COLE (Dragon Security Book 1) (40 page)

Cassidy

It couldn’t really be this easy.

Brian poured another glass of champagne. First lunch at Sardi’s, then dinner at the Rainbow Room. In between was the tour of the city he’d promised, a drive in the chauffeured car to all the fabled spots in Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs—Time’s Square, Broadway, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge—with commentary that I wasn’t always confident was accurate. But he was sweet, trying to show me a world I never would have seen if not for him.

“Do you remember the first time I took you back to my room?”

I blushed, remembering the sight of his unmade bed and the excitement it bore deep in my chest even as I tried to pretend I didn’t know what he’d brought me there for.

“You promised you would show me the world someday.”

“I’ve finally kept a small piece of that promise.”

“You have.”

I lifted my glass to my lips and sipped, the sweetness of the grapes and the sharpness of the bubbles playing over my tongue. He watched me over the candlelight, his expression thoughtful.

Why did he have to be so damn charming?

“I made a lot of promises to you back then.”

“You said we’d make a life together. That we’d have a houseful of children.”

“I did.” His eyes dropped to his glass. “I believed it when I said it.”

“I know.”

And I did. That was the thing, the thorn that stayed with me for so long. I had known that he meant everything he said to me. I also knew that he was ready to divorce Abigail, even saw the lawyer’s card he’d had sitting on his nightstand. But I also knew what changed his mind.

I saw her coming out of his room that day.

“He’s mine,” she’d said, touching her hand to the huge swelling of her belly.

“You kicked him out.”

“Only because he needed to learn a lesson. I believe he’s learned it now, despite you.”

“Then I guess the choice is his.”

Had I known then that he would chose her? Maybe. But maybe I’d hoped that the seed he’d planted in my belly would be enough to turn him away from her, from his sons. Maybe I’d hoped my little girl and me would be enough for him.

I was wrong. I never even told him.

“Did you hate me?”

I tilted my head. “For a while. I hated you for not telling me about Abigail in the beginning. I hated you for allowing Jack to be the one to let the news slip. And I hated you for choosing her and Killian and the baby in her belly. But then…” I took another sip from my glass, my eyes moving to a young couple dancing not far from where we sat. “But then I admired you for sticking to your responsibilities.”

“She kicked me out again. Not even a year after I went back.” His eyes danced with the flame of the candle. “I looked for you, asked around the college campus to see if anyone knew where you were. But no one did. It was as if you’d just disappeared like a puff of smoke.”

“I’m surprised anyone remembered me. I wasn’t there long.”

“They remembered you, but they didn’t know where you’d gone. I even called your mother once.”

“You did?” My eyebrows rose. She’d never mentioned it to me.

“She said you were living in Houston and I should leave you alone.”

I shook my head, sipping more of the champagne. “My mother lied. That’s a shock.”

“It was a lie, then?”

“A year after you left me? I was married then, living two doors down from my parents in a little house they bought for us as a wedding gift.”

“I almost went to Austin. I guess I’m glad I didn’t now.”

He swallowed down the last of what was in his glass, which was a significant amount of champagne, before pouring himself more.

Was he jealous by the thought of my marriage? Or was he simply annoyed to have been lied to? If it was the latter, what would he do when he learned the whole truth?

And if it was the former…?

“We shouldn’t focus so much on the past.”

“True.” He set his glass down and stood, holding out his hand to me. “Let’s dance.”

I hesitated for only a moment, then allowed him to lead me away. He pulled me into his arms, a smile on his lips as he looked down at me. My heart was in my throat. The way he looked at me…it reminded me too much of when we were young, when he used to look at me that way. I felt younger in his arms. I was the one who didn’t want to linger in the past, yet that’s where I went every time he touched me.

When he loves you, he’s vulnerable…

What did that mean? What did they plan to do to him?

Why did I care?

He slid his hand along the small of my back, pulling my hips close to his. I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder, loving the feel of him, loving the smell of him. Was it possible for one man to be so tender and so strong all at the same time?

I have only known one man like Brian Callahan. Only loved one man in all my life. Could I really do this without falling in love with him all over again? Then, again, did my heart matter when my child’s life was in danger?

I slid even closer to him, making it impossible for there to be even a breath of space between us. He held me, his breath warm against my temple, his hands doing things to my equilibrium that neither of us could deny. He kissed me, his lips brushing the curve just in front of my ear. He was about to kiss me again, his lips so close to mine that I could already taste them, when his phone buzzed in his back pocket. My hands were close enough, I could feel it. He stiffened, guilt slipping through his eyes as he pulled it out, glancing at the screen as he moved to dismiss the call. But something he saw clearly changed his mind.

He held the phone to his ear without saying a word. Tension burst through him, turning his expression to stone.

“We have to go,” he said as he let me go, sliding the phone back into his pocket without pause.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s been an accident. Rachel’s been hurt.”

He didn’t touch me until we were at the elevators, stepping into one of those infernal boxes for the third time together, side by side, that weekend. He shoved his finger against the buttons, his hand shaking when he pulled it back.

“Brian…”

“I’m an asshole,” he said so softly that I almost couldn’t hear him. “I’ve done this to you twice now.”

“No.” I moved up behind him, slid my hands over his shoulders. “She’s going to be okay. And I…I can wait until you figure things out.”

He turned into me and drew me against his chest, but then he pushed me away, shoving me up against the wall of the elevator hard enough that the wind was knocked out of my lungs for a brief moment.

“You don’t understand, Cassidy. You never did. I’m not a good man.”

“You are.”

I reached up to touch his face, but he pushed my hand away, pressing both hands against my shoulders, shoving me hard against the wall again.

“I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”

“We all have.”

“But these things would change your image of me. They’d make you hate me.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

“I don’t want you to want me, Cassidy. I don’t want you to care about me, to need me. And I…” His voice broke then even as he moved closer to me, his lips barely a hair from mine. “I don’t want to need you. That makes you a target, and I can’t lose anyone else. Do you understand?”

I slid my hand over his jaw. “That’s why you chose her, isn’t it? Because she understood?”

He pressed his forehead to mine. “She grew up in my world. She knew.”

“We could have run away.”

He groaned. “It was a lovely fantasy, but they never would have let me go.”

“Then I could have—”

He kissed me, roughly, his hands holding my head so tightly that I thought my skull might pop if he didn’t let go. But I didn’t try to pull away. Instead, I buried my fingers in the front of his shirt and pulled him closer to me.

“I’m only going to hurt you again,” he whispered harshly against my lips.

“Consider me warned.”

He pulled back just enough to look into my eyes.

“I love you, Cassidy.”

That was the moment. That was the moment when I should have turned and walked away. I could have ended it all right there. I could have told him the truth. I could have left him standing there. I could have done almost anything but what I did.

I slid my arms around his neck and whispered, “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

And that, as they say, was the final nail in my coffin.

Brian

It was Killian who called. He had no idea what his news would do to me because he had no idea it was Rachel I’d been seeing these last few weeks. His concern was that a reporter who’d done a very public story on MCorp and me had been in an accident that police were calling suspicious. It was Killian’s job to protect MCorp from any form of attack above and beyond our other interests.

Killian was waiting when Cassidy and I stepped off the plane.

“How is she?”

He shook his head. “The cops are saying that it looks like it was intentional. Someone tampered with the brakes in her car.”

“But how is she?”

Killian glanced at Cassidy, then back at me, the expression on his face going from tense to concerned.

“She wasn’t just a reporter to you, was she?” He took my arm and pulled me in close. “I’m sorry, Pops. She died on the way to the hospital.”

The world went dark for a minute. My last conversation with Rachel was an argument over my relationship with Cassidy. She was jealous, and I was annoyed, feeling guilty because she was more right than she ever could have known. I was going to end things with her. But I didn’t…I could never mean her harm.

“We have to think about how this is going to blow back on MCorp,” Killian said, his voice almost reluctant. “The story about you, about the company, was the last big thing she did. Everyone’s going to wonder if there was a connection.”

“It was just an accident.”

“Pops—”

“We should go,” Cassidy said, moving up behind me. She didn’t touch me, but just knowing she was there was like a cool balm on a burn. Killian looked like he wanted to say more, but he stepped out of the way and let us get into the waiting SUV.

I stared out the window as we drove through the city, passing at a distance the old neighborhood where I grew up. I found myself wondering quite often how I managed to pull myself out of that place to the world in which I now existed.

“Why would someone want to hurt her over that fluff?”

Killian shrugged. “We don’t know that was the motivation. But the cops will be asking questions and we have to get our ducks in a row.”

“She was a reporter. She wrote a story and she didn’t even touch on half the stuff she’d originally wanted to write about.”

“What do you mean?”

“She wanted secrets, things nobody had ever written about me before.”

Killian’s eyes narrowed. “What did you tell her?”

“I’m not a fool, son. I didn’t tell her anything that wasn’t in that article.”

“But you were sleeping with her.”

“Sex doesn’t require words.”

Killian cocked an eyebrow just like his mother would have done, but he didn’t push it any further. Instead, he leaned forward, resting on his knees.

“MCorp will have to release a statement. And the police will want to talk to you. Fortunately, the police are looking at some ex-boyfriend of hers, so I don’t think it will be a problem. But I wouldn’t advertise your relationship with her.”

“I won’t.”

“Did anyone know about the relationship?”

I shrugged, my eyes shifting to the windows again. We were in the better part of town now, headed toward my spacious—sometimes too spacious—home in Beacon Hill. For a boy who grew up in Dorchester, it was a huge step forward to have a place in Beacon Hill. I never really cared where I laid my head at night. I bought the house for Abigail and the kids. Tonight I wished I had anywhere else to go than there.

“I suppose they’ve contacted her family, made arrangements.”

“The police did. Her family’s in Connecticut. I heard they’re making arrangements to take her back there as soon as the coroner releases her body.”

“Have you seen her?”

Killian shook his head. “Didn’t see any reason to. And I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to, either. There’re going to be enough questions as it is.”

He was worried about the family. That was the thing with Killian: family meant everything to him. It surprised me that he wasn’t married, settled down with some pretty wife who reminded me of his mother. Family was everything to him, but he was picky when it came to the kind of girl who could get close enough to even think about stealing his heart. I think he brought home one girl to meet his mother, years ago. One. The kid was nearly thirty…it was time for him to settle down.

I was married with three kids by the time I was his age.

We pulled into the driveway of my house, and I heard Cassidy gasp. She hadn’t been here before and had no idea what my life was really like these days. I wondered what she would think if she could see my bank account balances. Plural. When I knew her, I didn’t have a single bank account, I just lived a cash life.

She hesitated as Killian and I got out of the car. I reached back inside and grasped her hand

“Please,” I said softly.

She followed us inside, a step or two behind.

“Jack will want to talk to you in the morning,” Killian warned me. “I talked to him earlier in the evening, but I think he’d prefer to have that discussion with you.”

“Yeah, I bet he would.”

Killian poured himself a drink at the bar in the sitting room, holding the bottle up to offer me some. I might have, too, but the memory of last night changed my mind. Cassidy was standing by the French doors at the back of the room. I found myself watching her, studying the lines of her suit, the way it molded to her body.

I truly was an asshole. My lover just died and I was admiring the figure of another woman.

“Like I said, I’ll release a statement tomorrow. Any suggestions on what it should say?”

“That’s your department.”

Killian nodded. “Then I guess I’ll leave you to it.” He turned toward Cassidy. “Can I give you a ride home?”

“We have some things to go over,” I said quickly before Cassidy could answer. She’d turned, and our eyes met briefly before she turned back to the view through the glass door.

“Okay.”

Killian touched my arm as he passed me. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

I just nodded, not sure how I felt about the whole thing. It was surreal, the realization that Rachel was gone. She was so young…how could a stupid fool like me live this long when a kid like her, with her whole life ahead of her, was gone? It didn’t seem fair.

“He seems worried about you.”

I nodded, sinking down onto the edge of the couch, running my fingers over my scalp. “He understands how something like this can have a life of its own.”

“Can it really hurt the company? It’s not like she worked there or anything.”

“No, but he’s right about her article creating a connection between us. It’s possible things could get carried away pretty quick.”

“Social media.”

I nodded without looking up.

Cassidy came to the couch and settled beside me. She touched my knee almost hesitantly, the warmth of her skin seeping through the thin linen of my slacks. I lay my hand on hers.

“I don’t know what to think about all this. I don’t understand why anyone would want to hurt Rachel.”

“Maybe it was just an accident.”

“Yeah, well, people around me have a habit of getting themselves killed.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. But she never asked why I would say such a thing. Cassidy didn’t know about my illegal activities, even though I was in the thick of it when I met her. It was those activities that caused my wife to kick me out and made me available to meet her in the first place. But I never talked to her about my work. And she never asked.

“This is why I don’t want you here.” I took her hand between both mine and pulled it up against my chest. “And why I need you here.”

“It’s my choice to be here or not, isn’t it?”

I turned to her, pressed my fingers into her hair, and drew her close. “Thank you.”

She kissed me, her touch gentle. I pulled her closer, deepening the kiss before she could move away. I needed this, needed her, and needed the comfort of her closeness. She moaned a little, the sound like sweet music. We fell back against the couch back, falling into each other like a couple of teenagers making out on their parents’ couch. That’s how she made me feel. She made me feel young. Cassidy made me feel as if time was fluid, as if we could go back and forth in time, as if we hadn’t changed since that moment years ago when we first found each other.

Rachel made me feel lucky. She made me feel virile. She made me feel sexy. But she never made me feel young. Or connected. Or like there was more to sex than the physical pleasure of it all.

Cassidy did.

We kissed for a long time, deep, passionate kisses that were almost transcendent. My hands drifted over her side, along her hip. I was content just to touch her. There was nothing that made me feel more alive than touching a beautiful woman. Especially this one.

How could I have forgotten how good this was?

“I should go,” she said suddenly, sliding her lips over my throat before resting her head against my chest.

“Don’t go.”

“It’s been a stressful night for you. You need time to catch your breath.”

I ran my hand slowly down her back. “I don’t even know how to feel about all this. Killian thinks it’s bad for the company. You think I should be heartbroken. But the truth is, I only knew her for a few weeks and we spent most of that time in bed.”

Cassidy stiffened against me and, despite myself, my heart soared.

She really did love me.

“I want to be sad, but all I can think about is how badly I want to take you upstairs.”

“You’re so typical,” she said softly against my shirt. “All you think about is sex.”

“It’s not just sex with you. There’s so much more than that.”

“Is there?”

“Do you remember the first time I told you I loved you? Do you remember what we did that night?”

She sighed softly, her breath making my throat hurt with the swell of my heart.

“We sat out on that rusty fire escape, talking. You told me all about your parents, about your siblings, about the life your mother lived and how you wanted a life just like hers. And I told you about—”

“—the life you wanted. You said that you’d give anything to escape the old neighborhood and live like the rich people your mother cleaned houses for.”

“I did.” I kissed the top of her head. “I believed I could do it, too. When I held you in my arms, I really believed I could.”

“You did.”

Silence fell between us, and I could read her thoughts in the tension in her shoulders. I did do it, but I did it with Abigail, not her. And I didn’t give her the life I promised her that night. I didn’t give her children; I didn’t give her the big house and the fancy car. I didn’t take her away from the suffocating control of her parents, didn’t help her outshine her siblings. I didn’t give her all the things I’d promised I would.

I gave those things to Abigail.

“We have so much wasted time to make up for.”

She shook her head, carefully extracting herself from my touch. “We don’t have anything to make up for. We just have a future to build together.”

She crossed the room, slipping her light blazer from her shoulders as she did. The blazer fell from her fingertips, and then she began to fumble with the buttons on the front of her blouse. I was torn between the desire to watch her undress and the need to touch her. And then she disappeared around the corner. I followed, walking slowly, picking up her blazer as I rounded the corner, too. Her blouse was sitting on the stairs about halfway to the second floor. Her skirt at the landing.

I bit my lip, my heart racing as I found her bra hanging off of my bedroom doorknob.

I pushed open the door. It was dark—she hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights. She was lounging on the bed, wearing nothing but the suit she was born in.

“Your turn,” she said with a small smile on her full lips.

I set her clothes on the chair, turning to study her as I kicked off my shoes.

“Are you sure? I’m not much of a stripper.”

“I’m positive.”

“And you think
I’m
obsessed with sex.”

“I haven’t been with anyone in ten years. If I’m a little obsessed, you’ll have to put it down to that.”

That little bit of information made me want to tear off my clothes and jump onto the bed. Her husband—whoever the fool was—didn’t understand what he’d given up with her.

I undressed slowly, starting with the buttons on my shirt. I let it fall open, pretending I had a six-pack hidden underneath instead of an undershirt and an older man’s chest. Then I tugged at my belt, unzipping my slacks as slowly as I could, one tooth at a time. She sat up, her finger in her mouth as she watched, the soft sucking sounds she was making causing my balls to tighten almost excruciatingly tight.

“Like this?”

She nodded, her eyes wide as they took in every inch.

I turned my back to her and allowed my jacket and shirt to fall down the length of my arms. Then my slacks, a little shimmy of my ass as they fell. I heard her gasp even though I couldn’t imagine the view was that great. I was a good-looking guy, but I was fifty. Gravity was not kind to me.