Always With You: Part One Read Online Free PDF Page B

rest of the world closes their offices, would you?”
    I could throw up all over her.
    Cash’s full lips thin into a tight, straight line.  “Of course not.  Don’t be ridiculous.”
    At that, she smiles.  “Yeah, that is kind of ridiculous, isn’t it?”
    Cash doesn’t return her smile and I can do little more than just stand here and try not to baulk. I think I’ve had more than enough of this woman for the moment.
    I clear my throat.  “Well, if you’ll be staying in the apartment here, I guess I’d better get our things together, right, babe?” I ask, smiling up at Cash, trying to act natural.   Like my chest doesn’t feel as though it’s been ripped open by a dull knife. 
    “I’m coming. I’ll help,” he says, reaching out to brush his thumb over my cheekbone and give me that lopsided grin of his that I love so much.
    “Olivia,” Sophie says, forcing my eyes back to her and (purposely, no doubt) shattering the tiny moment Cash and I were sharing.  I can’t help wondering if that will be her role from here on out—disrupt at every opportunity.  I turn my attention back to her, although it’s considerably cooler now that I’m onto her ploy.  Or at least I think I am.
    “Yes?”
    “Thank you. Truly.  As one mother to another, I know you know how much this means to me.”  Ice forms across the surface of my heart and I can feel the color leave my face.  “You do have children, right?”
    “No.  I-I don’t have any children.  Yet.” I say the last emphatically, as if it’s not even in question.  I hope she can’t detect the fear, the uncertainty, the panic in my heart that there’s a distinct possibility that I won’t be able to give my husband a child of our own.
    “Oh. I just assumed…I mean, Cash wasn’t really the marrying type, so I assumed you were…that he had to…” 
    Silence falls into the room like a thick, dark cloud until Cash’s voice pierces it like an ominous crack of thunder.
    “You assumed that she trapped me? That she tricked me into marrying her?”
    Sophie’s eyes widen.  Obviously she does know Cash well enough to know when she’s pushed him too far.
    “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that…I know how you used to be and…and…”
    “I married Olivia because I can’t live without her.  I wasn’t the marrying type until I met her.  Now, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.  Ever.  And we will be having kids. We’ve got all the time in the world, though, so we’re waiting until our house finished. Waiting until everything is perfect.  As perfect as she is,” he says, turning to smile down into my face and coming to my rescue in the most amazing way possible.
    I lean up to place a quick kiss on his chin before I turn to walk away.
    “Thank you, Olivia.  And I’m sorry,” Sophie calls out behind me.
    My step stutters slightly.  I want to turn around and snarl at her, to sneer that I’m sorry, too. Sorry that Cash ever knew her.  Sorry that she found us.  Sorry that he might’ve had a child with another woman.  But I don’t do any of that.  I pull myself together and throw my brightest smile over my shoulder.  “I just hope you know how to bartend.”
    And, with that, I leave her behind.
    At least for the moment.
     
     

 
    CHAPTER NINE
     
    Cash
     
    W hen I find Olivia, she is standing in the doorway of the office, staring at the sleeping girl on the couch.  I stop behind her, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into my chest.  She doesn’t turn, but rests her head against my shoulder and continues staring at Isabella.
    “I don’t like that she calls her Izzy,” she says in a whisper.
    I smile. “I don’t either.  She doesn’t look like an Izzy.  She looks like an Isabella.”
    “Exactly,” she agrees.  After a full two minutes of silence, she speaks again.  “She really is a beautiful child.”
    I don’t argue with her because I can’t.  Isabella is a beautiful child.  But