“You want to lower that gun? I’ll behave,” he asks her gently, but she doesn’t waver.
Leon accuses, “You’re supposed to wear pajamas to bed.”
Liane narrows her eyes at us as if we are two misbehaving children. Great! And to make this situation more embarrassing my au pair waltzes into my room without permission.
“Oh, here you are. I was about to call Uncle Leif and Aunt Aisha to ask about you two. You gave me a scare,” she chastises them, ignoring the fact she walked in on us stark naked. I glance at an amused Mark, and then I look at my au pair, mortified.
She picks up Leon, who has a pout on his cute face, and my daughter, who tries to explain why they’re here.
“May, but they’re naughty.”
May’s apologetic eyes twinkle as she chuckles and winks at us, whisking the twins out of the room. We hear her promise them chocolate cookies with milk if they listen to her.
“OMG, please kill me now,” I groan and pull the sheet over my head as Mark starts to laugh.
My kids are used to barging into the room, snuggling under the covers with me. Since I never before had a man sleeping in my bed, it wasn’t a problem. This is new to them, and I need to enforce some rules and also talk about Mark and me. And the boundaries.
“Oh, come on, Lovebird, it wasn’t that bad,” he chuckles next to my ear as I groan.
Mark doesn’t get it. My twins are two tactical little rascals who can wrap you around their fingers before you have a chance to see it. And it doesn’t help that they have another twin pair teaching them the ropes.
After we shower and dress up, we come downstairs to find my kids eating Nutella spread out of the jar while listening to my sister telling them about us when we were little. How the hell this jar appeared in my house is beyond me. Chocolate and my kids is a terrible combination, so I banned it. I have a feeling Leif has something to do with it. He probably smuggled some in here.
“Good morning!” Aisha chirps at us, and I glare, silently asking her to shut up. But her smile stretches into a wicked one, and I know she will make me suffer as she did when I was a young girl. “Join us for breakfast.”
“Where’s Leif?” I ask carefully, trying not to trip over any hidden mines.
“At home sulking.” She pins her eyes on me, but I ignore it.
I need coffee to deal with this. She’s clearly here to interrogate me. Mark’s warm hand is on the small of my back as he turns a megawatt beam at my sister. Maybe he can distract her.
I press a button to start the coffee maker to drown them out. While my coffee’s brewing, I grab the jar from my kids before they finish it.
“Hey!” my twins protest, but I give them a stern look over my shoulder, and they both shut up. They know better.
At some point, Mark’s arms wrap around my torso, and I lean into him.
“What does a man need to do to get a cup of freshly brewed coffee?”
I close my eyes for a moment and let my head fall onto his shoulder. His hard body melts to mine, and I soak his warmth seeping into my pores.
“This feels perfect,” I whisper, feeling complete and grounded in his embrace.
His lips descend on my neck. I itch to run my fingers along his two days old scruff adorning his strong jawline. I silently groan as I feel him hardening behind me.
Aisha clears her throat, and Mark steps away, but I take a moment to compose myself before I turn to speak.
“Okay, let’s feed you before school,” I tell my unhappy twins as they eye Mark and me with those curious eyes full of questions.
After cooking some omelets and toasting bread for the kids, we dash to change and get ready for work while they eat. After I slip my feet into nude heels, Mark emerges in his gray suit paired with an unbuttoned baby blue shirt.
“How are you feeling today?” I ask him, concerned he regrets opening up to me.
He saunters toward me, all carved muscles and power hidden under the tailored suit. “Raw, but calm too.” He strokes my cheek. “I’m sorry for keeping all of this from you.”
The Cades hurt him. Instead of loving him, they chose business, and it left a massive void within him. He didn’t know how I’d react to my ex’s family secrets. And the unknown sometimes is worse.
“You’re their family, and your wounds are deep.”
“I’m more like their dirty secret,” he retorts, lifting my chin to kiss my parted lips.
“You know, it makes sense to me, why Helen’s so committed to separate us. Why they don’t want us working together. It cuts too close to home.”
He let go of me, picking up the tie from his suitcase he brought for a sleepover.
“They think of you as their son. They don’t want to lose another son to me.”
“Even so, it’s not up to them to make these decisions.” He shoves his hand in the pocket, looking at the bed we slept in. I remember his fear that he’s taking over Logan’s place instead of making his own. My chest squeezes at the thought he might feel rejected even here in my bed, in my life.
“Mark, look at me.”
He turns to me.
“I love you, not because you are like him but because of who you are. How you make me feel. Alive. Content. Happy. Safe. Your past doesn’t scare me. It makes me love you even more. I admire your strength, persistence, and control.” I take the tie from his other hand and wind it around his neck. “You challenge me, when I need to be challenged. Because you know the pain of surrendering.”
“You’re stronger than you know.” He brushes my curly hair over my shoulder, watching me with so much love shining in his golden irises, it melts my heart. “You mean so much to me, Cassandra. I could give up my life just to have you in my arms.” Some phantom feeling crawls up my spine as his words awaken fear inside of me. “I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers reassuringly as if he is familiar with my nightmares.
We all leave the house in separate cars, since I have to take my kids to school first and Mark has an urgent conference call early in the morning. While my driver is navigating through the busy street, I read a book with Liane while Leon is playing Candy Saga on my phone.
“Sweetie, stop playing. I’ll need a battery to be able to make a call.”
He crunches his cute nose. His raven hair’s falling into his face and his lips press in a tight line, but he keeps playing.
Story of my life.
“Come on, Leon, you heard Mommy, stop playing.”
I hide my grin as my little-me is trying to help me parent her twin brother.
“Stop being bossy, you’re not my mom,” he argues with her.
“Leon, give me my phone, please.” I use a stern tone, knowing he’s pushing my buttons on purpose, probably because I threw my relationship with Mark at them and haven’t talked about it. I knew this was going to bite me in the ass.
“Here, you can have it.” He shoves the phone in my lap and crosses his hands over his chest, pouting.
I take a calming breath before speaking to him. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”
He doesn’t turn to look at me, instead simmers like coal in silence. So, I wait, knowing my son will speak only when he’s ready.
“Do you love me, Mom?”
I nod at him, waiting for a punch line.
“So, tell him to leave and never come back.”
My lips press together as I stare at my son, thinking. Leon is a spitting copy of his father, not only because of his looks.
“Do you love me, Leon?”
He nods, and I kiss his forehead, holding his chin in my hand.
“That means you want me to be happy, don’t you?”
He opens his mouth, but his sister beats him to it.
“Yes, we do.” Her eyes shine like two green jewels at me as I stroke her hair in place.
“Mark makes me very happy, just like you. It makes me sad to be apart from him. When two people feel this way, they come together and make a family.”
“Like you and Daddy did?�
�� Liane asks me to clarify, and my heart painfully squeezes in my chest, remembering the love we felt back when they were so little.
“Yes, exactly like that.” I hold back a dark chasm from consuming me.
“But.” Leon twists his body in his car seat, his eyebrows creasing with a dilemma. “What about us? Where will we sleep?” His face looks so troubled I want to laugh, but I refrain, knowing this is important to them.
“In your own beds like you should.” I beep his nose.
“Not fair. Why can’t he sleep in a guest bedroom?”
“Because they’re in love, silly, like Aisha and Uncle Leif.” Liane rolls her eyes as she chastises her brother.
“Ew!” They both gag, disgust written all over their features.
Just what the hell did they see to react this way?
“Um, yeah, we’re in love, and you’ll probably start seeing him around more often.” My eyebrows crease as I watch them making kissing sounds, teasing me back. “Gather your things, you rascals, and up you go. Be good, do you hear me?” I holler a warning as the car comes to a halt in the drop-in line. Liane opens the door to exit. I bend over to grab Leon’s lunch bag, as he dropped it in protest, and unbuckle him from his car seat.
“Love you, Mom.” He pecks my cheek and hops out to catch up with his sister.
After they leave, my driver maneuvers around the heavy traffic to get me to work, casting an observing gaze at me in the mirror from time to time. I make a call to my mother-in-law. Yesterday, we left too many loose ends, and I need to know what I must do to protect my family. I’ll definitely seek legal advice about this situation and see if I’m in peril to lose custody of my children, or this is just an empty threat.
Just before I’m about to hang up, she answers. “Good morning, Cassandra.” Her voice sounds chafed, raw, and not as privileged and put together as always.
“Morning.” I pause, thinking how I should approach this uncomfortable conversation since speaking in person makes it too hard for us to solve anything. “I thought this might be a perfect time to talk.”
“What do you want?” she drawls as if she is drunk, but I shake off the thought since she would never be caught in that state.
“To make peace. I want our relationship to be about being a family, not rivals.”
She sniggers at my words and then angrily spits out, “You are not my rival, dear, you are a dangerous beauty, too perilous to admire, too fragile not to love.” She heaves words in my ear as if she scrapes a sharp knife across my chest.
Instead of feeling defeated, I feel sad for her.
“I don’t deserve this treatment from you, Helen. I haven’t killed Logan. I barely survived the car crash myself. What you feel inside is just a third of a constant pain I suffer every day. I haven’t asked for this pain, you know?”
“He should have left you. This way, at least we could have protected him. But he stayed to guard the fragile beauty, battling her past demons. My son forgot about the other threats hovering around him.” My eyebrows crinkle as I try to make sense of her enigmatic words, coming from her drunken mouth.
“What are you talking about, Helen? What threats?” I try to control my erratic breathing so I won’t miss a forbidden secret slipping past her lips. “Helen, tell me,” I demand when she stays silent like a stone.
“You might not be the one who crashed the car, but you’re still the one who cost him his life.”
I gasp in disbelief into the phone as my mind races with suspicion pulsing against my temples.
When my driver stops, I jump out of the car, unable to stay any longer in a confined space with someone who works for them. I march toward the entrance of Fading Ink as if it could shelter me from what is to come.
“Are you saying it wasn’t an accident?”
She starts to wail, and my chest blasts with alarm.
“Helen, what happened that night? Tell me.” A cold tremor burrows deep in my soul and my legs start to tingle with a warning I am so familiar with. I’m about to pass out.
My back presses against the concrete wall of the building before my legs give out beneath me, and I slide down to the ground feeling the world pressing down on me.
“Someone ran you off the road that night,” she grouses into the phone as my skin starts to crawl. Pure shock claws at my chest, scratching it wide-open. “And they still walk free and unpunished.” She disconnects the call as I get a glimpse of forgotten memory rousing from the dark corners of my mind.
The air so dense with dread chokes me as someone collides with us, knocking me forward. The pressure settles over my chest as I try to grasp what is happening. But when I do . . .
The cry of terror locks in my throat, readying for the inevitable impact. Just before the end, Logan’s green eyes lock with mine like two hopeless pits, reaching into me.
A helpless wail rips through me, as I try to get hold of the memory, but it fades like smoke.
“Hey, hey, Cassandra, look at me. It’s me, Mark. You’re safe, you’re here, with me, Lovebird. Breathe deep and exhale with me.” Mark’s reassuring guidance grounds me, and I clutch onto his jacket until my vision clears, and I regain a semblance of control.
“You had an episode,” he clarifies, and I nod, still reeling from the experience that felt way too real to be just a conjured image of my tattered psyche.
It was a real memory, I realize. After I spoke with Helen, it slipped through the cracks and revealed itself. A shiver runs through me as I recall the undiluted horror gripping me in its clutches.
Not believing that I will regain all my lost memories since my body suffered so many injuries and traumas, I moved on. But sometimes they tend to resurface like little distorted pieces, leaving particular sensations as aftereffects of that traumatic experience.
Mark unbuttons his jacket, draping it over my shoulders, and helps me up on my shaky feet.
“Let’s go inside. Paparazzi might be hovering nearby.”
I nod at him, not trusting my voice to speak. He drapes his hand around me as if shielding me from the world and leads me inside with worry etched on his handsome features.
Once we get inside his office, he settles me on the sofa next to the window. Kissing my forehead, he stands and walks to his desk. He unfastens his tie as if it’s suffocating him and calls Denise to bring us some tea and biscuits. I watch him detached.
He grabs the tray from Denise and brings the goodies to the coffee table as soon as it's ready. Stirring some sugar into my tea, he passes it to me.
“What happened,” he pleads as I sip a syrupy beverage he made for me.
“I spoke with Helen.”
He sits straight in his armchair opposite me. Clasping his hands together, he gives me his full attention.
“I think she was drunk and she told me things . . .” I watch the golden tea in my teacup vibrate as my hands shake, unable to stay still.
“Cassandra, what did she tell you?” Mark seizes the cup from my hands as my tears start to pour in salty rivulets down my face. He walks around and sits next to me, drawing my shuddering frame under his armpit.
“She said that someone ran us off the road on purpose and . . . I think she is right, Mark, someone hit us,” I admit the last part, whispering as if I could make it less real this way.
His frame stiffens next to me and I crane my neck to look at his pale face. His chin is set in a stubborn line as he stares at the wall with a bookcase full of folders opposite us.
“Mark, what is it?”
He stands and starts to pace, like a war machine full of power camouflaged under the suit, getting ready for a battle.
I stand, affected by his restlessness, and inch closer, feeling uneasy about his reaction. But he seizes me before I can touch him and kisses me like he’s desperate to save me. He slips his tongue past my lips, and I gasp in his mouth like a starved woman. My chest explodes as he hikes my skirt up and hooks my legs around his waist.
“We have to stop,” I breathe out a
s he settles me down on his desk, coiling his fingers into my hair until he has me in a firm grip.
The shadows in his glowing eyes like whirlpools of caramel, worry me, as does his behavior. “Promise me you won’t tell this to anyone else.” He enforces his words, digging his fingers hard into my scalp as if he wants to carve that warning into my flesh.
“Why?” I blow out a shaky breath, trying to control my racing heart, but when I see fear flicker through his gaze, all hair rises on my arms. “Mark.” I push words out. “Tell me the truth. What do you know?”
He hesitates for a moment but then goes to the shelve and retrieves a folder. When he takes a seat in front of me, his apologetic gaze locks on me, and I freeze like a deer in headlights.
“A few days ago, I asked Higgins to investigate your car accident. And he dug up some condemning evidence that was obviously hidden by your in-laws. They aren’t the only ones who would be interested in keeping it secret.”
I hold my breath as a massive headache tries to split my skull in two.
“I think you should see this.”
He places the folder on the coffee table and pushes it over to me. Unsure of what I’ll find there, I pick it up and on an exhale, I open it. Words, letters, and lines blur in the senseless puzzle as I try to absorb the information presented to me. My chest expands, trying to draw in oxygen as the smell of ink drifts to my nose, permeating my senses like a toxin.
Unable to voice my question out loud, I lift my eyes to look at him, begging him to explain.
“This is a report of your car crash analysis. It was buried by Darren almost instantly as it resurfaced.”
“But I saw the report, Mark. It said it was an accident and this one says a car rammed into us from behind, pushing us off the road until we collided with the bus.”
He nods, lowering his gaze to the floor and then fixing it to the folder, shaking in my arms like a leaf on a tree.
“Why would they hide this?”
“I don’t know for sure. Perhaps because they didn’t want anyone to know who the culprits are, or they had a secret agenda that didn’t involve the justice system.”
Tangled IN LIES (Book#3, IN YOU) Page 27
