Some Like It Hopeless (A Temporary Engagement) (23 page)

She didn’t think about the sex.

Hardly ever.

Cassandra drove to the cemetery and wiped two spotless gravestones. Put flowers in their holders.

She had thought that she had something to say, or to ask, but it was so quiet that she just stood there. And listened. And didn’t interrupt.

She drove to Calabasas and a boxy modern house. With a pool that she’d never taken advantage of and a “For Sale” sign sitting on the front lawn, and her heart knocked in her chest.

She slammed on the brakes, lucky there was no one behind her, and stared at the sign.

For sale?

She parked her car in the drive and just sat there, wondering what the hell a “For Sale” sign meant.

She got out, wandering around the outside of the house, peeking in windows.

And got angrier and angrier.

Because he’d just left her. Knocked her off her ass and left her
for a month
without a word.

She’d told him she loved him. It wasn’t a four-letter word. It wasn’t a life sentence. . .

Okay, with her it kind of was.

He wasn’t getting rid of her.

She’d thought about it.

And he wasn’t getting rid of her.

Brady was in his office when he got a call from the front desk, saying there was a situation at valet.

“Can’t Rodrigo take care of it?”

“Rodrigo’s the situation.”

That was new, and Brady felt a tug of curiosity. . .that quickly died.

“Call security.”

“Sir. . . I think you need to take care of it.”

Brady looked at the phone. “Who is this? Are you new?”

“No, sir. I’m not new, and there’s a situation at valet that you need to take care of.”

And then whoever was calling from the front desk
hung up on him
.

Brady banged a fist on his desk, and then did it again for good measure before pushing himself up and stomping out of his office.

He didn’t even look to see if a guest was checking in, just turned the corner, roaring, “If there is a problem in the hotel. . .”

No one was paying attention to him. They were all looking out the front windows at Rodrigo, arms folded, jaw jutting, facing off against Cassandra. Who was jabbing her finger in his chest and shouting.

She was thin. A good fifteen pounds lighter than when he’d left her. Her hair was a little longer, pulled back in a short ponytail instead of fashionably spiked.

Brady’s heart thumped in his chest and he just stood watching with the rest of his staff.

She’d decided what she was going to do about her love.

She’d decided, and he didn’t want to know.

He’d known she would come tell him. No matter what she decided, she’d come tell him because she didn’t believe in hiding anything. Good or bad, she’d put it out in the open so it wouldn’t fester.

A very quiet voice said behind him, “Sir? Aren’t you going to stop them?”

He wasn’t. He was going to wait right here, half-hoping that Rodrigo could keep her out of the hotel.

Except Rodrigo raised a hand and Brady was running. Across the lobby and out the door before it registered that Rodrigo wasn’t going to hit, just jabbing his finger at the little peach lady.

Brady burst through the doors, skidding to a stop, and Cassandra stopped yelling. She looked at him, at the suit size of muscle he’d lost in the last month and her jaw dropped.

She said, loud enough for God and man to hear, “Are you using again?”

“No.”

“
ARE YOU USING AGAIN
?!”

He said, “No.”

Her eyes searched his, and she flicked her fingers at his shirt. “Off.”

“Let’s go inside.”

“Take it off, Brady. There’s no point in going inside if you’ve started using again.”

He stripped his shirt off.

In front of his hotel and his staff. His eyes never left hers as he undid his tie and handed it to Rodrigo. One button, two, all the way down to his pants. And he never dropped her eyes.

She studied each arm carefully. Smelled his breath. Stood on her tip-toes, grabbed his jaw, and looked up his nose. Measured his pupils.

The sun beat down on his shoulders, her fingers stopped digging into his face and started cradling, and he wanted to close his eyes and feel this moment.

Feel this moment, when he was claimed by a woman who would never let go. A woman who would never let him give in.

She let go of him and turned to Rodrigo for a long moment. “I’m sorry.” She held her hand out. “It won’t happen again.”

Brady took his shirt and tie back. “What did she say, and how much of a raise is it going to take?”

Cassandra didn’t look at Brady, just kept her eyes on Rodrigo and her hand in the air. “I made him worry about you.”

Rodrigo said, “Won’t happen again?”

She shook her head, and he shook her hand, nodding. “Now, I’ll go park your little peach lady.”

Brady whispered, “It’s not going to happen again?”

“Let’s go inside,” she said and Brady shook his head, tipping his head up a little.

“Out here. In the sun.”

“In front of your staff?”

“It’s love, Cassandra. Nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to hide.”

She turned to him, blinking, and said, “. . .Love?”

“That’s what you came to tell me, right? That you love me, no matter what.”

She whispered, “No matter what.”

He wished it didn’t have to be like that. That he could give her what she wanted, but he couldn’t. He said, “I can try to get it undone. It’s possible, at least.”

“You checked?”

He nodded. He’d checked. Didn’t know how he could survive having another child but for her, he would try.

She linked her fingers through his and smiled at him.

He said, “You may not care about the why, but I do. I want to hear it.”

“I love you because. Because I crawled into your arms and liked being there.”

Brady shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I love
you
because I found home. Because my heart saw in you someone who knew hurt. Someone who knew how to stand back up again and again. To cling to what was good and say fuck you to the legion of hurts. To say what’s next.”

She stepped in to him, sliding her arms around his waist and murmuring, “I missed this. I missed you. I missed being with someone who’d died, someone who’d killed what he loved most in the world. And hadn’t stopped loving them. Someone who’d learned the hard way how not to quit. Because life is hard.”

He said, “Life’s a bitch. What’s next?”

“Oh, I like that.”

He rested his chin on her head, hugging her to him. “My wife wasn’t perfect. You’re not second best. I want you to know that.”

She squeezed him. “No, not second best. Just. . .alternate reality. Just if life was kind, we would be with other people, but it’s not. And we’re lucky to have each other.”

He shook his head. “I don’t like alternate reality, either.”

“If your wife was here would you be choosing me?”

He closed his mouth and she chuckled, “We’ll just call it permanently temporary.”

“As temporary as a heart attack.”

“My one love, part b.”

He tipped her chin up, stopping her mouth with his own. He said, “How about just love. Also.”

“Our also love. Our secondary love.”

He kissed her again, silencing her.

And Cassandra said against his mouth, “How about just love. The end.”

Christian pulled out the bottom of the chair, turning it into a bed. He fluffed a pillow. He folded a sheet just so and tucked it in.

Cassandra closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch him anymore.

Brady sat next to her on the hospital bed, holding her hand in his big one and saying quietly, “You going to be okay here?”

Shane said, not so quietly, “The real question is, is Christian going to be okay with her?”

Christian looked up from his sheet. “I’ll be okay. She’s trapped in that bed.”

Cassandra grinned. She
was
trapped in this bed. Her legs were encased in compression sleeves to keep her blood from clotting. And while her legs were no longer numb, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to stand up.

She could cross c-section off her list. Didn’t need to do that again.

She said, “We’ll be okay.”

Shane rocked Tabitha Cassandra Johnson Wilder in his arms and watched Christian get ready for the first night shift. When everything was just right, they put Tibby in her bassinet and rolled her out into the hallway for an evening stroll through the maternity ward. To look and be looked at in her pink plaid onesie.

Cassandra sighed when they left and Brady maneuvered her pillow into a more comfortable spot.

She said, “You going to be able to sleep without me?”

“No. I’ll unpack some boxes. I might have us moved in by the time you come home.”

She looked around the sterile hospital room, at Christian’s makeshift bed. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep without you, either. Except for these drugs they’ve pumped into me. They might knock me right out.”

“Mm-hm.”

He put his head down next to hers on the pillow and Cassandra whispered, “Are you going to hold her?”

Brady shook his head but Cassandra knew he would. When they were alone with the baby, just the two of them, and he could remember when he’d held his son. He could cry with no one but her to see.

Cassandra would cry a little with him.

And then he would hold Tibby again and look in her eyes and not remember his son. He would only see her and he would fall in love with her.

He said, “I don’t know how you’re going to be able to give her up.”

“I’m not giving her up. Aunt Cassandra and Uncle Brady live right down the street from her. I’ll be the go-to babysitter. I’ll see her first steps, hear her first word. I’ll have after school snacks, Sunday afternoons lazing by the pool. I’ll be who she sneaks off to after fights with her dads. I’ll hear all the crazy boyfriend stories and she’ll call me when she gets her first fender-bender.”

He smiled. “I can see that.”

She grinned. “I couldn’t have children with Shane. A hot, glistening turkey baster was as close as I could get. And by the way, you wielded it so expertly I’m still coming.”

He chuckled. Then sniffed.

She said, “I can’t have children with you. Why do I always fall in love with men who can’t give me what I want?”

Some things couldn’t be undone and his vasectomy had turned out to be one of those things. So Cassandra had done what she always did. Be happy with what she could have.

And hey, she’d got to make a baby with Shane after all.

When Brady opened his eyes, she was smiling at him. She whispered, “I can’t have what I want. But I’m lucky enough to have what I need. You give me what I need, Brady.”

“Fast cars and hot sex?”

“Yes. Those figure prominently. But also a home. Arms to crawl into when I need them.”

“Love?”

“Always love.”

She raised her hand, looking at her wedding ring. Remembered Shane and Christian shanghaiing her, stuffing her into a wedding dress that was. . .gorgeously purple. And even though she’d never tell them, they knew without her saying a word that it was just perfect.

The families had been there, both sets of them, inside the hotel’s reception room.

Mackenzie and Ethan. Their three boys running around and smiling charmingly at anyone who got in their way. And there had been a little glimmer in Ethan’s eye that said
this
time it was a girl. The look in Mackenzie’s that said it had better be.

It hadn’t been. But maybe this time it was. Or the next.

Ethan did want six, after all.

Brady had stood at the front, waiting for her, and she’d shaken off her two men, stomping up to Brady.

“You really think I’m going to say yes?”

Brady smiled that sinister smile that made her shiver and Shane fan himself. “When have you ever said no?”

He had a point.

But she made him sweat a little when the official asked her. Made him, and everyone, wait.

And Brady just waited. Until she was good and ready. Until she was sure this wasn’t her second choice. If she could have the world exactly as she wished, this is what she would have chosen.