AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She was driving back to Saranac Lake because it was the only thing to do. News like this was not something you wanted to spring on a man over the phone, and explaining it all was going to be tough. She was pretty sure he was going to be horrified.
But she wasn't. She was carrying the baby of the manshe loved. So even if she couldn't have Alex, she would always have a part of him.
Cass paused while stuffing a flannel nightgown into her Vuitton duffel. Funny, it had never occurred to her that Reese might be the reason she hadn't gotten pregnant before. The fact that he'd been twenty years younger when his first children had been conceived just hadn't seemed particularly significant.
She checked the clock. It was almost two. If she made good time, she'd be up at the lake by six-thirty. She'd stay overnight and come right back.
She'd been told if she wanted to keep the baby, she better get eating and get some rest. She had every inten?tion of following that prescription to the letter. There was no way in hell she was doing anything to jeopardize the gift she'd been given.
She told Marie she would be back in the middle of the fol?lowing day and hurried out of the penthouse. Punching the elevator button, she waited, tapping her foot. She was in a rush to go up to the lake, do the talking and return home.
The doors opened.
She staggered back against the wall in the hallway. “Alex...”
Chapter Twenty
Alex reached out, thinking Cass was about to faint again. “Are you okay? You've gone white as snow.” “What—are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.” He eyed her bag. “Look, you're obviously going somewhere, but can we talk? I won't take long.”
“How did you get to Manhattan?”
“Spike. He's waiting downstairs.”
“Oh, of course.”
Her eyes latched on to his face and she stared at him in the strangest way. As if he were... he didn't know what. He couldn't decide whether her eyes were glassy or reverent.
“Cassandra? Can we go inside?”
“Of course. Come in.”
Alex took a quick look around as he went through thedoor. He'd never been in their penthouse before and wasn't surprised it was tricked out like a museum.
But the decor didn't interest him because he was focused on Cassandra. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing her parka. As if she were going to the country.
He knew better than to think she'd be coming to see him and wondered where she was off to. Not asking was killing him, but he reminded himself that it wasn't his business, even though he wished liked hell it was.
“Marie,” she called out. A dark-haired woman came around a corner. “Perhaps you'd like to take the rest of the day off?”
Marie nodded and smiled. “Merci, Madame.” Cassandra said something in French to the woman.
Then she lifted her hand, indicating an ornate doorway. “Let's sit in here.”
The room they went into was a nice parlor kind of thing. Silk couches, big view, grand piano.
God, he hoped he could get through this in one piece.
Cassandra sat down on a chair, arranging herself as if she were in a ball gown, not slacks and a sweater. Her innate elegance astounded him, drew him, floored him. He was struck by the need to fall to his knees in front of her.
Instead he did his best to play real man even though he felt as if he was falling apart. He took the couch, stretch?ing his leg out.
“Alex—”
“Cassandra—”
They both shut up.
He took the lead in ending the silence. "I need to tell you about...Reese. And that night. In the storm. I know you have an idea of what happened, but I want you to know everything."
Cassandra went perfectly still.
“The storm came up on us hard and fast. We'd expected bad weather, but not on that kind of magnitude. No one did. The barometer kept falling and falling and we'd decided to head back to shore when we got caught in the hurricane. We weathered the first hour or so fairly well, but then our mast snapped in half from the wind. Reese went aft to try and cut the sail loose because the gusts were grabbing it and pulling us off keel. He was struck in the shoulder by a loose piece of rigging. I saw him hit the deck, and then a wave came crashing over the bow. He didn't have his harness on and he couldn't find anything to hold on to. I scrambled to get to him. I grabbed his safety jacket, but it slipped and then I caught his hand. I...”
He stammered. Fell silent.
“Alex?”
He rubbed his face, bearing the horrible memories with no strength whatsoever. He felt as if he couldn't breathe. “Alex, what is it? What happened?”
He looked at her. When he spoke, his voice was so thin, it was barely audible to his own ears. “I...killed him.”
Cassandra's mouth opened slightly. “What? No, no, you didn't—”
He couldn't bear to look at her because he was afraid he was going to lose it. He put his head in his hands.
“Cassandra, I let the sea have him. I let him go. I let go...of his hand... I let go of his hand. I let it go... I let go...” He broke down completely, great sobs cutting through his chest, his body. There was no end to theweeping, to the hoarse words that wouldn't stop coming out of his mouth.
Eventually he lost his voice and the crying slowed.
He felt something grip his forearms and then his palms were pulled from his face.
Cassandra's green eyes were full of compassion as she stroked his cheeks.
“Oh, Alex...you couldn't have kept ahold of him. The wind, the waves, the tossing boat. The Coast Guard told me what it was like. He was taken from you. You didn't let go.”
“I did! It happens in my dreams, over and over again. I feel him slipping and...I just let him go.”
“Shh...it's all right. I don't want you to blame yourself. You had no reason to want him dead—”
“I did. I do”
Cassandra recoiled. “But why?”
He shrugged out of her hold. Got up and went to the window. “He had what I wanted. What I needed. Some?thing I cherished....”
Cass watched Alex as he stood across the room. His back was straight, his legs braced. Against the yawning view of the city, he seemed as rigid as the skyscrapers beyond his broad shoulders.
“What did you want, Alex? What did he have that you wanted?”
He turned around. His face was bleak as an Adirondack winter. “You.”
Cass frowned. Leaned forward a little. “Excuse—What? Me?”
"I...have...loved you since the first day I saw you. I've wanted you, I've obsessed about you, I've fantasized about you. You...you are my Miracle. I let him go...because I wanted you."
His words went into her ears, but her brain couldn't process them.
She shook her head. “No, that's not right. You didn't like me.”
“I liked you too much.”
“You stayed away.”
“I had no choice.”
“You... No, you—”
“I haven't been with a woman for six years, Cassandra. Because all I saw was you.”
She rose from the floor. And then thought that sitting on the sofa was a good idea.
“You didn't know me.”
“I didn't have to. When I saw the sea, I knew it was where I wanted to be. It was the same with you. One look in your eyes and I was lost. I'm like that. I know what I want and where I want to be.”
Cass released her breath. “But when we were together. You stopped. And then you said only once. You—”
“I killed your husband. How could I take your body when you didn't know that?” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Except... Oh, God, I did make love to you. And not just once but again and again. I'm sorry. Not that I was with you, but because I wasn't honest with you.”
She stared into space, jumbled pictures filtering through her mind.
“Just so we're clear,” she said, “I don't believe you killed him. I think that's what you fear happened. But I'm willing to bet anything that you held on for dear life and his hand slipped out of yours.”“Cassandra—”
“What was the first thing you did after you felt yourself lose him?”
“I...I went for the flashlight.”
“And what did you do with it?”
“I looked for him.” Alex's eyes darkened to black. “I searched the waves...for a man in the water. I searched and called out his name and...”
“And what would you have done if you'd seen him? You would have gone after him, right? That's why you were looking for him. Because you wanted to save him.” She shook her head. “Those don't sound like the actions of a killer to me”
Alex opened his mouth. When no words came out, he just nodded. A little.
“So you didn't kill him,” Cass said strongly. “No matter what you think you feel for me—”
“I know what I feel for you. I love you.”
His face was grim, and his voice reverberated with conviction.
He honestly did love her.
Staring up at him, Cass was too stunned to speak. All she could do was look at him.
Say something, you idiot. The man you love loves you back. Say something.
Silence stretched out until the air grew tight between them. God, she was just stuck. Caught in a morass of disbe?lief and hesitant, unexpected happiness.
Alex cleared his throat and started to back up toward the doorway.
“I'm sorry to dump all this on you,” he said as he headed out. “I just...wanted you to know. I don't expect you to un?derstand. But I never want to—”
Say something.
“I'm pregnant,” she blurted out.
Well, at least that got him to stop.
But let's just make sure he doesn't go anywhere, she thought.
Cass burst up off the couch, pounded across the room and threw her whole body around him.
Alex seemed utterly flabbergasted, but then his arms gripped her. When he would have separated them, she hung on so hard, she heard his neck crack.
“I love you, Alex. I love you, I love you, I love you... And you're going to be a daddy.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sean O'Banyon told his driver to pull over in the seven?ties on Park Avenue. “I'll be right back, Joey. Just going up to check on Mrs. Cutler.”
“Yeah, sure, boss.”
Sean opened the car door and waited for a hole between taxis that was big enough for him to shoot through. Cass was back in town, evidently. But the only reason he knew it was because he'd called Gray's after having gotten voice mail for three days straight.
Something was up and he was damn well going to find out what it was.
Pulling his dress coat around him, he jogged halfway across Park and paused at the median. That was when he saw the maroon Honda parked in front of Cass's apartment building with that spiky-haired guy in the driver's seat.
Sean hustled across the street, dodging a delivery truck and a bike messenger. When he hit the sidewalk, he went over to the car and peered inside.
Spike had put the seat back and was apparently snoozing, even though it must have been cold as a meat locker in there. Sean rapped on the window with his knuckle.
The man's eyes lifted slowly, the yellow gaze amused. As if he'd known who was looking into the car.
Sean opened his mouth but was cut off.
“Zoo animals have a weird life,” the guy said, his voice muffled through the glass.
“Excuse me?”
“You know, getting stared at while they're in a cage. Freaky. I wonder if they think it's weird, too”
Okay, the man probably had a point. But Sean wasn't interested in a philosophical discussion right now.
“Listen, is Moorehouse up with Cass?” he said loudly so he was sure the words carried.
