Always With You: Part One Read Online Free PDF

interrupts Cash before he can even finish his thought, finish what sounded like a denial of her request.  “I’d know she was safe and I’d never be far.  And you, you’d be able to get to know your daughter with her right here.  We’d be so close.  It would be perfect, Cash.  Can’t you see that?”
    She tips her head to the side and takes a step toward him. It’s my gasp—the gasp triggered by my imagination filling in all the blanks she’s leaving open—that stops her.  I see her sidelong glance in my direction and, for the first time since she walked into the club last night, I get a glimpse of what she wants.  What she really wants.
    And it’s not just a bed and a job.
    No, she wants much more than that.  And I’m the only thing standing in her way.

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    Olivia
     
    S ophie is smart. I’ll give her that.  She obviously knows Cash well enough to know that he can’t be bulldozed or coerced.  At least not without a damned effective weapon.
    And a child– his child —is just such a weapon.
    “I’m not asking you to do it for me, Cash. I’m asking you to do it for your daughter.  So she can rest well.  So she can know her father.  At least until we can figure out a way forward.”
    “She’d have known her father already if you’d bothered to tell him that he had a daughter,” he snaps testily.
    Sophie casts her eyes down. “I know I should’ve told you sooner. I won’t try to make excuses.  But Cash, I was just a kid.  And the way things ended between us…I just wasn’t sure you’d welcome the news. I know I hurt you.  I hurt you bad and…I can’t tell you how much I regret that, but don’t hold my mistakes against Izzy.  She’s just a little girl.”
    “Like I would do that. What kind of man do you think I am?” he growls angrily. 
    “I know what kind of man you used to be. I knew time and life and distance couldn’t change you that much.  You’re too stubborn. Always have been.” There’s an intimate ring to her words and she smiles at him in a way that I know is meant to drag him back into yesteryear, when they were a couple.  “That’s why I knew I could bring her here. That you’d help. That you’d do right by your flesh and blood.”
    Cash surprises me by his next statement, by the blatant insinuation.  But then again, he’s never been one to pull punches. 
    “I’ll always do right by my flesh and blood.  As long as they are my flesh and blood.”
    Sophie manages to look offended, although something tells me she’s not. Not really. If she knows Cash as well as she says she does, she’d know that he would want a paternity test. Cash and I haven’t talked about it, but I had no doubts he’d want one.  Any man with a brain would.  And Cash has lots of brains.  Anyone who is fooled by his muscles is just that—fooled.
    “You think I’d lie about something like that?”
    “I don’t think anything, Sophie, but I want to know for sure.  Surely you had to expect me to ask for proof.”
    “Look at her!” she cries in outrage, pointing toward the office where her daughter sleeps.  “How could you deny it?”
    “She looks just like you.  How could I not question it?”
    “Yes, she looks like me, only with your eyes.”
    “Only with dark brown eyes.  Davenports don’t hold the monopoly on that color.  Surely that’s not how you expected to convince me.”
    Cash’s icy tone cools Sophie’s indignation.  “No, you’re right.  Lots of people have dark brown eyes.  Eyes so dark they’re almost black.”  She adds the last with heavy sarcasm.  “And of course we’ll submit to testing.  Just as soon as the holidays are over and everything opens back up.”  Her voice softens and her expression turns to one of feminine sway. She’s all but batting her eyelashes at him.  “That’s okay, isn’t it?  To wait until after the holidays? Surely you wouldn’t make us leave right after Christmas just because the