LITMIR.BIZ

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slugged his arm. “So am I! And I’m hardly at death’s door.”

      “I didn’t mean…”

      “I’ve golfed with him,” Killian said. “He has quite a swing and considerable endurance. He’ll take care of the ladies.”

      “I’ll be fine,” Chloe insisted.

      Winfield opened his mouth to protest further, but Killian silenced him with an unobtrusive shake of the head.

      Winfield appeared puzzled, but closed his mouth.

      The doorbell rang and Winfield opened it to Steve Mitchell, who greeted Killian, then took Chloe’s bag. She followed him out to a shiny black Cadillac, chattering incessantly.

      “The minute they’re out of sight,” Killian whispered to Winfield, “we’ll call your company and get someone to trail her and the Mitchells while they’re in Paris.” To his mother, he asked, “Where you staying, Mom?”

      “At the Hôtel Clarion St-James et Albany. The duke of Noailles once entertained Marie Antoinette there, you know.”

      He raised an eyebrow at Winfield, who nodded, the data obviously stored in his memory.

      “Good strategy, Mr. Abbott,” Winfield praised under his breath.

      “Never fight a battle you can’t win,” Killian replied, even as he blew Chloe a kiss.

      That was good advice to apply to Cordie, he suddenly realized. But there was no such thing as a nonconfrontational way of dealing with her. She was a forthright, in-your-face kind of woman. Even Sun Tzu, the brilliant strategist, would have had difficulty dealing with her.

      CORDIE FINALLY PUT her feet up at about eight o’clock. She sat on the sofa in her elegant, quiet-as-a-tomb apartment, alone except for her cat, and tried hard to be interested in the steaming square of lasagna on the tray in her lap. She’d anticipated it all afternoon, but now that she had the food, it made her stomach churn.

      She put the tray aside and leaned her head back against the ticking-striped sofa cushion and wondered grimly if this was what had happened between her and Killian: that he’d found her less than interesting once he had her, and put her aside.

      She hoped simple ego wasn’t at work, but she couldn’t believe he’d just lost interest in her. The kind of earnest determination with which he’d pursued her couldn’t simply evaporate. The fervent passion with which he’d made love to her couldn’t just cease to be.

      A waning of interest had happened even before the Brian thing had given him an excuse to talk divorce. She’d caught glimpses of regret in his eyes, felt it in his touch when he pulled her to him on impulse and wrapped his arms around her, only to change his mind and push her away.

      What had happened?

      She’d racked her brain over the question all the time she’d spent in Scotland, but she hadn’t come up with an answer. And the problem couldn’t be solved without one. It would take time spent with him. Either the attraction that had drawn them together so explosively the first time would take hold again and last, or he’d react as he had the first time they’d met. In that case, she’d be on guard and able either to ward off his displeasure or figure out what brought it on and do something about it. Or not. But at least she’d understand.

      Loving a man who didn’t want anything to do with her was tough. Before she’d met Killian at his stepmother’s fashion show for charity, she’d have considered herself the last woman on the planet who’d pursue a man who didn’t want her. But gut instinct told her that he did still love her and that his sudden withdrawal from her was a self-inflicted punishment for some imagined guilt over Abigail’s disappearance.

      Kezia had told her the story shortly after Cordie and Killian’s Thanksgiving wedding. Kezia and Daniel had been working for the Abbotts less than a year one late December night when they were planning for a New Year’s Eve celebration in two days’ time. Killian, eleven years old, had been at a sleepover at a friend’s house, and Sawyer, nine, Campbell, five, and fourteen-month-old Abby were asleep in their beds. Kezia had been up late baking pies when she heard the screams.

      She and Daniel had run upstairs to find Kate Bellows, the nanny, pacing the second-floor hallway, screaming. She wore a billowing silk robe, her gray hair hanging in one long braid. “‘She’s gone!’ she kept saying over and over. ‘She’s gone! I got up to go to the bathroom and checked the children like I always do—and she’s gone!’ For a minute, I didn’t know who she was talking about, until Mr. Abbott came out of Abby’s room and I saw the empty crib.

      “Mr. and Mrs. Abbott searched the house like mad people,” Kezia had said, her eyes sad and focused on the memory. “Mrs. Abbott kept screaming Abigail’s name while Sawyer ran up and down the stairs looking for her, and Daniel and Mr. Abbott searched the grounds. Campbell and I cried.

      “Mr. Abbott called the police, but they found no evidence of a break-in. They thought either the laundry chute or the dumbwaiter might have been entry points if someone had gotten into the basement. But the door was still locked from the inside, and none of the windows was broken. They interviewed the staff, thinking, I guess, that one of us might have kidnapped her, but that was preposterous. We all loved the children like our own.” Kezia paused and sighed heavily, spreading her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “They even sent the police to get Killian at five-thirty in the morning to see if he remembered seeing anyone around the place, or if any of the many tradesmen who’d worked on a plumbing and carpentry repair problem several weeks earlier had shown a particular interest in Abby. Killian was a sharp little boy and never missed anything. He didn’t remember anyone with an interest in his little sister, but he did recall the name of everyone who’d been in the house. Then…” Kezia drew a ragged breath. “I remember him turning to his father and telling him he was sorry he hadn’t been home. That if he had been, the kidnapping might not have happened. His father told him not to think that, that he’d been home and he hadn’t been able to stop it. But Killian was a dedicated big brother, and I think he carries guilt to this day.” Kezia swiped a hand across her eyes and went on.

      “Then it was as though life in this house just stopped. There were no clues, nothing at all to go on, and the Abbotts just waited and prayed. At that point, they’d have been happy to get a call for ransom, to know that Abigail was alive and could be paid for and brought home again.

      “They went on television and begged for her return. They spoke to any reporter who’d listen. And we all waited. No conversation in the house, no laughter and eventually no hope.”

      “How horrible,” Cordie whispered.

      Kezia nodded. “Then one day Mrs. Abbott got up, called us all together—husband, kids, staff—and said we weren’t going to live this way any longer, that there were three other children to think about and everyone’s lives had to move on. We would hold Abigail in our hearts and keep praying, but we were to start living again.” Kezia’s lips trembled. “I thought it was very brave of her.”

      “Yes.” Cordie wrapped her arms around herself and tried to imagine how she would feel if a child was stolen from her with no evidence of what had happened and no knowledge whether he or she was dead or alive.

      “But Kate was devastated, felt responsible and finally quit the following year to go live with her sister in Los Angeles.”

      “How awful for everyone.”

      “Yes, it was. Everyone was affected. I think all the boys carry scars from the ordeal. Chloe dedicated herself to her remaining children, but sometimes I see a terrible sadness in her eyes. And Mr. Nathan put on a good front, but Abby was his little girl and he never got over losing her. He died with her name on his lips.”

      Cordie groaned and put a hand over her eyes as tears welled. What an old and deeply rooted pain for Killian—for all the family. Killian, though, was her primary concern, and wanting to remove his guilt so she could put her love there, instead, would be no easy task.

      She wondered now if her

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