Missing (12 page)

She locked her door and turned to meet his eyes, her
eyebrows raised again. She looked tired and clever and incredibly sensual.

Like everything he’d ever wanted.

Nathan gave into the impulse and grabbed her, pulling her
into a deep kiss

She responded immediately, her hands clinging and her soft
body pressing into his.

A wave of heat and need overtook him, and he thrust his
tongue between her lips, loving how she opened for him. Then, still kissing her,
he gathered her up in his arms and carried her into the room he assumed was the
bedroom.

He laid her down on the bed, and she pulled him down over
her. Kissing her was the only thing that mattered in the world, and his mind
was a heated blur as she kissed him back, tugging on his clothes in a futile
attempt to take them off.

He didn’t have enough patience for that. He just bunched up
her dress around her waist, spread her legs, and undo his trousers. She took
him in hand until she’d aligned him at her entrance. Then, with one hard stroke,
he was inside her.

She was hot and wet and clinging, and his hips worked as she
wrapped her legs around him. All he was aware of was Lynn, beneath him, against
him, surrounding him. All he knew was he could finally let go.

She was with him. He could feel her gasping against his
skin, rocking up into him, tightening unbearably around him.

He buried his face in the hollow of her neck and held back
his climax.

She came, but he wanted her to come again. His body was so
tight he shook with it.

She gasped, “You come too, Nathan. Please, baby. You come
too.”

He groaned, a strangely helpless sound, and he felt his
control snap like a twig. Then he was moving again, uncontrolled now. Her
channel was tight around him as the pleasure broke in a rush. The spasms seemed
to shake his whole body, and he cried out roughly as he finally let go.

When the spasms of his climax finally passed, he collapsed
on top of her. She held him tightly.

He couldn’t say a word.

She held him and murmured things he wasn’t yet focused
enough to process, but he loved the sound of it as much as he loved the gentle
stroking of her hands.

Finally, she gave him a poke, and he rolled off of her.

She got up to go to the bathroom. When she got back into
bed, she let out a low moan.

“You all right?” he asked, suddenly anxious.

“Yeah.” She gave him an exhausted smile. “More tired than I
expected.” She reached over to stroke his chest over his shirt.

Nathan relaxed, letting the physical satisfaction wash over
him.

“Is everything all right with you?” Lynn asked.

He smiled at her, hoping he didn’t look like an utter and
complete sap. “Yeah. Good.”

They smiled at each other and he pulled her over against
him. They were so exhausted that they both dozed off.

When Nathan woke up, he saw that Lynn was awake too. She was
lying beside him, watching him.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

She didn’t answer immediately, and his heart accelerated in
concern until she asked, “Tell me the truth. Did you really come over here to
make sure I didn’t spend the night with Matt?”

“No. I wanted to see you. I
needed
to see you. And,”
he added, determined to be honest, “knowing he was sent home in his cab was
just a side benefit.”

Lynn sighed deeply. “You can trust me, Nathan. You really
can. Do you think you’ll ever really believe that?”

“I do,” he told her, urgency obvious in his tone. What if his
need for control was going to cause him to lose someone else he…really cared
for?  He'd already lost Elizabeth because of that and so many other mistakes. “Lynn,
I do. It’s just that trust isn’t natural for me. I have to work at it.”

She gazed at him, her expression very serious. “You’ll
keep
working at it?”

“Yes,” he told her, as serious as she was. “I will. I
promise.”

She nodded and smiled, and the tenderness in her expression
made the tight anxiety in his chest release. “Okay. Thank you. To tell you the
truth, I probably would have been jealous if you'd taken Ariana to dinner too.”

He frowned. "I don't even
like
Ariana."

"I know. But if you did."

He understood what she was trying to say and smiled at her
again.

They lay in silence for a long time, just looking at each
other, and Nathan couldn’t help but admit to himself that there was no use
pretending anymore.

This wasn’t just casual, just physical, and he didn’t want
it to be.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

Lynn seemed to clench a little in anticipation. “What is it?”

He tried again. “I wanted to tell you something, if this is
a good time.”

Something came alive in her eyes that he didn’t understand.
“This is a good time. What is it?”

Nathan cleared his throat. Made himself release the ruthless
grip he’d always kept on his world. “It’s about Elizabeth.”

Lynn hadn’t slept for two nights
straight.

Two nights ago, Nathan had finally told her about Elizabeth.

She’d been completely torn up the previous week, sure that
Beth was Nathan’s daughter but not having any proof. She’d done all the
research she could on Beth Broadview’s background, but whoever had created the
new identity for the girl had done it well. She couldn't find anything linking
Beth with Elizabeth Livingston.

So all Lynn could think to do was get Nathan to tell her the
truth.

After days of subtly prodding him into telling her, she’d
been so shatteringly relieved that he was finally sharing the truth that she’d
almost started to cry.

She
had
cried, by the time he’d finished the story of
how Elizabeth had run away, disappearing completely for two years.

“It’s my fault,” he’d said, looking straight ahead of him
into an empty space in the dim room. “It’s all my fault. She was so young. Just
a girl, really. And for years I was a terrible father. I never really knew my
own father, so I didn’t know how to be one myself. But that’s not an excuse. I
could have done so much better. I hurt her so many times, by neglecting her and
then by suffocating her. When I started to feel her slipping away from me, I kept
tightening my grip. I drove her away.”

Lynn had almost told him then—ripped apart by the rough pain
in his voice. Almost told him that she knew where his missing daughter was.

But instinct kept her silent. Somehow she was sure that,
unless Beth willingly chose to reveal herself to her father, their relationship
would never really heal.

So she hadn’t said anything. Just held back her tears as
much as she could and wrapped him in her arms.

She hadn’t slept at all the following night either as she'd
tossed and turned, desperately trying to figure out what to do.

She couldn’t just leave it alone. She couldn’t just let Nathan
go on hurting so much, when there was a way she might be able to help.

The following night—Sunday night—she finally decided on a
course of action, so she was able at last to get a little sleep.

It might not be a good plan, but at least it was a plan.

And it was infinitely better than doing nothing.

***

The following day, when Beth arrived
at around eleven at the
Cooler
offices after her classes—looking young
and fresh in her lavender sweater set—Lynn asked if she would have a late lunch
with her in a couple of hours.

Beth was surprised but clearly pleased by the invitation and
immediately accepted. She seemed aware that something was up, but she couldn’t
have had any idea what to expect when the two walked over to a nearby sandwich
shop.

When they’d gotten their food and found their seats, Lynn
started asking her about her father. At first, they were just casual, friendly
questions, but they didn’t remain that way.

Lynn could tell Beth was trying to answer as honestly as
possible while still hiding what needed to be hidden. Eventually she just
couldn’t. She would stumble over responses. Sometimes not answer at all.

Finally, Lynn asked, “Have you talked to him recently?”

Beth looked down at her uneaten sandwich, her long, dark
eyelashes fanning out over her delicate skin. “Not much.”

“At all?”

Beth’s eyes flashed up at Lynn in annoyance. “Why are you
asking about all this? I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I know you don’t.” She’d been hoping the subject would
prompt Beth to open up, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. “But
sometimes it’s better if we talk about it anyway.”

“What’s going on?” Beth demanded, looking like the teenager
she was. Lynn had thought the girl was close to twenty-one, but she was in
reality barely nineteen.

Lynn sighed. “I know who your father is, Beth.”

Beth froze, her eyes blank behind her glasses.

“I know your last name is really Livingston.”

“How?” Beth breathed, after a long stretch of tense silence.
She picked up her fork and poked blindly at her pasta salad.

“I’ve been put in a strange situation, and I haven’t known
how to deal with it.” Lynn swallowed and made herself continue. “Beth, the man
I’ve been seeing for the last three months…well, he’s your dad.”

The fork dropped from Beth’s hand, clattering onto the
plate. The girl had Nathan’s gift for masking her emotions, but she wasn’t as
practiced at it as he was. A rush of fear, anger, and confusion washed over her
face before she could control it.

“Have you told him?” she asked at last, her voice wobbling a
little.

“Not yet.” Lynn’s chest was already aching, and she was sure
this wasn’t even the hardest part of the conversation. “I thought it would be
better if
you
told him.”

“No,” she burst out, her smooth hair swinging over her
shoulders as she shook her head. “No! I got away. I’m not going back.”

“Beth, I know you thought it was bad, but he loves you so
much. He never would have hurt you on purpose.”

The girl’s voice was hard and bitter as she replied, “Maybe
he told you he loves me, but I lived with him, remember? Nothing he did ever
showed
me he loved me. Most of the time he didn’t even acknowledge my existence.
When he did, it was only to control every little piece of my life. That’s not
love. And I can’t do that again.”

“I don’t think he’d want you to do that again. He knows he
made mistakes, and he wants to fix things as much as he can. Beth, you don’t
know how much he’s been hurting these last two years, desperately trying to find
you. Give him a chance.”

Beth stared down at her plate and just shook her head.

Lynn’s throat was hurting now too, almost as much as her
chest. She’d hoped—she’d prayed—that this conversation would go better, but it
had been a foolish hope. “Beth, please. This isn’t a secret I’m going to be
able to keep.”

Beth’s lips parted as she stared across the table
accusingly, but what hurt the most was the hint of betrayal Lynn saw underlying
it. “So you’ve already taken his side.”

“I haven’t taken his side. I haven’t taken
anyone
’s
side. I care about both of you. I want the best for both of you. Being
desperately terrified and grieving for you isn’t best for your father.  And
living this secret life of isolation isn’t best for you either. I’m sure of
it.”

“It isn’t your choice to make.”

“I figured this out myself. You didn’t confide in me. It’s
my
knowledge, and telling your father is
my
choice to make. I don’t want to
hurt you, Beth, or betray your trust. I really do care about you a lot. I hope
you know that. But I won’t be emotionally blackmailed, and I’ll do what I think
is best in a very difficult situation.”

Beth looked away, and a tear slipped out of her eye and
streamed down her pale cheek.

Lynn knew she needed to lighten things up for a moment or
she would lose the girl completely. So she asked, “Do you mind telling me how
you managed? To create a new identity and hide yourself so completely, I mean.”

With a shaky breath, Beth turned back to look at her. She
swallowed hard, but her voice was more natural when she replied, “I had some
help.”

“Who?” Lynn asked. Nathan had told her on Friday night that
Beth must have had someone helping her behind the scenes, since she wouldn’t
have had the necessary resources to disappear otherwise.

There was a long pause, but eventually Beth murmured, “My
mom.”

Lynn’s breath hitched in surprise.

“I’d been talking to her some, on a prepaid phone Dad didn’t
know about. She seemed to…to understand. She said she’d run away from Dad for
the same reason.”

Lynn bit her lip, rocked with fury at the shallow, spiteful
woman. She was absolutely sure that wasn’t the reason Ariana had left Nathan
and the girls. The bitch had probably just seen this as a way of finally
bonding with her estranged daughter and selfishly took it.

Lynn had easily been able to size Ariana up, even at
twenty-one, when Lynn had been an intern in Nathan’s office and was first
introduce to his wife.

“I’d mentioned running away a few times,” Beth continued,
dropping her eyes as if a little ashamed. “But I said there was no way I could
keep Dad from finding me. So she helped me. She hooked me up with someone who could
create the new identity, and she deposits money in a bank for me a couple times
a year. I wouldn’t take much. Just enough to get me through.”

Lynn deeply, desperately wished Ariana’s lovely throat was
within arm’s reach just now—so she could strangle the woman.

But she stifled the anger. It would only make things worse
with Beth if she expressed how absolutely furious she was at the way Ariana had
manipulated her daughter and so hurt both Beth and Nathan. And Victoria.