“Are you okay?” The question startles me. “Easy there.” Lucas places his large palm on my shoulder to ease me. “It’s just me.” He smiles, but my lips quiver in response, and I have to look away.
“How’s your mom?” I swallow my sadness and sip water to hide my anguish. My parched throat tickles, and I start to cough again like someone scratched it raw.
“She’s still sleeping from the medicine we gave her, and Dad is on the phone. He will be here soon to speak with us,” he utters, eyeing me with his all too knowing gaze. “Are you sure you don’t want to take a nap? You look exhausted, Cassandra.” His eyebrows crease as those wolf eyes study me with deep concern etched on his face. My eyes become hot, stinging with tears. “Hey, everything will be okay.”
“Someone recorded us having sex. It was our intimate moment, and it was stolen from us. And these people will probably use it to degrade me. That night meant everything to me.”
Hot tears flow down my cheeks as I watch Leon screech in joy as Mark spins him in the air.
“I’m sorry,” Lucas whispers, draping his arm around me. “You don’t deserve this.”
“It felt special to me, you know. I thought, perhaps this time, I have a chance to be happy. But now, I wonder if I’m cursed or something.”
“Hey, that’s not true.” He kisses my temple as I tremble from the cold seeping into my bones.
“So why?” I look at him, pressing my lips in a line. “I thought I moved away from my troubles, but they keep coming back.”
“It has nothing to do with you,” Lucas tries to reassure me.
“But it does,” I rasp back and then I gather enough courage to ask him. “Have you seen it?”
Lucas stiffens next to me. His hand squeezes in a fist. “No.”
Relief floods me.
“He called me.”
Lucas' head whips around, so I continue before I lose my nerve.
“He told me when we meet, he will handle me like a man should. I think he isn’t beyond raping a woman. The way he sounded, Lucas, I have no doubt he might try.”
“We’ll handle him, but you need to be alert and stay safe.”
He stands up and walks away from me toward the kids as goose bumps explode on my skin.
Aisha sits behind me and envelops me in a warm embrace, resting her chin on my shoulder. “Hey, how are you?” Her sleepy voice disrupts my dark musings.
“Emotionally exhausted.” I clutch onto her as she presses herself closer.
“And here I thought I’d be the first to make a sex tape, and you beat me to it,” Aisha pouts, and I lose it.
I laugh so hard, my tears stream down my cheeks and my belly aches from the twisted amusement. When I calm down, Aisha draws me into a warm embrace.
“I feel violated,” I whisper when my hysteria subsides, and Aisha strokes my hair like our mother did when we were little. “I’m never going to get over this. Life’s not giving me a reprieve, is it?”
She doesn’t dare to tell me I’m wrong since we both know trouble follows me.
“Are you okay, girls?” Mark kneels next to us, pulling me to him. His face looks grim as he brushes my tears from my cheeks. “I’m sorry for everything you’re going through. It’s my fault.” Guilt on his face doesn’t sit well with me. I want it gone.
“Kiss me.” I’m desperate to feel him, anything to wake me up from this stupor.
I need to feel Mark the same way when he made love to my body just yesterday. Because it wasn’t just fucking. No, it felt like he claimed my heart and allowed me to get closer to his.
His lips brush against mine, nibbling the curve and then kissing it as if in apology.
“Hey, guys, kids are watching.” Aisha nudges me in the ribs as the kids bound our way with the Beast in tow. Ouch! I rub the spot, giving her a stink eye when our dog starts to lick my face. I curl my nose sideways. We need to give him a bath.
The Beast is a German Shepherd Leif got for my kids after we lost their dad. He and Aisha convinced me that my kids needed a little puppy to soothe their hearts. I gave in, and a year later, my dog grew into the name. The joke is on me. We took Beast to Italy and even to America since my kids wouldn’t sleep without him in the room. Our dog is not only our beloved fur baby but also a travel buddy who grew up with my kids.
“Hey, baby, are you okay?” Mark gives us some space, petting the Beast. Leon comes to sit next to me, sulking. “You know I love you both, right?” But Leon has his raven head lowered to the ground, plugging the grass.
“Do you want to make babies, Momma?” Liane cups my face with serious concern etched on her adorable features.
OMG! Okay, where do I start?
“Why would you ask that?” Not that our kiss lacked heat, nope, but still I have a feeling my particular brother-in-law fed them some line about it.
“Uncle Leif said that kissing is for making babies,” Liane states, proud of her knowledge.
“We found them naked and kissing in the kitchen once,” Leon adds and Liane giggles in her palm.
What?
“I think I can hear Maya awake. Bye,” Aisha chirps and disappears.
Oh, we’re going to talk, sister. Their butts shouldn’t be naked in my house.
“You know, babies aren’t made by kissing alone. It’s something two people in love share when they’re old enough.”
“But uncle Leif is old.” My mouth shuts with an audible click at Leon’s unexpected statement. “And he was naked!”
“Someone stole their clothes. Aunty was crying, and Uncle Leif kissed her to make it better.”
My cheeks burn, as I imagine what my children witnessed. Those two need a good whacking and I need to clean the countertops and change sheets in every room.
“Aisha was upset. She made a lot of . . . noise.”
Mark chokes on a laugh but covers it with his fist.
Unbelievable!
“Do you want to make a baby too? You don’t love us anymore?” Liane’s chin is quivering and her eyes are getting red as she waits for me to explain what’s happening.
How the hell did this conversation become a rabbit hole so fast?
“Hey, I’ll love you forever and ever.” I embrace them both, kissing their heads, warm from the sunlight. “Until the earth stops spinning.”
“I love you too, Mommy.” Leon hugs me, and Liane curls in my lap, not planning to leave me.
My gaze drifts to Mark, who has this look of admiration on his face. But also something else—a deep longing for a family and love, I realize.
“Excuse me, but Mr. Cade’s requesting everyone to gather in the living room,” my au pair announces.
I jump to my feet, leaving my kids to play with the dog outside. I tug Mark after me, not comfortable to face my family alone.
The hair on my arms rises in strange awareness as I watch Darren gobble a glass of whiskey and then rake his perfectly styled hair with his fingers.
“Gather up, kids, we must talk.”
I take the seat on the sofa, and Lucas and Mark flank me from both sides. Aisha and Leif join us too, including the few security guys stationed at the corners.
Since my sister is avoiding my gaze like the plague, I catch Leif’s. He raises a bold eyebrow at me when our gazes lock. He pulls his phone out and after few seconds mine buzzes with an incoming message from him. I open it.
Leif: I watched you bound and naked getting it. My eyes still burn, so forgive me for not taking your look of disapproval seriously.
All right, so we’re going there. I type the message before he derails me again with his antics.
Me: Let’s talk about my kids watching live porn in my kitchen, buddy. My kids shouldn’t have seen you naked. That’s just wrong, Leif. Have you ever heard about sex behind closed doors?
Leif: Have you? Vanilla isn’t your flavor either doll.
Leif: I didn’t want to see you getting it either. But we don’t get what we want. It was ages ago. Your kids were sleeping. We were
cooking cute little Maya in your kitchen. It worked. You should be happy for us.
Me: But they weren’t sleeping! Stop using my home for baby-making business. Use yours!
And then I shiver thinking about other things. I need to know.
Me: You watched the video? Like for real?
My stomach rolls. I feel so damn violated. My breathing becomes so painful I gasp.
Leif: I couldn’t tell it was you, kitten. And I don’t pass up an opportunity to watch good porn. You should know.
Idiot, I want to kick him just to see him in pain. I raise my head and give him a stern look, blinking away tears of humiliation. Leif watches me, seeing everything. His forehead is sharp with worry. His fingers fly typing again.
Leif: Relax, I stopped when I realized you were the porn star, couldn’t watch both of you fornicating. It was gross.
My face tingles from the influx of blood, and I linger on the keyboard, not knowing how to respond. Why is my life so out of control?
Leif: Are you freaking out? Don’t. I do worse to your sister, and she loves it. Besides, I already saw your boobs before. It was a boob fest when you breastfed your kids.
Grossed out, I throw my phone into the corner of the sofa, disturbed by the image. My brother-in-law laughs out loud and winks at me. What an idiot! Except, his distracting tactics worked. I’m less anxious about my own problems.
My head twists to Mark sitting next to me. He’s stiff and has a strange look on his face.
“Mark?”
He turns his gaze to Darren and my awareness spikes.
Is he jealous? Damn it, we need to talk about a lot of things. I close my eyes, fighting the ache in my chest.
“Let’s discuss the recent events and the contingency plan,” Darren’s words snap me out of my pity party.
I hope Darren doesn’t mean we’re going to talk about my bunny business.
20
Smoke Mirrors
~Cassandra~
Browsing the Internet for the articles about me on my laptop, I drink cappuccino and watch my two appointed bodyguards pretend I don’t exist. They probably hope that no one notices their black suits, militarily haircuts, or sharp eyes, scanning people at the coffee shop. But they do. A few women, farther away from me, giggle and gossip, eyeing them like they’re in the candy shop.
You know when you’re little and believe if you cover yourself or close your eyes, the monsters won’t see you? I wish my sunglasses would work the same magic, but I am no longer that girl, believing in magic. Or that woman who used to hide from the world.
“Excuse me.”
My head snaps at the young man towering over my table with a shy smile, gracing his attractive features. His short haircut and mischievous eyes sparkle at me with humor, eyeing my sunglasses, reflecting his face back to him.
One of my bodyguards, with a permanently etched mean scowl on his face moves as if to block him. I shake my head slightly to stop him from advancing on the waiter, and he halts.
“Would you like to order?” The guy holds some sort of black envelope under the stack of menus and passes me one, shifting on his feet nervously.
“If you give me a few more minutes.”
He nods, but instead leaving he lingers at my table.
“My friend hasn’t arrived yet. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to order.” I try to hint that it might take a while.
His cheeks start to glow, but he hesitates to leave.
“Is there something you need from me?” I ask as he stares at my bodyguards.
These measures might seem a bit extreme, but after everything that happened, I have no choice but to accept them. I bite my frustration since I have no idea when our stalker will decide to strike. After the disturbing call from Mr. Belington, I’m acutely aware that man is capable of despicable things. And the way Mark or even Darren are reacting to the threat speaks volumes to me.
“I just wanted to gift you with something.” He becomes more agitated as both my bodyguards gawk at him like eagles about to scratch the eyeballs out of his sockets.
“What is it?” I smile to encourage him to get over it as I see my date has arrived.
“Oh, this is just a drawing.” He looks so skittish as if he will bolt any moment. “I just thought you might want to have it.” His forehead crinkles and becomes beaded with sweat, stretching an envelope toward me with his shaky hand.
“But why? You don’t know me.”
He pauses, and when his ears start to glow beat red, I realize he read the news about me.
“I know what it is like to be broken,” he whispers, rising every hair to stand on the ends as he places the envelope on the table. “I’ll leave this with you.” He scrambles away as my guards react to my uneasiness.
After inspecting my unrequited gift, they both return to their gargoyle positions. Curious, I pull out the stack of papers and on top of it, is a picture of me before the accident and after. I gape at it, as my heart races in my chest, trying to make sense. The artist split the image in two as if I was an art of glass, one side shattering and the other one melting into new me. It’s so detailed, I get lost in the symbolism of my most traumatic life experience depicted on a piece of paper.
“Perfect, he left.” A familiar voice snaps me out of my thoughts, and I push the drawing back into the envelope.
“You’re late,” I clip as she slides into the chair opposite me and our bodyguards enclose us as if creating a wall of black suits to give us some privacy.
“We don’t have a lot of time.” She rips off the sunglasses on her face, and I gasp. The dark circles under her red eyes and lack of makeup make her almost unrecognizable. “We need to talk, Cassandra.”
“Haven’t we already done that, Helen?” I scoff, knowing if I show any weakness, she will use it against me.
“It’s not about my son or me.”
My eyebrows crease.
“It’s about you.” She pauses, looking around, and my heart stops in my chest, reacting to the urgency in her tone.
“Helen, what game are you playing?” My skin crawls as she locks her penetrating gaze on me. Fear like a snake slithers inside my chest, coiling around my beating organ and slowly squeezing it.
Her next words stop my heartbeat. “It depends, what are you willing to sacrifice for the safety of your children and the man you love?” She pushes a jewelry box toward me.
I open my mouth but stop when seeing hidden fear in her eyes. “Everything. Anything.” I finally tell her.
After Helen leaves, I sit there still reeling from what she said. This unusual conversation doesn’t make sense to me or her gift. I play with my shiny new bracelet, mulling over her words and thinking perhaps I made a mistake trusting her. It could be her way of monitoring my every move. Except after Lester’s threat, I don’t dismiss it, afraid he might try to hurt the people I love and me. Otherwise why did he call me instead of Mark?
“I need to use the ladies’ room,” I tell my bodyguard Ryan.
He escorts me to the door and checks the stalls.
“Wait for me at the car.”
I see him hesitate, but the café is almost empty.
“I’ll be fine,” I add, and he nods.
At the bathroom, I slip on the bracelet, still pondering if I should trust people who hate me. Is this another play to gain more control over me? I have no idea.
After I’m done, instead of leaving through the door, I use an emergency exit. Walking down the street, I pull out my phone to call Mark, needing to hear his voice to dispel the fear seeded by my mother-in-law from my mind. But before he answers, somebody bulldozes through me so hard I lose my footing and start falling. Before I kiss the concrete ground with my face, strong hands grab my arms and pull me back to my feet.
“Are you all right?”
Stunned, I watch the bandit in black hoodie and jeans run away.
“Miss?”
I raise my head to look at my savior towering over me.
For
a moment, I struggle to find the right words as the tremor runs down my spine. The male in his sixties with silver-brown hair and dark brown eyes stares at me, waiting for me to speak. Something about him is familiar, but my frazzled mind fails to connect the dots. I twist my hands from his supportive grip, and he stands back, shoving his hands into the pockets of his black suit pants.
“I hope you’re all right, miss. I saw what happened. Glad I could help.” He watches me oddly as he speaks.
His face is a mask of kindness, but for some reason, my heart palpitates, anxious, unsettled. My lips refuse to work up a smile. There’s no sympathy in his hard gaze.
I step back, holding back a shudder.
Calm down, Cassandra, he helped you. Not everyone is gunning to hurt you.
He doesn’t look like paparazzi. The suit he wears is too expensive, shoes too shiny.
“You dropped this.” He picks up my purse and the black envelope. My gaze fastens onto his dark eyes, and I balk when he bends at my feet. He stands, passing my phone to me. “I hope that idiot didn’t hurt you.”
“Thank you for saving me.” I take the envelope, purse, and phone, fighting a shiver as his warm fingers brush my skin. I step back.
My savior shoves his hands into the pockets of the suit and stands there as if waiting for something.
His downcast gaze meets mine. “Someone needs to teach the rebel good manners.”
His attention doesn’t flick in the direction of the wrongdoer, but instead, it stays fixed on me. The assertive tone sets my head spinning in circles. It feels like he is addressing me.
Does he recognize me? Is this why he stares at me like this?
“Good manners must be beaten into the youth’s heads from a very early age, so this would never happen.”
The way he speaks makes me believe he wouldn’t mind using force or physical means to instill those manners into a child.
Tangled IN LIES (Book#3, IN YOU) Page 21
