Dare

by Glenna Sinclair

  The grounds of Simon's English estate were even more lavish than his lands in Connecticut. There, Cara had mistaken them for open, unclaimed fields—here, his property was well-manicured and tightly controlled by phantom gardeners, none of which she saw on their stroll but who she had to assume were still employed there all the same. The hedges were kept neatly clipped, the grass watered, the fountains clean of too much algae and stocked full of lazily swimming fish.

  She still considered it a little gloomy. This estate and the one back in New England had that quality in common.

  "Does it have a name?" she inquired.

  "Does what have a name?" Simon seemed preoccupied, but considering what he had just been through, Cara thought she could excuse it… if only she knew what it was that Simon had just been through.

  "Don't all these old English estates have names? Like 'Broadmoor' and 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Faulty Towers'?"

  "You can name it, if you like." They paused to study another fountain, one that she was sure Simon had stopped in front of numerous times while he had lived there, but he assessed it now as if he had never seen it before. Cara dropped down to sit on the side of the pool and stroked her hand across the top of the water. The fat carp rose up from the bottom instantly to see what the commotion was.

  "Carp Palace," she suggested. Simon made a face as he seated himself beside her. She was pleased with her name, if only because it had succeeded in shaking him out of his stupor.

  "I take it back. Never name anything," he said solemnly.

  "What did the Pembrooks say?" she asked now that he had come back to her. "Or would you rather not tell me? I'm okay, you know, not knowing. I'm here for only one reason, and that's to investigate Melinda's death with the information you're able to provide me. I'll leave it to you to vanquish the other demons of your past."

  "They didn't say a lot." Simon studied their reflections upon the water. "But our conversation was… different. In tone. It felt like I was speaking to them directly for the first time, and not through some proxy in the form of a lawyer. They seem more confused by the proceedings than I am. It didn't feel right to inform them that they are the cause of all this legal drama they seem to dislike."

  "Probably a good move not saying anything," Cara agreed. "Even though I have to agree that you're right. If they want closure for themselves and for their son, keeping the wound open this way seems counterintuitive. "

  "I'm not sure what it is they want." Simon looked thoughtful again. He had changed out of his suit and into a cream-colored cardigan and khakis. Cara couldn't decide which look of his she preferred: the casual, borderline neglectful Simon she remembered from their first meeting, or the Simon who dressed like the sharp incarnation of his fortune. His current look seemed like a good balance between the two. "It's hard to know, when they don't appear to know it themselves. Again, I feel like any suggestion on my part would be a gross overstep. They have to be allowed to grieve, and to decide for themselves what the best balm may be."

  "You have rights, too," Cara said. "You're suffering, even if it isn't in the same way that they are. Simon, I've seen it."

  "Maybe I deserve to," he concluded. "I'm alive, and their son isn't, Cara."

  She didn't know what there was she could say to this, so she simply took his hands in hers to keep him from fidgeting with them. There was so much about the circumstances leading up the Simon's accident that she still didn't understand. For instance, had it ever been ruled that he himself had caused the accident? The other driver had been drunk as well, so it sounded like both of them were equally culpable. But Simon said he hadn't had that much to drink; he was fuzzy on the other details of him leaving the party, but of that he seemed certain.

  Still, the Simon Banning she had known that first week at the mansion certainly hadn't shied away from alcohol. Cara had been of the impression that he was self-medicating in a doomed attempt to keep his mind off the accident. So had it all started that night, or had it come about only after Stetson Pembrook was dead?

  She had too many questions, and none of the answers contributed to her own case she was supposed to be solving. Cara sighed. "Out of curiosity, have you told Gerald what I'm here for? He doesn't speak to me much unless spoken to, so I wasn't sure if he knew the circumstances, or if you even wanted him to know."

  "He is aware that we are dating," Simon replied. Cara froze instantly at the word, and the billionaire's eyes widened. He tried to retract his hand as if it was his statement, but she gripped onto it firmly. No way she was letting him go after that.

  "Excuse me, but could you repeat that? He's aware of what?"

  "I, ah… he's under the impression that we are together as a couple." Simon looked desperately unhappy as he said this; all the while, Cara's blood was singing in her veins.

  Dating.Couple.All words that she herself had been avoiding. She hadn't wanted to put a label on what she and Simon shared. As intimately as they knew each other now, it felt as if they had skipped most of the traditional steps, and revisiting them now felt as terrifying as if this was their first date together.

  "I've made you angry," the Englishman guessed. "I'll be sure to correct his understanding of our relationship as soon as we are back at the house." At a momentary loss for words, Cara could only shake her head.

  "No, Simon. I… it's fine the way it is." Her tongue felt like a lead weight between her teeth, and Cara swallowed. It wasn't like her to get sentimental about things like this. What was the matter with her?

  Simon, of course, had to ruin her intense moment of self-reflection by raising his eyebrows and beleaguering the point. "So I should tell him we are dating?"

  "I thought you said he was already of that impression." Cara lowered her face and tried to conceal some of her mounting frustration. Her efforts were for nothing with Simon sitting so close, and knowing her temper as well as he did. "Wait, was that a trick?" she demanded. "Were you trying to figure out where I stood on the issue without having to take any risks yourself?"

  "I plead the fifth," he replied. "Isn't that what you Americans do when your back is against the proverbial wall?"

  "Well, Mr. Banning, you can't plead the fifth. We're in England."

  "And God save the Queen," Simon said solemnly. "But in all seriousness Cara, I want you to forget about Gerald for a minute." The hand that she had pulled into her lap squeezed hers, and Cara felt her heart quickening.

  "Yes, Simon?" she asked.

  "I want you to forget all about broken bones and murders and focus on what I'm about to tell you," he continued on blithely.

  "Yes, Simon?" she asked again less patiently.

  "And just know that I… I want to say I'm falling in love with you, Cara. But it would be a lie if I did." Simon forked a hand through his hair. "Because I knew when you left me back at the hospital that I was already in love with you."

  His words stunned Cara to her core. She hadn't been aware of this, any of this. She had known, deep down, that her own feelings for Simon were more than fleeting, but to hear the confession from his own lips…

  His blue eyes sought hers, and she could see that expressing his feelings had been incredibly difficult for him. But there was nothing to hide now, and he didn't cast his eyes away from her a second time. He was expecting a response.

  "I'm not sure I'm any good at this sort of thing," Cara mentioned. "I've never, ah… no one has ever said something like this to me before." She blushed profusely. Where was her composure, her effortless American cool? Maybe she had left it behind her on a foreign shore. "But I think I came to the same conclusion while I was away from you, Simon. As much as I wanted to hate you, I couldn't. You were all I thought about. And all I could think was if I ever saw you again, I would find a way to tell you that I…"

  She didn't know why she struggled to say the words now. It had been harder and harder to keep from letting them slip in recent days. Maybe it was the way he looked at her, without an impatient or judgmental line in his handsome, open
face.

  She couldn't stand having that face so close to her and not doing anything about it. Cara reached over to take him in her hands, pressing her palms against the clean angles of his jaw. Simon leaned instinctively, and Cara drew him down to her to press a kiss to his lips. When she pulled back, she had found the words again.

  "I love you."

  The Englishman leaned in again to capture the words in his mouth. Cara settled her hands on his shoulders as she found herself tilted backward; she felt a strong hand cupping the small of her back, keeping her from falling as he stabilized them both against the fountain with his hand. She didn't know why she did it, but she gave a wild laugh at the sudden rush of exhilaration she felt. She was being kissed by a man who loved her, by a man who had just exacted a similar confession from her, and she had never felt so beautifully free. She threw her arms around his neck and arched her back, pushing herself against him as he tasted the truth of her words for himself.

  They kissed for a long time, languid in their activity, enjoying the feeling of each and the crisp English air. They parted eventually, and Cara's lips buzzed and tingled as if they had gone numb. She raised curious fingers to them as Simon kissed the corner of her mouth and beyond, trailing his affection all along her cheek and down the curve of her neck.

  "Simon, when will you see the Pembrooks again?" Cara inquired. The billionaire planted a last, firm brand to her collarbone before glancing off across his property.

  "I'm not sure. When we meet with each other in the law office again, I suppose."

  "Why don't you reach out to them?" Cara suggested. "The same way they're reaching out to you now. No matter what the judge decides, it might benefit the three of you to keep meeting and getting to know one another. At the end of the day, I can't help but think they really do understand that you tried to save their son. Everyone made mistakes that night, and now all that there is left to do is attempt to pick up the pieces with the help of the people who still remain."

  "How would you suggest that I reach out to them?" Simon inquired. She looked thoughtful for a long moment.

  "Well, why not throw them a party?"

  CHAPTER 25

  The idea of a "party", as both the college student and the billionaire understood it, was scratched in favor of a sort of memorial gathering for Stetson Pembrook. Cara stressed the importance of keeping it as light as possible, more of a celebration of the boy's life than a eulogy. "This is going to work," she emphasized, "because deep down, I don't think anyone actually thinks you're responsible for his death except for you."

  "What is that supposed to mean?" the man inquired. Cara crossed her arms.

  "It means exactly what I said. But I don't have any hope of convincing you of the fact."

  "Yes, probably because me being responsible for the death of their son is the entire basis of their lawsuit." His tone was wry, but Cara knew the depth of the pain that still lurked behind it. She could only hope that one day very soon, he would be able to forgive himself and move on.

  As Simon prepared to follow through with arranging the event at an expensive hotel in London, Cara returned to her research into Melinda's death. She still didn't have much to go off of other than a gut feeling, and that was one that not even the people who had investigated her suicide seemed to share. She was able to draw conclusions from various statistics online—the very slim likelihood that someone would choose suicide by poison, for example—but there was just too little she still knew about what had been found at the scene of the crime. Simon was pulling strings to try and grant her as much access as he could, but even his wealth and influence could only extend so far. That, and she could tell already that the Connecticut police department located in that county weren't exactly the most organized in their procedures.

  She hit a wall in her research in the first hour after they had parted ways. Cara sat hunched over the downstairs dining room table, pulling at her hair and scrubbing her face in frustration. Simon was counting on her to come up with something—he was counting on her to find justice for a woman that had intended all along to throw him under the bus. He believed in her skills as a journalist in a way that Cara herself did not, and she couldn't afford to disappoint him.

  But she was going to go crazy if she kept at it now, so she wandered up the grand staircase to the east wing to find him. Simon had wanted to share quarters officially, but something was still holding Cara back—maybe it was Gerald's continued presence, or the scarce presence of the other servants in the mansion, that made her feel (uncharacteristically) as if propriety must be upheld. Maybe it was just the old English feel of the mansion getting to her.

  They had settled for rooms right next door to each other, with a shared bathroom space that also granted them access to each other's beds. A part of Cara enjoyed the thrill of sneaking between rooms at night, even though she knew it was silly and everyone probably saw right through them.

  She found Simon in his own room. His shirt was off, and the front of his pants were undone, and there were shed articles of clothing everywhere. A line of deflated black suits were arranged on his bed. She had to assume by the state of his hair that he had been vigorously going through his wardrobe options for the past hour.

  "It's on," he said without looking up from a tangled snake's nest of ties on his desk. "I have spoken with the Pembrooks, and the memorial will be held next week at the Grand Stanley hotel in upper London. They've already had the funeral and the wake, of course, officially, but the idea of a casual affair delighted them."

  "So what's the problem?" Cara crossed her arms and leaned in the doorway. Clearly there was a problem if Simon was trying to decide on an outfit a week in advance. He had never struck her as the type to put much thought into his appearance; he was lucky to be athletically built and effortlessly handsome already, and to be surrounded by servants who put more stock into their master's image than he did.

  The billionaire sighed gustily. "I'm not nervous about the Pembrooks, if that's what you're wondering. I think you were right to encourage me to keep in contact with them despite everything. It's just… I haven't been out in London society in a while, Cara. I'm out of practice with how to go about it."

  "Don't tell me you actually miss being a hermit?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. Then she remembered the horde of reporters who had met their arrival on the tarmac, and realized that being a shut-in probably wasn't such an unattractive idea in Simon's world.

  "I do, actually." Simon pulled a tie from the tangle, and Cara made a face at the paisley pattern. He promptly discarded it for another option. "Most of my days at the mansion were spent in excruciating boredom. But all of that changed once you came around. Don't you miss it?"

  "Yes," Cara said automatically. It felt like exposing a secret, but she had just told the man earlier in the garden that she loved him—admitting that she had loved their time together didn't seem like such a stretch. "But that reminds me of something else I've been thinking of, Simon. You realize that if we do wind up being able to prove that Melinda was murdered, you would probably be one of the prime suspects."

  Simon lowered himself down on the edge of his bed. "How so?"

  "Well, you found out she was threatening your privacy, for one thing," Cara mentioned. "And you told me that she had been employed under you for a very long time. That's a huge betrayal of your trust that a jury isn't going to easily overlook. You definitely have motive."

  "They'll think it a crime of passion, you mean?" Simon asked. Cara pulled a face at the awful mental image his words conjured, but nodded all the same. "I see. Well, I'll just have to risk looking like a murderer in both our countries, then." He rose to start folding his things, and Cara moved to the bed to help him. "I have to get to the bottom of it, Cara. Whatever she may have done, or intended to do, Melinda didn't deserve what became of her. I was her employer, and I feel personally responsible that it happened under my roof."

  "I know." Cara reached up to cup his face, and Simon stopped foldin
g his clothes. She kept the connection going until someone cleared their throat in the doorway behind them; evidently Gerald wanted a word with his master, so Cara retracted her hand and strolled into the next room to finish unpacking her things.

  #

  She was in the room with Melinda's body.

  Cara stared in horror at the lackadaisical corpse laid out on the floor. Melinda looked thinner in death, and her skin was paper-white; her limbs were splayed at awkward angles, but there was no way the owner of said limbs was feeling any discomfort at this point.

  Cara was a serious journalism major. She had always suspected that she might wind up in this situation one day, but she had never expected that her first reaction would be to open her mouth and scream.

  No sound came out. She was paralyzed, as voiceless as the dead woman on the floor. She wanted to cry with wordless horror, but she also wanted to shout the most pertinent question of all: who did this to you?

  There was powdered residue covering everything like snow. As Cara revolved to take in the state of the room, she realized she couldn't move without stepping in it. This was evidence, she realized—she had to remain where she was or risk contaminating it. Her ability to find the identity of Melinda's murderer depended on it.

  But Melinda wasn't dead, she realized in sudden horror. The body on the floor was stirring, spindly white limbs pushing to lift itself up without any living blood to power its muscles. And then Cara really did scream.

  She bolted upright in bed and flung the covers off her. She hurdled into the next room as if she thought Melinda's body had been bedded down beside her. Her heart was racing; she thought it would burst. It was running an emotional marathon the rest of her had never been trained for.

  Simon was halfway out of bed already; she had intended to join him in his room for the night, but she had fallen asleep while researching, and he hadn't come to disturb her. Now, the Englishman wore a bloodless expression that told her he was extremely disturbed. Cara realized the truth: when she had screamed in her dream, she must have screamed out loud for the whole house to hear.