Glow (18 page)

Her heart leapt a little when his rubbing fingers never paused.

“That's true. Sidney did protest. But not for the same reason most of the dissenters did.”

She met his stare, amazed by his calm proclamation.

“But why? I thought Sidney trusted you.”

He shrugged. Alice slid her hands up his shirt and cupped his shoulders.

“Remember that Sidney was my psychiatrist in the years after Addie was taken. Because of that, he is of the opinion that he
knows a great deal more about the inner workings of my mind than he really does.”

“What does he think he knows that would bring your worthiness as CEO of Durand into doubt?”

She sensed his hesitation. His irritation.

“Dylan?” she asked when he didn't respond immediately.

“Sidney is of the opinion that I've dedicated my life to Alan Durand's legacy out of guilt.”

Alice flinched slightly at the harshness of his words.

“Because of the guilt you felt when Addie Durand was taken while under your watch?” she asked slowly. He nodded once, his mouth tight. The subject clearly annoyed him. “Sidney thought you couldn't be a good leader of Durand because of this guilt?”

“No. He expressed his doubt because he was concerned about me.” He must have seen her confusion. “Sidney believes I should move out of the shadow of Durand. He thinks that I've chosen to remain eclipsed by the tragedies that happened when I was a teenager. He is of the opinion that I've chosen a life of guilt and oppression instead of freedom to choose my life's path.” Alice was still bewildered. “Sidney believes that I'm obsessed with the topic of Addie Durand and her kidnapping,” he snapped succinctly.

Alice's mouth fell open. She suddenly felt cold. So
this
was the source of the underground current of tension she felt at times between Dylan and Sidney.

And
this
was the source of Dylan's constant worry about her well-being and safety.

As Dylan's child therapist, Sidney had been privy to the harsh effects Addie Durand's kidnapping and presumed death had on an adolescent boy's mind. It made sense.

It made
horrible
sense. What if Dylan's intense attraction toward her was related? What if his involvement with her was some kind of psychological residue of their shared trauma?

Oh God. It was too much for her to consider right now, when
the entire structure of her life—her very identity—seemed to be crumbling all around her.

“You don't believe in Sidney's theories?” she asked shakily. Hopefully.

His hands slid down to her shoulders. He squeezed the muscles gently.

“There's a thread of truth there, of course. But I also understand that I was a kid at the time. I bear no responsibility for those criminals' greed. Their brutality. I
did
feel guilty and wish I could have done more. That's not obsession. That's human nature. But I'm not
oppressed
by guilt, Alice,” he said firmly, squeezing her shoulders for emphasis. “My life choices have been the result of thought and planning, not a knee-jerk reaction of guilt toward Alan or Lynn Durand. Or you.”

His eyes blazed when he said the last. It was impossible not to be relieved by his steadfastness. She nodded once, and she felt some of the tension leave his muscles.

“Was that the thing that bothered you the most about what Schaefer told you? That Sidney argued against my suitableness as CEO of Durand?”

“Yes,” she said honestly. “I just feel so confused about . . .”

“What?”

“Who to trust.”

“I can't make you trust me, Alice,” he said. “But you
should
.”

“I'm trying,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said more gently than she deserved. She felt so frayed, so pulled in so many directions. He massaged her shoulders. She sighed in relief. The miracles his touch could inspire. “Go on. You were upset by what Schaefer had said about Sidney and me. What happened next?”

“I just wanted to get away. To escape,” she blurted out, feeling a small measure of the desperation she'd experienced at that moment. “To hide. I didn't tell myself to run upstairs, I just found
myself doing it. My feet were taking me to that hiding place without my brain telling them to. And as I ran down the hallway, the memory just flashed into my brain. I distinctly remembered crouching in some dark place and hearing her voice—my mother's voice—calling out to me. It was a game we played. I heard her calling out to me a few times, when I was in bed with you.”

“What?” Dylan asked, his brows furrowing.

“It was just my imagination,” she said quickly, recognizing how strange that must have sounded to him. “My unconscious mind spitting up some buried memory. I
saw
her that night you found me in the hall, too. She wore this delicate, filigreed gold bracelet; the same one she wore in the newspaper clipping you showed me. I saw it perfectly. I heard her calling out a name.
My
name,” she whispered.

She became aware she'd gotten lost in the sad, sweet potent memory and cleared her throat. “Anyway, as I ran down the hallway away from Thad, it hit me that this memory was different. It was
connected
to all these feelings, and it felt
so
real. She and I were playing when she called out like that. I'd hide, and I'd be so excited, hearing her voice as she moved around the house looking for me. She knew where I was all along,” Alice said with a small smile. “Or at least she knew I was in one of several spots. She was the one who had showed me all the good hiding places.”

Dylan's hand cradled the side of her head. Alice leaned into him, instinctively craving his touch. “And it was a good memory for you, wasn't it? You said it wasn't scary like you were worried it would be.”

Emotion surged in her throat. She took a moment to find her voice.

“I thought it'd feel like someone else, like a stranger was taking over my mind,” she gasped. “It wasn't, though. It felt like
me.
That was
my
memory.” His thumb rubbed her cheek, and she realized a tear had fallen. “Even if it's the only memory of her I ever have, it was enough. Because so many feelings came with it. She
loved
me. She cherished me. I could feel it somehow, hear it in her voice. It was the air I breathed, the security of being loved. And underneath my excitement at playing the game, I felt so safe, so trusting that the next moment was going to be nice, and the moment after that, and after that. When I was that little girl crouching under those stairs, I didn't know the
meaning
of fear or want.” She shook her head in frustration.

“What, baby?” he murmured, drying more of her tears with his thumb.

“It was incredible. I'm not saying it right,” she said brokenly, referring to her trouble containing the profundity of her experience in words.

“You're saying it perfectly. If it hadn't been for that memory, I don't think you would have been ready to hear about Sissy tonight.”

“What?”

“You never once asked me how you ended up with the Reeds,” he said, his manner a little sad. “I knew it was because you weren't ready to hear what they'd done.”

“But after remembering Lynn, I was?” she whispered. It made a weird kind of sense. That brief shining memory was an unshakable bedrock to her identity, something no one could ever take from her.

He grasped her head in both his hands and leaned forward to kiss her mouth tenderly. Alice sought out his warmth and hardness, pressing closer, sliding and biting at his lips with her own. She made a dissatisfied sound when Dylan moved back slightly. She stared into his deep eyes.

“It hasn't been an easy night. Let's go to bed,” he said gruffly.

“Yes.”

*   *   *

SHE
cleaned up in the bathroom first and emerged wearing the fluffy bathrobe Dylan had given her. He rose from where he'd been
sitting at the edge of the bed, checking his cell phone messages. Their gazes locked as he passed her on the way to the bathroom. He reached out and palmed her jaw.

“You okay?” he asked in a low rumble, leaning down and kissing her temple.

She'd be a heck of a lot better once they were in bed together.

“I'm fine.”

He straightened and gave her a “spare me the act” look. She winced. “I'm a little overwhelmed.”

His thumb traced her cheekbone gently. “An honest admission from Alice Reed. I'm impressed. Even if you are downplaying things drastically,” he murmured, his mouth curving into a small smile.

“Dylan?”

“Yeah?”

“I know you said Alan Durand never gave up that . . . I could be alive.” His nostrils flared slightly at her tentative “I”; at her referral to Addie and herself as the same person. It was going to take some getting used to. “But
you
didn't, either. You kept the faith the longest of anyone. I just want to say it again—thanks.”

His expression turned very sober, even grim. He just nodded once and kissed her temple again with warm, lingering lips. “Get in bed. I'll be out in a minute,” he said quietly, his mouth near her ear making her shiver.

After he'd gone into the bathroom and shut the door, she walked to the bed. Her fingers hesitated at the tie of her robe. Did he want to make love? She was a little confused by his manner tonight. He was so intense. So deep. It was as if their talk had begun to expose all of his layers, the manifold meanings of what Alan, Addie, and Durand Enterprises represented to him. It took her breath away, to consider that those folds and complexities of his character had been there already when she'd walked into the
dean of business's office at Arlington College and saw him sitting behind that desk.

He was a mystery to her, and yet
she
was such an integral part of his enigma. Or at least Addie was.

She thought of what he'd said regarding Sidney's concerns for him. Sidney thought Dylan should have forged his life outside the long dark shadows of the Durands' tragic past. What if Dylan
had
gone away after he'd finished college and never returned to his history at the Durand Estate? Surely Alice wouldn't be standing there right now. But
if
by some miracle the truth about Addie Durand and the lies that constructed Alice's life miraculously came to light, what would it be like if Dylan wasn't there, holding her, reassuring her . . . touching her.

The thought chilled her to the bone. She drew off her robe. Even if he didn't want to make love after their emotional talk, she wasn't wearing pajamas underneath. Since they'd started having sex, she'd never once spent the night in anything but her own skin. She tossed the robe at the foot of the bed and climbed under the soft, luxurious sheets and comforter.

“He thinks that I've chosen to remain eclipsed by the tragedies that happened when I was a teenage boy. He is of the opinion that I've chosen a life of guilt and oppression instead of freedom to choose my life's path.”

She shivered with cold and snuggled deeper in the covers. What if there was more than just a hint of truth to Sidney's concerns? What did it mean to Alice?

Her anxious thoughts scattered at the sound of the bathroom door opening. She watched as he walked toward the bed, her heart sinking a little when she saw he wore a pair of thin black lounge pants that hung low on his narrow hips and left little to the imagination. He was coming to bed dressed—partially anyway. His cut, powerful torso was stunningly bare.

Their conversation tonight had been heavy and stressful. She was being shallow and needy by thinking about sex at a moment like this. It was just that . . . she
did
need him. In so many ways. Sex had always been the most natural and comfortable way to express her inexplicably strong need for him.

He walked to the opposite side of the bed. She kept herself from rolling over to face him, ashamed of her desire. Repressed air made her lungs burn. He shut out the light, and she felt the mattress give beneath his weight. He scooted toward her. A ragged sigh left her throat when she felt his arms go around her. Clamping her eyes tight, she curled into him, her back against his chest, his groin pressing to the lower curve of her ass. For several taut moments, they didn't move or speak. Alice's throat felt so tight, she wasn't sure she
could.

“What am I going to
do
?”

She gasped, half in shock she'd said the desperate words out loud. The question had been repeating in her brain over and over, but she hadn't planned to utter it. Dylan rubbed her upper arm in a slow, soothing gesture.

“You're going to keep moving forward, one day at a time. One hour. One minute, if need be. We both are. You go for the genetic testing on Saturday. That's another step in the process. Maybe next week, if you're interested, you could start to look at Alan's will and the details of his estate, get a grip on how he planned for Addie's potential return. I could have someone from the legal department come over and guide you through the trust, if you like. It's an airtight but complex document. Alice?” he prompted when she didn't respond.

“I don't know,” she said brokenly. “It feels too soon for that.”

It'll always feel like it's too soon. It always feels like it's too
much.
I have to move forward, despite all of that.

“I think what I'd like to start with for now is reviewing more of Durand's annual reports and getting a firm handle on the
company's history and structure,” she said. “That'd feel a little less . . . personal.”

“If you think it'd help.” He kissed the side of her neck. She felt him inhale with his nose pressed against her skin.

“Dylan?”

He made a deep humming noise.

“I'm not sure I'm as convinced as you are that someone hired Stout and Cunningham. But given that you believe it, do you really think that whoever it was could still be around? Is that why you're so protective of me?”