Stone Cold (18 page)

“I still want kids.”

He hadn’t said,
“I still want us to have kids,”
but before Cassidy could read too much into it, her mother rushed through the door, grinning from ear to ear.

“That was fast.” Cassidy jumped up. “How is she? How’s the baby? Are they alright?”

“Your sister is wonderful and the baby is perfect.” Liz’s eyes landed on Drake when she said, “They’ve decided to name her Hannah Marie Elliott.”

Cassidy witnessed Drake’s reaction, but she didn’t have time to ask him about it before her mother was making her way back into the room, promising to return as soon as the doctor allowed visitors.

“Are you okay?” Cassidy asked, turning to face Drake.

“They named her after my mother,” Drake said, quietly. “Lee and my mama were always so close.” Blinking back his tears, he said, “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Pulling him into her arms, Cassidy said, “Maybe his daughter can fill that void in his heart, honey.” Just the way she hoped their own baby would fill the void Drake’s parents left in his heart.

“I hope so,” he whispered. “For all of their sakes, I really hope so.”

Drake was pacing the dining room, watching out the windows facing the circular driveway as he waited for Cassidy to return home.
Home. 
In the past couple of months, she’d turned his house into a home with subtle changes that made him smile, including framed photographs of the two of them. He could smell her perfume every time he walked into the closet, see her shampoo when he stepped into the shower, hear her laughter greet him at the door when he walked in after a long day, and he knew without those things, he would go back to a life of loneliness and desolation. He didn’t think he could live through that again.

Her career was taking her in an exciting new direction yet again. She and Clint Davis co-wrote a song together and he asked her to sing a duet with him. The song had the magnetic quality Drake had come to recognize as a producer and he knew the song would take her career places she claimed she wasn’t sure she wanted to go. But she would undoubtedly face the challenge the way she faced everything else in her life, fearlessly.

He wanted her dreams to come true and he would do everything in his power to make that happen, even if that took her away from him for a while. But he knew he wasn’t strong enough to let her go until he had the promise she would be coming back this time.

Headlights shone at the end the driveway, marking her arrival, and he took a deep breath, rehearsing what he wanted to say, imagining how he hoped she would respond. They’d been down this road before, but everything was different this time. Back then, she thought she
needed
him. Now she realized she could stand on her own in the knowledge that she was strong and capable. He loved seeing her transformation, but it scared him too because he sensed he needed her more than she would ever need him.

“Hey,” she called, her high heels tapping on the limestone floor as she made her way down the back hallway. “Where are you?”

“In here, baby.” He smiled when he saw her. She looked incredible in black skinny jeans, knee high boots, and a black turtleneck. “How’d it go today?”

She stepped into his waiting arms and laid her head on his shoulder. “Good, but why weren’t you there?”

“I had a few things to take care of.”

Clint was one of his top artists and they were recording the new song in Drake’s studio. He was confident his team could handle it, so he instructed them to make the song the very best it could be. In truth, he had mixed feelings about watching his lover sing the intimate song to another man. He knew it was ridiculous, but Cassidy gave everything she had to the things and people she loved, and he knew the song she co-wrote with the handsome singer would be no exception.

Drake usually epitomized confidence, but after losing Cassidy once and watching her evolve into someone he barely recognized, but loved even more than he ever had before, he was terrified that her new life may take her on a different path, one that led her away from him.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, looking up at him as she ran her hands over his chest. “You seem a little off tonight.”

He felt a little off. Scared, excited, introspective. A part of him wanted to get this over with, but the part that hoped it would turn out exactly as he’d dreamed, wanted to commit every second to memory. “Yeah, I’m okay, angel.” He toyed with the diamond studs he’d given her for her last birthday. She thought they were too big, too much, but he wanted to shower her with trinkets, to convince her she deserved no less than the best.

“Where’s Dora?” she asked, glancing into the empty kitchen across the hall.

The light fixture over the centre island glowed, but other than that, the hub of the large house was eerily quiet tonight.

“I gave her the night off.”

“Oh, okay. Shall I make us some dinner then?” Patting her flat stomach, she laughed self-consciously. “I’m starving.”

“Dora left dinner in the oven for us. Would you like a glass of wine before we eat?” After her battle with prescription drugs, she rarely drank, but he wanted to believe this night would warrant at least a glass of bubbly to celebrate.

For weeks, Drake had been thinking about how he wanted to do this. Where he would take her, what he would say, but in the end, he decided their home would be the best place to have this conversation. He didn’t want her to feel pressured, surrounded by people waiting for her response, nor did he want to risk the humiliation of being publically rejected.

“No, thank you,” she said, her dark eyes drifting to the place settings. There were two lit candles in the center of the table. “It looks like you went to a lot of trouble.”

“You’re worth it.” Wrapping his hand around the back of her neck, he pulled her head to his, closing his eyes as he inhaled the familiar scent of her shampoo. If he screwed this up, pushed her for more than she was ready for, he could risk losing her, and that would destroy him. “God, Cassidy, I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” she whispered, stroking his face. “What’s with you tonight? Why are you acting so strange?”

He couldn’t tell her he was feeling insecure about their relationship. Everything was going so well in her life. It wouldn’t be fair to burden her with his irrational fears. “I’ve been so happy these past couple of months.” Happier than he’d ever been.

Being with her now was completely different than the last time they’d been planning a life together. She came to him this time as his equal, knowing who she was and what she wanted. She wasn’t afraid to voice her concerns or argue her point, and that made her irresistible, not only to him, but to the men who surrounded her. Drake saw it in his studio, the way other men looked at her when they thought he wasn’t looking, and it gnawed at him, knowing she could walk out of his life at any second without benefit of the kind of commitment he longed for.

Every time he tried talking to her about the future, she smiled and told him they had all the time in the world to make plans. But every day felt like an eternity when the only thing he wanted was to make her his wife.

“I’ve been happy too, Drake.” She smiled. “You know that.”

“Yeah, I know.” She had been happy. He knew she wouldn’t have stayed if she wasn’t, but that didn’t mean she was ready to promise him forever one last time. “Sit down, sweetheart,” he said, pulling out a chair. He couldn’t go on like this another minute, making himself crazy second-guessing his decision.

Frowning, she did as he asked. “Are you breaking up with me?” Her face twisted when he didn’t respond right away. “God, you are, aren’t you?”

“No.” He couldn’t help laughing. Given how he was feeling, that suggestion seemed ludicrous. “How can you even think that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, letting him take her hands as he knelt in front of her. “I just wish you’d tell me what’s going on. You’re making me nervous.”

Looking up at her, all of the carefully rehearsed words fled and he was left with just the raw truth. “When you walked out on me the last time, I had the anger to mask the pain. I held on to that.”

Tears filled her eyes. “Why are we talking about that now? I thought we were finally getting past it. Are you ever going to be able to forget, to forgive me for what happened?”

Drake cursed himself for reminding her of one of the darkest times in their lives. “I’m sorry, I just wanted you to know that everything feels different now. If you left me now, I don’t think I could stand it.” He waited for her to assure him that would never happen, but when the assurance didn’t come, his stomach turned over, reminding him this risk could back-fire on him in the worst possible way.

Letting her eyes fall to the joined hands in her lap, she said quietly, “Things feel different for me too, in a good way. I feel stronger and more confident than I ever have before, like I’ve finally found my place in the world.”

He didn’t know whether she was referring to the bliss she’d found with him or her career. With numerous hits to her credit now, she no longer needed his financial support. She was totally self-sufficient, insisting on sharing some of the financial responsibilities on the home front, even though Drake earned more money than either of them could ever possibly spend. “You’ve come into your own, no question about it.” He looked at her hands. Her fingers were bare. She’d refused to wear another ring since her engagement ring had been stolen. “I want…”

“What?” she asked, her voice laced with impatience. “What do you want? Please, just tell me.”

“I want you.” He knew that much was obvious, but those three words encompassed everything he was feeling. “I want you there when I wake up in the morning. I want you there when I go to sleep at night. I want you there when I celebrate my success and when I need someone to commiserate with when I lose.”

She gave him a wry smile. “Like you ever lose.”

It was true, he rarely lost because he refused to accept defeat, but in this moment, it felt like his life was hanging in the balance. The pendulum could swing either way and just acknowledging that made him feel sick. “I can’t lose this time, Cassidy. I just can’t.”

“You’re not making any sense,” she said, shaking her head.

“I can’t lose you. I love you too much.” Bowing his head, he said, “I need you.” He’d never admitted the depth of his weakness before, to her or anyone else, but he knew he had to make her understand how much she meant to him, how much his future happiness depended on her.

“You’re not going to lose me,” she said, stroking his hair. “Why would you even think that?”

“I see the person you’re becoming.” His voice was raspy when he said, “I love the woman you are now, the woman I always knew you could be, but I’m not gonna lie, I’m scared too.”

“Why?”

“You don’t need me anymore, Cassidy.” He almost hated to acknowledge the truth, but he knew he had to. They’d redefined everything about their relationship from the way they communicated to the way they made love. Everything seemed more intense now that they understood what it meant to live apart.

“Yes, I do.” Raising his head, she said, “Don’t you realize that I wouldn’t be this person had I never met you? You’re the one who planted that seed of hope in me and nurtured it, Drake. You’re the one who made me look in the mirror and see that I had real potential.”

He knew he couldn’t take credit for her transformation, but he loved that she wanted to share that with him. “You would have gotten there eventually, with or without me.”

“Maybe,” she said, lifting a shoulder. “Maybe not. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I wouldn’t have wanted to take this journey all alone and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to do it with anyone else.”

While he loved her words, there seemed to be a finality to them. Journeys had a final destination and he didn’t want their journey to end until one of them drew their last breath. Knowing he couldn’t continue to dance around the question he needed to ask, he withdrew the four carat diamond solitaire from his pocket, holding it up for her to see.

A sob escaped as she fixated on the ring. “Drake, what are you doing?”

“I’m ready to forge a new path with you, baby. These past months haven’t been about recapturing what we had. They’ve been about getting to know each other all over again because you’re not the same woman I proposed to the first time. I thought I loved you then, but what I felt the first time doesn’t even compare to what I feel for you now.”

She covered her mouth with her hand, but didn’t say anything.

“I want you to be my wife, my business partner—”

“Your business partner?” she asked, wiping away the tear sliding down her cheek. “What are you talking about?”

“You know this business, Cassidy. You could be an incredible asset to me. If you decide that’s something you want?” When she didn’t say anything, he quickly said, “It’s not a deal breaker. If you decide you want to keep writing songs, or you want to cut a record of your own, go out on tour, whatever you want—”

“I don’t think I see a lot of travel in my future. At least not for the foreseeable future.”

“Why not?” he asked, frowning. She still hadn’t made a move to accept the ring and he was afraid to try and slip it on her finger prematurely, so it rested in his palm, reminding him she hadn’t answered his question.

“Drake, I’m…” Her bottom lip trembled as she whispered the word, “Pregnant.”

Drake closed his eyes as he rocked back on his heels. “Come again.”

“I said I’m pregnant.” Her voice didn’t quaver as much this time, but she still sounded tentative.

“Oh my God.” He dropped his head, trying to process her words. “How long have you known?”

“Only a week or so. I was just trying to find the right time to tell you. You’re not mad, are you?”