Obsessed With You

Obsessed
With You

Coastal Romance
Series

By Jennifer Ransom

Copyright
©
2014 by Jennifer Ransom

Cover art by
MC2
Creative Services

All rights reserved.

This
is a work of fiction. References to actual people, places, and events
are used to lend authenticity to the novel and are used fictitiously.
All characters, dialog, and events are from the author’s
imagination and are not real. Any resemblances to real people,
places, events, or dialog are coincidental.

This
book may not be copied, scanned, or reproduced in any way without
permission from the author.

Jennifer
Ransom is the author of
Runaway
,
Love
Weaver
,
Hand-Me-Down
Love
,
Come
Down in Time
, and
Serena’s
Choice.

Chapter
One

Cathy Sullivan walked into the
townhouse and navigated her way through the boxes on the floor.
Practically everything she owned was in one of those boxes. She was
moving in three days into the house that Aaron had bought for them.
The house where they would start their married life together. Just
two more weeks. She could hardly believe it.

Everything for the wedding was
already in place. Her best friends, Heather and Michelle, would be
her bridesmaids. She loved them both so much, she had chosen not to
have a maid of honor. They were both her maids of honor. They had
bought their black dresses and would carry bouquets of a mixture of
all white flowers while Cathy carried a bouquet of white roses.

Cathy got a glass of wine and
collapsed on the couch. She kicked her shoes off and curled up
against the pillow. Just two more weeks and all the stress would be
over. The planning for months, the caterers, the florist, the
invitations—which had already been sent two weeks prior. So many
details. She looked forward to the honeymoon in Jamaica when all of
it would be behind her. She envisioned lying back in a chaise with a
margarita in her hand as the waves lapped against the sandy shore.
Aaron, with his dark good looks and muscular build would be lying
beside her, holding her other hand.

Cathy put the setting sun in her
vision, the gold and red colors sparkling on the water. She would be
wearing the new sleek black one-piece she had bought last week; Aaron
would be wearing his denim-colored bathing suit or maybe even a
Speedo, which he told her he had worn before. She could picture the
elastic fabric stretching over his manliness and she blushed just a
little at the thought, at her excitement at the vision. He would be
the most handsome, sexiest man on the beach. Cathy felt herself relax
with the sunset vision of her honeymoon.

Just two more weeks.

Aaron had paid for most of the
wedding at his insistence. His work as a financial consultant for
Peachtree Financial Consultants, plus his own private stock trading,
had made him a wealthy man. Cathy’s grandfather paid for her dress
and he would fly into Atlanta the day before the wedding. As she
sipped her wine, Cathy envisioned her grandfather walking her down
the aisle, giving her away to Aaron. She smiled. She sat her glass of
wine on the coffee table and rested against the pillows. Before she
dozed off, she was thinking of her father, who died of bone cancer
when she was eleven, and her mother, who committed suicide while
Cathy was in college. Her mother had never recovered from losing her
husband and finally gave in to her grief and ended it.

Cathy’s mother’s raven hair
and sad face were the last thoughts she had before she fell asleep.
She dreamed of the cottage they lived in after her father’s death.
It was next to the Victorian house her grandparents lived in on the
bay. Cathy’s bedroom window looked out over the garden and the bay
glittered blue in the distance.

Cathy heard a ringing sound and
wondered if the sea birds were calling.

It was so insistent.

The ringing pulled her away from
the bay and the cottage. Pulled her all the way into the present
world when she realized her cell phone was ringing. She groped for
the phone beside her on the couch.

“
Hello,” she said groggily.
She had not checked to see who was calling; she just wanted to stop
the phone from its never-ending ring.

“
Is this Cathy?” a woman’s
voice asked.

“
Yes,” Cathy said. It must be
someone associated with the wedding—the caterer or florist maybe.
Cathy tried to clear her head.

“
You don’t know me,” the
woman continued. “But I know Aaron. I know him very well. And I
think you should know that we’ve been seeing each other for over
two months.”

“
What do you mean?” Cathy
asked. She wasn’t sure at all what the woman meant when she said
they had been seeing each other. Was this a co-worker of Aaron’s?

“
I mean,” the woman said,
“that we’ve been together.” She paused for just a second.
“Sexually.”

“
Who is this?” Cathy asked,
fully alert by then.

“
I’ll let him tell you that,”
she said. “He’ll probably say he doesn’t know who I am or some
other nonsense. But he knows me all right.”

Cathy didn’t say anything. She
held the phone to her ear and listened to the woman breathe.

After a moment, the woman said,
“Cathy?”

Cathy still didn’t speak. She
was finished speaking to this stranger. But she didn’t hang up the
phone.

“
Look,” the woman said. “I
can hear you breathing so I’m just going to keep talking. Aaron and
I have known each other professionally for years. I work at another
financial institution, but we’ve seen each other at various
conferences and events. We got together a couple of months ago after
an event downtown, and we’ve been seeing each other ever since.”

Cathy’s mind was darting all
over the place, but she had too much pride to say another word, to
give credence to what this woman was saying.

But she didn’t end the call.

“
I won’t pretend that I don’t
love him, because I do,” the caller said. “I want him and he
knows that.”

Cathy felt like she was on a
carnival ride that kept thrusting her roughly one way, then pulling
her back in the opposite direction. The Scrambler.

“
He says he’s going through
with the wedding to you. It’s what he wants, he said. But I thought
you should know what you’re getting. A man who has not been
faithful to you.”

Cathy had clarity for one second
and ended the call.

Chapter
Two

Cathy didn’t call Aaron after
the call from the woman. She wanted to see his face when she
confronted him. That would tell her what she needed to know. She sat
on the couch staring at the door, waiting for it to open. She stared
for thirty minutes before she got up and went to her computer. She
opened her Pinterest page where she was collecting photos of
furniture and other items for their new house in Buckhead. After
Friday, her new job would be making a home. Aaron told her after she
accepted his proposal that she could quit her stressful job if she
wanted to. He would help her set up her own business or she could do
exactly what she wanted to do. Aaron made plenty of money. More money
than they would ever need.

Cathy tried to focus on her new
house and the upcoming wedding, but she was too rattled by the phone
call. She felt her world was slipping away from her like sand through
her fingers.

Cathy’s heart was thumping hard
in her chest when she heard the key in the door. She turned away from
her desk and watched Aaron come in, placing his briefcase on the
table by the door. He walked toward her, smiling.

“
Hey, Cat,” he said.

He was the only person who had
ever called her Cat, and she liked that. It made her feel they had a
special, intimate relationship. She definitely thought they had that.

“
Hey,” she said. She was not
smiling.

“
I’m going to get a drink,”
Aaron said heading to the kitchen. “Want one?”

“
Sure,” she said. She was
amazed that Aaron had not detected the coolness in her voice, the
lack of smile at seeing him. But he didn’t seem to have noticed.

Cathy thought about moving to the
couch but then decided against it. Aaron would sit beside her and she
wanted to keep her distance from him. She didn’t need his hands all
over her as she confronted him.

“
What are you doing way over
there?” Aaron asked when he came into the living room.

“
I want to ask you something,”
she said.

Finally, Aaron seemed to realize
that all was not right with the world. His smile faded as he handed
her a martini.

“
What’s wrong?” he asked.

“
A strange woman called me
about an hour ago,” Cathy said evenly. “She said you’ve been
having an affair with her.”

Cathy watched his face for a
reaction, but she saw only confusion. Her lip started to tremble a
little. The dread at his confession had gone to the pit of her
stomach. She was feeling queasy, like she might throw up any second.

“
What?” he shouted in
disbelief.

“
She said it’s been going on
for a couple of months,” Cathy said.

Aaron walked over to Cathy where
she still sat at her desk and leaned down to put his arms around her.
She pushed him away.

“
Cathy, I haven’t been having
an affair with anyone.”

“
Why would she make up
something like that?” Cathy asked.

Aaron turned away and crossed the
room. Cathy stared at his back, wishing she could see his face. He
turned around again and looked at her. He sighed.

“
I have no idea,” he finally
said.

Cathy wanted so much to believe
him, but the woman sounded so credible on the phone. She felt
confused.

“
Where’s your phone?” Aaron
asked, breaking into her muddled mind and its scrambled thoughts.
“I’m going to sue whoever she is for libel!” His eyes flashed
with anger.

She pointed at the couch. Aaron
picked it up and after a few presses, threw the phone back on the
couch.

“
It says private number and
won’t let me call it back,” he said.

The grip of dread began to loosen
on Cathy and she smiled slightly.

“
It’s slander,” she said.

“
Huh?”

“
You’re going to sue her for
slander,” Cathy said. “Libel is when a lie is published. Slander
is for the spoken word.” Was she really giving a language lesson?

“
Do you believe me?” Aaron
asked. Cathy thought she might actually see some tears forming in
Aaron’s eyes, but she wasn’t positive about that.

At that moment, Cathy realized
she had a choice. Allow her world to crumble all the way as she had
been imagining ever since she got the call or believe Aaron, her best
friend. Aaron, who held her as she cried about her parents and their
untimely deaths, smoothing her hair and giving her little comforting
kisses. Aaron, who listened patiently when she came home exhausted
and grumpy from her stressful job at a city magazine. Aaron, who
tenderly picked up an elderly woman who had fallen on the sidewalk
and helped her home. Aaron, who knew how to cook steak, chili, and
spaghetti, and that was all. Aaron, who was going to be the father of
her children. Aaron, her best friend. If she couldn’t trust him,
then who could she trust?

Cathy had given her heart to
Aaron because of the kind of person he was. Yes, he was incredibly
good looking and sexy. He was dynamic and he was wealthy. He had
dated many women before he met her, but he had chosen Cathy to be his
wife. She had come to know him well over the past year and it simply
was not in his character to cheat on her. Their relationship was too
important for him to wreck it for a fling. She was sure of that.