But the fact is, I can't stop thinking about Reuben and how happy we were, how he believed in my dream when the deck was stacked against me.
Maybe he isn't such a bad guy. There's a difference between a bad guy and good guy who's acting out of fear. Maybe he just acted out of fear. I don’t know anymore…
I just can't help but feel that I'd be a lot happier if he was here sharing this success with me.
Am I going to feel this empty forever? Is finding a way to make it work with Reuben the only hope for me?
He's apologized a million times. He's left me countless messages. He's come to see me. And he looked so genuine when he said he was sorry. That couldn't be a lie. The way he cradled my jaw in his hand, the way he said my name...that was the truth. Wasn't it?
By the time lunch rolls around, I can't stand another minute of torturing myself like this. I'm willing to put myself out there and take a risk because it's the only way I will ever stop aching on the inside.
I slip into my coat and hurry over to the Sapphire Inn. I'm going to go up to his room and tell him that I love him and I want him, if he'll still have me.
Nancy and Edward are stepping off the elevator as I walk into the lobby. They're blushing like teenagers who just snuck off beneath the bleachers to fool around. Nancy adjusts the red rose tucked behind her ear and brushes Edward's hair into place when she sees me.
"Hello dear," she says bashfully.
Edward grins at me like a man who just got lucky. "Lovely to see you, Isla."
"Hi you two." I try not to imagine what they must have been up to all morning.
"Are you here looking for Reuben?" she asks with a lifted brow.
There's no point in denying it so I nod. A regretful look comes over her face. "Well, you missed him. He checked out this morning as Ed and I were checking in." She glances over at the front desk before leaning close and whispering. "He had a suitcase with him and he asked the clerk to call him a taxi to the airport."
It feels like all the life force drains from my body. "He left?"
She nods sympathetically. "He did. And he looked like shit. Never thought I'd say it but he looked horrible. Even Delores wouldn't hit that if she had the chance."
"Jeez, Nancy. Way to be harsh." I'd be laughing now if my heart weren't tearing apart. He's broken and maybe a little bit of that is my fault.
"I'm just saying, he looked like he hadn't slept in days and he smelled like it, too. And when I said hello to him, he just sort of grunted and walked away."
Fuck.
She sighs, taking in my dishevelled appearance from top to bottom. "Whatever happened between you two, he’s taking it just as hard as you are." She looks away, shaking her head. "It's such a shame…The whole town was rooting for you."
"We're about to miss our lunch reservation, darling." Edward takes her hand and leads her toward the door.
Nancy gives me one last look. "I'm sorry, Isla. It's too late. He's gone."
Chapter 40
Reuben
"Have a good night, Isla."
Before locking the front door behind him, I give a tired smile and a little wave to John, the new massage therapist who just assisted me in performing a couples' massage on the mushiest pair of newly-weds I've ever seen. I was nauseous with jealousy by the time the 60-minute session was over and frankly, I couldn't wait to get them out of my face.
Today has sucked in a major way. I know that I should feel happy to be surrounded by so many people who are deeply in love, but Valentine's Day can seem interminable when you've got a broken heart.
I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that Reuben's gone. He packed up his stuff, he checked out of his hotel room, and he's gone. It hurts like hell that he didn't stick around, that he didn't fight for us. But maybe that's my fault. He laid his heart bare for me and I'm the one who turned away.
Sighing, I slip into my jacket and flick off the light by the reception desk. Blakely always makes sure that everything is in order before she leaves but the new receptionist is still learning the ropes so I need to double check that she didn't forget anything. I wander down the hall to make sure that the coffee maker is off and that no candles are still burning.
A light spilling from under the door of the yoga room catches my attention. I swing the door open, in no way prepared for what's waiting on the other side.
"Reuben!"
Chapter 41
Reuben
My heart gallops against my ribs as Isla pushes the door open. She yelps my name, jumping a step back. “Reuben!"
"Hey." I can't help the smile on my lips when I see my beautiful girl. The girl I'm here to claim once and for all. The girl I refuse to let go this time. She's standing in the doorframe with her hair falling out of her ponytail as usual. She's got sweat stains in the armpits of her Prasanna Light Oneness Studio T-shirt and there's a scuffmark on the left knee of her pants. She looks tired. She looks sad. But she's the prettiest thing I've ever seen. I hate that those blue eyes are glistening with tears because of me.
I'm here to fix this. I'm here to make everything right. I didn't fight hard enough the last time, but tonight, I'm fighting for us and I'm fighting to win.
That's why I'm wearing a tux. Because a warrior of love goes into battle in fucking tux.
"What are you doing here?" she asks, hand over her heart as if to keep it from beating right out of her chest. Her eyes travel around the room, taking in the red roses and scented candles covering every surface before her gaze finds mine. “I heard you left town this morning.”
I step closer to her. "Where else would I be on Valentine's Day?" I flash her a smug grin. Ryan checked out of the hotel and flew back to Denver this morning but there was no way I leaving this town without making things right with my girl.
She doesn’t back away when I brush that troublesome tendril away from her eyes. That's good. It's a good sign. "Reuben..."
"Shhh..." I circle my arms around her waist and lean my forehead to hers. "Isla, before you say anything. Hear me out. Please. I know I fucked up by not opening up to you about Delia but we can fix this. I know we can."
She's breathing hard. Good. That means that being this close to me still forces her body to react instinctively.
"Come." I take her hand and lead her into the studio. That's when she notices the blanket on the floor next to the laptop and the projector beaming light onto the wall.
"What are you doing?" she asks, a curious smile creeping across her face.
I grin back. "Sit." She doesn't protest. She just takes a seat on the blanket as I grab a tray of strawberries sitting on a bed of cream from the small buffet table Blakely helped me set up in the corner while Isla was handling her last massage appointment.
My excitement flutters in my stomach. She isn't fighting me. She isn't resisting. Maybe she wants this as much as I do.
I hand her the fruit. "You must be starving."
"I am." She takes a single berry then sets the plate aside. "So, this is your grand scheme to win me over? Strawberries and cream?"
I laugh heartily. "Give me a bit more credit than that, would you?" I hand her the thick folder concealed under the edge of the blanket. "I spent the past few days trying to figure out how to prove to you that you can trust me, how to prove to you how much I want you." I hand off the folder to her.
She balances it on her thighs, her fingers shaky as she peels it open. "What is this?"
The corners of my lips tip up ever-so-slightly. "My kill file."
She hitches a brow, tilting her head to the side. "Your kill file?"
I sit next to her. "Everything about me is in this file. My birth certificate, drivers' license, copies of every page of my passport. Also, passwords for every online account I have from my mutual fund accounts to my damn MySpace profile."
Amusement fills her face. "You have a MySpace profile?" She flips through the documents.
"There’s more," I say as I hit a button on the remote and my Power Point pr
esentation comes to life.
Her eyes go to the screen. Amusement fills her face as she reads the title of my slideshow. Who is Reuben Barre?
In the corner of the screen, there's a cheesy gif of a detective with a magnifying glass hunched over reading through a file marked private and confidential.
She covers her mouth to contain her giggles. “Who is Reuben Barre? Apparently, he's an eighth grader."
She's laughing. Yes!
I shoo her off with the flick of a wrist. "Don’t laugh. I'm sensitive about this. I even asked my mom for help and everything."
She giggles even more as I click over to page one. A picture of an olive-skinned woman fills the screen in all her big-haired, bright eyeshadowed '80s glory. Draped in a hospital gown, she cradles her newborn twins in her arms.
Isla rises onto her knees getting closer to the screen. "Oh my god. Is that your mother?"
I nod. "The day Ryan and I were born."
A grin nearly splits Isla’s face in two. "She looks so happy," she muses.
Appreciating the victory dances in my mother's eyes, I say, "She was proud. She'd spent twenty-eight hours in labor and managed to push out two eight-pounders with no pain meds all while her husband was philandering his way around Colorado Springs."
"Your father wasn't there?"
I shake my head. "He decided he needed a 'break' when my mother was seven months pregnant. He used that time to catch up with his mistresses. Anyway, cellphones weren't what they are now so she couldn't find him when she went into labor and she had to go it alone."
"That's awful." There's nothing but compassion in her eyes.
Not wanting to turn the night into a sap fest over my parents’ marital woes, I click to the next slide, a picture of me at four, trying to evade bath time in nothing but my Mickey Mouse underwear. I knew that one would get her to laugh. Then we go through pictures of grade school, my teens, my short time in college. I tell her stories and answer her questions. I watch whatever was left of her walls as they crumble to dust.
After we've watched the final slide, I stand "So?" I ask expectantly.
Her facial expression tells me that I may have celebrated victory prematurely. “I’m touched by the gesture. I really am.” My heart sinks. Is this all too little, too late? I pull a sharp breath. “But you don’t get to know someone by reading a file on them and watching a Power Point presentation about their life…A person’s character can’t be capture in black and white and printed on a sheet of paper or projected onto the big screen.”
My eyes drop in defeat. “You’re right,” I say solemnly. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She reaches across and touches my chin. A grin gently pulls her lips. “But, I do want to get to know you, Reuben. The right way.”
I grab her hand, placing a tender kiss on her knuckles. I come alive with excitement. "Fuck baby. You do?"
She laughs. "Your eagerness is showing," she teases.
I pull her into my arms. "I don’t give a fuck. I've never wanted anyone as bad as I want you. Anything, Cinnamon. I'll do anything you want. Just tell me.” My whole being is alive at the possibility of me and Isla together. For real this time.
“Well, if the offer still stands, I’d like to go out on a date with you. I think that’s a good place to start. Don’t you?” She bites on her bottom lip to tame her wide grin.
I throw my head back, laughing. “We’ve got a date, then.” I squeeze her even tighter. “I will spend as long as it takes, doing whatever it takes. I’ll put it all out there in the open for you, Isla.”
A tear slips down her face as she drapes her arms around my neck and kisses my mouth. “That’s all I’d ever ask of you, babe.”
Epilogue
Isla
Thirteen months later…
We spent all of yesterday engaged in an intense session of tantric lovemaking. This morning, Reuben and I woke up together with the sun, calm and refreshed, still eager to explore each other's bodies.
The depth of our connection is almost frightening. We've achieved a level of intimacy that you only read about in ancient Hindu texts.
We’re kamasutra-ing it up on the regular.
In all seriousness, I strongly believe that my soul is impenetrably interwoven with his. Now and forever.
I knew that long before he slipped this classic solitaire diamond onto my finger during a recent trip to his family's estate in Denver. He got down on one knee in front of his parents, his step-mother and his brothers and asked me to be with him forever. But I didn't need the ring and I definitely don't need a big, old wedding. If I can have lazy Sunday mornings sipping soy hazelnut lattes in bed with Reuben Barre, I don't need much else.
Not even this luxurious condo apartment that Reuben’s father gifted to us a few months ago…But the view of Reyfield’s riverfront sure does make a beautiful backdrop for our lovemaking sessions.
When we've both had more orgasms than we can handle, I pad into the bathroom to clean myself up. Reuben is under the covers reading one of my meditation books when I return.
I pad across the room with a scrap of paper and pen in hand and climb into the bed. "Okay Reuben," I say sternly as I settle in next to him. "Your birthday party is next week and I still have no idea what to get you. Fess up, buddy. What do you want?"
The man already owns everything I could possibly think of buying him. Shopping for your billionaire fiancé is truly a feat.
The struggle is real.
He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me down on top of him. I squeal in glee and surprise. He tosses the pen and paper across the room. "I'm serious," I laugh, "I need to know what you want!"
His honey eyes go solemn as he stares at me in that I-will-hypnotize-you-into-doing-whatever-I-want way of his. "For my birthday, I want a baby. With you. I want to wake up and hear you say that you're carrying my child."
My throat tightens and tears come to my eyes. "Babe..."
The truth is that for months, I've secretly fantasized about carrying his child. I've wanted to start a family with him to make our wonderful life together complete. And now, he’s saying that that’s what he wants too.
"Give me a little cinnamon baby, Isla." He whispers the words against my jaw.
A smile cracks my lips and stretches clear across my face. My heart feels swollen with happiness. I reach down and take his cock into my hands. "Let's get started then. Your birthday is right around the corner. We don't have much time."
He kisses me tenderly, smiling against my lips. "You see, that's where you're wrong, Isla. You and me, we've got all the time in the world...We've got forever."
Quick note from the author:
Hey Love,
I’m so happy that you’ve read Dirty Stranger. I write all of my books straight from the heart but this one is extra special to me. Why? Because halfway through writing the book, I sat back and I was like, “Wait – Isla is me?” She’s fiercely independent, hopelessly optimistic and shamelessly woo-woo. I love the gal to death and I hope you do, too.
Anyway, this book was hard to write. Not because the characters weren’t speaking to me but because it was so hard to find the time in my busy life. I literally wrote 80% of this book on the Evernote app in my phone at like 4:00 in the morning. So, to you aspiring authors out there, I just want to say, GET. IT. DONE. Where there’s a will, there’s a way (See, I told ya I was woo-woo ). Anyway, if you really want to get your book out into the world, just do it. Find a way. Get creative. It’s your dream. Nobody’s gonna make it come true for you…Unless you happen to stumble upon your own real-life Reuben Barre.
Cheers,
Cassie-Ann xoxo
P.S.: I planned on including a glossary of yoga terms into this file in case there were terms that you didn’t understand but…my deadline prevented me from doing that. However, I will be sending the glossary out to my mailing list in a few weeks. So, if you want that glossary, turn to the next page to find out how to join my mailing list.
Love ya!
Thanks so much for reading “Dirty Stranger”. There’s lots more planned for the “Dirty Suburbs Series”.
I’ve included a free preview of “Dirty Lover”, book 5 in the “Dirty Suburbs Series”, at the very end of this book.
Join my mailing list to keep up to date with all of my future books :)
You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram.
Dirty Stranger (The Dirty Suburbs Book 3) Page 20
