The ballroom was warm, but Bradlee grew cold as her gaze swept the throng of guests. She spotted her father and Crystal among the dancers, and catching her glance, her father waved. But Bradlee thought he and Crystal didn’t look particularly pleased to be here, either, and that was unusual for her father. This was his element. He loved working a crowd and adored showing off his new brides. Was there trouble in paradise already, or was something else—the evening itself, perhaps—causing her father’s somber expression?
Bradlee remembered the conversation she’d overheard between him and her uncle. “You know she’s always had an obsession with that boy. Since he’s come back, it’s started up again. I don’t think it’s a good idea for the two of them to get so chummy. If she comes around asking you questions about the kidnapping, just don’t say anything that’ll encourage her.”
And her uncle’s response had been, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
Take care of it how? Bradlee wondered. It was bad enough to think that someone in this room had hired Colter to kidnap David, worse still that it might have been someone in David’s own family. But now to have doubts about her father and uncle…
Bradlee wanted to dispel those doubts, but the sight of her uncle heading across the ballroom toward her father only made them worse. Harper Fitzgerald had always been a man who dealt in secrets. He was nearing seventy now, with gray hair and leathered skin, but Bradlee didn’t think that age had changed him much. He was still one of the most formidable-looking men she’d ever known, and she suspected he still didn’t like to lose.
How far had he been willing to go thirty-two years ago to ensure Edward Kingsley’s victory?
As Bradlee stood watching, she saw him approach her father who bent to say something to Crystal. Then both men left the dance floor. Crystal was immediately surrounded by a swarm of men anxious to take Bradford Fitzgerald’s place. To Bradlee’s surprise, one of them was Jeremy Willows. He swept Crystal into his arms and the two of them disappeared into the crowd.
For a moment, Bradlee toyed with the idea of following her father and uncle to see what they were up to, but just then, she saw David.
He strode across the ballroom toward her, and as his gaze met hers, Bradlee’s knees grew weak. She forgot all about Iris and Edward, Pamela and Jeremy, her father and uncle. She forgot the doubts and suspicions she’d been harboring for days.
But most of all, she forgot about a woman named Rachel.
He looked so handsome in his tuxedo. So worldly. It made Bradlee suddenly realize that David Powers was a fascinating man in his own right. She would have been attracted to him even if he wasn’t Adam Kingsley.
“I was wondering when you’d come down.” His gaze swept over her in a way that made Bradlee grow even weaker. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You have?” Her voice sounded breathless. Hopeful.
He smiled down at her. “Of course. This is our big night, isn’t it?”
“It’s your big night,” Bradlee replied. “Tonight you officially become Adam Kingsley.”
The smile disappeared and his eyes darkened. “Tonight won’t change who I am. I haven’t been Adam Kingsley in over thirty years. I don’t even know who he is.”
“I do,” Bradlee said softly. “I’ve always known you.”
The shadow in his eyes deepened. He started to say something, then changed his mind and took her hand instead. “Let’s dance.”
He pulled her onto the dance floor, and before Bradlee had time to catch her breath, she felt his strong arms close around her. For the first time all evening, she began to relax.
This was natural, she thought with an inward sigh. This was right. She and Adam together again after all those lost and lonely years.
But while Bradlee relaxed, David seemed to tense. He said against her ear, “Is it my imagination, or is everyone staring at us?”
Bradlee glanced around. It did seem as though she and David were creating something of a sensation. All eyes were on them—Iris’s cool and assessing, Pamela’s cold with contempt, her uncle’s and her father’s openly disapproving.
Bradlee shivered in David’s arms, and he drew her even tighter. “I don’t think Iris’s announcement will come as much of a surprise to anyone,” he said. “I think everyone here already knows who I am.”
“You’re probably right,” Bradlee said. “The papers have been reporting for days now about Adam Kingsley’s return. They just haven’t been able to figure out your other identity.”
He grimaced. “You make me sound like Clark Kent.”
Bradlee laughed. “I guess in a way you are. Just think of it. How many people do you know with secret identities?”
“You might be surprised,” he said dryly. “Anyway, as soon as Iris makes her announcement, the whole world will know that Adam Kingsley and David Powers are one and the same.”
“And then you’ll be famous. Every reporter and talk-show host in the country will be clamoring for your story.”
“God, I hope not.”
“You are going to be famous, David. At least for a while. You do realize that,” Bradlee said, staring up at him.
His mouth thinned with displeasure. “Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing, coming here.” His gaze met hers and deepened. “But if I hadn’t, I never would have met you.”
Bradlee’s heart quickened. Tingles ran up and down her spine where his hand touched her bare back. “Yes, you would have. We were destined to find each other again. I truly believe that.”
Their gazes held for the longest moment, and Bradlee wondered fleetingly if she’d gone too far. Revealed too much of herself. David stopped dancing and took her hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of this goldfish bowl for a while.”
He led her through the open French doors onto the terrace and then down the steps to the garden. Bradlee’s shoulder touched a rose and fragrant white petals floated to the ground. Lacy clouds scrolled across the moon, deepening the shadows, and even though the rain was still an hour or so away, the air was sultry and heavy with moisture. In the distance, music drifted through the open terrace doors.
David stopped at the edge of the garden. The trees were thicker here, and the night suddenly grew a little darker and quieter. A little more frightening.
He stared down at her in the moonlight. Bradlee’s heart started to pound at his nearness.
“Bradlee, we have to talk.”
“About what?”
“About us. About…this…” His voice trailed away as he wove his fingers through her hair and tilted her face upward while his mouth descended on hers.
Bradlee closed her eyes as his lips teased hers open, and he deepened the kiss with his tongue. His hands slipped from her hair to trace a fiery path over the contours of her body—her hips, her waist, the sides of her breasts. He touched her everywhere, and everywhere he touched, Bradlee melted. This was no ordinary kiss. This was a prelude to something wonderful.
She pressed herself to him, letting him know she was more than ready for that something.
When he finally broke the kiss, Bradlee could only gaze up at him. “David,” she whispered, shaken by the power of his touch. “I like the way you communicate.”
He laughed softly, still holding her in his arms. “We still have to talk.”
“Yes,” she agreed, standing on tiptoe to wrap her arms around his neck. “Let’s talk.”
This time, it was she who brought her lips to his, she who coaxed his mouth open, she who tangled her tongue with his. But David didn’t resist. Far from it. He cupped her bottom with his hands, molding her body even more tightly against his and moving against her in a way so sensuous, Bradlee’s every nerve-ending exploded with passion.
One kiss led to another. And then another until Bradlee lost all sense of time. All sense of reason. The only thing that mattered was David kissing her, holding her, wanting her.
His mouth trailed kisses across her cheek and down her neck, then nibbled at h
er ear. “Did I happen to mention how beautiful you look tonight?” he murmured.
“As a matter of fact, no,” Bradlee said, reveling in his attention. In the wonder of it all.
Could this really be happening, or was she dreaming?
He drew back to gaze deeply into her eyes. “I think you’re the most desirable woman I’ve ever known.”
Bradlee melted all over again. “You make me feel that way,” she whispered. “I wish we could stay out here like this forever.”
Even in the moonlight, she could see a shadow in his eyes, a darkness that made her shiver. “Bradlee—”
“I know.” They weren’t quite as alone in the garden as she would have wished. A third person had suddenly joined them. A woman named Rachel.
Bradlee sighed.
David reached to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s not as if Rachel and I are married or anything, but I have made a commitment to her. I do owe her my faithfulness.”
“I know you do.” Bradlee stared up at him in the darkness. His face looked at once familiar and mysterious to her. At once close and so very far away. “I admire you for that.”
He paused, then after a moment said, “This thing between you and me…I don’t know what it is. I’m not a romantic like you are. I don’t believe in destiny. I’m not even sure I believe in love.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “I guess I’ve never experienced it. The woman who claimed to be my mother loved me, in her own way, but she lied to me. She took me away from my family and hid the truth about my real identity. Is that love?” His tone took on a bitter edge. “Someone in my own family may have paid to have me kidnapped, and even if they didn’t, no one here has exactly welcomed me home with open arms. Is that love?” He shrugged again. “I don’t know. If it is, I’m not sure I want any part of it.”
“What about you and Rachel?” Bradlee asked quietly, wondering if she really wanted to hear his answer.
“Rachel and I have what you’d call an understanding. We suit each other. Love doesn’t enter into it. As I said before, I’m not even sure I believe in love.”
He lifted his head to stare at the brilliantly-lit mansion, and in the darkness, his profile was hardly more than a silhouette. Bradlee said softly, “Why is it I get the feeling you’re trying to tell me something?”
He hesitated. “I don’t want to hurt you. That’s the last thing I want.” He turned back to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. A thrill of excitement shot through her. “But I’m not sure I can be what you want me to be. I may not be the person you think I am. We had a bond when we were children, but we’ve been apart for over thirty years. You don’t really know me, Bradlee. I’m not Adam Kingsley anymore.”
“So you keep saying.”
His tone sounded ironic. “I just want your eyes to be wide-open about this thing. About us.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Is there an us?”
He cupped his hand around the back of her neck and drew her to him, until his chin rested in her hair. “I want you. More than any woman I’ve ever known. I think about you all day. I dream about you at night. I can’t seem to get you out of my head. I don’t know—is that love?”
She expelled a shaky breath. “It’ll do,” she whispered. “Believe me, it’ll do.”
She kissed him then, with an intensity that stole his breath away. David wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, never wanting to let her go. He’d never felt this way with Rachel—with any woman—and it was a little disconcerting for him to realize how quickly Bradlee could make him forget his commitments, his past and his future. All he wanted to think about was now, this moment, with Bradlee in his arms and the night electric with their passion.
He could have her, he knew. Bradlee was not a woman of subtleties. She didn’t try to hide her true feelings. She didn’t believe in game playing, and because of that, David knew he had to be honest with her. He had to make sure she understood that he wasn’t promising her “tomorrow,” let alone “forever.” How could he commit himself to a woman like Bradlee when he didn’t even know who he was anymore?
This time it was she who ended the kiss just as she had initiated it. When David would have pulled her back to him, a cooler head prevailed. “We’d better get back,” he said.
“I suppose we should,” she agreed.
But at the edge of the terrace, she hung back. He turned to stare down at her. Her eyes were soft and warm in the moonlight, dark pools of endless emotion. How was it he had never noticed how beautiful she was until now?
She smiled wistfully. “Fairy tales do happen, you know.”
He touched her fingertips to his lips. “Tonight, you can almost make me believe that.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
A hush fell over the ballroom as Bradlee and David stepped through the doorway. The orchestra had stopped playing, and Iris stood, beckoning David to her side.
“The moment of truth,” he said against Bradlee’s ear. “Meet me when this is over.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Where?”
He hesitated, then said, “The nursery. I’m going to ask Iris for the key. I think it’s time we face your nightmare together, Bradlee.”
Before she could respond, he left her near the French doors and took his place beside Iris. Edward joined them, and Pamela moved to her husband’s side, followed more reluctantly by Jeremy.
Iris’s gaze swept the crowd, lingering for a brief instant on each and every face. A murmur drifted through the gathering, but when she began to speak, the silence was instant.
“You have all probably read in the papers recently that my grandson, who was kidnapped from this very house thirty-two years ago and whom we thought dead for most of those years, has finally been found. But what you don’t know is that during all those years when he was dead to us, Adam knew nothing about his real family. The woman who helped Raymond Colter abduct him managed to convince him that she was his real mother and that his name was David Powers. According to David, she gave him a good home, treated him as if he were her real son. For that I’m truly grateful, even though I have not been able to bring myself to forgive her for what she did to my family. But tonight we put all that behind us to celebrate Adam’s homecoming. Tonight is a night our family has waited for for over thirty years.”
She reached for David’s hand, and when their fingers were linked, she drew him to her side. Her blue eyes sparkled with unshed tears, and Bradlee thought she had never seen Iris so moved.
Bradlee blinked back her own tears. In spite of everything they’d been through, in spite of the fact that among the well-wishers was probably someone who had masterminded David’s kidnapping, the moment was rich and poignant. After all those years, Adam Kingsley was home where he belonged.
Across the room, his gaze met Bradlee’s. She couldn’t tell from his expression what he was thinking, but he allowed Iris to cling to him and accepted an awkward hug from Edward. A buzz of excitement soon filled the room, and before Bradlee knew what was happening, a crowd had surrounded David, cutting him off from her view.
After a while, Bradlee saw Iris leave the ballroom on Edward’s arm. He escorted her up the stairs, where Illiana waited to help her to bed.
Bradlee didn’t see David anywhere. She wondered if he’d already gone up to the nursery to wait for her. Had Iris given him the key? she wondered.
Slipping from the ballroom, Bradlee made her way down the long corridor to the entrance hall and the curving front staircase. She could have used the one in the ballroom, but then someone might have seen her and questioned her departure. Or worse, followed her.
But she encountered no one on the front stairs or in the maze of hallways leading to the nursery. One of the double doors was ajar when she arrived, and Bradlee thought that David must somehow have left the ballroom without her noticing and gotten here first.
She started to call out his name, but then paused with her hand on the handle o
f the door. What if it wasn’t David inside that room?
A shiver raced up her spine. Maybe whoever had been in the nursery with a flashlight the other night was in there again tonight. Or maybe that person had left the door unlocked. Maybe the nursery was empty.
Bradlee stood just outside the door, listening intently to the darkness within. She could hear nothing, and with a tentative motion, pulled the door open wider.
The room was pitch-black inside. Bradlee felt for a light switch, but when she flicked it, nothing happened. Maybe that was why someone had been using a flashlight the other night, she decided. The lights were out in here. The whole thing could have been perfectly innocent. No reason in the world for her to be frightened to go inside the nursery.
Still, she held back. It wouldn’t hurt to wait for David. He would be here any minute, and he would be the first to scold her for taking unnecessary chances.
Just as she started to back out of the room, Bradlee caught a very slight movement out of the corner of her eye. Her heart jumped to her throat. Had it been her imagination, or was someone in the room?
Bradlee whirled toward the door, but as she did so, she tripped over something lying on the floor. With a grunt of pain, she landed heavily on her right hip. Almost instantly a hand closed over her face. A cloth was shoved against her mouth and nose, and before Bradlee had time to struggle, blackness overcame her.
Can’t breathe! a voice screamed inside her. Can’t breathe! Can’t breathe!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Just as David was about to slip away from the crowd and go in search of Bradlee, someone touched his shoulder from behind and a feminine voice, deep and husky, whispered in his ear, “Surprise!”
He turned to stare in shock at Rachel Hollingsworth. Her dark hair was swept back as usual, and her sultry gray eyes sparkled with excitement. She wore a strapless red gown that would and did turn heads, and as David stared down at her, she laughed delightedly.
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