Page 28 of Second Chance Christmas

Her eyes widened. There was no point denying it. “No.”

Leonardo sighed, pulled up to sit beside her on the bed. Close, but not so close they were touching. He looked ahead at the wall, she did the same.

“He loves you like a son,” Cassidy shrugged. “I didn’t want him to lose you too.”

“Jesus, Cass. I didn’t deserve that consideration.”

“I did it for dad’s sake,” she said. “For all I cared, you could have gone to hell.”

He laughed, but it was short bark, lacking in humour. “Fair enough.” He turned to face her. “And then you met Grant,” he said, and she felt his eyes on her face, felt him trying to read her, to see all the secrets of her soul. They were heavy secrets, secrets that made her chest feel as though a tonne of cement was pressing down on it.

“Yes.”

“And you fell in love.”

She opened her mouth, to parrot out the line she always offered, but something had shifted between them, or perhaps within Cassidy. Maybe it was Grant’s cold-hearted request for a photo op, as though she and Audrey were props that could be trotted out whenever it suited him. Or maybe it was that spending time with Leonardo made her remember who she’d been, once upon a time. Maybe it was just Leonardo?

“I got pregnant,” she said, quietly.

Leonardo was very quiet beside her, very still.

“That’s why I married him.”

She couldn’t look at him.

“After you…left, I went off the rails, Leo.” A tear slid down her cheek. “I didn’t know who I was anymore. So much of me was bound up in you, in us…”

He swore softly, but didn’t otherwise move or react.

“I met him at a party. We had sex. I was so, so angry with you. I told myself that if I could just fuck someone else, maybe we’d be even.” She dashed the tear away. “Maybe then I could even take you back. Because at least I would have done something you’d hate too.” She sobbed, wiping her tears away. “But I got pregnant from that one time.” She swallowed hard, tried to get her voice level. “I hardly knew him,” she whispered. “But he was very charming, very handsome. It was easy for him to wrap me around his little finger. Iwantedto believe a fairy tale was still possible. So when he suggested we get married, I agreed.”

She turned to face him then, her eyes unknowingly lifeless, her whole face showing the trauma of those decisions.

“I was young and terrified of having a baby on my own.”

“I would have been there for you,” he said. “God, Cass,Iwould have helped you.”

“Don’t.” She shivered. “Please don’t say that.”

“I didn’t stop loving you. I made a mistake but you were still in here,” he pressed his fingers to his chest, as though he needed her to understand what had been in his heart.

“Please, I really can’t hear that.” She whispered, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t have let you anyway. I never wanted to see you again.”

“I know, I know.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Did you love him, Cass? Were you happy?”

She turned to face him, knowing she should just tell the same lie she’d been telling everyone for years. But the second her eyes met Leo’s, the truth became a wave in her chest, roaring to escape, to roll right out of her.

She shook her head, wordlessly.

Leonardo paled, lifting a hand to her cheek, stroking it so gently she could only cry harder. It was so different to Grant. She tilted her face into his palm, closed her eyes, tried to breathe deeply.

“I thought you had everything you deserved. And it served me right for messing things up between us so monumentally. I thought you were happy, or I would have come for you, Cassie-May. I would have moved heaven and earth to fix it.”

She scrunched up her face. “I had to fix it. I had to choose to leave him, and I did.”

He leaned forward, kissing her gently. “I’m proud of you.”

And he didn’t even know the half of it. She felt those truths too, but something kept her quiet. She had spoken about Grant enough. As ever, she wanted to keep him out of this.

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