by Lacey Silks
I soft knock sounded on the door. “Skyler, are you all right?” Cash asked.
“Yes. I’m almost done,” I said as I splashed some cold water on my face. I quickly washed the makeup off and combed through my flat hair. I wanted Cash to want me for who I was, and this was definitely not it. Cash had no clue about the real me. The real me would never have shamelessly touched herself in front of a man. The Skyler Waters I knew would have been more scrupulous and bashful. Yet why did it feel so good to be someone else?
I pushed down on the knob and slowly opened the door. Cash stood there in his boxer-briefs. Pure worry filled his eyes. He reached to the side and lifted a beige blanket off a chair.
“C’mere.”
I lowered my head as he wrapped the velvety fabric around me. It felt as if I’d just been hugged by fluffy clouds.
We sat down on the couch outside on the terrace. Curled into his body, I watched more lights of the Manhattan skyline flick on as darkness enveloped the city. The steady beat in Cash’s chest behind me slowly calmed my nerves as I tried to figure out what to say next.
“You look absolutely gorgeous, Sky. I’ve never seen eyes as beautiful as yours.” He kissed my forehead.
“I wanted you to see the real me. The me in Vegas was obviously fake, and the one at the gala was a total imposter. And last night... well, we were both in costume.”
He didn’t say a word, which gave me courage to continue. “I haven’t been outside in my real hair in almost two years. I’ve worn these contacts for so long that I barely recognize myself when I remove them from my eyes.”
I took a pause, collecting my thoughts. He only kissed the top of my head, as if encouraging me to continue. “I want to be the woman you think I am, but I’m not sure that I can. If you picture a country girl in ragged clothes, blending in with any background, standing in a corner or behind a pie-serving table at a summer fest, never speaking up—just hiding her entire life. That’s me. And a girl like me doesn’t touch herself in front of others and doesn’t wear sexy stuff. Those are just for the job. They’re just a camouflage. A girl like me shouldn’t take a man into her mouth or let him kiss her between her legs.”
As desperately as I wanted the words I said to be a lie, they couldn’t be. Because that’s how I grew up. In hiding. Every part of my body, though, wanted to argue. My nipples ached for me to say it wasn’t so, and the tremor I felt between my legs as the idea of not being licked there again engraved itself into my mind was unbearable.
Cash raked his fingers through my hair, combing out the few remaining clusters that had been flattened by the wig. “I love the smell of your hair,” he said, kissing the top of my head again.
“What?” I definitely thought he’d react differently. Wouldn’t anything scare him?
“I’m sorry, but I do. When I inhale it—” he nuzzled his nose into my hair and sucked in a breath “—I smell roses. Pink roses, to be exact. It took me a long time at the florist to find the specific ones. Do you know how many shades of pink there are?”
“No,” I whispered.
“A lot. What I’m trying to say, Sky, is that it makes me feel alive. You make me feel alive, Sky. Can I tell you a secret?”
“Okay.”
“I think the way you described yourself is how I pictured you when I met you. As that country girl living somewhere in the middle of America. I could imagine you riding horses and gardening. I’m not sure why, but I did. That’s the way you appeared in my dreams. With cowboy boots on and a hat and two braids.”
“That’s just because you were living out some sort of fantasy, Cash. I have honestly never ridden a horse in my life.”
“Are the cowboy boots and braids true?”
“Yes.”
He laughed. “Nope, you’re not a fantasy. The fantasy I’m living out right now truly feels like a fantasy because I have a stunning and gifted woman in my arms. A woman who should never be ashamed of her body, or to touch herself or pleasure herself. A woman who was created to be pleased in as many ways as I can imagine.”
I sighed. “But when I do these things, it feels like it’s someone else. I don’t want you to know me as someone else. I need you to know me as me.” I wanted to say that he was just trying to make me feel better. I didn’t expect what came out of his mouth next.
“Did you ever think that the life you led, your entire past, never allowed you to grow into who you were supposed to be? How could you have known what you liked and didn’t like, when you couldn’t show yourself to anyone? It sounds like you’ve been hiding your entire life, not just the past two years. How were you supposed to know what was good for you? I think coming to New York was the best decision you could have made. It allowed you to be free. Spread your wings and for the first time in your life experience living the way you should have from the beginning. This is where people live and where dreams come true. And I think you’re feeling the effects.”
“You talk like you have I heart NY tattooed on your chest.”
“Maybe I do. But think about what I said. I really believe that the witty Skyler Waters I met that day you dropped the twenty dollar bill in Vegas was always inside you but was never allowed to flourish. Look, Sky, if I haven’t made it clear, I really like you. In fact, I think I’m crazy about you, and whatever my future holds with my work or taking my father down, at this point I can’t imagine it without you because you make me so deliriously happy.” He laughed, his chest shaking underneath me. “I just want you to feel comfortable with me and with yourself. Whether it’s with a wig or without one, I really don’t care. But I must say that seeing you like this, pure and raw... well, if I thought you were stunning before, right now, you’re a goddess.”
Wow! Is this man for real? “I do feel comfortable with you. It’s my past that makes me uncomfortable. That’s why I hide behind my contacts and underneath my wigs.”
Why did it feel so good to be someone else? Perhaps Cash was right. Maybe it was because I never truly found the nerves to get to know the real me while growing up in Ogden. My entire life had been about hiding, and when I came to New York and began pretending to be this new person, maybe I was finally getting to know who I was. Perhaps this city allowed me to grow into the woman I was supposed to be. I’d blamed undercover work I’d done for Mr. Wagner for the change I’d seen in me, as well as my constant need to hide. Perhaps during this time, my inner self came out of her shell and I just failed to notice.
“Why are you hiding from this guy, Sky? Why is he looking for you?”
Just thinking about Rick Menzos and his twin brother whom I’d never met gave me the chills. I felt myself shake in Cash’s arms. If he trusted me enough to hire me for the Bahamas sting, then I should have been able to be honest with him.
Shifting slightly to face Cash, I finally said the words that had been burning in my conscience. “He’s not just a guy. He’s my half-brother and I killed his twin.”
It didn’t take as long for Cash to recover from my news as I thought it would. I expected at least a moment of shock but got none.
“You’re not surprised?” I asked. We were both sitting under the soft blanket. Cash had his legs spread apart, and I sat right between them. He pulled me back into the comfort of his arms.
“I am. For someone to go to such extensive measures to disappear, I knew it had to be pretty bad. And I guess what I said before, how you know how to kill a man, well that makes much more sense now. That’s what triggered this, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I killed a man,” I repeated.
“Was it in self-defense?”
“How did you know?”
“Because why else would you kill someone, Sky? I know you wouldn’t have without a reason.”
“But you’re wrong. I wanted to kill him so badly. Way before he attacked my sister and gave me a reason to. I wanted to strangle him and feel his pulse slow underneath my fingertips. I imagined dunking his head in a bucket of water and holding it there until he breathed the li
quid into his lungs. I wanted the bastard in as much pain as Blake was. No, even more than that. The only regrets I have is that I cannot kill him again and that my actions caused a domino effect on my family.”
I felt tears streak down my cheeks. Cash simply passed me the tissues from the side table, and I knew that by this point I might as well tell him the entire story.
“I wanted him to die over and over again. He took everything away from me. My fiancé, my baby, and my entire future. And I knew he’d come back. I knew he wouldn’t give up, because our ruthless father wouldn’t have, either. They were all obsessed. So when Rick attacked my sister at the hospital, I was prepared. I hid the scalpel in my sleeve and slit his throat from behind. He had the pillow over Annabelle’s face and wouldn’t let go until I slashed him. I remember him grasping the gushing blood from his neck and finally letting go of that pillow. I couldn’t let Annabelle die. When he fell to the floor, I sat on top of his body and kept slicing and slicing. I couldn’t stop until the scalpel slid out of my grip and I shrunk back into the corner of the hospital room. I prayed they couldn’t revive him.”
And I finally stopped. I didn’t notice until then that Cash was rocking me back and forth in his arms, holding on to my body as if trying to force my soul to remain within. And he was right to do so. I was desperate to escape into the darkest hole I could find and cry until I had no more tears.
“Skyler, you’re a victim. You’ve been a victim your entire life, and I don’t blame you at all that you wanted to come to New York and be someone else. Being the old you must have hurt like hell. Remembering the pain both your father and brother have caused you. Jesus, you’re a strong woman to have gone through all this and still be able to stand on your own two feet. And now the twin brother is after you?”
“Yes. I haven’t told this to anyone. Actually, Emma’s the only one who knows, but I swore her to secrecy. He knows I did it. He knows I killed Rick. As soon as I got that first letter from him back home, I knew I had to leave. I knew I couldn’t just sit and wait until he came and killed me or someone else. I’m pretty sure he didn’t know about my new family. He would have done something already, or at least threatened them in the letter too. The only way to keep him away from them was for me to cut all my ties and leave.”
“You know you’re safe with me, Sky, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do feel safe. Safest I’ve ever been, which really scares the living daylights out of me. My instinct is telling me not to trust and not to get close. That this could only end in a disaster, but my body.... When I’m around you, it’s like a switch is turned on and I become a different person.”
“Or maybe you become the person you always were but didn’t know it. You become the woman I’ve seen since the first day I met you.”
I lowered my head to my knees. “Everything is just so confusing, Cash. I wish I had no issues or problems, but then I don’t think I would have met you. And I can’t imagine not meeting you. At this point, I don’t think I can imagine not having you in my life.”
“Baby, everyone has problems and issues. Believe me, I know. You have no idea how much we have in common, Sky. If I ever doubted that you were my soul mate, I’m sorry. There’s no other explanation. You have to be it. Fate brought you to me. I think when I went to Vegas, I got a prize way greater than the three hundred and eighty million dollars. You were my prize.”
Did Cash fall out of heaven? I had a feeling that he wasn’t the only one who won a prize while in Vegas.
“You said everyone has problems and issues. What are yours?”
He pulled a pillow from the side and shifted to face me. “I haven’t been able to tell anyone about this either, Sky. So please bear with me.” Cash looked out into the distance as if trying to find that moment in time he was going back to somewhere along the city skyline. “I lost someone too. Exactly two years ago this coming weekend. And it’s my fault that I did. I keep thinking that maybe if I’d been more attentive and if I’d seen the signs I could have done more.”
“But you’re one of the most attentive men I’ve ever met.” I squeezed his hand, drawing his gaze to our connection.
“Now I am. I can’t make the same mistake twice. I won’t.” He lifted his eyes to meet mine once again. I could tell that he was struggling from the inside. Cash had held on to his story for a long time too, and I was sure that telling me about the past that still haunted him would take a lot of courage.
When his attention came back to the present, I knew that he’d found some kind of a resolve inside him and waited for him to open up.
“Thank you for sharing your story with me. It means the world to me. As you know, the past few years I’ve been concentrating on fixing my father’s mistakes. And I’d done this for so long that I didn’t see the train wreck coming until it was too late. My girlfriend and I, we took my boat out on the ocean to spend some time alone. I’d neglected her, I knew that, and I wanted to make up for it. So we spent the night out on the water. I really thought time away from the city would help. I thought it would bring us together and prayed that Carly’s oncoming depression would give way. Except I didn’t know that her disease had gotten worse. Look at me, I’m already trying to make excuses.”
He flicked a stray feather off the armrest. It floated in the breeze before the wind swept it away after it reached the terrace’s threshold. I sat quietly waiting, giving Cash the same time he had gifted me.
“When I woke up in the morning, all I found was a good-bye note. She’d jumped into the ocean and drowned. Her body was never found. It wasn’t until after she died that I found out Carly couldn’t swim. Stupid me. I fucking took her out on the ocean. That’s like taking an addict to a liquor store. How can a boyfriend not know that his girlfriend can’t swim? Think about how ignorant that was of me.” He lifted his finger to his head and pointed there as if wanting to show me some sort of a malfunction in his brain.
“But you didn’t know,” I whispered.
“That’s not the point, Sky. I should have known. I should have made it my mission to know everything about her. That’s what you do when you love someone. You bare your heart and soul to each other. You do everything possible to be each other’s rocks and create that comfort zone no one can penetrate. I failed to do that.”
“I’m sorry that you’re hurting so much.” I smoothed my hand over his cheek.
“I’m okay now. Does it get difficult some days? Yes. But I can’t express to you how good it feels to tell you about it. I didn’t think I could.”
Now I understood why Cash had asked me at the hotel whether I could swim. “It feels good for me to have told you as well. Is that Carly’s picture in your office?” I asked.
“Yes. Does it make you feel uncomfortable? I can remove it if you’d like.”
“I wouldn’t want you to. You should remember her. Someone should always remember her.” I brought my hand to my tummy where I once carried my baby. Cash noticed the gesture and placed his hand on top of mine.
“So you were pregnant?” he asked. “What happened?”
“Rick, my half-brother, made me watch as Blake drowned. I think the stress took its toll on our baby. I lost it on that shore because I couldn’t save him. They both died that same day.”
“Oh my God! What kind of a sick fuck was he?” Cash pulled me back into his arms.
“One of a kind. Actually one of two, because if his twin has an ounce of Rick’s personality, then I’m screwed for the rest of my life.”
“No fucking way, Sky. I’m not going to let that happen. Wait a minute! Emma! She knows about this, right?”
“Not everything, but enough. I think I may finally be ready to ask her for more help. She’s been insisting for two years, so I think that’ll make her happy. I was thinking of doing that when we return from the Bahamas. I need to stay in character when we go there, and I was really looking forward to spending some time away with you.”
“Yes, me too.”
“So plea
se don’t say anything.”
“As long as you promise to talk to her when we return.”
“I do. I promise.”
“Good. Your family must miss you. You must miss them as well.”
“I desperately miss them. I wish I could at least visit for the holidays, but I can’t take that chance.”
“You do know that I can get rid of him, don’t you? Just say the word and he’s gone.”
“Thank you. But at this point, I can’t afford to involve anyone else. I promised Emma that I’d let her company help me find Mateo and deal with him when I was ready. It’s the only way I’ll be able to move past this.”
“That’s a good place to start. Cross Enterprises is one of the best. Believe me, I know. They are actually the ones who gave me another chance. My sister’s boyfriend, Hunter, who works for them, is the sole reason why I’m not behind bars facing tax evasion charges. It’s a long story too. Man, do I ever have a twisted family.”
“It seems like we both do.” I shivered. Just thinking about my father made me uncomfortable.
“Do you want to go inside, Sky? Watch a movie maybe? Take our minds off things?”
“Actually, that sounds like a great idea. I’d love to.”
We walked downstairs, and I sat on the living room couch. The cushions almost swallowed me and felt comfortable enough to sleep on. Cash strolled over to the bar and asked, “Would you like something?”
“Looks like someone likes their booze.”
“Not really. I rebelled just before law school and told my father I’d be a bartender. I even took all the courses. The phase passed, but I gained a new hobby, and since a Wagner can’t really show himself working in a bar, I like to fool around with drinks on my own. So, what will it be, Sky?” He flipped one of the bottles up in the air and caught it. The scene was straight from Cocktail.
“I don’t know. What did you have in mind?”
“I had a creamy pussy on my mind earlier.”
