Hard (18 page)

Married
. I hadn’t said the word in weeks, not since I’d
gotten back to Atlanta. And I guess I’d lulled myself into
believing that the absence of it from my vocabulary was somehow
erasing it from my life, too.

My plan was to file formally for divorce from Sebastian later this
summer, once I’d settled back into the house, found a job,
gotten my legs under me a little. I don’t want any of his money
or the apartment or anything I didn’t pack into my suitcases. I
just want my life back.

I didn’t think it’d be too complicated, but that was when
I didn’t know how close I was not to having a house at all and
before I volunteered for what has to be the only job in Atlanta where
it’s not about how many zeroes are on the paycheck—it’s
that there are only zeroes on the paycheck. And the paycheck is
imaginary anyway.

And, of course, before I met Ryder. And slept with him. And maybe
fell for him.

“You don’t have to admit any fucking thing you don’t
want to,” Savannah says. “When I represent a client, I
only want to know exactly what I have to know to do the best job for
her. No less. But definitely no more.”

I laugh. “Ryder isn’t my attorney, though.”

“I know,” she says. “But he’s not your
boyfriend.”

“Or just a friend,” I point out.

“Or just a fuck buddy either,” she says. “So if you
can’t even say what your relationship is, how do you know what
you have to disclose? Has he asked if you’re married?”

I shake my head. Savannah clinks her glass to mine. “To
plausible deniability then.” She finishes the rest of her wine.
I sip mine, appreciative of the supportive toast. But not entirely
sure I deserve it.

CASSIE

He’s
sitting on my front steps when I get home, the outline of his broad
shoulders and long legs still visible in the dark, moonless night.
Ryder Cole, sexy even in shadows.

I
think about cruising right past him, as though he’s not even
there, wondering if I have the strength to stroll into the house like
he’s not just the last thing on my mind but not anything on my
mind at all, lock the door behind me and not so much as glance over
my shoulder. To pretend nothing has ever happened between us, just
like we both said we wished it hadn’t.

To
find out if that was true.

As
I walk up the path from the garage, he strides toward me. His
button-up shirt is open just enough at the collar to tease a peek at
his firm chest, and his jeans hang on his hips, right where my legs
were wrapped around him that night in his condo as he held me against
his wall.

He meets me halfway on the sidewalk, and for a moment we look at each
other in silence under the black sky. I roll my lips so I don’t
press them to his, put all my weight on my heels so I don’t let
myself fall forward into his arms because I know that nearness can be
deceiving. Standing close together doesn’t always show the real
distance between you.

Ryder puts his hands on my shoulders, but gently. .

“I’m sorry,” he says.

The heat from his fingertips warms my skin through my t-shirt,
stirring waves of energy that course through my pelvis. Any ounce of
will I might have had to ignore him melts away, replaced with a
desire to let the sensation of his body crushed against mine erase
the memory of what happened earlier. To stroll into the house with
him the only thing on my mind and lock the bedroom door behind us.

But I fight my immediate instinct to forgive him. I’ve heard
I’m sorry
enough these last couple of years to know it
doesn’t always mean what it sounds like. That sometimes the
person saying it sees things one way, and the person hearing it
another. Or that the person saying it doesn’t see things at
all, that
I’m sorry
can be his way of saying
You’re
the one with the problem
.

“Shouldn’t you be at the bar?” I say. “How’s
Cash going to know what to do if you’re not there to boss him
around?”

“Jackson and Parker will handle him,” he says. “Right
now, I need to handle this.” He steps toward me. “Us.”

His muscled torso brushes against my belly as we breathe in and out
together, and I tuck my hair behind my ears, forcing myself to resist
touching him. “So tell me what you’re sorry about.”

His hands glide past my elbows, encircling my wrists.

“That I lied,” he says, “when I agreed that I wish
nothing had ever happened between us.” He weaves his fingers
through mine. “I don’t know. Maybe you meant it. But I
didn’t and I shouldn’t have said it and I’ve spent
the last six hours being sorry that I did.” Even under the
black sky, I can see the contour of his face, his strong jaw line and
his rounded lips as he looks down at our hands. “It’s
just…it’s hard for me to trust people because I’ve
been screwed in the past, so letting some of those walls down—with
you—has made me defensive. And kind of an asshole. But that’s
on me. You didn’t deserve the way I treated you, Cassie. You
deserve better.”

He takes a breath and looks at me, and all I see in his eyes is
sincerity.

This is a real apology. Not just some attempt to get out of jail free
or an excuse to tide me over til the next time something goes wrong
and someone gets mad. Actual regret and accountability. It’s
music to my ears, but a song I haven’t heard from a man in
quite a while—at least not in the last two years.

“Okay,” I say. I shake my head. “I didn’t
mean it, either. I’ve just been frustrated with Jamie and S—”
My tongue starts the first syllable of
Sebastian
but I cut it
off, not ready tonight to complicate things any more than necessary.
“Some other stuff,” I say instead. “I’m
sorry, too.”

“About Jamie,” he says. “It’s been on my mind
tonight, ever since you left my office. I don’t think you
should be working off his debt anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not your brother’s keeper,” he says.
“And you’re good with the books. You should get paid.”

I pull back from him. Somewhere down the street, there’s the
sound of a car engine, getting closer. But otherwise the night is
quiet, just our voices, and my heart beating more quickly in my ears
with worry as I say, “I can’t let you take the house,
Ryder.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He combs his fingers
through my hair. “I don’t want your house,” he
says. “I just don’t think it’s fair for you to be
paying with your time when it’s Jamie who owes the money.”
Headlights shine in my driveway next to us as a familiar Toyota
Corolla pulls up, and like an actor hitting his entrance mark or the
devil hearing his name uttered, Jamie appears from the driver’s
side door.

Ryder looks at him, then at me, cocking his head.

I close my eyes.

Shit.

“I thought you hadn’t heard from him?” Ryder says
to me, but whether he’s angry more than he’s confused is
hard to tell. “That you have no idea where he is.”

The car door slams and we watch Jamie shuffle slowly toward us.
Nerves coil in my stomach as Ryder tenses up. He’s laser
focused on my brother, not even looking at me anymore, and I wonder
if I’ll be able to keep the apology Ryder just offered me. And
if he’s about to beat Jamie into a pulp.

“Don’t be mad at her, man,” Jamie says, easing a
backpack off his shoulder. “She’s good. She’s a
good person and I’m an idiot and she was just trying to help me
out.”

Ryder crosses his arms and widens his legs, his frame tall and solid
and imposing. All business.

“Not anymore,” Ryder says. “I’m not going to
let her keep fighting your battles. Where the hell have you been,
kid?”

“Oh, you know,” Jamie says. He steps up to the porch.
“Out and about. But I’m home now. Ready to man up, dude.”

Ryder smiles tightly. “Then let’s see you put your money
where your mouth is. And by your money,” he says, “I mean
mine.”

I step between the two of them, putting my hand on Ryder’s
chest. “He doesn’t have it, Ryder, okay? So, look, I’ll
keep doing the books until he gets whatever I don’t make up
for, and that’ll be really soon, right, Jamie?” I snap my
head toward Jamie and raise my eyebrows the way our mom used to do
when we were one disobedient moment away from punishment.

Jamie unzips the backpack and takes out a thick Ziploc bag of bills.
“Eight G’s,” he says, handing it to Ryder. “I
know that doesn’t touch the interest. The rest’ll be here
soon.” He looks at me. “And I’m sorry it took this
long.”

Ryder opens the bag and thumbs through the money. “You know,
you owe your sister nearly three grand. She’s been working her
ass off just to save yours.”

“She’s going to get it,” Jamie says. “Plus
interest.” He passes by us, heading toward the house.

“Jamie,” I say, following him. He stops and turns around.
“Where’d you get the money?”

“I told you I had most of it.”

“But how?” I say, cringing at the thought of some other
debt started just to pay this one, like an endless hall of mirrors
Jamie never manages to get out of.

“It’s all cool, Cass, don’t worry,” he says.
“There’s more to me than meets the eye.” He opens
the front door, and nods toward Ryder behind me. “And from the
looks of things when I rolled up, I guess the same goes for you.”
He goes inside.

I walk back toward Ryder on the sidewalk. He has the bag of bills
tucked under his arm, his hands in his jeans pockets. I touch his
hips. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry I
didn’t tell you he was here.”

“How long has he been home?”

I look down at our feet, almost touching on the concrete. “A
few days.”

“You lied.”

I lift my eyes to his face, his brow furrowed, his lips slightly
parted, the look of someone confused, angry, hurt.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” I say. “I
wasn’t sure how you’d react. Or how I’d react to
your reaction.”

“Do you trust me?”

I nod. “But I’ve been wrong in the past.”

“You’re not wrong now, Cassie. But I need to be able to
trust you, too. So the lying, the covering for people, the
withholding of information, it stops now. It has to. Do you
understand?”

I push back a wave of guilt. There’s still one thing I have to
withhold.

“I understand,” I whisper.

“Good.”

He
puts his hands on my waist and kisses me, his mouth warm and wet,
firm and soft at the same time, and I let myself feel his biceps, his
chest, his ass, all the parts of him I’ve been resisting since
he showed up, afraid that once I started touching him I wouldn’t
be able to stop, wouldn’t want to be able to stop, like
conducting a train that’s running off the tracks into paradise.
I won’t think about Sebastian. That part of my life is over
now.

Despite the growing hardness I can feel through Ryder’s jeans,
despite the warmth pooling between my legs, he pulls away and says he
has to get back to Altitude. He told Jackson he’d help close
tonight. We walk to his car by the curb, holding hands. He tosses the
money onto the passenger’s seat and gets behind the wheel. “I
know you were just looking out for your brother this time,” he
says, “but promise me this is it. No more lies.”

My stomach contracts.
Promise me
. This is my chance to tell
Ryder about Sebastian. But the words die in my throat before I can
even get them out. I know it’s wrong, but it would be terrible
to tell Ryder this secret, to try to explain how I feel about him
even while I’m married to someone else, though Sebastian and I
are so over we’re past over. We’re extinct, and with
Ryder, I’m reincarnated, a phoenix reborn from the ashes, ready
to fly forward without a need to look behind. This is my new life.

I lean through the open window, kiss Ryder gently on the lips. “I
promise,” I say. “No more lies.”

But that doesn’t mean I have to tell him the truth.

CASSIE

Shelby,
Avery, Ruby, Savannah, and I sprawl like housecats around Ryder’s
office at Altitude, sipping expensive whiskey and trying not to laugh
too noticeably at how horrible Savannah’s date was last night,
the success of the coral bandage dress notwithstanding.

“He ate nothing,” she says about Paul, a successful but
apparently socially nervous defense attorney. “Not the fried
risotto balls, which were his idea to order, by the way. Not the
salad. Not a bite of salmon or trout or whatever the fuck fish it
was.” She leans forward in Ryder’s desk chair, extends
her empty glass to me. “Hit me, Cass.”

I
pour her a refill of Highland Park single malt scotch, a
five-hundred-dollar bottle in Jackson and Ryder’s secret stash
of expensive alcohol, though not such a secret from Shelby
apparently, who thought the only way to salve Savannah’s bad
date blues was with the highest of high-class liquor.

“You’re not the only good stuff Ryder has back here,”
Shelby said to me, swatting me on the butt as we snuck down the
hallway to the office.

Altitude
is as packed on Sunday nights as it is Fridays and Saturdays, but the
place feels like home to me now every day of the week. Tonight I’m
actually serving again—Cash had called this morning,
anticipating a busy night since the Braves are having a hot season
and played early this evening—but I told Ryder I was taking my
break when Savannah got here. “We’re packed,” he
said. “You think just because you’re sleeping with the
boss you can do whatever you want?” He grinned, letting his
hand fall from my hip to my ass. We stood in a dark corner of the bar
toward the back, not entirely invisible to anyone who might be paying
attention, but mostly lost in the crowd.

“Well,
sure. Why else sleep with the boss?” I said, running my hands
underneath his soft t-shirt, feeling the tightness of his abs. “Other
than the fact that he has a perfectly shaped cock that makes me come
til I can’t breathe.” I slid my hand to the front of his
pants, over his erection. “I guess there’s that.”