He crouches beside me. “That’s not all you left behind.”
I frown, too confused to make heads or tails of what is going on. “No?”
“You left a broken heart behind, Cass. Mine.”
My eyes open wide. “I broke your heart?”
“Into a million fucking pieces.”
My eyes fill with tears and roll down my cheeks.
“Goddammit,” he exclaims and pulls me toward his chest.
“I’ll ruin your beautiful suit.” I bawl like a two-year-old kid.
“Fuck the suit, Cass. I don’t give a damn about anything but you. From the day I laid eyes on you, I didn’t know what hit me. You led me a merry dance, young lady, and made me fall so crazy in love with you, I swear I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.”
“I love you too,” I admit with a great sob.
“Well, that’s nothing to cry about.”
“I’m just sorry I lied. I had no choice.”
“Listen to me, baby. I don’t care that you lied about who you were. I lied about who I was too. I’m not a ranch hand. I own that ranch. I own all this too.”
I look at him through a haze of tears. “You mean, you’re rich?”
“Yup.”
“Why would you hide something like that?”
He shrugs. “It suited me to let Tamara think I was a ranch hand. I wanted to know how she would treat my other workers. Besides, when I made that decision, I hadn’t met you yet, and I thought I didn’t want to deal with the likes of her coming onto me just because of my family name.”
It hits me like a flash. My eyes widen. Redmond. Like Tamara’s family, the Redmonds are another old-money family. “Your family is the Redmonds?”
“Guilty as charged.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “So, there is no ribbon for me to cut?”
“Nope.”
“Was Ms. Moore in on this too?”
“Of course.”
“But how and when did you find out that I was not Tamara?”
“I threatened to expose Tamara to her father if she didn’t tell me. She sang like a canary.”
I swallow hard. “Did you do…anything with her that night at the ball?”
“Anything?”
I take a deep breath. “She was planning to trick you into bed with her.”
He laughs harshly. “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t touch that mean bitch with a fucking bargepole.”
A big smile of sheer relief spreads over my face. It grows wider and wider. I can’t stop beaming at him.
“Actually, I still can’t get over the fact that you would think I could be fooled even for a minute. Hell, I’d been eating, sleeping, and breathing you for weeks. I know every inch of your body, Cass. Of course, I’d know it wasn’t you.”
“I thought if you were drunk enough.”
“Drunk? I’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to think she was you. She’s nothing but an empty, selfish, soulless, tired, nasty, plastic doll. And she’s stupid and rude to boot. You, on the other hand, are as fresh-faced as a rain-washed apple, intelligent, kind, warm, sweet, sexy, complicated, fun, deep, caring- Hey, are you crying?” he asks, frowning.
“Yeah, tears of happiness, you dork.”
“Dork, am I?”
I nod vigorously.
“Tell me more about that girl I fell in love with under the big sky?”
“Cass Harper lived in a drab little room in a horrible area of Chicago. She worked hard to earn money, but it all went to pay for her sick father’s hospital bills. When that was not enough, she took a loan from some loan sharks and they kept on adding more and more interest to it. It got so that she didn’t even have enough to pay her rent. That was when she took a job to impersonate Tamara Honeywell on a ranch in Montana.”
“I’m so sorry, Cass. I’m here now. From now on, you’ll never need to work a day in your life if you don’t want to.” Standing on one knee, he takes my hand between his. “I love you, Cass. For better or worse, I’m here.”
“Well, I’ve loved you since the day I stopped hating your arrogant ass,” I say with a chuckle.
He laughs and pulls something from his pocket. “Now, don’t think I’m proposing just yet. I’m gonna do it, just not now.” He shows me a velvet box. “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, but I want to know you, and a year from now, I’ll bring you back here and give you this ring and ask you to be my wife.”
He opens the box. I look down at the ring and gasp. It is a beautiful pink stone set in white gold. “Oh, Lars. It’s beautiful.”
I look into his molten gray eyes, soft with love and tenderness. I push him back a few inches and reach for my blue contacts. I take them out and hold them in my hands. “I have green eyes.”
He looks at me for a moment before smiling. “I like green even more,” he says, kissing my knuckles.
A smile tugs at my face. I push the chair backward and kneel on the floor with him. “Do you know what I’m desperate for right now?”
He pulls back and slides his calloused fingers beneath my eyes, wiping away the remnants of tears. “I really hope it’s a hard fuck, because my cock’s fucking starving for you, Cass. He’s going to rip right through my pants if I don’t get inside you soon.”
I giggle. “Well, what are you waiting for, big boy?”
Epilogue
Cass
(Three Years Later)
I wake up suddenly and with a strange knowing. Dawn in already in the sky and its pale light is creeping in through the open windows. I turn my head and look at Lars sleeping next to me. For a few moments, I simply stare at him in wonder. He is so beautiful, it’s like watching a living breathing painting.
Sometimes, I still can’t believe he is mine.
My finger lifts to touch his cheek, but I stop myself. I don’t want to wake him up yet. Gently, I slip out of bed and pad over to the bathroom. From the cabinet, I take out my pregnancy kit. I tear it out of its wrapper and hold it in my stream of pee. I flush the toilet and clean the stick. Then I wash my hands and sit at the edge of the bath. It’s only seconds, but it feels like a long time while I wait for the seconds to tick by. When enough time has passed, I look at the stick.
A bubble of joy rises up from my belly and erupts as a giggle. I lay the stick by the sink and go back into the bedroom. Lars is awake.
“You made the bed cold,” he complains.
I walk over and look down at him.
He lifts the duvet and shows me his erection. “Want to come and sit on me,” he invites, his eyes dark with desire.
“There isn’t enough time,” I say, even though my body has started clamoring for him.
“I’ll be quick if you will,” he says persuasively.
“Oh yeah? That’s what you said the last time and look what happened then.”
“You’re wasting time. Come on, I’m dying for you.”
I climb on the bed and looking into his eyes, slowly impale myself on his strong, thick cock.
“Jesus, that feels good,” he groans softly.
I lift myself along his shaft, and drop down on it, slowly building my momentum until I get into a good rhythm. My heart is full of happiness; and my body is full of Lars and the tiny life quietly growing inside me. When I break apart it is different too. The waves are slow, languorous, and so incredibly intense they make my body shake. I open my eyes, and Lars is looking at me.
“Are you all right?”
He knows me so well. He can even tell when my orgasms are different. With my secret and him still buried deep inside me, I feel almost too blissful to speak.
“What is it, Cass?”
“Daddy,” I whisper.
His eyebrows rise and his eyes flash. “Are you being kinky, or are you trying to say something to me?”
“What do you think?”
“I think…I like the idea of you being that kinky at this time of the morning, but the other idea is making my heart pound like crazy.”
> I smile slowly. “It’s the other idea.”
His eyes widen and he starts beaming. “Really?”
I beam back happily. “Really.”
He laughs with joy. “A baby?”
“A baby,” I confirm.
“Take your gown off,” he murmurs.
I grasp the edges of my nightie, lift it over my head, and toss it to the floor. Underneath I’m naked.
His eyes rove my body greedily, hungrily, as if he has not just had me. As if he has not already seen my body a thousand times. His hands move towards my stomach. He cups it gently. “I love you, Cass. I never thought it was possible, but I love you more everyday. It’s got so that I love you so much it actually hurts.”
I grin. “That’s because I’m such a pain in the butt.”
“You said it. Not me.”
A small cry comes from the baby monitor.
“My son has perfect timing,” Lars says.
I get off Lars lovely cock, wipe myself, and go to pick up my gown.
“Don’t,” he whispers. There is something warm and alive in his eyes.
“You want me to go get our son naked?”
He nods. “Why not? Soon you won’t be able to.”
I shake my head and roll my eyes, but I walk naked to the next room.
My boy is already standing up and gazing at me from his cot. He takes his thumb out of his mouth and calls out, “Mommy.”
“Good morning, darling, I greet as lift his small body into my arms. Then I do what I always do, I bury my nose in the crook of his neck and smell him. He still smells of milk.
“Shall we go see, Daddy?”
“Go Daddy,” he replies.
So I carry him to our bedroom.
Lars
I sit up and wait.
I want to remember this moment.
One day when I am old and there are grandchildren running around me I want to be able to recall this precious moment. I hear her footsteps in the corridor, and a lump forms in my throat.
Then she appears.
My mind clicks the image. My naked woman and my child. There is nothing more beautiful in the world. That’s my whole world right there. If everything else I have burns down to the ground tomorrow and I still have what’s standing in that doorway, I’m a happy man.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Morning, Cody.”
“Daddy,” he cries, lifting both his hands towards me.
I watch my woman walk to me, the insides of her sweet pussy still coated with my seed, my son wriggling in her arms to get to me, and another child growing in her belly, and I know there is not a man in this world who can tell me he is happier than me.
The End
Deleted Scene
I wrote this scene then, realized that the story was better without it. Still it seemed a shame to waste it, so for those of you who would like to know what happened at the ball when Lars realized that Cass was not Tamara read on…
Lars
I spot Tamara coming towards me, but her head is bent, and she is limping badly. What the fuck? I leave my drink on a table nearby and walk quickly to her side. “Are you all right?”
She looks up at me, the movement is unfamiliar and unlike her. “Not really. Can we get out of here? My broken ankle is killing me,” she says in a whiny voice.
I take a rear back and stare at her in horror. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but the woman standing in front of me is not Tamara Honeywell. My eyes quickly sweep over her body. Her breasts are much bigger and obviously fake, and the rest of her is horribly malnourished. Almost skeletal. I return my astonished eyes to her face. Even from under the mask her nose looks dangerously over-worked.
“Your ankle is broken?” I ask slowly.
Her eyes narrow. A look of uncertainty comes into them. “I thought you knew that.”
“I was under the impression it was sprained.”
Something flashes in her eyes. Fury. Not the kind of fury I’m used to seeing in Tamara’s eyes. This fury is vindictive and malicious. These are not the eyes I know. I take a step forward and whip the mask off her face.
She blinks with surprise, then, tries to smile.
I scowl at her fiercely. “I don’t give a damn who you are or what kind of sick joke this is. All I want to know is where is the real Tamara.”
She lifts her nose. “I am the real Tamara,” she announces grandly.
Of course, she is. This woman is everything I feared she would be: a proud, spoilt, plastic brat. Everything makes perfect sense now. The one I love is the imposter. I feel a flash of pure joy. All those horrible rumors weren’t about my girl.
“And who is the other girl,” I ask softly.
She makes a dismissive gesture with her hand. “No one. She needed a job so I helped her out.”
I stare at her for moment, my face deliberately cold. “Does she have a name?”
“Cass something,” she replies sulkily.
Cass. Yes, the name suits her. An image flashes into my mind. Cass riding Thunder, sunlight in her hair. Cass. Yes. My Cass.
“Where is she now?” I ask sternly.
She shrugs. “Who knows. Gone back to wherever she crawled out from.”
What a sneaky bitch. She didn’t fancy spending a month mucking out horse stalls so she hired a lookalike. “And you don’t know how to get in contact with her?”
“Nope.” Her voice is spiteful.
This is easier than I thought it would be. “Fine, I’ll just ask your father.”
The change in her is instant. She becomes red with fury. “My father? Who the hell do you think you are? You think my father has the time to get involved in your pathetic sex life? Mind your manners or I’ll make sure you’re thrown out on your ear.”
I look at her curiously. “Who do you think I am?”
For the first time, she looks unsure of herself. “One of the ranch hands?” she asks hopefully.
“Nope.”
Her forehead furrows then her eyes suddenly widen when the penny drops. “Lars…Oh, fuck. You’re not. Noooo.”
I nod slowly. “Afraid so.”
Another change comes over her. She starts simpering like some nineteenth-century heroine. “I’m so sorry I was rude to you. I thought you were one of the ranch hands.” She licks her lips nervously.
I laugh. “What’s the matter? Doesn’t Daddy know that you got an impersonator to take your place?”
“No. Please. Please, don’t involve Daddy. He’s got enough worries on his plate already.”
“Bullshit,” I say harshly.
She flinches at the hard threat in my voice, but I don’t soften my expression. I need to know where my girl is.
“All right,” she says. “I’ll tell you everything. Just don’t tell my dad, okay?”
“I’m going to have to tell your dad either way, but you can make it easier for yourself by telling me where she is.”
“If there’s nothing to be gained by telling you, I won’t bother to. I know how to work my father, let’s see how you find that little tramp without my help,” she says, a taunting smile playing about her lips.
I want to grab her and shake her.
“Her name is Cass Harper and she works for a lookalike agency called Cinderella.com,” a voice behind us says.
I turn around and see an elegant woman dressed in a deep red suit standing a few feet behind us. She has gray hair and that kind of daring chic that you only find in Paris.
“How dare you interfere, you stupid old bitch?” Tamara screeches.
“This time you went too far,” the woman says in a calm dignified voice.
“This time you’re fucking fired,” she hurls back furiously
“Good,” the woman says softly, and turning around, walks away.
I spend one second more looking at Tamara Honeywell’s flushed, frustrated face, then I go after the gray-haired woman. She and I have unfinished business.
I need to know where my Cass is.
&nb
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