Chelsie ran straight into his arms. Half an hour passed in which Griff did nothing but hold on tight. When the adrenaline pumping through his veins subsided, concern for Chelsie filled the void. The questions came next.
“I take back every rotten thing I ever thought about those animals,” he said.
“They did come in handy.” She leaned her head against his shoulder before pulling away and wrapping her arms around her legs. Her chin rested on her knees and she gazed at him from beneath thick lashes. She appeared pale, but composed. If he’d arrived any later, if her ex-husband had seriously hurt her…
“He didn’t hurt me. Not really,” she said, rubbing her scalp. Her insight into his private thoughts didn’t surprise him. “But…”
“What?”
“This is going to sound ridiculous.” She averted her gaze.
“Let me be the judge of that. What’s on your mind?”
“He touched me.” Her hand went to her cheek. “As if he still had the right.”
Griff drew a steadying breath. “He didn’t…” Griff couldn’t finish the thought.
She shook her head. “But this place has always been untouched by him. And being here, I could pretend it never happened, but now I feel so violated.”
“It’s not ridiculous.” Grasping her hand, he squeezed once for reassurance before pulling her to her feet. “And I have the perfect solution.”
Menial tasks like pouring bath water and finding towels helped him keep his mind off everything he’d overheard. Everything he’d like to forget.
Settled in a warm bubble bath, Chelsie looked up at Griff and smiled. The serene expression did more than anything else to assure him that her ex-husband’s damage had been minimal.
“I stood up to him, didn’t I?” she asked.
“Yeah. You did.” Not enough, since he’d like to see the bastard behind bars, but she’d made a start. He’d never been so proud and so damned frightened in his entire life. This woman made him feel things that were foreign to him. Feelings that went beyond sexual and bordered on love. But borders changed on a whim. His feelings for Chelsie were cemented on a more solid foundation. Not that he discounted the sexual attraction. He couldn’t. The only reason he was able to sit on the edge of the tub and maintain a coherent conversation was because bubbles surrounded her otherwise naked body.
She lifted a handful of soap and blew in his direction. She’d caught him drifting. “This whole experience has me rattled, too,” he said.
“How did you make the connection between me and Amanda?” She lowered her lashes in embarrassment.
“I overheard.”
This time, I have a son. You had one last time, too
. Forgetting wasn’t an option for either of them.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you about Jeff and how Amanda looked me up on purpose, but the words wouldn’t come.”
They had now because circumstances had forced her to speak. If she’d had her way, she’d probably have maintained her silence, leaving him in the dark.
She shrugged. “Now you know. But there’s more.”
Griff remained silent, sensing any word from him might cause her to clam up once again. He needed the truth. All of it.
“No matter what you think of me after this, there’s something you have to know.”
He gazed at her face. The flush that covered her cheeks might have been from the heat of the bath, but he sensed something more. “What?”
“I love you,” she whispered. “I wasn’t lying this morning. I love you both, you and Alix. I think I have almost from the very beginning.” She smiled. “Despite the tragedy that brought you two together, you’re a lucky man. Family is a precious gift. And you’ve both given me so much.”
No more than she had given them, which made this all the more difficult. “Chelsie, I…” A soft but soapy finger over his lips cut him off.
“Don’t. Just listen.”
He nodded and she withdrew her hand. His tongue swiped over his lips, leaving the bitter taste of soap in its wake. He grimaced and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
She chuckled aloud, but there was no light dancing in her eyes. He missed her gentle touch, and the chill that seeped around him despite the heat in the bathroom frightened him more than he cared to admit.
“You already know I can’t handle Amanda’s case because she’s married to my ex-husband. For me to take the case would be a definite conflict of interest and would jeopardize her right to fair representation.”
The matter-of-fact way she laid out the facts, the way she tried to appear composed and unaffected, was destroyed by the sheen of tears in her dark eyes. Griff thought of the bruises on Amanda’s arms and Jeff Sutton’s hard grip on Chelsie today. His gaze dropped to her white skin and he clenched his jaw.
“I’ll handle it.” With pleasure, he thought.
“Fairly?”
“Give me some credit. I might like to kill the bastard, but in a court of law, I’ll be fair.”
She nodded. “Good. I hope you’ll apply that same concept to what I have to say next, because this story isn’t your usual marriage, divorce, unhappily ever after.”
He glanced towards the tub and realized she’d begun to shiver, though she was too engrossed in thought to even notice. Reaching for the yellow robe on the back of the door, he held it out. “Should I give you a few minutes?”
“At this point, I think modesty is a little late, don’t you?”
As she stood, Griff looked away. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact source of his anxiety, but he couldn’t discount the nagging feelings, either. Sexual desire would only complicate things. When he glanced back, she was lifting the damp ends of her hair from beneath the collar of her robe.
He followed her into the living room, joining her on the couch. Entwining her slender fingers in his grasp, he said, “Talk to me.”
She sucked in a gulp of air and nodded. “When they admitted me to the hospital that night five years ago, the nurse who helped me into those awful dressing gowns noticed the bruises on my arms. After that, it wasn’t difficult to keep my husband away. The police sent a detective to take a statement. She said she’d come back the next day for me to sign an official version.”
“Sounds like standard procedure so far.” He hoped his casual acceptance, his nonchalant attitude would help her get through whatever she had to say.
“So far,” she agreed. “I was pregnant. I’d known for a while, but we’d been growing apart instead of together. I planned to tell him after the cocktail party that night. My big surprise,” she said with more than a touch of bitterness.
“What…”
“Please, this is hard enough. Just let me get through it, okay?” Her eyes filled with unshed tears, wrenching at his heart.
“Okay.”
“Within a few hours of being admitted, I started having these awful cramps.” Her hand went to her stomach, covering her abdomen. She stared straight ahead, as if a mere glance in his direction would cause her to fall apart.
Without warning or invitation, a vision of Chelsie, pregnant with his child, rose in his mind. The image filled the empty spaces he hadn’t even realized were inside him.
“I lost the baby.” Tears dripped down her face and she swiped at them with the back of one hand. “Then the doctors had no problem taking x rays and doing all sorts of tests. Turns out I had a severe concussion, too. They all understood when I told them I didn’t want Jeff to know about the baby. It wouldn’t serve any purpose except to enrage an already demented man.”
“I’m sorry.” He moved closer, sliding towards her end of the couch.
“Don’t.” She shook her head, halting his approach. “This is where the story gets messy.”
“Take your time.” He realized they had to do this her way.
“At the time, I needed to get away from him. Far away from his temper, his influence, and the reminders. Jeff was determined to be on the partnership track at one of the largest firms in the city of Boston. Any hint of a scandal, any inkling that he had a violent nature or beat his wife would destroy his career. I knew that,” She exhaled a shaky breath. “So I threatened him. Fly down to some Caribbean island and get a quick divorce, or I would sign that statement and press charges. The hospital had documentation. He had no choice.”
As five long years of suppressed memories came spewing forth, her voice and demeanor grew more confident. A stronger woman emerged with each revelation, one who wasn’t afraid of the truth. Despite the pain of resurrecting the past, Griff noticed a definite lifting of Chelsie’s spirits. He sensed the change, even if she didn’t.
“You bribed him,” he said. Until her response, he hadn’t been aware of speaking aloud.
“Yes. I’m not proud of it, but at the time, I thought it was best. I was alone. My parents were never the supportive types. They wouldn’t have approved of the scandal this could have created. I couldn’t face my sister. She’d just gotten married to a wonderful man. I didn’t think she’d understand, and I couldn’t bear to watch.”
Comprehension came to him in a flash of insight, so strong he wondered why he hadn’t realized it sooner. Chelsie wasn’t the type to ignore family, to avoid a little girl. Not without strong personal reasons. “So that’s why you never visited, never spent time with Jared and Shannon.”
She nodded slowly and two teardrops coursed down her cheeks. “What can I say? I know now I was wrong… but she’s gone.”
Along with his brother. At least he’d had a semblance of closure with his sibling. “But I’m not. You can talk to me. I won’t judge you.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve spent the last five years doing just that. My entire career has been spent making up for thinking of myself first. When I let Jeff off the hook, I freed him to abuse some other woman. At the time, I wasn’t thinking that clearly. Sure, I thought about my own future, but not about anyone else. Each case I took that involved an abused woman, I told myself that I was making a difference.”
“You did.”
She twirled a strand of hair around one finger. “But I refused to allow myself to think about what Jeff did with his life after the divorce. Probably because deep down I knew.”
“You aren’t responsible for anyone but yourself.”
“Funny you should mention that.” Her bitter laugh sounded too harsh. “In the end, I didn’t do such a hot job in that area, either.”
“What do you mean?”
She sighed, placing her head in her hands. When she spoke, he could barely hear. “There were complications from the miscarriage. They gave me antibiotics when I left the hospital. I was supposed to finish the prescription and come back in to be checked. I finished the bottle, but I never went for the follow-up exam. I wanted to bury myself so deep in work that I never had time to think about Jeff Sutton, my failed marriage, or lost baby ever again.” She lifted her head. Tears streamed down her face. She let them fall. “I just wanted to forget the past, not destroy the future.”
He laid a hand over hers, startled by how cold her skin felt against his. “What happened?”
“A year went by. By the time I got around to that checkup, I had severe pelvic inflammatory disease. There was scarring. I can never have children of my own.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
He drew her into his arms, whispered all the right words, and caressed her until she seemed to relax, wishing he could do the same. Unfortunately, his tension had just begun.
He had fallen in love with Chelsie because she wanted nothing from him. Because she seemed to care for him unconditionally. Because unlike Deidre and his mother, Chelsie wanted Griff the man, not what he could give her. Or so he had thought.
She said she loved both him and Alix. Under ordinary circumstances, those would be the exact words he would want to hear from any woman he contemplated spending the rest of his life with. Though Alix was her niece and Chelsie would always play a role in her life, Griff had custody. Alix was a part of his life on a daily basis. Forever. The woman he loved had to love her, too. Had to want a little girl in her life.
But Chelsie couldn’t have children. And here he was, a man with a child, a ready-made family she could call her own. He couldn’t deny that the cynic in him lived on, created by women who’d used and betrayed him in the past. Had Chelsie fallen in love with the notion of family that he and Alix offered?
She’d said as much herself.
Family is a precious gift. You’ve both given me so much
. He didn’t believe Chelsie would deliberately use them to achieve something she couldn’t have on her own. But she hadn’t told him the facts up front, not even after they’d made love. Why not? Unless she, too, wanted something from him and was afraid of losing it by revealing all. Consciously or unconsciously, the truth remained, and so did his doubts.
“I love you,” she murmured.
Though he held her in his arms and brushed a kiss against her temple, Griff remained silent.
A few uncomfortable minutes later, he pulled away and stood.
“Griff?”
“I’ve got to get back to Alix.”
She blinked, pain flashing in her eyes for a millisecond before her expression changed to one of acceptance. Her mind had obviously assessed and discounted the truth of his statement. She knew as well as he did that Alix was well cared for in his absence. There was no rush, except for his sudden need to be alone.
The wounded look passed so quickly, he thought he’d been mistaken. The twisting in his gut told him otherwise. Before she banked the emotion, her vulnerability had shown plainly on her face. “Will you be all right?” he asked.
She pulled the lapels of her robe together, keeping her hands at her throat “Of course.”
The strain between them, the distance that hadn’t been there earlier, settled on his shoulders. He’d caused the tension. He could easily rectify matters. Two steps forward, a touch, and Chelsie would be in his arms.
She brushed past him to open the door. The soft scent of the bubble bath lingered in the air. Just two steps. It might as well have been two miles. He laid a hand on her cheek.
“ ’Bye, Griff.” Despite her firm tone, he caught the sheen of moisture in her eyes and the way she’d locked her jaw to keep any emotions from showing on her face.
He swallowed hard. “I just need some time.”
She shrugged. He hadn’t taken half a step into the hallway when the door shut behind him. He waited until he heard the turning of the dead bolt and the rattle of the chain on the door. The sounds of Chelsie closing him out of her life. Only then did he head for the bank of elevators, alone.