Glow (Glimmer and Glow #2)

by BETH KERY

  “No. The last thing you are is weak, Alice. It’s a complicated, confusing situation. I think you need time to let things settle. It’s a lot to absorb.”

  “Do you mean that someday, I might want vengeance? I might want to see Al sent to prison?” She wasn’t sure she’d ever want to see that day come.

  “I mean that nothing is going to happen this minute. We have a reprieve, although I can’t guarantee how long that reprieve will last. I wanted you to have some time, no matter how brief it is, so you can start to come to terms with things.”

  “That’s why you didn’t want Jim Sheridan to understand who I was yet,” she said. She pressed tighter with her hand, feeling dense muscle and the strong steady beat of his heart resound into her flesh. A powerful longing rose up in her to be surrounded by his arms. Her throat ached. He covered her hand, and she sensed his nonverbal prompt. Uncertainly, she raised her gaze to meet his.

  “If Jim finds out the truth, he’ll be obligated to inform the FBI. It’s their case. They’ll come here to question you and me.”

  “And you’ll have to tell them about Sissy and Al and the others,” she whispered, understanding making her throat constrict more.

  “Sissy and possibly some of your uncles are going to be implicated in this crime eventually. I want you to understand it’s not something I can stop. Because I’m not telling the truth immediately doesn’t mean I’m condoning silence forever about this. The keeping of secrets is what got us to this point. The truth should be told. When the time comes, I’m going to tell the FBI everything I know. Call it what you want: fate, karma, or simple justice, Sissy and some or all of your uncles knowingly harbored a kidnapped child for years and years. They lied regularly about her identity and prevented her return to her rightful parents.”

  “They lied about my identity,” Alice said, staring blankly at Dylan’s chest.

  Shivers ran in rivulets down her body. It felt like ice water had been poured on top of her head. Dylan grasped her wrist and lifted her hand from his chest. Her gaze shot up to meet his.

  “I was Addie Durand.”

  A muscle leapt in his taut cheek. “You are Addie Durand.” Another shudder coursed through her. “You’re Alice Reed, too,” he assured roughly. “You always will be, no matter what happens.”

  Her eyes stung. She shut them reflexively. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to be Alice Reed anymore, given what Dylan had just told her. It had always felt like she didn’t belong as a child, the notes of her spirit clashing discordantly with her supposed kin’s. Now, here was the truth. They’d never been her family. Never. It was a jarring, horrible, incredible truth. And yet . . .

  It was starting to feel real.

  She shook. His arms closed around her. He brought her against him, so that her chest pressed against his ribs and her face was buried in his chest. It felt wonderful.

  This. This was the opposite of what she’d felt in Sissy Reed’s trailer. This was what she’d longed for her whole life, to feel safe and prized.

  She hugged him back. Hard. Thankfully, he didn’t speak for several tense moments. Perhaps he realized if she was forced to respond, she’d betray her ragged emotional state . . . expose her grief.

  “Alice?” he asked quietly when she’d wiped the last of her tears on his shirt and brought herself under control.

  “Yeah?” she sniffed.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  He chafed her upper arms with his hands.

  “We never got to talk about what happened the night you found me under the stairs,” she said.

  “Are you really up to getting into that now?” he asked, and she sensed his wary watchfulness.

  She nodded. She was tired, but the things Thad had said that night had been like a worm burrowing under her skin. So much had come out tonight; so much released to the surface. She couldn’t bear the thought of Thad’s allegations continuing to haunt her.

  “Thad had said something that upset me,” she began, her voice sounding congested.

  “What?”

  She lifted her head but kept her gaze lowered. “He said that his father had told him that the circumstances by which you became CEO of Durand were . . . suspicious.”

  He slid his fingers beneath her chin and lifted gently. She met his narrow-eyed stare.

  “Schaefer was trying to warn you about me?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Why? Does he know we’re involved? Did you tell him?”

  “No!”

  “Then how does he know?”

  “I don’t know,” she exclaimed, suddenly feeling like she was on the witness stand. She struggled to recall what Thad had said when she asked him how he knew she was involved with Dylan. “Do you think a guy doesn’t notice when the girl he’s fallen for is completely in love with someone else?”

  She was uncomfortably aware of Dylan waiting.

  “He said something about recognizing the signs because he cared about me so much . . .”

  She faded off, her cheeks warming.

  “Because he’s in love with you himself, and bound to notice where your attentions lie?” Dylan asked incredulously. “That’s bullshit, Alice. You didn’t believe him, did you?”

  “That he’s infatuated with me?” she asked, frowning.

  “No. That he knew you and I were involved because he can read the mind of the woman he loves,” Dylan said sarcastically. “He’s been following you. He knows where you go at night.”

  “He’s not following me! That’s—” She halted herself from saying ridiculous because she suddenly remembered those two times he’d come upon her in the woods. The Durand Estate was awfully large to just coincidentally run into her when she was alone and vulnerable.

  “I refuse to believe that my two choices are either to trust in Thad or trust in you,” she said, feeling cornered. “Maybe he has noticed us coming up here at night, I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean he’s got evil intentions toward me.”

  “So that’s it?” Dylan asked, a hard gleam to his eyes. “Schaefer is trying to turn you against me because he doesn’t want the competition?”

  “No,” she admitted reluctantly after a moment. “I think someone is telling him things, negative things about you.”

  “Who do you think it is?”

  Alice swallowed thickly, Dylan’s sharp question bringing the importance of her answer home to her. “He wouldn’t say,” she admitted. “But he said they were trustworthy. And he got at least some of the information from his father. I got the impression that whoever is telling him stuff about you or about you and me is friends with his father or something. Do you think it could be Kehoe?”

  “It could very well be. I don’t think it’s much of a secret that Kehoe would like to see me taken down a peg or two. And he is friends with Thad’s father.”

  Alice frowned. “So we get back to Kehoe again.”

  “We do,” Dylan mused. “And he’s on my list.”

  “Your list?”

  Dylan nodded distractedly. “I have a list of people who were alive during the kidnapping, who had the means to hire a couple known criminals, and who had some knowledge of Addie’s activities at the camp. But the essential fact remains, Kehoe would have had no motive whatsoever to become embroiled in a crime of that magnitude. So what did the mighty Judge Schaefer have to say about me?”

  “Just that the there was more than one person who expressed their doubts about the validity of you being named CEO by Alan Durand before he died.”

  “Judge Schaefer implied that I coerced Alan while he was sick and fragile?”

  “Something like that, yes,” Alice said hesitantly.

  “You don’t need to look like that, Alice. Do you think that’s some novel accusation? I’ve heard similar charges and whisperings for years now. Fortunately, Alan Durand was a very smart man. His mind remained as sharp as it ever was up until almost the very end. He’d already locked up things tight with his will and estate pla
nning far before he weakened. The naysayers never had a chance, given Alan’s foresight and brilliance. The only thing left to them was to hiss their conspiracy theories to each another.”

  Alice listened to this with a sense of relief. It didn’t surprise her that there would be those who would dissent when the transfer of so much power went wholesale to Dylan.

  “Was there something else that Schaefer said that bothered you?”

  “Yes,” she admitted in a small voice.

  “What?” he asked, whisking his hand along her jawline and caressing the side of her neck. She shivered in pleasure when his long fingers slid beneath the hair at her nape and he rubbed the tense muscles there. Had he sensed her increased uncertainty and was trying to relax her?

  “Thad probably was wrong about it,” she wavered.

  “Alice, just tell me.”

  “He said that Sidney was one of the people who questioned your suitableness as CEO.”

  Her heart leapt a little when his rubbing fingers never paused.

  “That’s true. Sidney did protest. But not for the same reason most of the dissenters did.”

  She met his stare, amazed by his calm proclamation.

  “But why? I thought Sidney trusted you.”

  He shrugged. Alice slid her hands up his shirt and cupped his shoulders.

  “Remember that Sidney was my psychiatrist in the years after Addie was taken. Because of that, he is of the opinion that he knows a great deal more about the inner workings of my mind than he really does.”

  “What does he think he knows that would bring your worthiness as CEO of Durand into doubt?”

  She sensed his hesitation. His irritation.

  “Dylan?” she asked when he didn’t respond immediately.

  “Sidney is of the opinion that I’ve dedicated my life to Alan Durand’s legacy out of guilt.”

  Alice flinched slightly at the harshness of his words.

  “Because of the guilt you felt when Addie Durand was taken while under your watch?” she asked slowly. He nodded once, his mouth tight. The subject clearly annoyed him. “Sidney thought you couldn’t be a good leader of Durand because of this guilt?”

  “No. He expressed his doubt because he was concerned about me.” He must have seen her confusion. “Sidney believes I should move out of the shadow of Durand. He thinks that I’ve chosen to remain eclipsed by the tragedies that happened when I was a teenager. He is of the opinion that I’ve chosen a life of guilt and oppression instead of freedom to choose my life’s path.” Alice was still bewildered. “Sidney believes that I’m obsessed with the topic of Addie Durand and her kidnapping,” he snapped succinctly.

  Alice’s mouth fell open. She suddenly felt cold. So this was the source of the underground current of tension she felt at times between Dylan and Sidney.

  And this was the source of Dylan’s constant worry about her well-being and safety.

  As Dylan’s child therapist, Sidney had been privy to the harsh effects Addie Durand’s kidnapping and presumed death had on an adolescent boy’s mind. It made sense.

  It made horrible sense. What if Dylan’s intense attraction toward her was related? What if his involvement with her was some kind of psychological residue of their shared trauma?

  Oh God. It was too much for her to consider right now, when the entire structure of her life—her very identity—seemed to be crumbling all around her.

  “You don’t believe in Sidney’s theories?” she asked shakily. Hopefully.

  His hands slid down to her shoulders. He squeezed the muscles gently.

  “There’s a thread of truth there, of course. But I also understand that I was a kid at the time. I bear no responsibility for those criminals’ greed. Their brutality. I did feel guilty and wish I could have done more. That’s not obsession. That’s human nature. But I’m not oppressed by guilt, Alice,” he said firmly, squeezing her shoulders for emphasis. “My life choices have been the result of thought and planning, not a knee-jerk reaction of guilt toward Alan or Lynn Durand. Or you.”

  His eyes blazed when he said the last. It was impossible not to be relieved by his steadfastness. She nodded once, and she felt some of the tension leave his muscles.

  “Was that the thing that bothered you the most about what Schaefer told you? That Sidney argued against my suitableness as CEO of Durand?”

  “Yes,” she said honestly. “I just feel so confused about . . .”

  “What?”

  “Who to trust.”

  “I can’t make you trust me, Alice,” he said. “But you should.”

  “I’m trying,” she whispered.

  “I know,” he said more gently than she deserved. She felt so frayed, so pulled in so many directions. He massaged her shoulders. She sighed in relief. The miracles his touch could inspire. “Go on. You were upset by what Schaefer had said about Sidney and me. What happened next?”

  “I just wanted to get away. To escape,” she blurted out, feeling a small measure of the desperation she’d experienced at that moment. “To hide. I didn’t tell myself to run upstairs, I just found myself doing it. My feet were taking me to that hiding place without my brain telling them to. And as I ran down the hallway, the memory just flashed into my brain. I distinctly remembered crouching in some dark place and hearing her voice—my mother’s voice—calling out to me. It was a game we played. I heard her calling out to me a few times, when I was in bed with you.”

  “What?” Dylan asked, his brows furrowing.

  “It was just my imagination,” she said quickly, recognizing how strange that must have sounded to him. “My unconscious mind spitting up some buried memory. I saw her that night you found me in the hall, too. She wore this delicate, filigreed gold bracelet; the same one she wore in the newspaper clipping you showed me. I saw it perfectly. I heard her calling out a name. My name,” she whispered.

  She became aware she’d gotten lost in the sad, sweet potent memory and cleared her throat. “Anyway, as I ran down the hallway away from Thad, it hit me that this memory was different. It was connected to all these feelings, and it felt so real. She and I were playing when she called out like that. I’d hide, and I’d be so excited, hearing her voice as she moved around the house looking for me. She knew where I was all along,” Alice said with a small smile. “Or at least she knew I was in one of several spots. She was the one who had showed me all the good hiding places.”

  Dylan’s hand cradled the side of her head. Alice leaned into him, instinctively craving his touch. “And it was a good memory for you, wasn’t it? You said it wasn’t scary like you were worried it would be.”

  Emotion surged in her throat. She took a moment to find her voice.

  “I thought it’d feel like someone else, like a stranger was taking over my mind,” she gasped. “It wasn’t, though. It felt like me. That was my memory.” His thumb rubbed her cheek, and she realized a tear had fallen. “Even if it’s the only memory of her I ever have, it was enough. Because so many feelings came with it. She loved me. She cherished me. I could feel it somehow, hear it in her voice. It was the air I breathed, the security of being loved. And underneath my excitement at playing the game, I felt so safe, so trusting that the next moment was going to be nice, and the moment after that, and after that. When I was that little girl crouching under those stairs, I didn’t know the meaning of fear or want.” She shook her head in frustration.

  “What, baby?” he murmured, drying more of her tears with his thumb.

  “It was incredible. I’m not saying it right,” she said brokenly, referring to her trouble containing the profundity of her experience in words.

  “You’re saying it perfectly. If it hadn’t been for that memory, I don’t think you would have been ready to hear about Sissy tonight.”

  “What?”

  “You never once asked me how you ended up with the Reeds,” he said, his manner a little sad. “I knew it was because you weren’t ready to hear what they’d done.”

  “
But after remembering Lynn, I was?” she whispered. It made a weird kind of sense. That brief shining memory was an unshakable bedrock to her identity, something no one could ever take from her.

  He grasped her head in both his hands and leaned forward to kiss her mouth tenderly. Alice sought out his warmth and hardness, pressing closer, sliding and biting at his lips with her own. She made a dissatisfied sound when Dylan moved back slightly. She stared into his deep eyes.

  “It hasn’t been an easy night. Let’s go to bed,” he said gruffly.

  “Yes.”

  SHE cleaned up in the bathroom first and emerged wearing the fluffy bathrobe Dylan had given her. He rose from where he’d been sitting at the edge of the bed, checking his cell phone messages. Their gazes locked as he passed her on the way to the bathroom. He reached out and palmed her jaw.

  “You okay?” he asked in a low rumble, leaning down and kissing her temple.

  She’d be a heck of a lot better once they were in bed together.

  “I’m fine.”

  He straightened and gave her a “spare me the act” look. She winced. “I’m a little overwhelmed.”

  His thumb traced her cheekbone gently. “An honest admission from Alice Reed. I’m impressed. Even if you are downplaying things drastically,” he murmured, his mouth curving into a small smile.

  “Dylan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know you said Alan Durand never gave up that . . . I could be alive.” His nostrils flared slightly at her tentative “I”; at her referral to Addie and herself as the same person. It was going to take some getting used to. “But you didn’t, either. You kept the faith the longest of anyone. I just want to say it again—thanks.”

  His expression turned very sober, even grim. He just nodded once and kissed her temple again with warm, lingering lips. “Get in bed. I’ll be out in a minute,” he said quietly, his mouth near her ear making her shiver.

  After he’d gone into the bathroom and shut the door, she walked to the bed. Her fingers hesitated at the tie of her robe. Did he want to make love? She was a little confused by his manner tonight. He was so intense. So deep. It was as if their talk had begun to expose all of his layers, the manifold meanings of what Alan, Addie, and Durand Enterprises represented to him. It took her breath away, to consider that those folds and complexities of his character had been there already when she’d walked into the dean of business’s office at Arlington College and saw him sitting behind that desk.