Playing with Fire (17 page)

Taking deep, gulping breaths, she paced the room, somehow pulling herself together. She’d wait until after dinner to tell him. Let him eat first. Give him some time to settle down after a workday. She hoped she could manage it.

By the time Griff returned, she had arranged her face into a pleasant mask.

Somehow, she pushed everything to the back of her mind while they ate, although the food tasted like sawdust. She talked about her meetings that day, even laughing about all the warnings people had given her.
What an actress I am.

When she told him about closing the account with Howard Cook and moving it to Bank of America, he laughed.

“I’d give a week’s pay to have seen the look on his face when you asked for the check. Serves the old bastard right. I always thought he blabbed too much about the business of the people who banked with him.”

“Moving the money just made sense, anyway, since I already have an account with B of A. It just gave me a lot of satisfaction to do it.”

While they cleared away the debris, she mentioned the other thing that stood out in all her conversations. “Everyone wants to help me clean out the house. Including the chief. And Carol Markham, who stopped by with the listing agreement.”

“It sure makes you think there’s something here someone wants,” he commented.

“Yes, but what?” She was as puzzled as she’d been before.

“We can talk about it later. It’s still light, and it’s cooled off. Let’s go sit on the patio.”

“Good. There’s some stuff I need to go over with you.” Stuff she was sure would send him through the roof.

They settled into the lounge chairs, Cassie clutching the folder she’d gotten from Dangler. The line from the report slammed back into her consciousness, if indeed it had ever left. One sentence, so damning, so destructive to so many lives. She swallowed against the nausea, determined to calm herself.

She glanced sideways at Griffin. “I quit my job today.”

He turned to look at her. “How’d your boss take it?”

She shrugged. “After the whining and bitching, he was great. He wished us well.”

“You told him about me?”

“Didn’t have to. He guessed, and I didn’t deny it.” She cleared her throat, choosing her next words with care. “I thought I’d go back this weekend. I still have my return ticket. I need to close up my apartment, make plans to get rid of everything. Pick up my car.”

“Can you do it all in two days?”

“Probably not, but Claire can handle the cleanup details for me.” She waited to see what he’d say next.

“You’d better give me the flight info so I can make my reservation,” he said at last.

“I was hoping you’d say that.” She reached out and took his hand. “Besides, I want to show you off to Claire.” She also wanted a chance for him to see the person she was while she’d been doing what she now saw as marking time. “I’ll get my ticket. It’s in my purse on the counter. I changed the reservations to Thursday.”

“I’ll do it. You sit there. Tomorrow, I’ll take a minute to reschedule my Friday jobs. No problem.” He went into the house to make his arrangements.

She tried to settle the butterflies tap dancing in her stomach. She’d procrastinated long enough. When Griff came back out, she’d have to tell him what she’d discovered. Rage surged through her again, and she forced it back.

The screen door slammed. “All set,” he told her.

She waited until he’d dropped into the lounge chair again. “I pried the information about Diane’s murder loose from Chief Dangler today. The description of the crime scene was pretty graphic. Lots of blood.”

He grimaced. “I wouldn’t know. They gave me very little information. They were interested in seeing what I could tell them.”

“I know they did a DNA swab to see if any of the blood on her body was yours.”

He nodded. “Yes, they did.”

“Griff, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it straight out.” Her hands curled into fists. “The baby wasn’t yours.”

Griffin didn’t say a word. The silence grew between them until it was almost palpable. Cassie sat very still, trying to relax the knot in her stomach and keep her hands from shaking. Reading it hadn’t been half as bad as saying it out loud.

“Are you sure?” His voice sounded hollow, as if he were at the bottom of a well.

She bit her lip. “Yes. It’s all right here in the lab reports and the autopsy. There was no DNA match whatsoever.”

“God damn it,” he exploded, and launched himself out of the chair. He paced the patio, running his hands through his hair, jaw clenched, tension radiating from his body.

She waited in nervous silence. It was obvious no one had told Griffin the results of the tests at the time. Were they waiting for him to slip up, admit to something? How many people had Dangler shared this information with?

“I should have demanded a test from the beginning.” He bit the words off. “Your sister was a tramp, Cassie. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s the truth. She slept with anyone who appealed to her.” He dry-washed his face. “Of course, I wasn’t any better.”

“Griff—”

“Let me finish.” It was evident he was so angry he could barely get the words out. “They knew. All this time, they knew. No one told me. I grieved more for the baby than I ever did for Diane. Shit.”

Cassie willed herself to sit still, let him work out the battle within himself.

“Diane knew, I promise you.” His words were rough, vicious. “And I was the poor sucker she reeled in to take on her responsibility. I have not one doubt that when that baby came, she’d have been gone, and I’d have been left to handle things. We both know Diane was not the maternal type.”

He paced some more, cursing a steady stream, fists clenched. At last, he drew a deep breath, seemed to gather himself, and sat down again. “That opens up a whole new can of worms, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Cassie agreed. “It does. I hate to ask, but do you have any idea who the father could be?”

“Not a clue.” He shook his head. “But I think she took care choosing who she went to with her news, picking the one of us that would be the easiest mark. Also, I was the only one running any kind of business. Everyone else was sort of drifting through life and holding down a succession of odd jobs. If she was going to dump the baby afterward, she at least had enough conscience to want it to have some kind of security.”

Her chest tightened. “Griff, I wish I knew what to say.”

He pounded his fist on his thigh. “I think she wanted to make sure she cut you out, too, Cassie. Diane was always jealous of you, and, somehow, she knew how I felt about you.”

“Jealous of me?” She was astounded. She tried to read his face, but darkness had descended like a black drape and there was no light coming from the house. “In God’s name, why?”

“You were the smart one, the bright one, the one with all the awards. Diane played your parents for all they were worth because her charm was all she had going for her.”

She couldn’t assimilate the information. She’d had no idea how Griffin Hunter felt about her until those fateful two nights. How had Diane known? Could it be true her sister had done this on purpose?

“You always overlooked Diane’s shortcomings,” he went on. “Two such very different sisters. Diane, the wild child, grabbing at life with both hands, and you, the object of every respectable man’s dream. You had no idea how all those proper young men felt about you, did you? You didn’t even know how great sex could be until that night, did you, sugar?”

She shook her head.

“Damn,” he growled. “All this time, just wasted.”

Without warning, he was on her, pulling at her, lifting her from the chair in both arms. Then they were on the grass, his body pinning hers beneath him. He slammed his mouth against hers, tearing at her clothes with his free hand until she was completely naked. His tongue stabbed into her, bruising the inside of her mouth, reaching deep into the dark hollow.

She heard the clink of his belt buckle, the rasp of his zipper, felt his movement as he jerked his pants down.

“This is what I always wanted,” he breathed into her ear. “This. Not Diane. Not anyone else. Just you, and me inside you.”

In one swift movement, he thrust her legs wide apart, bracing his arms under them so she was wide open and exposed to him. He didn’t seem to care if she was wet or ready because this wasn’t about her. With a brutal thrust he was inside her, buried in her, her pussy tight around him.

“Mine, Cassie. All this time, you should have been mine.” His voice was hoarse, guttural. “Well, you’re mine now.” He plunged into her, going deeper each time. “Take me, Cassie.” He all but sobbed as he drove into her. “It should have been you. Always, always, always.”

She didn’t flinch at the pain of the intrusion, didn’t try to push him away, even as his engorged penis stretched her, scraping her inner walls. She could feel his rage, his pain, his despair at the destruction of his life all pouring into her. In just seconds, he came with shuddering force, hips jerking, harsh, guttural sounds emanating from his throat. She clung to him with her legs around his hips and rode out the storm with him.

Then it was over, as fast as it had started. He lay panting on her chest for a moment, then heaved himself off and stood, pulling up his pants and zipping them. She whispered a silent thank you that the houses on either side were only one story. No prying eyes to look down on them.

“Well, that showed a lot of class,” he said, not looking at her. “Now you know what kind of bastard I am. You should pay attention to all those warnings you heard today.”

She forced herself to her feet. She didn’t even bother with her clothes, just stood naked on the lawn, his semen drying on her thighs. The first thing that hit her was how much he’d needed this. The second, like a blast of cold water, was the absence of a condom. Should she mention it now? Later? Would he blame her and shove her out of his life?

She went to him and slid her arms around him, pressing her face against his back. He was taut as a drum, every muscle in his body rigid.

“I guess they’ll have a lot more to say tomorrow,” she said, her voice gentle.

“I should tell you to run, Cassie, just as far and as fast as you can. Go back to Tampa. Get your job back. Get the hell away from me if you want to save yourself.” He wouldn’t turn around.

She stepped in front of him. “You don’t mean that. That’s just rage, Griffin. And pain. You have a right to be angry and hurt and all of those things. You’ve had your life almost destroyed. But if you want me to leave, if your mind is made up, you have to tell me you don’t love me. Can you say that?”

“I just about raped you, for God’s sake. The woman who means more to me than my own life.” He shook his head in disgust. “That would be enough to chase away anyone with brains.”

“Tell me you don’t love me,” she insisted, “and I’ll throw you out of the house right now.” She shivered in the night air, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the chill. “Well? Can you say it?”

Griffin looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. “My God, you’re freezing. Here.” He picked up his shirt and made her put it on, pulling it together in front. He looked at her for a long time. “If I wanted to do the best thing for you, I’d say whatever it took to get you to run me off. But I can’t. Because I do love you, Cassie. God save us both.”

“Well, then.” The knot inside her eased. “Let’s go inside and figure out what to do. I think we’ve given the neighbors enough of a show for tonight.”

She picked up her clothes and her papers and walked inside the house, displaying more dignity than she felt. It was important for Griffin to know she understood what had just happened and why, and that it made no difference at all between them.

In a moment, he followed her.

They faced each other in the kitchen. So much pain still lined Griffin’s face, Cassie wasn’t sure she could stand it. She wanted to reach out and touch his cheek, but she needed first to make him understand she was okay with everything, that she understood his wrath, and it hadn’t changed her feelings for him.

“I don’t even begin to know how to apologize to you.” Desperation filled his words. “I can’t explain what I did. Even at my very worst, I never treated a woman like that. I just needed to be inside you, to feel us connected, to bind us together. I needed something clean, something real. And I needed to get rid of all that anger.”

She took one of his hands in both of hers and leaned forward, rubbing her face against his chest, hearing his heart thudding beneath her ear. “It’s all right. I know. I understand. You can’t chase me away. What kind of love would we have if I couldn’t understand what drove you to this, what was behind it? It will take a lot more than that to get me to walk out of your life.”

“God, you’re amazing.” He pulled her tight against him.

Cassie looked up at him, trying to send him messages with her eyes. “Diane did a lot of damage to both of us. I don’t even know yet how to deal with my own feelings, so I can hardly imagine yours. But we have to get past all of this.”

“I think…I think just now, I wanted to erase every trace of her from my body, to make sure there was no one but you. I wanted to take back all the wasted years. I just….”

“It’s okay. I understand. I do. We have to go forward, Griffin. And we have to do it together.”

“I don’t deserve you.” He kissed the top of her head. “God knows I love you more than anything. If you’d run, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“Okay, then.” She swallowed hard. Just spit it out, she told herself. “Griff, uh, we didn’t use a condom.”

He stared at her, opened his mouth, closed it again. “Fuck.”

She forced a grin. “But it’s okay. It is. I promise.”
Please let it be okay.

At last, he managed a lopsided smile. “Then I guess it’s a good thing we’re getting married.”

She relaxed against him. “It is indeed. And now I think we need another shower and some coffee. Then we can take a better look at this situation.” She tugged his hand. “We can shower together and save water.”