Smoke and Mirrors (24 page)

Cass followed the direction of Dawn's gaze,
then
went completely still. The purple dinosaur slipped from her fingers.

Derek lounged in the doorway, shoulder propped against the frame. His hair was loose around his face, much as it had been the night before, emphasizing the sharp lines of his cheekbones, the deep recesses of his go-to-hell eyes. Only they weren't condemning her now, they were blazing, overflowing with … with
what
she didn't know. But it pulled at her as potently as his passion had last night.

"Derek."

He scanned the room, no doubt taking in the stripped bed, the emptied drawers and shelves, the boxes overflowing with her child's life. No doubt remembering the night he'd almost made love to her here, the same night he'd rocked her in his arms while she'd cried out her grief.

His eyes met hers. "We need to talk."

They did. Desperately so. But the thought of it, the possibility of what might be said, or left unsaid, had her stomach clenching. "We've said all there is to say."

"I haven't."

"Derek—"

"All I'm asking is for you to listen."

Her heart thundered in her chest, making breathing painful. "Make it fast."

He glanced at Dawn, back at Cass. "Alone."

Cass swallowed. Part of her yearned for Dawn to stay, insurance that nothing would spiral away from her. What a joke. Things had already spiraled hideously out of control.

She looked at the frozen, fascinated expression on her partner's wife's face. "It's
okay,"
she told her. "He's right. We need to talk."

Dawn didn't look convinced. "I don't know, Cass." She glanced around Jake's room. "This might not be the best time."

"It's the only time." No way to prevent the sun from setting. She stood, reached down and helped Dawn to her feet. "Don't worry—it'll be okay."

Dawn frowned, but relented. "Okay, but call if you need to. You have my cell phone number." She twisted toward Derek, gave him a sharp, scathing look,
then
glanced back at Cass. "If I don't hear from you, I'm calling."

Derek took her measure, slowly and deliberately. "You look familiar," he said at last. "Do I know you?"

The hotel. Dawn had been at the hotel to see Gray. Cass's heart stumbled at the realization, but with a bright smile, she covered. "I highly doubt you know her, Derek, unless you've taken to hanging around the local PTA in your spare time."

His eyes narrowed in question.

Dawn shot him another loaded glare, but left. Drawing a breath, Cass closed the door and turned to face Derek.

"This is a surprise," she began, needing
to
start somewhere. "After last night—"

"I'm sorry." He stood directly before her, not close enough to touch. But close enough to feel. "I was crazy," he admitted. Regret roughened his voice. "When Ruth called—"

"Ruth called?"

"She told me she was worried about you, that you were alone with Vilas. I could barely think straight, see straight. I only knew I had to get you away from him."

"I wasn't
with
Vilas. Not like that."

He lifted a hand to her cheek. "I know."

The certainty in his voice soothed as much as it surprised. "Do you now?" the cop in her asked. "How do you know that?"

"Because you couldn't have given yourself to me like you did, if you had been."

The bold statement was the last thing she'd expected to hear. And it floored her. "So that's what last night was?" Hurt welled. "A test? Your way of finding out—"

"No." He had her pressed against him in an instant, gently but firmly taking her upper arms in his hands and staring down at her. "Not a test, Cass. It was…" For the first time since she'd known him, uncertainty ravaged his eyes. "It was me being out of control, fighting for what I consider mine. It was—"

"Inevitable," she supplied. Any anger or uncertainty she'd harbored fled, just like that. She leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding him, so tightly nothing could ever take him away from her. Not anybody. Not anything.

She began to shake, as much in fear as in relief.

"Easy," he murmured, pulling back to look at her. "You're right, it was inevitable. But that's no excuse for my behavior." The words tore out of him, fierce and raw. "Damn but we're in a hell of a mess. I don't know what to do with you, Cass, doll. I've never known anyone like you. So honest, so good."

The words stabbed into her, obliterating any trace of self-respect. Love shouldn't grow out of lies, but it had.

"There are things you don't know," she found herself saying. "I'm not who you think I am."

"And I'm not who you think I am." His thumb stroked the hollow of her cheek. "I'm not a good man. I've done things, things I'm not proud of. You deserve better—"

"Shh." She placed her hand on his. She knew what he'd done, and she loved him, anyway. "The past doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does." Three words. But he said them with the finality of a death knell. "It's never really past, Cass. Never fully gone. That's why I pushed you away, why I stayed away. I don't want who I've been to hurt you."

She brushed a kiss across his lips. "We can't let the past steal the present—it's all we really have."

His eyes glowed. "A man could go three lifetimes and never find a woman like you."

She'd never known words of promise could slice so sharply. "Derek—"

"I'll take today, but mark my words, I'll fight for tomorrow, and every day thereafter, if it's the last thing I do."

Chapter 13

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^
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"
I
haven't been honest with you."

Shock rocketed through Cass. They sat on the floor in front of the fading fire, Derek's back against the sofa. She sat between his legs, leaning back against his chest.

"We've both kept secrets, Derek. Sometimes they're all we have."

"But I want to share mine, Cass." He slowly unfastened her braid, as though unraveling the secrets between them could be as simple. "It's time to lay the truth of who I am on the line, and let you decide if you can live with it."

"Derek—"

"I'm not proud of some of the things I've done, but they've made me the man I am, the man who wants nothing more than to keep you safe."

"You do keep me safe. From myself, from my past."

"I want more than that. I want the future. But to have that, you need to know where I've been, what I've done." He was quiet a moment, his fingers stilling in Cass's hair. "When I was in the merchant marines, I became involved with a woman. Her name was Sasha, and she conceived my child."

Cass twisted toward Derek. "I didn't know—"

"She got rid of it." The fire in his eyes turned ice-cold, giving her a heartbreaking clue as to the origin of his hallmark, go-to-hell expression. "Murdered my child."

"Oh, Derek." All she could say, yet nowhere near enough. "I'm so sorry."

He dragged his fingers through his hair, clenching them around the shoulder-length ends. "It was a long time ago," he said by way of dismissal, but pain strained his voice. "I was young, foolish,
naive
. I thought she loved me. I thought she wanted
me.
But all she wanted was a good time."

Cass closed her eyes against the horror of it.

"I would have married her, but she laughed when I asked her, said she'd gotten rid of the child, why complicate things with permanence?"

She opened her eyes and looked into his soul. "You wanted the child."

"My real father died when I was just a kid," he said. "I hardly remember him. But I remember what it felt like when he smiled at me, when he held me and swung me around the room. I remember his laugh, what it was like to be loved by him."

"And you wanted to share that with your own child."

"Yes."

Pain jackknifed through her heart. "Your mother?"

"Remarried." He uttered the word so matter-of-factly he could have been speaking of going to the dentist. "Brent was born less than a year later, their only child together."

He said no more, didn't need to. Cass could imagine it all too well; the truth underscored the men Brent and Derek had grown to be.

Brent, his polished, country-club exterior, his spoiled, self-centered interior.

Derek, his rough, rebellious exterior, his lonely, vulnerable interior.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I can't imagine what it must have been like."

"I don't want you to even think about it."

His gallantry warmed and chilled at the same time. "I can handle it."

"But I don't want you to." He brushed a kiss against her lips. "You had a good childhood, didn't you? You were happy? Loved?"

"I was." The answer was simple and honest and straight from the heart. "Of course, four older brothers often made things difficult."

Derek's sudden laughter halted her words. So rare that she heard the deep rumble. When she did, she simply wanted to savor.

They stayed that way a long while. The heat of the fire warmed them as they held each other and traded stories of the past. He deftly turned the tables to her life and not his, as always, and she found herself reliving her childhood in
New Orleans
. The excitement and adventure of the French Quarter, the haunting allure of the swamps and deserted plantations.

Time lost meaning. One minute the sun shone through the windows, the next it was the moon. Cass lay in Derek's arms, completely content with the world. She was building memories, she knew, stockpiling them, devastating memories she could cherish when they were all she had left.

He told her about Marla, how she'd been using him to prove herself to her father. Design contracts for the Stirling Manor were all she'd been after, something Derek would have gladly given her, until he found out she'd been counting on them all along.

Maybe Marla had grown to love him, but it hadn't mattered to Derek. Same song as before, different verse. No one really wanted
him,
the man he was. Not his mother, not Sasha, not Marla. They'd all used him for one thing or another, demonstrating that love was just a fairy tale created to sell books and movies.

All the carefully woven threads of her life were coming apart, she realized. Soon they would lie in shreds, beyond repair, and her work would be done. Derek would discover the truth, and instead of adoration, his eyes would hold contempt.

The love and the lies had tangled like wild vines out of control. Sooner or later they would separate, and in doing so, one would destroy the other.

She had no idea how she would bear it. Deep in her heart she didn't believe he was behind the drug trafficking. She would prove that, yet the damage would be the same. The truth of her identity would come out, and he would know she'd been deceiving him. She could tell him she'd grown to love him, just as Marla had, but as with Marla, it wouldn't make a difference.

In the end the lies would destroy the love.

"Cass, honey?" He brushed his lips against her hair, his hands along her back. "Let me make love to you."

She turned in his arms and faced him.
"With
me, Derek." His body hardened beneath her, giving way to a provocative melting of everything she was, everything she ever hoped to be. "You're not doing anything to me. I'm right there with you."

The firelight shimmered on his deep-blue eyes. Dark shadows clung to his jaw, but his answering smile provided all the light she needed. He pulled her against his chest, just holding her, rocking her. Then he was stretching them out in front of the fire, gently ridding her of her clothing.

She did the same for him, taking pleasure in pulling his shirt over his chest, again discovering the dark coarse hair residing there. She traced it down his abdomen, farther still, until the waistband of his jeans halted her progress. Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with the button and zipper of his jeans. Anticipation taunted as she worked the denim down his long legs. She was already naked, wonderfully so, gloriously so, Derek's hand sliding over her skin.

Where before there had been urgency, now there was deliberation. Where before there had been greed, now there was patience.

And where before there had been desperation, now there was confidence.

She pulled the jeans free of his legs, stilled when she saw the silver-and-pearl coloration against the skin of his shin. A bruise, she thought at first, but as she slid down his sock, she realized the truth.

The discoloration of his skin was not a bruise, not a scar. It was a tattoo. She'd known he'd had one, yet she hadn't known where. Or what.

Now she knew. A dagger. The ivory-hilted weapon was emblazoned against his shin, as though strapped there long ago by a warrior preparing for battle. The sight of it hit her hard. The starkness of it, the symbolism of always being poised and ready to fight. To defend.

"Oh, Derek," she said on a sigh, sliding her parted lips down his muscular leg, to the dagger. She took it into her mouth, as she would take him in only a few moments, and let the truth slice through her heart.