Chapter 30

30

Cass

" W hy don't you just give up on trying to beat me and just go back to New York?" I ask the gorgeous man tangled up in my sheets with me again tonight. I hope Cole stays until the sun comes up like he's done for the past three nights. My bed feels so empty without him in it. I feel empty without him inside me.

It's pathetic really. I should punch myself in the face. He has to leave. He has to!

But when Cole props his head up on an elbow with a smug grin on his sturdily handsome face, I forget why he needs to go away.

"If I left, who would make you come?" the cocky bastard asks. When I don't respond to his question, he quickly sobers up, his smirk slipping away. "Wait. You're serious? You really want me to leave? Like right now? On the next flight out to New York?"

"Yes," I answer honestly, even if it's only half of the truth.

"Jesus, Cassie. That's pretty damn cold even for you when I'm still lying here naked with you."

When he rolls out of bed, getting ready to leave, a surge of panic tightens my chest. I grab his arm to stop him even though I know I should let him go. I need to let him go. I just wish I knew how to tell him the truth. "It's not...that's not how I meant it."

"Then how did you mean it?" he asks, jaw clenched tight in anger.

"I need this, Cole. You're about to finish your business degree. You can get any job you want while this life is it for me. This is my only chance to prove to my father that I'm not a silly, stupid, weak girl."

With a heavy exhale, he lies back down on his side of the bed. His fingers reach up to comb my damp, sweaty hair back from my face. His serious eyes don't even dip down to ogle my bare breasts. "You're not a silly, stupid, or weak girl. I know you could run this city just as well as I could. Probably even better. But…I can't give up."

"Then you're going to lose," I tell him. "I'll do whatever it takes to win."

His hand drops from my hair. "Are you going to see Alistair again?"

"Probably," I reply truthfully. The PI is growing on me. As a friend. If I keep seeing him, maybe it could be more. Probably not, but maybe. "You're not going to kill him too, are you?"

I meant it as a joke, but Cole glowers at me. "Why?"

"Why would you kill him? Do you need a reason? You seem to be on a streak lately."

"Cassie…" he growls. "Why would you see him again?"

"You know why."

Cole scoffs. "Because you want to marry him? That's fucking ridiculous, and I don't buy it for a second. You and I both know you don't want to fuck him. And I don't want him to lay a finger on you."

"This, you and I, is only temporary, remember? You'll be leaving soon, one way or another, and I need to start planning my future. "

"You have plenty of time to plan the future!" he exclaims, sounding angry at me. "And there are other options."

"Like what?"

Sitting up with his back against the headboard, he stares at the wall and says, "Like…I don't know. You could ask Dante if you could come back to New York with me."

"What?" I bark out a laugh, certain he's joking.

"He probably won't go for that, I know, so I could see about transferring to a school closer to Vegas. It would suck since not all my courses will transfer..."

"No, Cole. That's not...I can't go to New York, and you can't stay!" I scrub my hands over my face, wishing he would just give up.

No, he just snorts. "You say it like the fate of the world hangs in the balance and will end if I don't leave Vegas."

"Your world may end if you stay."

"What are you talking about?" he asks. When I don't give any further explanation he says, "Hold on. Are you threatening me?"

"No. Maybe." Looking up at him from my pillow, I ask, "Would it convince you to leave if I did?"

"I'm not leaving until the end of summer no matter what. And I wish you would consider keeping this going."

"Keeping what going?" I ask. "Us having sex? That's all this will ever be between us, Cole, and you know it. There's no way you would ever risk my father finding out..."

"If we went to him and told him we want to be together..."

"Wow, you are so na?ve if you think it's that easy." I laugh. "Daddy will kill you. He told me he would. That he would make it look like an accident, so it didn't blow back on him."

"There's no way..."

"If he didn't kill you, then he would seriously hurt you. Or have Eli string you up in the basement and torture you for days. He may even cut your dick off!"

"You're overreacting."

"I'm not. I know my father. We can never tell him about us. We can't tell Vanessa either because she would never keep it from my father."

"Fine," Cole mutters, followed by a sigh as he leans his head back to stare up at the ceiling. "Do you want me to stay or go tonight?"

"Stay," I say without hesitation. "Just for one more night?"

He chuckles as if he knows I'm so full of shit when he gets up and turns off the lights. The past few days, the nights we've spent together, we've done more than fuck. It feels like…I don't know, the beginning of something really good.

I should've told Cole to go. Part of me wonders if he's only been staying to use me as a distraction so he doesn't have to think about the two men he killed.

But deep down, I know that's not the only reason.

And I also know that we are so fucked.

The next morning, Cole is gone by the time I wake up. And while I want to be angry at him for abandoning me, I know it's for the best that he sneaks back into his room before anyone in the penthouse wakes up.

But the abandonment still stings more than it should today.

A shrink would probably say that I have issues because my mother went missing when I was so young, that I have a fear of other people leaving me which is why I'm so bitchy. Pushing people away before they can leave is like a defense mechanism.

And I have no doubt that Cole has some of the same issues because he never knew his father. His mother likely gave him new trust issues by lying to him his whole life and never trying to find out who his father is.

I can't do anything about the twenty years Cole didn't know he was the grandson of a Russian mobster, but maybe there's a chance I can help convince her to give Cole a name or whatever information she can remember.

Later that morning, I find my stepmother sitting alone on the patio having breakfast.

"Hey, Vanessa."

"Morning, Cass. There's plenty of food left. Enough to feed the entire casino," she says as she surveys the buffet of fruits, muffins, eggs, bacon, and nearly every other breakfast food on the table.

"I'm not really hungry," I admit as I take a seat at the table in the chair across from her. "But could I ask you a question?"

"Sure, hon. Is it about the competition? Because you're killing it! Your father has been blown away by how well you're doing."

"It's not about that, but I'm glad to hear that," I say. "The question I have for you is sort of personal."

"Personal? Okay, hit me," she says, pushing her plate away.

"Why haven't you ever told Cole who his father is?"

Vanessa's green eyes that are a little lighter than Cole's widen. "Oh. Wow. That was probably the last question I expected you to ask me."

"Sorry. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"No, no, it just caught me by surprise." Her brow furrows. "Why do you ask?"

Fuck. Why am I asking? What reason do I have for caring? I come up with an explanation as fast as I can. "I heard him talking about trying to find his father the other day. It seemed important to him. And I guess I can relate since I wish I could find my mother, even if she's…dead."

"Right, well…" She wraps her fingers around the mug of coffee sitting in front of her. "It's not that I've intentionally kept Cole's father's name from him."

"You haven't?"

"No. I was young, and stupid, and I guess I didn't want him to know that his father could be one of several men I slept with during that time period. And I don't recall their names. That's horrible, isn't it?"

"No. I'm not...I wouldn't slut shame anyone. It was more than twenty years ago."

"It was irresponsible," Vanessa replies with a heavy sigh. "But I was embracing my freedom for the first time in my entire life. I felt sexy and wanted. Most likely Cole's father is one of three men I slept with at the Sigma Chi fraternity at the University of Southern California."

Well, fuck. Cole already knew all that.

"I've told him it was one of the guys in the frat. I just never explained that there were multiple men who could possibly be the one. That makes me a bad mother..."

"No, I doubt a son would want to know about his mother's promiscuity. But at the same time, he doesn't really seem like a prude," I point out to her without mentioning that he pretends to fuck married women in front of their husbands and with their husbands in pornos.

"Oh, I know Cole probably wouldn't bat an eye. Maybe I should tell him the truth. But it's not like it matters, though. Without a name..."

"You think it's a lost cause?" I surmise.

"Yes," she admits, her shoulders deflating. "And I hate that for Cole. I always have."

"But you're certain they were a member of the fraternity?" I ask her.

"Yes. Definitely. One of them had a room there. His roommate was another…participant, as well as their friend, who I'm almost certain was also their frat bro."

Okay. This is something. Just because the pool of Cole's potential fathers is larger than expected, that doesn't mean it's an impossible task.

All we have to do is figure out how to get the men from the fraternity to all take a DNA test.

Should be easy, right?

Yeah, I'm going to need to make another plan.