Deadly Obsession (23 page)

Her grin made him wonder if perhaps she could outlast him, not that he even had the breath to ask.

She fell forwards onto him and he wrapped his arms around her, felt the thundering pound of her heart against his.

When he could move, he reached down and pulled her shoes off, rolled those stockings off and covered them both.

Christian fell asleep minutes later. Brayden held her to him and stared at the ceiling. Banish him, she’d begged. Well she was relaxed and asleep now, so either he did his job, or she did it for him. He wasn’t certain and quite frankly didn’t really care for the way things just ... just ... tore out of his control.

He wanted to know exactly what happened tonight. Thought she saw someone.... Yeah, he’d bet she did.

Wealthy? Probably as tonight was one of the more expensive performances. And the man enjoyed the arts. As to whether he was young or old, Brayden had no clue. And if she’d been running and running, chances were she’d run as far and fast as she could. Oregon. That was his guess.

Slipping quietly from the bed, he went to the living room, booted up his laptop and sent an email off to Rob Roy.

The opera poured out of her, straining, straining to hold that last note.

She didn’t want to disappoint him. Never disappoint him. It was worse when he was disappointed.

The stage lights glared, bright and hot. Christian could see nothing other than the empty silent stage.

But she could hear voices.

"Josephine.... Josephine...."

She whirled around, the beautiful ice blue gown swishing around her legs.

"My Angel... Come to me. Come, sing. You are mine, you can’t sing for anyone else. Mine."

Where was he? She heard Richard, but his voice moved around her, above her as if he never stayed stilled. It lingered and stretched so that one whisper ran into the next. The scent of those sweet cigars he smoked swirled with the tangy smell of brandy, a heady fragrance that churned her stomach.

Chills skittered up her back.

"Christian?"

Brayden.

She sighed and turned again, but their voices mixed, rose together.

"Help me, Brayden. Please, help me!" she cried.

"You won’t let me," he said.

Richard’s smooth, throaty laugh danced around her. "Oh what a tangled web we weave.... She’s mine.

Mine. Mine."

"Help me, please."

"You have to let go first," Brayden’s voice told her just as he stepped up beside her.

Richard appeared on the other side, holding ropes and a gag. A camera hung from his neck, and that look glinted in his eyes. "Mine," he whispered.

Warm tears trailed down her face.

Brayden held a hand out to her. "Take my hand, Christian. Open up and talk to me, and I can help you."

She was looking from one to the other, one to the other.

Brayden’s eyes pulled her to him, drew her attention from all else.

"Let it go," he coaxed.

"Mine," Richard’s voice whispered behind her.

She didn’t turn around, her attention solely focused on Brayden.

"Christian, don’t let him win. Take a stand and fight!" Brayden told her.

For a moment, she stood undecided, then reached for Brayden’s hand, their fingers inches apart.

"Funerals are pesky things to plan, aren’t they, Josephine," Richard murmured.

Funerals. Oh God.

She jerked, clasped her hand to her chest.

"Christian?" Brayden asked.

She took a step back.

"I can’t. I’m sorry, I love you too much. I can’t!" She backed away again, another step then another.

All she saw was the disappointment and hurt in Brayden’s eyes.

"I’m sorry," she whispered.

His hand was still outstretched. "Christian, don’t!"

One more step behind. An arm snaked around her, and Richard whispered in her ear. "See, you always come back to me. You will always be mine."

A rope pulled tight around her neck, tighter and tighter.

"Nooooooooo!" she screamed, and realized her mistake too late.

Hands held her.

"No, no, no," she fought them off, tried to pull away.

"Christian! Christian! Wake up, damn it!"

Brayden’s voice finally filtered through the haze of terror, jerking her back to reality--back to their dimly lit room.

"Brayden?"

"Yeah, baby, it’s me."

She threw her arms around him and held on for dear life.

God, it was so real. So real. She still felt the rope around her neck, cutting off her air.

His arms tightened around her, pulling her closer to him. The hair from his chest tickled her chin.

"It’s okay. You’re okay, you’re safe." His voice was warm against her temple. He lay back down and pulled her with him.

She was tucked up against him, her ear directly over his heart. Hers felt as if it would burst from her chest.

"I’m sorry," she said. "I’m sorry."

"For what?"

"I reached for you. I should have just grabbed hold of you and never let go. Too late," she muttered against him, wiping her wet cheek against the muscles of his chest. "I’m sorry."

He propped up on his elbow, and she turned into him. His finger was gentle yet firm beneath her jaw as he turned her to face him.

"Christian, it was dream. A bad dream," he said, brushing a kiss on her forehead.

She could only shake her head. She remembered it, and though she wasn’t one to put stock in dreams, or omens, or whatever, there was no denying the meaning of the nightmare.

A choice loomed before her, no smaller now than it had been moments ago in her dream, no less nerve racking now than it had been at any time for the last few months or even years, for that matter.

She could see Brayden above her, his black hair, the lighter contrast of his face. It was dark save for the faint predawn light slanting through the shutters, giving the room a dark blue glow.

His stubble scraped against her palm as she cupped his cheek. "When did you know?" she asked.

She felt him pull back a bit.

"Know what?"

"That I wasn’t just Tori’s nanny, or the Kinncaids’ surrogate sister."

"Heard that term did you?"

He settled back down beside her, but she rolled to her side. Brayden spooned her, his heat surrounding her. She waited, then waited some more.

Finally, he said, "It was one summer afternoon. That summer before everything blew apart in Colorado with Aiden and Jesslyn. Actually, it was only a couple of days before that. Mom and Dad had already flown out there." He draped his arm around her and pulled her even tighter against him, her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder. "Anyway, Tori was playing in the pool with Abby, that little redheaded girl that used to live down the lane. The sun was glaring off the papers I was looking over, and I looked up and there you were." His voice softened at the end. "You were holding a tray of lemonade and cookies, and you set it by the side of the pool for the girls. You had on a siren red bikini and some sort of wrap-skirt thing." A chuckle whispered against her ear, blowing against her hair. "And suddenly there you were looking like a woman straight off the pages of some men’s magazine."

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and smiled. "I was always there."

"Not like that," he said, his voice deep and gruff.

Feeling daring, she asked, "And what would you have done if the girls hadn’t been there?"

Again a murmured laugh. "I have no idea. It’s a good thing they were. I might have hit on you."

Brayden’s lips were soft on her cheek, his stubble scraping her face. "Then again, I probably wouldn’t have. I was too shocked at my own reaction. Thank God, I had those papers."

Christian smiled. "I first saw you, really you, when Tori was four and had pneumonia. Remember?"

He grunted.

"Anyway, I was so worried and scared, and you’d already left for London. That night, her door opened and there you were. Changed your plans and flew back. You sat beside her bed and told me to go get some rest." She would never forget that.

Brayden hummed. She knew he wondered what she was getting to.

Biting the bullet she went on. "I was so scared of you, of all of you when I first moved here," she whispered.

He tensed behind her, but didn’t move.

Her heart pounded in her chest, he had to feel it. It felt like a bird, slamming against glass, demanding to be free. Tears stung the backs of her eyes.

"You weren’t scared of Mom," he whispered.

She could only shake her head. On a sigh, she said, "No. Not really. Your mom is too nice." Time for it all to come out. To let it go. "But all the rest of you.... You were such big men."

Big men.

Brayden closed his eyes, his gut tightening at what he suspected. He didn’t know what had happened that Christian was suddenly opening up to him, and he was afraid to even move for fear of her shutting down again.

"Do you know, to this day, I still don’t know how I got to your house?" she asked, her voice so soft, he had to strain to hear her. "And then, when I woke up, there was your mom and dad and I was too scared to say anything."

"I remember," he whispered. He also remembered how he thought his parents were crazy for taking in a runaway when he’d just brought his baby home and had sold his apartment and moved back home with them.

They’d known nothing about her. She was just this silent waif of a girl with large terrified eyes. It had been the eyes that had swayed him, that and once when he was down in the gym and thought Tori was asleep, Christian had ventured down to tell him that his baby was crying and she was afraid to pick her up.

From then on things changed, at least with them. And after a time, the fear left her eyes, and after more time, she’d finally lost the haunted look and became part of the family.

"I’d learned the hard way, what men could do."

Her words slapped him back.

"Though as a child I didn’t know. I had a wonderful father. Sometimes Jock reminds me of Papa, and you boys remind me of my older brother."

Brayden wanted to ask her what happened to them, but he didn’t. She was so still, so tightly wound, it seemed she might shatter at the least provocation.

"Josh, my brother, and I are about twelve years apart. He’s from Papa’s first marriage."

Brayden reached around and laced his fingers through hers, wincing at the grip she had on his hand.

"I should have told him, but I was too scared to, too afraid of what could happen, and too ashamed,"

she whispered.

Silence fell, settling thick and heavy with each passing moment.

Finally, he asked, "Of what?"

A warm drop fell on his bicep that cradled her head, trickling a wet path down his arm. He tried to ignore it.

"I grew up like Tori, in a big house, my grandparents close by. Anything I wanted, I got, private school, all the proper lessons. Then Papa died and everything changed." She stiffened even more in his arms, though he wasn’t sure how.

"She remarried," Christian said, bitterness lacing her words.

"Who?"

"My-my mother."

The room was slowly awakening to the light slanting in across the floor, still he didn’t move.

"I wanted to stay with my grandparents, but she wouldn’t let me. We moved away."

The wetness on his arm felt like a small river, a constant stream, burning a path straight to his gut, his heart, his anger. What the hell had happened?

"Do you like my body?" she asked.

Where the hell did that come from?

Brayden squeezed her hand and kissed her temple. He started to give some blithe remark, hoping to ease her, but decided against it. Instead, he said, "You’re beautiful."

She nodded. "He thought so too."

The picture was congealing, but still he asked, hoping his anger was well hidden. "Who?"

Her hold on his hand strengthened until his fingers tingled. She shook head once, then again. Her breathing was ragged.

Brayden wanted to stop this, to tell her it was okay, but that wouldn’t help her. She needed to get this out.

"My-my st-stepfather," she said, in a strangled voice, as though forcing words out.

Her hand trembled in his, then moved up, until she was shaking against him.

Brayden held her tighter.

"I don’t know when it started, a touch here, a look there, a hug that I knew lasted too long. He was so careful, so sly, no one even noticed," she said. "Anytime I said anything, how I didn’t like him, how he made me uncomfortable, everyone just told me change was inevitable. They all thought I was still upset over Papa dying and her remarrying. No one listened."

How the hell could they not? "Your brother didn’t listen? Your mother?" he asked.

She shook her head. "My mother? I won’t even go there. All mothers are not like yours. But Josh? Not at first, he might have listened later, but I never told him later. Later was too late." A sob caught and held.

"Shhh. It’s okay. He can’t hurt you now. No one will," he told her, hugging her tight.

She shook her head. "It’s not okay, it’s always there. I never told anyone what he did...." She trailed off.

"Well, I did, but those I did, either.... Never mind, that’s not what.... It doesn’t.... He raped me."

Her words fell between them, dark and ugly in the air. He’d known, some part of him had known what she would say. But the words still ignited the rage within him, slapped and challenged him to do something.

"I just couldn’t-couldn’t take it anymore, Brayden. I couldn’t. It got to the point I either had to leave that house, or just die, and I didn’t care if I died." A shudder ran through her, through him at her words. "A friend and her mom helped me get away. I don’t really remember too much of it because I hurt so bad.

He’d beaten me the night before. But I do remember her dad, this one cop, he knew what was going on, tried to help before, but couldn’t. I remember riding a bus with him, or maybe a train."