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The lawyers pressed Nick about any enemies who might have paid people to ghost him, and she listened with interest. This was a subject he’d flatly refused to discuss with her. It worried her mightily that whoever’d had him kidnapped was waiting to pounce again. Again, he denied knowing anything.
The next lawyer pushed harder and Nick’s shoulders climbed defensively. When the third lawyer pressed even more aggressively for information about Nick’s past, he crossed his arms stubbornly and quit speaking altogether. Darn it. That was the same thing he did to her whenever she brought up the subject.
“Water break,” Carter announced abruptly.
Laura released the breath she’d been holding. Nick slumped in his chair, his head down. She put a supportive hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” he answered roughly. But his arm trembled beneath her palm, and his jaw clenched so hard he looked about ready to crack a molar.
She suggested gently, “Let’s call this for today. We’ll come back another time when you’re feeling better—”
“We finish it now,” he snapped uncharacteristically.
She drew back, startled. Nothing ever flustered Nick. He was always the soul of gentlemanly composure.
“I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I have no past. It’s over and gone. My life started anew when you rescued me. This is who I am now. You are my life. You and the kids.”
She appreciated the sentiment, but he was going to have to face his past eventually. The psychiatrists had told her repeatedly not to push him, to let him investigate his previous life at his own speed. But it had about killed her to contain her curious nature for so long.
The lawyers’ badgering resumed, continuing until Nick finally declared, “Gentlemen, this line of questioning is over. My past is not relevant to the fact that I spent five years in an AbaCo box on an AbaCo ship at the hands of kidnappers in the employ of AbaCo.”
Laura stared. It was the first time he’d shown even a flash of the decisive streak he’d had in abundance in Paris.
Carter replied mildly, “AbaCo’s lawyers will, without question, go on a fishing expedition into your past in hopes of finding something they can make seem relevant.”
Nick scowled. “As far as I know, I never had anything to do with AbaCo before I wound up on that damned ship.”
The lawyer sighed. “President Nixon’s lawyers had the eighteen-minute gap to explain. We’ve got your five-year blackout to overcome. Have your doctors said anything more about the chances of you regaining some portion of your memory?”
Nick shrugged. “They think everything’s gone for good. I remember Laura’s face, and that’s it.”
“Can’t you remember something from before your memory loss to give you a clue about who you are and what you do?”
“I know who I am and what I do. I’m Nick Cass, and I spend every waking moment enjoying my family.”
The lawyer looked regretful, but said firmly, “You’re going to be under oath at the trial, and I guarantee they’ll ask you for explicit details of your past. If you won’t talk, they’ll have investigators dig up everything they can find.”
Laura observed closely as Nick’s gaze went hard. Closed. He’d never talked with her about his past in Paris before he disappeared, either. What was the big secret? She’d lay odds he wasn’t a criminal. She’d worked with plenty of them over the years, and he just didn’t have the right personality for it. He was too honorable, too concerned about doing the right thing.
The lawyers started up again, asking about Nick’s connection to AbaCo. He stuck firmly to his story that he’d never had any dealings with AbaCo that he was aware of, and knew of nothing that would’ve provoked the shipping giant to kidnap him of its own volition. Nick maintained steadfastly that his had to have been strictly a kidnapping for hire.
Frankly, she agreed with him. Laura tapped a pencil idly on the pad of paper before her. With first his long months of physical and emotional recovery and then the new baby coming, she’d been distracted enough this past year to abide by his wishes to leave his past alone. But she felt an investigation coming on.
Somebody’d messed with the father of her children, and that meant they’d messed with her. Furthermore, that person or persons might still pose a threat to her man. She smiled wryly. Her mama bear within was in full force these days. Must be the baby hormones raging.
She listened with a mixture of anger and sadness as Nick tonelessly described his incarceration. The psychologists said he had completely disassociated himself from his imprisonment and would have to make peace with it in his own time. For now, though, he held the emotions at arm’s length.
The lawyers moved on to the night of Nick’s rescue. He didn’t have a lot to say about it other than his door opened and a man named Jagger Holtz let him out, and Holtz and Laura led him to safety.
The lawyers left alone the events to follow Nick’s rescue—his weeks in a hospital recovering from various illnesses and malnutrition, his paranoia, the long silences, his difficulties with crowds and open spaces. None of that would help AbaCo’s case, apparently.
Then the lawyers attacked the veracity of Nick’s whole story, claiming it was entirely too far-fetched to be true, doing their damnedest to trip him up or get him to contradict himself. The only evidence he had of this supposed capture of his was a grainy video that could just as easily have been faked, and they demanded to know why he had it in for AbaCo.
She was ready to explode herself by the time Nick surged up out of his chair. “Why do I have to withstand this sort of character assassination? I’m the victim here! And now you make me a victim a second time!”
Carter nodded soberly. “You are correct. It’s the nature of our legal system that the victim often endures outright assault in the courtroom. That’s what we’re here to prepare you to face.”
Nick shoved a hand through his hair. “Why exactly do I have to testify?”
“Because AbaCo will try to convince the jury that the video is faked. The government has to have your direct testimony that the events on the tape are real.”
“Other people were there that night. Why not put my rescuers on the stand?” He sent Laura a quick, apologetic look, no doubt at the notion of dumping this mess into her lap. Not that she minded. She’d love to say a thing or two about AbaCo to a jury.
Carter grinned. “AbaCo won’t touch Laura with a ten-foot pole. She’s a former government agent, which gives her credibility, and they bloody well don’t want to give her a chance to vent her righteous fury in front of a jury…. The mother of your child alone and frantic for years? Oh, no. Way too damaging a story for AbaCo.”
He omitted the part where the government prosecutors wouldn’t put her on the stand because she’d illegally obtained most of the information that led to Nick’s rescue. They’d rather not open up that can of worms for AbaCo to pry into.
After his outburst, Nick settled into stoic silence, refusing to respond to any of the leading and obnoxious questions the lawyers threw at him. No matter what they tried, they couldn’t shake him. Laura was proud of him, but she didn’t like the way he was hunching into his chair, physically withdrawing into himself. He was approaching overload but too macho to admit it.
Thankfully, Ellie woke up and gave Nick the excuse he clearly needed to call a halt for the day. Laura gathered up their fussing daughter apologetically and adjourned to the minivan to nurse and change her.
Nick came outside a few minutes later and stopped by the van to tell her to drive carefully. With troubled eyes, she watched him guide his sporty BMW out of the parking lot. A worrisome, brittle quality clung to him.
Ahh, well. She would make that all go away tonight. The nanny had instructions to entertain the kids for the evening, leaving her and Nick to enjoy a romantic dinner by themselves in the master suite. Smiling, she turned out of the parking lot and pointed the minivan south toward the rolling hills of Virginia’s horse country and home.
Nick drove like a man possessed. Heck, maybe he was possessed. What madness was this to subject himself to cross-examination under oath with as many secrets as he clearly had to hide?
If Laura ever found out he wasn’t who he said he was …
She couldn’t find out. Period. He had too good a thing going, they had too good a thing going, to let anyone mess it up. As appealing as revenge against the bastards who’d held him captive might be, it was a no-brainer that his family came first. He’d made that choice months ago, and he’d had no reason to regret it since.
Someone honked at him. He jerked his attention back to the highway and the traffic streaming along it. He could do this. He could hold himself and his life together. One day at time. One hour or one minute at a time if that’s what it took. The only honest and good things in his life were Laura and the kids. He wasn’t about to lose them.
As the city turned into suburbs and the suburbs into open countryside, his jumpiness increased. After all that time in a shipping container, he’d have thought he would love nothing more than big, blue skies and broad horizons stretching away into infinity. But it turned out the exact opposite was the case. He’d become so used to living in a tiny, mostly dark space that anything else seemed strange and scary.
The panic attack started with sweaty palms and clenching the steering wheel until his knuckles hurt. Then his forehead broke out in a sweat, and an urge to crawl under a blanket in the backseat nearly overcame him.
As Laura’s estate came into view, he stopped the car and parked by the side of the road. He had to pull himself together before he got home and scared her or the kids. He hyperventilated until he saw spots before he managed to slow his breathing. He concentrated on Adam’s laughter, on Ellie’s tiny perfection, on Laura’s warm brown eyes looking at him with such love it made his heart hurt.
Gradually, his pulse slowed. He mopped his forehead dry. There wasn’t anything he could do about his sweat-soaked shirt, but hopefully Laura would put it down to the grilling earlier from the lawyers. Relishing the car’s smooth purr, he put it into gear.
After keying in his security code he drove through the tall iron gates, as always enjoying the bucolic sight of Laura’s prized horses grazing in manicured pastures behind freshly painted oak fences. As he pulled into the six-car garage, he was relieved to see that Laura’s van wasn’t inside yet.
Mumbling a greeting to Marta, the housekeeper, he hurried upstairs to take a shower. The enclosed shower stall with its rain-heads and steam jets soothed away the last remnants of his panic attack. When he emerged from his dressing room/walk-in closet, he heard Laura cooing to Ellie in the nursery. She was a great mom. It added a whole new dimension to the courageous woman who’d rescued him and spent the past year saving his soul.
He poked his head into the nursery. “Anything I can do to help?”
Laura smiled up at him. “I’m afraid you lack the proper anatomical equipment to provide what Ellie wants at the moment.” He gazed at his daughter’s silky, dark head nestled against the pale globe of Laura’s breast. He might have missed Adam’s babyhood—another outrage to lay at his kidnappers’ feet—but he was savoring every minute of Ellie’s.
“Dinner will be ready in a half hour,” Laura murmured. “I’ve asked Marta to serve it in our rooms.”
He nodded and retreated to the other end of the hall to play with Adam. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to sleep with Laura. Far from it. She was as generous and adventurous in bed as she was in life. It was just that he was still rattled from the interrogation, panicked that his past was about to rear its ugly head and ruin all of this perfection. What had happened during those lost years to make him hide his identity, even from the woman he loved?
“Daddeeeeeee!”
Grinning, he braced himself as Adam launched into the air and splatted against Nick’s chest. He caught his son’s small, wriggly form against his, savoring the smell of soap that clung to the boy’s still-damp hair.
“Did you do anything fun today?” he asked as Adam dragged him over to the corner to play with the toy du jour—Hot Wheels race cars.
Adam described his day in charming detail while the two of them built an elaborate racetrack. With dark hair and blue-on-blue eyes so like his own, Adam bent over the task with concentration far beyond his years. He was a frighteningly intelligent child and would go far in life if he used his talents to their maximum potential. They laughed together as too tight a turn sent cars shooting off the track and across the room in spectacular crashes.
Lisbet, the English and shockingly Mary Poppins-like nanny, interrupted the crash fest to announce that Adam’s dinner, and Mummy and Daddy’s, were served. Nick gave his son a bear hug and tickled him until Adam was squealing with laughter before turning him over to Lisbet.
Nick stepped into the private sitting room in their suite and stopped in surprise. The space was lit by hundreds of candles and a white-linen-covered table sat alone in the middle. A red rose in a crystal bud vase sat between the two place settings, and a sumptuous meal was laid out. Marta had really outdone herself. It was some sort of exotic fowl served en croute—grouse, maybe. Among other things, the German woman was a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. A real treasure. But then Laura didn’t settle for less than the best in any aspect of her life. She’d be as intimidating as hell if she weren’t such a genuinely warm and kind person. No doubt about it. He didn’t deserve her.
Laura stepped out of her dressing room and his breath caught. She was wearing a little black dress that highlighted her newly slender body, which had already mostly regained its pre-pregnancy shape partly due to long hours with a personal trainer over the past month. Frankly, the additional curves added to her appeal.
“You look ravishing,” he announced.
“And you are as handsome as always,” she replied as he held her chair for her.
Something within her called to him at a fundamental level, a pull at his soul to protect her and make her happy. It went so far beyond mere attraction he didn’t know how to give it a name. Even calling it love didn’t seem adequate to encompass his need for her or the bond he felt with her. Maybe it was sharing parenthood of two amazing children.
Or maybe it was the fact that he owed his life to her. He would never forget the sight of her the night he was freed. His own private angel. And then the long months of patiently nursing him back to health, gradually convincing him his ordeal was actually over. Putting up with his unwillingness to face his past. And through it all, her love had been steadfast.
He wondered sometimes if there was anything that could shake her loyalty to him. What was it that lurked so dark and frightening in his past? Was it bad enough to drive her away? It really wasn’t something he wanted to find out.
“How are you holding up after being raked over the coals by those lawyers?” Laura asked.
He shrugged. “Today wasn’t fun. But I expect the trial will be worse.”
She sighed. “It’ll all be over in a few weeks, and then we can get on with our lives.”
His gaze dropped involuntarily to her naked left hand. She never once hinted at it, but she had to be thinking about marriage and wondering why he never brought it up. The truth was, he didn’t know if he was married or not, and the only way to find out would be to investigate those ominous, lost years.
He picked up his water glass—since Laura couldn’t drink wine while nursing, he wasn’t drinking either—and said, “A toast. To a long and happy future for us and our family.”
She sipped her water and then asked reflectively, “Why don’t you ever talk about the past?”
He frowned. “I’ve told you why.” Repeatedly, in fact.
“I’m concerned that, with all the publicity this trial’s going to receive, whoever had you kidnapped five years ago will see you and come after you again.”
He swore mentally. He hadn’t thought about the publicity. Was there some way to declare a moratorium on filming or photographing him during the trial?
“Talk to me, Nick. Between the two of us, we can beat any threat that comes our way.”
A naïve notion at best. “My previous life happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Let it be.”
“The psychiatrists keep telling me to let you deal with your imprisonment and the memory loss in your own time. But I have a gut feeling that your time is running out.”
So did he.
Thankfully, she let the subject drop. For now. He had no doubt she would bring it up again, though. And one of these days, she wasn’t going to back off. She’d insist they find answers. His throat tightened until he could hardly swallow the delicious food. What the hell was he going to do? His entire being shied away from thinking about the past. What could have freaked him out at such a soul-deep level? He put the problem in a mental drawer and slammed it shut. Later. He’d think about it later.
They finished eating, and he changed the music. “Dance with me?” he asked her.
“I thought you’d never ask, Mr. Cass.”
Nick held a hand out to her and she took it, rising gracefully to her feet. She wasn’t particularly tall, but she made up for it by being impossibly elegant in build. He might not remember meeting her, but he had no trouble understanding why he’d fallen for her the first time around. Or the second time around. He figured falling in love with the same woman twice was proof positive he’d chosen the right one.
She came into his arms, soft and willing and smelling of Chanel No. 5, his favorite. “Have I told you today that I love you?” he murmured as they swayed to the slow jazz tune.
“I do believe you’ve been remiss in that department.”
“My sincere apologies. Perhaps I can show you how much I love you instead?”
She laughed. “I really never thought you’d ask that. I was beginning to think you didn’t miss making love with me.”
“Ahh, sweet Laura. I was only trying to think of your health. I will want to make love to you until the day I die.”
“Here’s hoping that’s a very long time from now.”
He smiled down at her. “I don’t know about you, but I’m planning to live to be one hundred and fifty years old.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
They danced in silence after that, letting anticipation build between them. Finally, he turned her in his arms toward the bedroom. Her dress had a long zipper, which he drew down by slow degrees as they went, his fingers dipping inside to relish her satin skin and the inward curve of her back. Gratitude swelled in his heart for whatever fate had brought them together.
For her part, Laura tugged his shirt clear of his trousers and made a slow production of unbuttoning it, kissing her way down his chest button by button. His stomach muscles contracted hard as she approached his belt buckle. Her clever fingers did away with that barrier, and then he was sucking in his breath hard, falling back onto the bed when she pushed him gently. She’d obviously given tonight a great deal of thought, and he was happy to go along with her plans for them. For now, at least.
She took her time, teasing him until his entire body thrummed with terrible tension. Finally he rolled over to return the favor. He kissed every inch of her body, re-acquainting himself with it, enjoying the new firmness across her flat stomach, loving the extra fullness in her breasts—and the added sensitivity that came with it. Her soft gasps of pleasure were just as he remembered, the way she arched up into his hands, the fire in her eyes as he stroked her body until it sang for him.
A shadow of fear crossed his mind, but he shoved it away. Nothing must hurt her. Hurt them. He ordered himself to stay in the moment. Focus on the now. “You drive me out of my mind,” he muttered against her skin. “I’ll never get enough of you.”
Moaning as his fingers made magic upon her body, she pulled him down to her impatiently. “Nick,” she gasped, “Please. I’ve waited so long for you. I want you now.”
Ahh, always direct, his Laura. “I could never deny you what you want, my love.”
Taking into consideration her long abstinence, he entered her gently, stunned at how tight and slick she was. She surged up against him immediately, crying out in pleasure. Her eyes glazed the way they always did when they made love, and he relished the way she bit her lower lip. As if she’d actually be able to hold back the cries of pleasure about to claim her. He withdrew slightly and then filled her again in a single slow stroke. She cried out against his shoulder, shuddering from head to foot.
He smiled down at her. “Let us see just how much pleasure you can stand, shall we?”
He paced himself carefully, driving her farther and farther over the edge. With each climax, her smile became more brilliant, her eyes more limpid, his own pleasure more intense. And the happier he became, the more afraid he became. He drove himself mercilessly, forcing himself not to think of the darkness creeping up on him, holding it back from Laura by sheer force of will.
Finally, when his mental strength was at an end, the battle lost, he gave in to the dark tide sweeping over him, surging into her, driving her over the edge one last time. As they climaxed together, it was so magnificent and terrible that, as tears of joy ran down her face, he wasn’t far from tears himself. Tears of sheer terror. The better things were between them, the more certain he was that all of it could end at any moment.
He was losing it. Happiness made him unhappy. Joy terrified him. It was all coming apart before his eyes, his life unraveling because he was too screwed up just to enjoy what they had. But he couldn’t shake the sense of something bad approaching, something stealthy and evil. And it was coming for him.
“I love you, Nick.” Her gaze was clear, untroubled. She sensed nothing, and she had the finely honed instincts of a CIA agent. Desperate, he ordered himself to hold on. Keep it together. He mustn’t lose what little sanity he had.
He rolled to his side, propping himself up on one elbow to gaze down at her. “I love you, too, darling.” Must concentrate on that. Laura. Love. The darkness retreated a little from his mind. His left hand idly stroked down her rosy body. “Better?” he murmured.
“Spectacular. I feel like a woman again.”
He leaned down to kiss her. “You were always a woman. A beautiful one. You’re an amazing mother, and it only makes you sexier.”
“You’re just saying that to be polite.”
“No, I’m not.” He frowned. “Never doubt your attractiveness. The more sides of you I see, the more attracted to you I am.”
“Never change, Nick.”
If only. He felt as if he’d been living in a state of suspended animation for the past year. As if time was passing, but he wasn’t really living. As Laura drifted to sleep beside him, the darkness pushed forward again, nearly choking him with certainty that this sweet interlude was about to end, and life was about to come looking for him with payback in mind.
Chapter 3
The bedside clock had passed 2 a.m. when Nick gave up on sleep. He slid out from under the covers and dressed quietly, tiptoeing downstairs in anticipation of Ellie’s imminent feeding. He pulled a bottle of pumped breast milk out of the refrigerator, warmed it in the microwave and went back upstairs.
Turning off the baby monitor, he sat down in the rocking chair to wait. Sure enough, in about ten minutes, the baby started to stir. He picked her up, inhaling the sweet scent of her. “Good evening, little angel. What say we let Mommy sleep tonight?”
Ellie, a happy and cooperative baby, readily took the bottle from him, snuggling close against his chest with a trust that took his breath away. He loved Laura with all his being, but the feelings that swelled in his heart as he gazed down at his daughter pushed his capacity for love to new heights he’d heretofore had no idea existed. Adoration mixed with protectiveness, hope for her future, and wonder at the miracle of her existence expanded in his heart to make room for his tiny daughter.