Page 50 of The Lady's Last Mistake
Slowly, she allowed him to turn her. And even more slowly, Cassie lifted her eyes from the sliver of skin at his unbuttoned collar. His green eyes, usually clear and pale, were now dusky. There was a tenderness in them that she hadn’t expected. And yet, glaring fury too.
“You are no longer talking about Isabel,” he said softly.
She gave her head a small shake. The muscles of his jaw jumped, and Grant tucked his chin, unblinking. “It happened to you.”
She closed her eyes, feeling as though she was about to step over the edge of a precipice, not knowing what lay below, or how far the drop would be. A tear slipped free and wet her cheek. It was too late to reverse course now. He knew. Even if she said nothing, he would know. Cassie gave another jerky nod. Just one. Grant’s grip on one of her arms released so that he could bring his thumb to her cheek.
“You’re still not looking at me,” he said as he cleared the dampness from her skin.
She gathered all her mettle, all the strength she’d convinced herself she possessed these last many years and split her wet lashes apart. Grant nodded, still holding her in a direct stare.
“It was Renfry?”
God, why was she doing this? Why did shewantto tell him?
Her lips quavered uncontrollably. “Yes,” she managed to whisper, the single word a hiccup.
Grant’s hands fell away from her. His chest heaved as he took deep breaths, his expression suddenly devoid of any tenderness. Instead, it tightened with barely contained wrath. He strode several steps away, rubbing the back of his neck. Cassie rocked back onto her heels, her pulse beginning to throb in her ears.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” she said, the words tinny from panic. How could she have been so bloody daft? “We worked so hard to keep it secret, and I’ve never told anyone else, I don’t know why I…”
Grant spun back around and closed the space between them, taking her arms again. “The truth is safe with me. Breathe, Cassie. Just breathe.”
She inhaled a shallow breath, then another. It took a third for the chiming in her ears to subside. All the while, Grant’s palm stroked her arm, elbow to shoulder and back down again.
“You said ‘we’,” he said after a moment. “Who knows? Not Renfry?”
“No, God no.” A shiver worked down her spine, though it might have been from the soothing scrub of Grant’s hand. The slow, intimate caresses had tempered her panic.
“Hugh and Audrey?” he guessed.
Cassie nodded. “And Michael and Genie.”
Grant’s hand stilled. “That is surprising.”
“Michael loves me, even if he is inflexible and conventional to a fault. He would never have forced me to marry the man who lied to me. Who used me and…and threw me over.”
Again, Grant stepped away, his aggravation visible in the flexing of his hands, into fists and out again. Cassie brought her arms around herself, her hands replacing where his had been soothing her. It didn’t work half as well.
He raked a few dark strands of hair from his forehead, appearing overwhelmed. So was she. Never in a thousand years would she have thought the first person she’d tell, outside her protective family circle, would be Grant Thornton.
He seemed to hesitate. But then met her eyes. “The child?”
The child. Those two words blasted apart the glass casing she’d erected around her heart. There had been cracks in it, of course, fissures and fault lines. But Grant’s simple inquiry ruptured them all. Cassie barely made it to the Chesterfield before her legs disappeared beneath her. She leaned forward, burying her face in her hands as the memories of that wretched day swarmed. The horrible pain, the relief of it ending, and then more stabbing pain in her chest when she’d seen her. She could still hear her daughter’s shuddering wails as she was cleaned and bundled by the midwife, and then laid into Cassie’s arms for the first, and what would be last, time.
The sofa cushion beside her dipped with Grant’s weight. He didn’t touch her, but his presence was enough.
“You needn’t tell me anything,” he said softly. “However, nothing you do tell me is going to change how I already see you.”
Cassie moved her palms to uncover her eyes but continued to cup her wet cheeks as she peered at him. “How is that?”
Right then, she felt like a disaster. Weak and vulnerable. She didn’t want anyone to see her this way.
Grant leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs just as Cassie was doing. His hands clasped together, and he knit his brow in thought. “Brave,” he said. Then, “Caring to a fault. You’re strong and stubborn and a warrior for others.”
She shook her head, even as his compliments made her feel the slightest bit radiant. “I’m not strong. I’m broken, and I feel like I’m breaking apart more and more every day.” A sob caught in her throat, squeezing off that last word.
He nodded and rubbed his palms together, but he remained quiet. He didn’t push her to say more, or console her with well-meaning words. He simply sat next to her, waiting for her to either say more, or not. The purposeful silence said it was to be her choice.
