Banking the Billionaire (Billionaire Bad Boys, #2)(61)

"Don't jump!" His voice was only several yards away now as he jogged toward us. "It's not safe!"

"I'll be fine, Thatcher," I called over my shoulder and focused on my jump.

"Please, Cass." He was right behind me now. "Trust me, honey. Don't do this."

I glanced at him over my shoulder, and then back down at our group, who  were no longer fishing. They were on their feet and staring up at us.

"T, it's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal. To me, it's a big fucking deal. Don't do it, honey,"  he demanded with an angry yet desperate tone to his voice.

I didn't like that. Thatch thinking he had that much control over me  that he could just toss out demands and tell me what I could or couldn't  do.

It didn't sit well with me. Not one fucking bit. And now that we were  engaged, I felt like this one simple decision could set the precedent  for life.

"C'mon, Cass, let's just go back to the campsite," Georgie tried to intervene, but I ignored her.

"Don't do it," he pleaded, his brown eyes melting in the afternoon heat. "I'm begging you not to do it."

I probably should have noticed the edge of frantic desperation in his  voice, but I was still too focused on his words. His demanding fucking  words.

An engagement did not give someone the right to control me.

I controlled me.

And right now, I controlled this.

When I didn't back away from the edge, Thatch stalked toward me.

"Cassie."

I only had about ten seconds to make a decision, or else the size and determination of my caveman would make it for me.

Jump?

Or let Thatch control me?





Her smirk disappeared in an instant as she turned and jumped in one smooth motion.

I couldn't tell you if I screamed or if the way I followed her was by  choice or a string of involuntary events meant to catch her. One minute I  was staring into the eyes of the woman I was sure wouldn't put me in  this position, and the next I was in the water.

Everything about Margo's death came back with vivid intensity. The  argument we'd had, the stubborn lilt of her voice as she'd told me I  couldn't tell her what to do-all of it. I was there again, in a place  I'd left behind years ago. A place I never revisited because I didn't  need to. All I needed was the tattooed reminder right under my heart.

All I needed was trust.

A woman who put her faith in me and gave me the peace of mind to do the same for her.

And now all of it was gone-the acceptance and contentment and the visions of my future.

My lungs fought for air as I grabbed Cassie and brought her struggling form to the surface.

She spat out a mouthful of water, but otherwise, she was fine. She  splashed and moved with ease, while I fought to breathe. Her lips even  started to turn up into a smile-until she got a look at my face.

"Thatch?"

I took her jaws in my palms and clenched, even though I knew the  strength of my grip was too hard. It had to have hurt a little, but I  couldn't bring myself to stop.

I looked right into her eyes and willed myself not to cry. I'd never had a harder time.

But she was there and healthy. Her hair wasn't matted with blood, and life still beat in her eyes.

I couldn't hear much outside of the thoughts in my own head, but I did hear Claire's voice even at a whisper.

"Frankie."

The way she said his name was broken, troubled-terrified and exactly how  I felt. They were reliving every second of it with me, strapped to a  freight train into the past with no way to break the restraints.

I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as they would go and put my head to  Cassie's chest to listen to her heartbeat. The rhythm was dangerously  erratic, but somehow mine still managed to follow.

"Thatch," Cassie whispered, and the sound of her voice cut through me  like the sharpest of knives. She was troubled by my reaction, but I  couldn't stop one thing from repeating on a never-ending course in my  mind.         

     



 

Too little, too late.

"I asked you not to do it. I fucking begged you," I told her raggedly,  my voice a literal manifestation of my bloody heart on my sleeve.

"I know," she conceded. I willed her to stop there, but she couldn't  stand to let me have the last word. She couldn't stand to admit to being  wrong, and that was the crux of the issue.

"But I make my own decisions. I don't answer to you."

"I've never asked you to. There's a difference between asking you to change the way you are and asking you to see me."

Her eyes were stubborn, and I felt like I'd never be able to look at  them the same after this moment. They weren't just passionate; they were  downright violent, and it was all directed at me.

"All I see right now is an asshole!"

The cords of my throat strained with the force of my roar. "Are you kidding me? I fucking loved you!"

"Am I kidding?" she screamed, her limbs shaking with the effort it took  to keep herself from hitting me. I could see it in her eyes. I swallowed  against the burn in my throat and held my ground. "Not once have you  said those words to me. Not once, and you choose now. As some part of a  demonizing power trip where it's your way or nothing? And it's in past  tense? Fuck you, Thatcher. Fuck you hard."

"You knew how I felt," I pushed, and she reciprocated physically, giving  me a shove to the chest. I charged back and got right in her face. Her  chest rose and fell rapidly with the fight to keep taking in air. "I  fucking asked you to spend your life with me!"

"As a fucking joke!" she screamed. "A way to win at this stupid game  we've been playing, a way to one-up your biggest challenge."

"That's wasn't it, and you know it. It wasn't a joke, not any fucking bit of it. You had to have felt it."

"I didn't feel a goddamn thing," she denied, and I felt my heart freeze over.

"Well, congratulations, Cassie. Looks like you finally fucking win because I'm out."





I watched Georgia run after Thatch as he stalked away from me and toward  our campsite. And I wanted to reach out and grab those awful words that  had come out of my mouth and shove them back down my throat.

Why had I said that? Why had he said that?

What in the hell just happened?

I was equal parts baffled and angry. Pissed at me. Pissed at him. And  ultimately confused by his reaction. I felt like he was overreacting  about this. He was making this into something I never meant for it to  be.

Yeah, but your bullshit words didn't help anything.

I couldn't deny I had been an asshole. A total fucking asshole.

Not one goddamn bit of this, of us, is a joke.

My hands trembled and my knees shook as I ran barefoot after him. The  skin of my feet protested in discomfort as gravel and twigs dug into the  sensitive skin.

But I would gladly take the pain if it meant getting to him.

I needed to get to him. I needed him to know that I was a liar.

I was in love with him. I did need him.

I knew this, what had grown between us, wasn't a joke. I knew what we  had was real. It might have started out on a prank, but it had grown  into everything I had ever wanted, even if I never really let myself  imagine those things.

"Thatch! Wait!"

But he didn't stop. He didn't listen.

He was already inside of our tent and throwing his belongings into his duffel.

I crawled into the tent and wrapped my arms around his waist. "I'm so  sorry. I didn't mean any of that," I whispered into his T-shirt. "I love  you." I finally found the strength to say those three words.

Three words I had never said to anyone besides my family.

Three words that should have let him know I was all in.

I wanted him. I wanted us.

But my words didn't have any effect on him.

He shrugged me off and zipped up his bag, before maneuvering around me and getting out of the tent.

I stayed frozen in my kneeling position for a good ten seconds.

Shocked. Hurt. Angry.

Why wasn't he listening to me?

I climbed out of the tent and found him throwing his bag in the trunk.  Frankie and Claire had already packed up their things and were climbing  inside of his car.

"Aren't you listening to me?" I shouted. "I just fucking told you I  loved you! Why aren't you listening to me? Why are you freaking out? I  don't understand what's happening right now!"

He walked around the front of the vehicle and toward the driver's side door.

I ran toward him at a dead sprint and crashed my body into his before he could open the door.

"Thatch!" I cried, and his eyes refused to meet mine. He just lay limp  against the door, staring over my head and out into the distance. I  wrapped my arms around his body again, hugging his huge frame as tightly  as I could manage. "Please, don't leave like this," I begged. "Just  talk to me. Don't leave angry."         

     



 

His brown eyes finally stared down into mine. They were so cold, so distant, and it was then I realized how much I had hurt him.

"Don't go," I begged again.

"Enough, Cassie." His large hands wrapped around mine as he disentangled  me from his body and moved me back with a gentle shove. "I've had  enough."