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She stared at him, her dark gaze brimming with frustration. “No way—”
He cut her off gently. “I have to know the children are safe. You have to take care of them for me—for us—while I put my past to rest.”
Ellie must’ve sensed her mother’s tension for the infant started to fuss. He was a cad to be so relieved at being saved by a baby’s distress. Ellie, uncharacteristically, wanted no part of being soothed. Her fussing escalated to crying outright and soon to screaming. Not appreciating mommy’s stress, apparently.
Laura spared him a look that promised this conversation was not over as she left to find Lisbet.
The phone rang again. He glanced at the caller ID and jolted. William Ward. How had his former attorney found this phone number, and furthermore, why on earth was he calling it? Nick picked up the receiver quickly lest Laura take the call.
“Good morning, William.”
“Nikolas. We need to talk.”
“Then speak.”
“This is confidential. Needs to be face-to-face.”
Nick sighed. “In case you haven’t seen the news this morning, I’m a little busy at the moment.” Not to mention he had serious damage control to do with Laura. He knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t about to let him deal with this mess on his own.
The lawyer huffed and then said heavily, “I’ve been doing some digging about you. I’ve found something. It’s bad.”
Nick froze. “What is it?”
“I’m at my beach house on the Cape. Get here as fast as you can.”
“I can’t just drop everything here and come see you!” Nick exploded. “The AbaCo trial is about to begin. And furthermore, my old life is over. Finished. I’m not that person anymore.”
“Based on what’s sitting on my desk in front of me, your old life is about to come after you whether you like it or not.”
“I won’t let my past touch my new life,” Nick bit out sharply. He turned to pace and stopped in his tracks. Laura. She was standing in the doorway, the color draining from her face as he watched.
“I’ve got to go,” Nick snapped.
William said forcefully, “I’m not kidding. You need to come up here—”
He hung up on the lawyer.
“What’s up?” Laura asked. Her cool voice sounded brittle, like she was barely hanging on to self-control.
“My past,” he bit out. “I don’t know.” He shoved a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t remember any of it.”
“You knew your real name. It would’ve taken you two minutes on the internet to find out all about yourself, and maybe even what’s got you all freaked out.”
How was he supposed to explain his dead certainty that he had to leave his past alone? To stay far, far away from anything having to do with Nikolas Spiros? It would sound like a lame excuse to her. Hell, maybe it was a lame excuse.
Laura’s voice fell, dropping into a hurt hush that was a hundred times more painful than if she’d yelled at him. “I thought you loved me.”
He didn’t try to stop her as she whirled and ran from the room. He’d been worse than a fool to avoid his past, and she was right to be furious with him. Every accusation she’d thrown at him was less awful than the ones he was flinging at himself right now. It didn’t even make things better that he was dying inside. She was everything to him, and he’d hurt her terribly. He’d rather endure torture than cause her an ounce of pain. But he’d pretty well blown that. He’d blown everything.
Now what was he supposed to do? How was he ever going to make this better?
Swearing long and hard at himself, he headed upstairs to Adam’s room. The child was still asleep, which was just as well. He didn’t think he’d have the strength to say goodbye to his son if Adam were awake. Stroking the dark, silky hair so like his own gently, he murmured, “I love you more than life. Never doubt that. Take care of your mother for me. And be brave.”
He turned and left quickly before he could weaken. He had to protect them all. No matter the cost to himself. Feeling every bit of the past six years in his bones, an ache that had never quite gone away, he headed downstairs. Laura and the kids had kept it at bay with their love and laughter, but all of a sudden, the withheld agony was back.
“Are you going out, Mr. Cass?” Marta asked in surprise. “Breakfast will be ready soon.”
He rasped, “I won’t be taking breakfast today. And you’d better send Laura’s up to her office. I suspect she’s going to be busy in there for a while.”
By noon, with her connections she’d probably know more about Nick Cass than he did. And she would definitely know everything there was to know about Nikolas Spiros. Every last ugly, selfish, tawdry detail.
He’d lost her. The lies had finally caught up with him. But, Lord, the cost of it. His eyes hot and his throat painfully tight, he stepped out of the house and drove away from the best things that had ever happened to him. He’d ruined it all. Everything that was good and right about his life retreated in the rearview mirror as he pulled out of the estate. If it was the last thing he ever did, he’d make this mess right. Put his family back together.
He thought he’d known hell before in a box. Hah! That had been a walk in a park compared to the hell embracing him now. A hell of his own making.
* * *
Laura was hanging on by a thread. The phone wouldn’t quit ringing, and she was developing a horrendous headache. How on earth had she never connected Nick to Nikolas Spiros? She should have recognized him in Paris, and sometime in the past year she definitely should have searched for disappearances of men matching Nick’s description six years ago. But no. He hadn’t wanted to know, and she’d gone along with his plan to bury their heads in the sand and avoid facing whatever demons lurked in his past. She’d willfully ignored the signs that Nick was not what he appeared to be, had been so caught up in her own selfish bliss that she hadn’t asked any of the obvious questions.
Why didn’t he have any other family or friends he wanted to let know he was alive and free? Why was he so at ease living in the luxurious world she inhabited? Why did he flatly refuse to talk about his past prior to his memory loss? And the granddaddy of them all—why was he kidnapped and thrown into a box for five years? Who were his enemies, and why did they bear him so much malice that they chose to make him suffer rather than simply kill him?
At lunchtime, Lisbet apologetically poked her head into Laura’s office. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but Adam is hysterical and really needs to be with you. I’ve tried everything I know to calm him, but he’s panicked that something bad has happened to you and his father. Nothing will do but for him to see you.”
Laura stood up quickly. The needs of her children would always come first over her work … even if that work was investigating their father. She hurried to the playroom, where Adam was curled up in a sobbing ball in the corner, hugging the stuffed elephant that had been his special toy forever.
Laura stroked his back gently. “Hey, kiddo. What’s the matter?”
The child flung himself at her, wrapping his arms around her neck and squeezing her tightly enough that it was a little hard to breathe. Not that she complained. She hugged his shaking body. “Everything’s okay,” she soothed him, rocking back and forth.
“Daddy’s gone, and the bad man got him!”
“Daddy’s not gone. And the bad man definitely didn’t get him,” Laura declared.
Lisbet cleared her throat. “Begging your pardon, but Mr. Cass left the house before breakfast.”
Laura’s entire being clenched in shock. He’d left? Where had he gone? And for how long? She shoved back her panic, focusing for the moment on her son. “Adam, Daddy has some business to take care of. It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. He told me to take care of you for him. And to be brave. He wouldn’t say that if he was coming back. He went to fight the bad man.”
“Well, honey, even if he did, Daddy will win. It’ll be okay.”
“No, it won’t!” Adam wailed.
“Do you need me to go help Daddy?”
Adam lifted his red, wet gaze to hers. “Can you do that?”
“Sure. I’m pretty ferocious, you know.”
“Daddy says you’re like a mama bear with cubs,” Adam replied dryly, his humor already so much like his father’s.
A burning knife twisted in her gut. She replied stoutly, “He’s right. Grrrr.”
Adam smiled reluctantly. But he wasn’t about to be diverted so easily. “You won’t let the bad man get you, too?”
“Never.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. Cross my heart, hope to die, alligator in my eye.”
“Alligator in your—” Adam giggled. “That’s silly.”
“Made you laugh, didn’t it?”
“Yes.” He waxed thoughtful once more. Impossible to distract, he was. Just like both of his parents on that score. “Where do you think the bad man is?”
“Hmm. I don’t know. But I’m really, really good at finding people. I found Daddy before, didn’t I? I’ll find the bad man, and I’ll find Daddy, again. I’d never let anything happen to anyone in our family. I’m a mama bear, and you and Ellie are my cubs. Don’t you ever forget that, okay?”
Adam nodded against her neck.
She closed her eyes and prayed for strength. She had to find Nick. Figure out what had gone so wrong so fast. And somehow, some way, put it right. Her children needed their father.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_27d82fb5-8b38-5c06-87dc-c166d91c270e)
Laura was startled when Marta announced that Tatum Carter was at the house and waiting in the library to speak with her. Since when did lawyers make house calls? He must be panicked over Nick’s abrupt disappearance yesterday. Join the club.
She left her computer, which had been giving up a treasure trove of information on one Nikolas Spiros, and walked down the hall to the library. “Tatum. This is a pleasant surprise. What can I do for you today?”
“Tell me where Nick is. The feds are going to have my head on a platter if I lose their star witness for them. The trial starts next week.”
She replied quietly, “If I knew where he was, do you think I’d be standing here talking to you?”
“What the hell’s going on with him, Laura?”
She sighed. “I think we all underestimated the trauma he’s suffering from. And I think we all ignored the possible problems his memory loss could be concealing.”
“What’s your gut feel about him? Is he stable enough to put on a witness stand? If AbaCo skates on this kidnapping charge, it’ll be like letting Al Capone get off on the tax evasion charges that finally landed him in jail where he belonged.”
She wasn’t concerned about Nick’s stability as much as she was about the state of his heart. Had he already abandoned her and the kids and returned to his old life? Goodness knew, Nikolas Spiros had lived a life of glamorous excess that went well beyond even her wealth to provide.
She spoke with a conviction she was far from feeling. “If Nick goes on the witness stand, he’ll do what he has to do to put away his captors.” Even if it messes up his personal life? Costs him the Spiros fortune? She’d like to think he was that honorable, but at this point, she had no way of knowing.
“Where is he, Laura? What’s your best guess?”
“My best guess—” her best hope “—is that he’s gone away to deal with the fallout of his past and that he’ll be back when it’s resolved.”
“How long is that going to take? He’s got about a week to get his ducks in line.”
She shrugged. If only Nick had confided in her. Had let her help him. She had enormous resources, official and unofficial, at her fingertips with which to help him. She understood his impulse to protect her and the kids, to keep his new life far away from his old one. But she was still as frustrated as all get out at her current helplessness. If only she knew where he was!
“Tatum, if you were a wealthy man who’s been out of touch with his life for a while, where would you go to pick up the threads?”
“Easy. My stock broker and my lawyer.”
She nodded. “How do I go about finding out who Nick’s—Nikolas’s—personal attorney was six years ago?”
Tatum frowned. “Client lists are confidential. But I could make a few phone calls. Maybe find out something off the record. Where was Nick living prior to his kidnapping?”
“His shipping empire was headquartered in Athens and had offices all around the world.” Including Paris. “His North American headquarters was in Boston.”
Tatum called an attorney buddy of his from law school who practiced in Boston. That guy didn’t know anything, but referred Tatum to someone else. As the lawyer placed a second call, she reflected on the enormous power of good-old-boy networks.
The second lawyer knew something. She could tell by the way Tatum’s face lit up as he listened intently.
“Ward, MacIntosh and Howe,” Tatum announced as he disconnected the call. “Want me to contact them and see if Nick’s been in their offices recently?”
“Sure.”
If Nick had been to visit his lawyer, he might still be in the Boston area. During his incarceration, his shipping company had been sold out from under him, and he might very well be trying to reverse that sale. If not that, Nick was probably getting funds released into his hands to finance whatever he planned to do next. She had an alert set on their joint bank accounts to notify her the second Nick accessed any of them, but so far, he hadn’t. He was welcome to whatever he needed or wanted from her accounts.
Funny how love and family made something like money seem so trivial. Not that she’d ever been that hung up on wealth. She just wanted to have enough to do what she wanted to without having to worry about it. Case in point: It had been handy over the past five years to finance her own investigations as she helped women find the fathers of their children. Most of her clients had been in desperate financial straits and couldn’t have paid her a dime even if they’d known who she was.
Tatum was on hold with Nick’s law firm and muttering to himself as he waited. “… fly up to Boston and try to contact him before the federal prosecutors get wind of the fact that he’s fled.”
“I don’t think he’s fled,” she responded. “I think he’s taking care of personal business.”
“Yeah, well, he’d better take care of it fast—” He broke off and spoke into the phone. “This is Tatum Carter of Carter and Associates in Fairfax, Virginia. I represent Nick Cass—Nikolas Spiros—in an upcoming trial against the people who allegedly kidnapped him. I need to speak with Nick’s attorney at your firm.”
Laura frowned as Carter visibly paled.
“I’m so sorry,” he stammered. “I’ll be in touch in a few days. Of course. My sympathies.”
Alarmed, Laura blurted the second he hung up, “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Nick’s lawyer is dead. Someone broke into the guy’s house last night. The police think William Ward startled the intruder and was murdered.”
Warning bells clanged wildly in Laura’s head. Home robbery, her foot. What were the odds that someone randomly broke into the lawyer’s house the day after his kidnapped billionaire client surfaced? Ohmigosh. Nick. How much danger was he in? Her gut yelled that he was the prime target on the hit list.
“I have to go, Carter. I’ll be in touch.” She raced out of the room and upstairs to pack. Somewhere in the next ten frantic minutes, she ordered up an emergency corporate jet to fly her to Boston ASAP.
Ellie squawked over the baby monitor, startling Laura out of her panicked packing. The baby. What was she going to do about her daughter? The infant nursed exclusively, and after her recent bout of jaundice, Laura was loathe to shift Ellie over to formula. She didn’t have enough pumped milk in the freezer to be gone for several days.
Laura closed her eyes in frustration. Mother or frantic lover? How was she supposed to choose between the two? With a sigh, she headed for the nursery to feed the baby. Afterward, she quickly packed a bag for Ellie as well.
She popped into the playroom to say goodbye to Adam. “Hey, kiddo.”
He flung himself at her and she laughed as he planted a sticky kiss on her cheek. “I’m off to go rescue Daddy. Call me whenever you want to, okay?”
