Caitlyn managed to produce a demure blush. “Thank you. Something happened this morning, and Emma’s been on the phone dealing with the situation so I can’t get through.” There was no reason to tell Fran the “emergency” was a reputational one.
Fran glanced at her watch and set down her pie very deliberately. “I suppose I could wait a little while longer. It will cut into my lunch, but we all have to do what we must.”
Caitlyn released the breath she’d been holding. She’d been terrified that they’d have to call off the wedding, which would’ve forced her to leave the country. Alone.
No, that wasn’t quite true. She wouldn’t be alone—she’d be a mother. But the fear of raising a child with no one’s help was less than the bleakness she felt at the prospect of a future without Spencer. She didn’t need to be married to him, but she
did
need him. His voice. His teasing. His comfort.
A flutter at her waist drew her eyes down. His hands. They’d done more to repair her shattered soul than all the aid parcels in the world combined. His chest brushed against her back as he stepped closer. She accepted the silent invitation to relax against him, shivers of contrition ebbing from her body as he pressed his lips to her temple.
She’d kept so many secrets from him, shut him out over and over. Yet he was still here, willing to entwine his future with hers. He forgave too easily. She could never understand how he managed it.
“Is Granddad okay?” she asked.
He stiffened. “He’s been in there for a while. Damn. I better go check.” He gave her waist another squeeze before going into the men’s room.
“I’m here!” Emma rushed in and nearly gave Caitlyn a heart attack. Bracing her hand on a chair, Emma shoved the straps of an oversized bag onto her shoulder as she struggled to draw a deep breath. It ended in a hacking cough. “Goddamn cigarettes. Whoops! Sorry.” With a grimace in Fran’s general direction, she tried again. “It’s handled. I’m here. You’re getting married. Now, where’s the ladies’?”
Without waiting for an answer, she dragged Caitlyn into the closest bathroom, tossed her bag onto the counter and rooted through it. She pulled out a flat velvet box. “Small gift from me, borrowed from Mum,” she said as she draped a sapphire necklace around Caitlyn’s neck. “She doesn’t know it, so don’t let her see the wedding photos.”
Before Caitlyn’s conscience could prick her, Emma pulled out a beautiful bouquet of vibrantly pink daisies and chrysanthemums of a green hue that could have leaped off the coolest 1960s sofa. “Oh, Em.”
“They don’t match the necklace, I know. And they cost almost as much as you pay me in rent, but—” she swallowed hard, “—I’m going to miss having you as a flatmate.”
Caitlyn blinked at the tears prickling her eyes. “We’ll still work together.”
“I know. It’s just...different.” Emma took a breath, this time without coughing up a lung. “Anyway, let me go out there first. Just because you’ve ballsed this up so far doesn’t mean we can’t get you properly married,” she said, making a sweeping gesture toward Caitlyn’s tummy before drawing a smaller bouquet out of her Mary Poppins bag and walking out the door.
If time had not been of the essence, Caitlyn would have stayed in the bathroom and gathered her thoughts, but she refused to keep Spencer waiting any longer. With one last glance in the mirror, she settled her hand over her tummy and said, “Let’s go marry your daddy.”
When she opened the door, though, it was ripped from her hands. Emma yanked Caitlyn’s arm as she rushed back into the bathroom. “Spencer
Bailey?
Your Spencer is Spencer
Bailey?
”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Emma yelled.
“Tell you what?” The emotion of the last few weeks mixed with Caitlyn’s pregnancy hormones to exhaust her. The last thing she needed was to upset Emma.
“That kissy-kissy Spencer is Spencer Bailey the rugby player.”
Confused, Caitlyn defended herself. “I told you he plays rugby.”
Emma expelled a frustrated breath. “Lots of English blokes play rugby! You didn’t say he played professionally.”
“Emma, what the hell is wrong?”
Emma rubbed her temples and squeezed her eyes closed. “I wish you’d told me.”
“Why! What’s wrong?”
Pain etched her friend’s face. “You know I started my career as a tabloid hack.”
“Yes.”
“One of my first assignments was stalking your new husband.”
“What?”
Wincing, Emma said, “I hated it, but it was the only journalism job I could get and I had to do it.”
Caitlyn nodded slowly, thinking she understood the problem. “Well, I guess that’ll make dinner parties awkward. Maybe he won’t recognize you, though. Maybe we don’t have to tell him.”
Emma bit her full lower lip before pulling out her phone. “You don’t know why I had to spend my mornings digging through his rubbish.”
Caitlyn grimaced. “Gross, Em. How could you do that?”
“Says the woman who builds shitters,” Emma snapped.
Caitlyn understood Emma’s defensiveness. Her flatmate’s former career was a sore memory.
Emma pulled out her cell phone and searched for something online. “I want you to read the first article I ever wrote.”
When she held up the screen, Caitlyn gasped, pain arching through her as if she’d been sucker-punched. A very young Spencer stared at her with eyes like Bambi in the face of an oncoming Mack truck. Above the picture, the headline screamed Bailey Arrested for Aussie Rape.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bailey, but whatever they’re doing in there, they’ll have to hurry.” Fran Payne arched a severely waxed eyebrow as her glasses slid down her nose. Somewhere inside her, a naughty schoolmistress was begging to be released. Liam would love her. He had a thing for domineering women.
Spencer stared at the ladies’ loo like that might hurry things along. When raised voices reached the group, he cursed.
“Cat fight?” Granddad murmured.
Shaking his head, Spencer replied, “Don’t know but I’ll be damned if it ruins our wedding. Be right back.”
He prayed Caitlyn and her friend were the only two ladies in the loo. Ms. Payne had told him they’d gone in there, and he’d only caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman in a navy dress as she started to come out moments ago but then rushed back in. Christ, he hoped she hadn’t scrambled back because of a toileting emergency.
Cautiously inching the door open, he called out, “Caitlyn? Everything okay?”
Sudden silence. Eerie, bollock-twisting, deathly silence. He pushed all the way in, terror seizing him at the sight of Caitlyn grasping a phone, mascara running down her pale cheeks. “What is it? Sweetheart, what’s happened?”
She stared at him in mute horror, so he turned to her friend. “What—”
Emma’s face pricked a memory he couldn’t quite grasp. He could swear he’d seen her before, but Wapping was a small neighborhood in a big city. He’d probably passed her in the supermarket or in one of the pubs.
Images crashed through his memory—a mouthy young woman with a camera hiding in his bushes outside his old flat in Camden. Headlines proclaiming him a sexual deviant because of the lads’ mags he’d thrown into the rubbish.
Shite.
Caitlyn’s friend Emma had been one of the scum-suckers who’d trashed his reputation.
She knew. Caitlyn knew. Seconds before pledging her life to him, she’d discovered her husband-to-be had been arrested for statutory rape.
Thank God they were in a toilet because he was on the verge of chundering.
“Caitlyn, I can explain.”
Her hands trembled as she held the screen up. “You can explain? I just read three articles about my fiancé, who appears to be a man I don’t know at all.”
“Just let me—” He swiveled toward the woman who represented everything evil in the world. “Get out. Now.”
She drew herself up, as if to look intimidating. “Not a chance in hell.”
He swore. How could he physically remove her without proving all the lies she’d written about him being an out-of-control sack of hormone shite?
“It’s okay, Em. Here. Take your phone.” Caitlyn held it out. Emma continued to engage him in a stare-off before taking it.
“I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“She’s not alone. She’s with her fiancé,” Spencer bit out.
“First of all,” Caitlyn said, pointing at him. “Don’t speak for me.” She turned to Emma. “Second, I need to be alone with him. Please. Go home.”
Spencer nearly crowed with victory until her last words slugged him.
Go home?
If they were getting married, they needed two witnesses. Dismissing Emma meant...dismissing their wedding. She’d made her decision. It was all over. Everything he wanted, everything he’d
begged
her for, she was about to yank away.
He barely registered the other woman’s departure. Tension in the tiny room ratcheted up, bouncing off the beige walls. He reached out to clasp Caitlyn’s hand, but she stepped back until her lovely little arse hit the edge of the sink. “Please don’t touch me.”
God, he was going to be sick. Her hands swiped down her dress as if searching for trouser pockets. When she remembered she was wearing a dress—her wedding dress—she crossed her arms around herself instead.
“Rape?” Her shattered voice flayed his nerves.
“No. Statutory.”
“Oh, that’s okay, then. As long as she was young!”
Fuck. Her furious voice wasn’t any better. “Let me explain.”
A toilet flushed, and Caitlyn gasped. One of the stall doors opened, and a sheepish woman crept out. “I’m so sorry. I kept hoping you’d take this row elsewhere, but I really don’t want to hear any more.”
She approached the counter until Spencer barked, “Use the gents’ across the hall.”
Giving him a good glare, she flounced past him and muttered, “Bastard.”
Scraping a hand over his face, he used every ounce of willpower to compose himself. Adrenaline pumped through him, urging him to pound the hell out of something. Or, better yet, to sprint five miles to the stadium and back. At least that would provide an escape from the conversation he expected to be a death knell to his marriage.
She’d had to find out sometime. It was inevitable. He should’ve told her himself, but whenever he’d tried, the words shriveled in his mouth and he discovered something else to say, something less likely to make her kick him into touch. Biggest tactical error of his life.
When he found the courage to look at her, her expression stole his last shred of hope. The humiliation his teenage libido had brought him, his own terrible weakness and pride—they were reflected as disappointment and disillusionment in her eyes. He’d been her lover, her friend. He’d tried to treat her with the utmost care, love and devotion, yet now she saw him as
that word.
The one he could never bring himself to say. The one he was finally letting go of through loving Caitlyn.
“I didn’t do it.”
“You didn’t commit statutory rape?”
He paused. Grimaced, because he couldn’t lie. The metallic taste of self-disgust flooded his mouth. “The charges were dropped.”
“Of course they were! Do you know the percentage of rape victims who take their cases all the way?”
“She wasn’t a bloody rape victim!”
Caitlyn flinched, spearing him with guilt.
“Jesus. I—I don’t believe this is happening. How did this happen?”
“It happened because you lied to me.” A fresh tear slid down the streaky path on her cheek. “The things I’ve told you, Spencer...and you kept this from me. How could you do that? When you knew what I’ve had to overcome just to kiss you.”
“
That’s
why. How could I have told you? Would you have listened to me explain what happened, the way I’ve listened to you? Hell, no—you’re not even listening to me now when you’re about to become my
wife.
”
“Don’t turn this around on me.”
“This is all about you. Everything I do now is about you. When I play, I’m smashing in the faces of everyone who’s hurt you. When I win it’s because I poured my heart into the game for you.”
“And when you lose?”
He bit hard on his cheek. That was what he was doing now. Losing. The fight seeped out of him, leaving him boneless. His voice fractured as he gave her his soul. “When I lose, it’s more humbling than it was before I met you because I need you to be proud of me. I just...I need you.”
He couldn’t humble himself further. She looked shattered. He had to end this now before it destroyed them both. “I begged you on my knees to marry me so we could be a family. Last night I said I’d let you go, if that’s what you wanted. Tell me now. Has your answer changed?”
Her fingertips pressed against her lips as tears streamed over them. Before she could give her answer, he discovered his. “You don’t believe in me, and you won’t trust yourself. I’ve given you everything I have, and I still can’t convince you I’m not an abuser. I can’t do this anymore.”
He backed toward the door, desperate to escape before he betrayed the agony of his heart ripping in half. “I’m truly sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. But I don’t see that it would’ve made any difference. If you don’t trust me now, you never really did. So that’s it. Done. Please take care of yourself and—” he sucked in a shuddering breath, “—let me know whatever the baby needs.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“All right, lads. We’ve got Australia tomorrow. I want you to forget the last three times we met them on the pitch. We will not live in the past. They are coming to our house now, and we will give them the welcome they fucking well deserve.”
Spencer joined with his England teammates in a rousing cheer at the end of Liam’s speech. Acid bubbled in his veins. He hadn’t been chosen to play for England against Australia for over a decade, since that lust-fuelled night that had thrown his life off course and, ultimately, ruined his marriage. Being selected to represent his country in the autumn internationals meant four weeks of playing the best teams from the southern hemisphere. The best English professionals who normally played for clubs around Europe gathered in this changing room with one goal: to prove England supreme on the rugby pitch. They’d thrashed Tonga and Argentina. New Zealand had nearly killed them, but Liam’s boot had delivered a last-minute drop goal to draw them even. Their final match was against Australia, and Spencer would have a chance to tackle any final doubts about his ability to perform—including his own.
Doubts. He’d been full of them since being attacked by Caitlyn’s last Saturday. What more could he have done? Should he have fought harder, if not for her then for their child? How could he have failed so spectacularly?
A big paw clamped down on his shoulder, shaking him from his memories. “Mate,” Liam said, “you okay?”
Spencer nodded absently, blinking as he noticed that the rest of the team had wandered to the showers. He sat alone on a bench in the changing room, sweaty, aching and bruised from a brutal practice. Every unprotected bit of skin was smeared with mud and blood. “Couldn’t be better. Why?”
Liam’s brows rose in his patented don’t-shit-me look. That expression made him a brilliant Legends captain, and now he could finally employ it as captain of England. After the retirement of England’s longtime captain Ash Trenton from international rugby in the summer, Liam had as much to prove on Saturday as Spencer did, and Spencer knew he wouldn’t take the responsibility lightly.
Liam straddled the bench. “You’ve been brilliant so far, but you know how tough Australia are. We need you here, mate. Two hundred and fifty percent focused on this match. If your mind is back in bed with your loving bride—”
Spencer interrupted with a raised hand. “It’s not. Promise.”
“I need to be sure of that or you’ll be riding timber on Saturday, mate or no mate.”
Spencer’s pulse galloped. As captain, Liam didn’t decide who played and who watched from the sidelines, but his opinion carried weight with the coaches. That was the main reason Spencer hadn’t told Liam he’d been dumped on his arse minutes before the ceremony could take place. That and utter humiliation. He’d needed to prove himself stable, trustworthy, to at least one person in his life. “I swear to you, skipper, I am focused and devoted to this team.”
“Excellent.” Liam stood again and slapped Spencer’s back. “Just want to be clear that the ban on women in the hotel applies to wives too. I know we’re only staying on the other side of London, so it might be tempting to slip her in. Much as I like Caitlyn, if I see her there I’ll have to treat you like I would anyone else who tries to sneak one past me. Got me?”
“Absolutely. Won’t be a problem, mate.”
Not a problem at all. Ever again. He’d come so close to letting his libido scupper his career again, but this time he’d learned a vital lesson. Other than his granddad, the egg was the only thing he could trust, and he would spend the rest of his playing days devoted to it.
* * *
Caitlyn tried to ignore the massive TV cameras pointed at the side of her face and spoke to the hair-sprayed, orange-skinned news presenter. “Our staff in Afghanistan is wrapping up the first phase of the emergency relief effort and moving on to long-term recovery. The earthquake struck a mountainous region, and winter has already set in there. People are still living in tents and will have to survive the winter that way, so we’re handing out warm blankets and more fuel for the kitchen sets we gave them just after the earthquake.”
The man said solemnly, “Thank you very much, Caitlyn Sweeney from the international aid organization IDEA. After the break—” thudding music designed to strike fear into the audience boomed through the studio, “—as police uncover another plot to bomb the London Underground, we ask the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police how safe Londoners
really
are from terror attacks.”
Caitlyn waited for the lights to dim before a stagehand took off her microphone. She walked toward Emma, who was watching from offstage. “How’d I do?”
“Not too bad, not too bad. Could’ve been worse.”
“Ahh, you flatter me with your praise.” She grabbed her bag from Emma and turned her cell phone back on as they walked out of the studio onto a pedestrian path that lined the south bank of the river.
“Crap. Three missed calls.” She flipped through them, noting they were all calls made to her office phone, which had been forwarded to her cell. Only one had left a message. She dialed her voice mail, trying to control the surge of hopeful panic she’d battled every day this week that maybe Spencer had called her. Of course he wouldn’t. The next contact had to be hers, and she would probably make it after the baby was born. Until then...
Until then she had to forget about him. Move on with her life. Focus on her job and on preparing for motherhood. And stop questioning whether she’d made the right decision. She had. Absolutely she had. Spencer had lied to her. He’d abused her trust, and she’d learned long ago that giving second chances was a slippery, slimy slope.
How many chances did he give you?
She shushed the voice of self-doubt and listened to the American voice recorded on her phone. “
Hi
,
Caitlyn
,
this is Annemarie Stevens from IDEA USA.
Thank you for the interview yesterday.
We’re thrilled to offer you the position.
”
Relief warred with her nagging Jiminy Cricket. Relief shouted,
I
have a job!
while Jiminy chirped,
Small comfort when you could’ve had a man who adores you.
“A man who lied to me,” she muttered.
“What’s that?” Emma asked.
“Nothing. I got that job.”
“Hey, that’s brilliant! Well done.”
Huh. Even Emma sucked at faking enthusiasm this week. Ever since Caitlyn had dragged her soggy self out of the register office and found Emma waiting outside, they’d treated each other carefully, neither speaking about the marriage that wasn’t. Emma had even cleaned the bathroom on Sunday, despite the fact it wasn’t her week. Massive condolences, coming from a slob.
“Yeah, it’s great,” Caitlyn said. Particularly great since she had ten days left on her visa and had spent all week stressing about where the hell she would be living when it expired. “I’ll just call the office to make sure nothing big’s happening at work, and then we can grab some lunch to celebrate before heading back.”
Just as she was dialing the number, the phone buzzed with an incoming call and she answered.
“Hello, Miss—er—Sweeney. This is Warden Alvarez. Are you free to speak for a minute?”
Caitlyn’s eyes flicked to Emma’s and she motioned that she’d be right back. Turning to walk toward the river, she cupped a hand over the phone and lowered her head. “I guess so. Is there a problem?”
“I hope you don’t mind me calling you, but I thought you should know. We don’t have any of your contact information on file—I can understand that, of course—so I found you online.”
The same way her father probably found her—through quotes on press releases that linked her to whatever charity she was working for at the time. Caitlyn shivered and drew her scarf tighter around her neck. The wind flowing across the river seemed to have dropped ten degrees in the past five seconds. “That’s all right. You thought I should know what?”
The man on the other end was silent for a second. “That your father had a heart attack last night. He’s at the hospital here in critical condition. All I can tell you is the prognosis isn’t good.”
Caitlyn’s fingers turned numb, gripping the phone without recognizing its texture. The wind ate through her light coat and flayed her skin.
“Miss Sweeney?”
“Yes. Thanks for calling. Please keep me up to date.” She willed her swollen-feeling fingers to disconnect the call and dropped the phone into her purse. Blowing on her hands to warm them, she strode toward Emma. “Mind if we skip lunch and go straight back to the office? I’ve got loads to finish and think I need to work through lunch to get on top of it all.”
* * *
Caitlyn battled the chill for most of the day, throwing herself into spreadsheets, budgets and requisition forms like a woman who thought the computer keyboard would save her life.
It was her last Friday in London, and she would work until she was exhausted, giving herself an excuse to crawl into bed as soon as she got home, straight into the sweet oblivion of sleep.
When her office clock ticked 8:00 p.m., though, she finally admitted she’d done everything she could. For once in her life, every item on her to-do list was crossed off, as were many of next week’s tasks. She walked home and trudged up the stairs to her apartment. As she slid her key in the lock, bitter reality slammed into her.
Oh, God. Her father was dying. How many times had she prayed for a call like that only to despise herself for it? Now it was happening and she had no idea how she was supposed to feel. Distressed? Relived?
The flat was empty. Lights off. Emma had probably gone out for the evening, leaving Caitlyn all alone. Odd—she’d been alone her entire adult life but never understood loneliness until this week. Now her last connection to her past lay in a hospital across the world as life seeped out from him, and all she felt was numb. Frozen. Embalmed.
She shivered and stumbled into her tiny room, falling to her knees next to her bed. Her fingers fumbled until they brushed the plastic envelope bursting with her father’s letters. She’d changed her name after the trial, adopting her mom’s maiden name and swearing she would never give her father a second thought once she heard the guilty verdict. Yet she’d allowed his letters to fester under her bed for years, never dredging up enough courage to either read them or demand that the warden stop them.
She yanked open the plastic container so hard the snap ripped off. Tearing open the latest letter, she settled against the side of the bed and prepared herself for the inevitable guilt-tinged horror. What if he’d apologized years ago? Should it make a difference?
But as she scanned the letter, a realization hit her harder than he ever had. No apology. Not even a hint that he’d done something reprehensible. The opposite, in fact. He talked almost completely about himself, sharing mundane details of life inside until he’d nearly lulled her into a bored sleep—then wham!
I
want you to know I forgive you.
He forgave her? For what, exactly? Ignoring him all these years?
Chills raked her body. She grabbed one of his earliest letters from the bottom of the pile. After ripping it open, she read it carefully until she found her answer.
You took her from me.
I’ll never forgive you for that.
“Oh my God.” The letter trembled in her hands. She shoved it back into the plastic envelope. Her fault? What, exactly? Being born and taking some of her mother’s attention away from the man who would be God? Moving away so her mother had the courage to leave? Or—
She dropped the folder as though the hatred it contained was contagious. Desperate to escape, she scrambled off the floor, grabbed her keys and slammed her front door on the way out. He’d blamed her all these years, never acknowledging the role he’d played in destroying her mother, while she’d been too traumatized and guilt-ridden to let herself form healthy relationships or grow roots.
She wandered without paying attention to her surroundings until the deep blast of a truck’s horn woke her up. A big-rig was speeding toward her down the Highway, and she stumbled back to the safety of the curb just in time to avoid being roadkill. As she steadied her panicked body, she glanced up toward the sky—her view of which was blocked by Spencer’s billboard.
Oh
,
Spencer.
He smoldered at the camera, hard muscles flexed to proclaim his strength while the tempting bulge in his boxer briefs revealed his vulnerability. The whole picture together hinted at a man who made his living intimidating others while indulging his sensual side off the rugby field. But she knew him so much better than that. He’d listened to her. Never pressured her. He’d seen her at her most vulnerable, even sitting beside her bed as he’d soothed her raging fever. He could’ve taken advantage of her so easily, but never did. He wasn’t that kind of man.
Shit.
He wasn’t that kind of man.
Banging her hand across her forehead, she let the words wash over her again. He wasn’t that kind of man, and she’d allowed her fears to pronounce him guilty. Yes, he’d hidden a deeply disturbing episode of his life, but hadn’t she done the same? Hadn’t she avoided revealing the one experience that had left her so emotionally crippled?
She’d given too much of her life to men who’d abused her trust. But Spencer hadn’t been one of them.
The fear inside her grew teeth and gnawed at her heart. She hugged herself tight, imagining it was Spencer’s chest, broad and strong enough to absorb her pain and confusion. She needed his arms around her, to steady her, to calm her. She craved the chance to be his steady rock, too.
An itch on her chin drew her hand up, and she brushed away a tear before it had a chance to drip off her face. More followed in a steady, silent stream until she’d float away if she stayed here alone any longer.
Letting the tears flow, she turned toward home, sprinting until a stitch in her side reminded her to be careful of the baby growing inside. Her father had destroyed too many people, and she was damned if she’d let him ruin her and Spencer’s chance at happiness.