Stripped Down (32 page)

“Do you think you’ll tell them about us? How it happened?”

“Are you going to tell your parents?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.

I shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. I figure I have to come clean eventually because it’s not like we can wipe out what we’ve done just so nobody knows, is it?”

“I dunno, Blondie.” He loosely twirled a lock of my hair around his finger and met my eyes. “The idea of divorcing you so I can marry you properly isn’t such a bad one.”

“Be serious.”

“You think I’m not being serious? If you agreed to marry me properly, I’d divorce you in a heartbeat.”

“That has to be the strangest thing anybody has ever said to me.”

Beck gave me a lopsided grin. “Why? It makes total sense.”

“No... It’s a total waste of money and time. Besides, I don’t care about that. If we’re together and already married, it’s completely pointless to divorce just to do it ‘right.’ Even if you do have money to waste,” I said firmly before he could interrupt me.

He closed his mouth.

“It’s nothing to you, but it still has worth to me. So, yes, I will tell my parents—when the time is right.”

“Then I will too.” He released the lock of hair he was playing with and then brushed the backs of his fingers across my cheek. “Then what are we doing, Cassie? Are we recognizing the fact that we’re married, or are we going to keep pussyfooting around it like we’re in a normal relationship?”

“Why are you asking me? You’re the one who keeps calling me Cassie Cruz.”

“That’s your name.”

“And that’s my point. You’re going to call me it anyway, aren’t you?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.” He gently cupped my chin. “That’s the point of my question.”

I swallowed. “Do you want to recognize the fact that we’re married?”

He looked into my eyes for a long moment before he reached over and grabbed me. He pulled me on top of him in one swift movement. My knees settled next to his hips on the sofa, and my body nestled against his as he wrapped his arms around the bottom of my back and held me tight.

“Stupid woman,” he muttered then brushed his lips over my collarbone. “I’d put it on a billboard if you wouldn’t punch me in the junk for it.”

My lips quirked up, and I cupped his jaw with my hands. “Maybe not the junk. Maybe just the arm. I like your arms, but I’m much fonder of that other part of you.”

His eyes flashed with desire, and he tightened his grip on me. “That so? Why don’t you get to showing me?”

I lowered my mouth and did just that—twice.

M
om:
Can you come over after you take CiCi to school?

I frowned at my phone screen.

Me:
Sure. Is everything okay?

Mom:
Yes. Just need to talk to you. Love you. Xx

Me:
Okay, will be there right after. Love you back. Xx

“Everything all right?” Beck asked me, his hand brushing across my lower back as he passed me to get to the fridge.

“Yeah. I have to go see my mom after CiCi’s in school. I can start work a little late, right?” I peered up from my phone.

“Of course. Is something wrong?”

I shrugged. “She just said she needed to talk to me. I guess it’s probably about my new hours.”

“Can’t she call you for that?”

“No. She hates anything to do with phones. She only has one because it was easier to text me when I was working before.” I put my phone down on the kitchen counter. “Now, apparently, she’s using it to get me over there when she wants me.”

“Ah, parents. Aren’t they wonderful?”

“Yours live a couple thousand miles away. It doesn’t count.” I checked my phone again in case Mom had sent another message, but she hadn’t. “I’m kinda worried. She doesn’t usually do this.”

“Do you think it’s your dad?” Beck flattened his hands in front of him and leaned forward.

“No. If it were him, she would have definitely called me. He’s the exception to her rule.”

“Are you talking about Grandpa?” CiCi walked into the kitchen, her hair resembling something akin to a bird’s nest.

That was exactly why she was supposed to sleep with it in a braid when it was wet. It was going to be hell to brush that.

“Yes. Why?” I asked.

“I miss him. Can I see him today?” She climbed up onto one of the stools and put her elbows on the counter, propping her chin in her hands. “Please. Pretty please with a fairy cherry on top.”

“You just saw him yesterday!”

She shook her head. “Nuh-uh. He was at the doctors, having a rest.”

In other words, a test. She’d once misheard test for rest, and it seemed kinder to let her believe he went there for a rest every week instead of another test.

“Okay. Well, I have to go see Nanny once I’ve dropped you at school. If Grandpa is feeling okay, we’ll go hang out for a bit after school. I’m not promising anything because he might be tired.”

“Silly Mommy. How can he be tired after a rest?”

“Doctors talk a lot,” Beck interjected. “Don’t you feel tired after lots of conversations?”

She sighed. “Very, very tired. Okay. Can we bake him some cakes if he’s sleeping?”

“Sure. Can you go and get dressed, please?” I kissed the top of her head.

She hopped down off the stool and walked out of the kitchen, leaving us alone.

I glanced at Beck. “How did you know she didn’t mean rest? About Dad?”

He shrugged and handed me a cup of coffee. “Rest. Test. It made sense.” He sipped from his. “Let’s go get ready so you can get her to school and go see your mom. Call me when you’re done and I’ll come back to pick you up, all right?”

I nodded and smiled, but it felt forced. It was hard to make it genuine when worry coiled your stomach so tight that you felt like you might throw up.

Beck kissed me soundly right before I got out of the car. Strangely, or perhaps not at all, it made me feel a hundred times better than I’d thought it would. Just knowing he was there for me if something was wrong made me feel stronger.

I’d dealt with everything about my dad’s illness by myself. I’d never had anyone to speak to about it, so knowing he was there if I needed him... Well, it made this a little less daunting.

I knocked twice and opened the front door to my parents’ house. Immediately, I spotted Dad sitting in front of the TV in his favorite chair, one leg propped up on the footstool. He turned toward me with a big smile when I shut the front door.

“Hey, Cass-Cass.”

“Hey, Dad. How are you? You look great.”

And he did—he had color in his cheeks, and his eyes were a little brighter. I bent and kissed his cheek, his weathered hand reaching up to touch my hair.

“I’m doing great. The new drugs they’ve got me on are working. My white-blood-cell count has stabilized, and the cancer seems to be contained. They’re hopeful for some chemo if it carries on.”

“That’s amazing.” A smile stretched across my face. “They think there’s a chance?”

“Oh, there’s always a chance, Cass-Cass. Even when they say there isn’t. People get told they’ve got two months to live and are still around five years later.”

I didn’t want to point out that some people were told they had five years left and lived only for two months. He was in too much of a good mood.

“Hey, Cassie.” Mom walked into the front room with a mug of tea for Dad. “Do you want a drink?”

“No, I’m good. I don’t have a lot of time—I have to get to work. What do you need to talk about?”

Mom and Dad both shared a glance. Dad waved at her to sit down, so she did. Awkward, terse silence hung in the air between the three of us for a moment until Mom finally sighed.

“After you picked CiCi up yesterday, I went to get your dad from the hospital and spoke with them. I wanted to see if I could clear some of the outstanding bills from the start of the year since we’d saved a little, but when I tried to hand over the check, they told me they couldn’t take it.”

My eyes twitched, narrowing the tiniest bit. “Why couldn’t they take it?”

Mom glanced at Dad.

“Cass-Cass,” he said softly. “The bill had been paid. Every last cent. We couldn’t clear any of the balance because there wasn’t any.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Sweetheart... Beckett paid it.” Mom’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know how or why he did it, but he did, and since we hadn’t gotten the statement yet, we didn’t know until I tried.”

I froze.

What had she just said? Had she just said... “Beckett? Beck paid Dad’s medical bills?”

“All of it,” Dad confirmed. “Everything the insurance wouldn’t pay for, he did.”

I still didn’t understand. Why would he have done that? That was insane. Those bills had been six figures because Dad’s medical insurance was utter shit. How had Beck even been able to do it? Could he have done it? I guessed normal rules didn’t apply if you were rich like he was.

My eyes burned with tears. “Why would he do that?” My voice cracked halfway through the question, but I didn’t need anybody to answer it. I knew.

It was just money...sitting in his bank account, being useless. If he could use it to bring happiness to just one person, he would.

I rubbed my hands across my neck. I felt like I was wringing my own neck because I was scrubbing my skin so hard. I didn’t know how else to deal with this information. I couldn’t fathom why, of all the things he could have done with his money, he’d chose to do that.

How was it possible that one person could make such a huge impact in your life?

“I need to tell you something,” I said quietly, looking at the carpet. “About me and Beck.”

“I think it’s pretty clear you’re more than friends, Cassie,” Mom said with slight amusement.

I peered up through my lashes. “We are. But we’re kind of married. Accidentally.” I launched into the story before either of them could say anything.

True to the kind of people they were, they sat and listened to me as it all poured out of me in a way it hadn’t before.

This time, the outburst was different. I defended it, put emphasis on how good he was with Ciara and how much she loved him, how sweet he was despite his business, how determined he was to make this work and give it his everything.

And, right there, telling my parents all of that, I truly believed it whole-heartedly for the first time. Believed in him. In the goodness of his heart and the pureness of his soul.

Beckett Cruz was many things. Sexy. Dirty. Impulsive. Crazy. Tempting. But he was also generous and kind, and his capacity to love someone was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. His need to make the people he cared about happy was overwhelmingly strong.

He wasn’t perfect. I was sure he picked his nose when nobody was looking—
maybe.
But, then again, imperfections were themselves perfections. They just needed to fit alongside someone else’s imperfections to balance them out.

“Well,” Dad said when I’d finally finished talking. His mug of tea was now empty, and Mom had drunk almost an entire bottle of water. “If I were a woman in her twenties, I’d marry the man too.”

My lips pulled to one side, but I fought the smile. “You’re not mad at me?”

“How can we be mad?” Mom asked. “You made a very careless, very stupid decision, Cassie, but you handled it like an adult. You did your best to see that it was cleared up quickly and that Ciara didn’t get involved in it. What happened after was, excuse the cliché, fate.”

“Don’t start rabbiting on about that fate and soul mate malarkey, Deb. She’s got the Hallmark channel for that,” Dad chuckled.

Mom swatted at his arm with her hand then turned to me. “Sometimes, you meet people and you just know. That goes for friends too. Some people you just mesh with and you wonder how you ever lived without them. Maybe Beckett is that perfect for you, Cassie. You’re old enough and wise enough to make that decision yourself, and we both know that, any decision you make, you’re not doing so without considering what’s best for Ciara—before you even think about yourself. Sweetheart, it doesn’t matter how you came together. What matters is how you stay together. He’s a wonderful, selfless man, and the next time I see him, I might hug him and never let him go. But, if he’s right for you and Ciara, regardless of all other things, then he’s right for
you
.”