit up, fire shooting through my body. I straightened…then frowned at the fucker with the slicked-back blond hair and expensive suit staring back at me.

  Mr. GQ looked me over and frowned as well. “Can I help you?”

  Something unwanted started clawing inside my gut instantly, something ugly. “I’m looking for Cassy. This her place?”

  The guy gave me another once-over. “There’s no one here that goes by that name.”

  Relief hammered me hard enough to knock me on my ass. She must have gone to the main house. Maybe they rented this one out? “Sorry, wrong place.” I turned to walk away.