LITMIR.BIZ

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me, your old life is about to come after you whether you like it or not.”

      “I won’t let my past touch my new life,” Nick bit out sharply. He turned to pace and stopped in his tracks. Laura. She was standing in the doorway, the color draining from her face as he watched.

      “I’ve got to go,” Nick snapped.

      William said forcefully, “I’m not kidding. You need to come up here—”

      He hung up on the lawyer.

      “What’s up?” Laura asked. Her cool voice sounded brittle, like she was barely hanging on to self-control.

      “My past,” he bit out. “I don’t know.” He shoved a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t remember any of it.”

      “You knew your real name. It would’ve taken you two minutes on the internet to find out all about yourself, and maybe even what’s got you all freaked out.”

      How was he supposed to explain his dead certainty that he had to leave his past alone? To stay far, far away from anything having to do with Nikolas Spiros? It would sound like a lame excuse to her. Hell, maybe it was a lame excuse.

      Laura’s voice fell, dropping into a hurt hush that was a hundred times more painful than if she’d yelled at him. “I thought you loved me.”

      He didn’t try to stop her as she whirled and ran from the room. He’d been worse than a fool to avoid his past, and she was right to be furious with him. Every accusation she’d thrown at him was less awful than the ones he was flinging at himself right now. It didn’t even make things better that he was dying inside. She was everything to him, and he’d hurt her terribly. He’d rather endure torture than cause her an ounce of pain. But he’d pretty well blown that. He’d blown everything.

      Now what was he supposed to do? How was he ever going to make this better?

      Swearing long and hard at himself, he headed upstairs to Adam’s room. The child was still asleep, which was just as well. He didn’t think he’d have the strength to say goodbye to his son if Adam were awake. Stroking the dark, silky hair so like his own gently, he murmured, “I love you more than life. Never doubt that. Take care of your mother for me. And be brave.”

      He turned and left quickly before he could weaken. He had to protect them all. No matter the cost to himself. Feeling every bit of the past six years in his bones, an ache that had never quite gone away, he headed downstairs. Laura and the kids had kept it at bay with their love and laughter, but all of a sudden, the withheld agony was back.

      “Are you going out, Mr. Cass?” Marta asked in surprise. “Breakfast will be ready soon.”

      He rasped, “I won’t be taking breakfast today. And you’d better send Laura’s up to her office. I suspect she’s going to be busy in there for a while.”

      By noon, with her connections she’d probably know more about Nick Cass than he did. And she would definitely know everything there was to know about Nikolas Spiros. Every last ugly, selfish, tawdry detail.

      He’d lost her. The lies had finally caught up with him. But, Lord, the cost of it. His eyes hot and his throat painfully tight, he stepped out of the house and drove away from the best things that had ever happened to him. He’d ruined it all. Everything that was good and right about his life retreated in the rearview mirror as he pulled out of the estate. If it was the last thing he ever did, he’d make this mess right. Put his family back together.

      He thought he’d known hell before in a box. Hah! That had been a walk in a park compared to the hell embracing him now. A hell of his own making.

      * * *

      Laura was hanging on by a thread. The phone wouldn’t quit ringing, and she was developing a horrendous headache. How on earth had she never connected Nick to Nikolas Spiros? She should have recognized him in Paris, and sometime in the past year she definitely should have searched for disappearances of men matching Nick’s description six years ago. But no. He hadn’t wanted to know, and she’d gone along with his plan to bury their heads in the sand and avoid facing whatever demons lurked in his past. She’d willfully ignored the signs that Nick was not what he appeared to be, had been so caught up in her own selfish bliss that she hadn’t asked any of the obvious questions.

      Why didn’t he have any other family or friends he wanted to let know he was alive and free? Why was he so at ease living in the luxurious world she inhabited? Why did he flatly refuse to talk about his past prior to his memory loss? And the granddaddy of them all—why was he kidnapped and thrown into a box for five years? Who were his enemies, and why did they bear him so much malice that they chose to make him suffer rather than simply kill him?

      At lunchtime, Lisbet apologetically poked her head into Laura’s office. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but Adam is hysterical and really needs to be with you. I’ve tried everything I know to calm him, but he’s panicked that something bad has happened to you and his father. Nothing will do but for him to see you.”

      Laura stood up quickly. The needs of her children would always come first over her work … even if that work was investigating their father. She hurried to the playroom, where Adam was curled up in a sobbing ball in the corner, hugging the stuffed elephant that had been his special toy forever.

      Laura stroked his back gently. “Hey, kiddo. What’s the matter?”

      The child flung himself at her, wrapping his arms around her neck and squeezing her tightly enough that it was a little hard to breathe. Not that she complained. She hugged his shaking body. “Everything’s okay,” she soothed him, rocking back and forth.

      “Daddy’s gone, and the bad man got him!”

      “Daddy’s not gone. And the bad man definitely didn’t get him,” Laura declared.

      Lisbet cleared her throat. “Begging your pardon, but Mr. Cass left the house before breakfast.”

      Laura’s entire being clenched in shock. He’d left? Where had he gone? And for how long? She shoved back her panic, focusing for the moment on her son. “Adam, Daddy has some business to take care of. It’s all right.”

      “No, it’s not. He told me to take care of you for him. And to be brave. He wouldn’t say that if he was coming back. He went to fight the bad man.”

      “Well, honey, even if he did, Daddy will win. It’ll be okay.”

      “No, it won’t!” Adam wailed.

      “Do you need me to go help Daddy?”

      Adam lifted his red, wet gaze to hers. “Can you do that?”

      “Sure. I’m pretty ferocious, you know.”

      “Daddy says you’re like a mama bear with cubs,” Adam replied dryly, his humor already so much like his father’s.

      A burning knife twisted in her gut. She replied stoutly, “He’s right. Grrrr.”

      Adam smiled reluctantly. But he wasn’t about to be diverted so easily. “You won’t let the bad man get you, too?”

      “Never.”

      “Promise?”

      “I promise. Cross my heart, hope to die, alligator in my eye.”

      “Alligator in your—” Adam giggled. “That’s silly.”

      “Made you laugh, didn’t it?”

      “Yes.” He waxed thoughtful once more. Impossible to distract, he was. Just like both of his parents on that score. “Where do you think the bad man is?”

      “Hmm. I don’t know. But I’m really, really good at finding people. I found Daddy before, didn’t I? I’ll find the bad man, and I’ll find Daddy, again. I’d never let anything happen to anyone in our family. I’m a mama bear, and you and Ellie are my cubs. Don’t you ever forget that, okay?”

      Adam

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