The Renegade (The Moorehouse Legacy #3)(23)

He was still hard as nails, radiating a kind of male power that was inherently sensual and somewhat dangerous. But the idea that he had a vulnerability made him appealing as well as sexy.

When he shifted in his seat, she realized she was staring. Seriously staring.

She looked down at her plate.

“Reese and I got along,” he murmured, “because he understood how I am. He liked all the attention. I couldn’t stand the reporters, the fans. The parties. We worked. Together…we worked.”

Cass felt an odd stirring in her chest. The parties.

She’d been well aware of how much Reese had liked the parties.

That was how she’d first learned for sure that he was cheating. He’d called her from one in Sydney, Australia. She’d heard the chatting and the music in the background and he’d reassured her it was just another celebration after a successful race. Right after they’d said goodbye and hung up, her phone had rung again. She’d answered it, and before she got to hello, she’d heard him whisper huskily, Meet me upstairs in ten minutes. You know my room. Then the phone had gone dead.

He’d never realized he’d hit Redial instead of whatever number he’d programmed into his cell.

Right after the incident, she’d thought about confronting him, and had agonized over it. But in the end she’d let it go. The status quo had somehow seemed more important than her anger.

Tonight, though, she wished she had put it all out in the open. Preserving the peace and the stability of her life had seemed so important back then. Except now, after the months of chaos following his death, she wondered why she’d protected the lie. An illusion of calm was in fact no peace at all.

The sound of wine clucking into a glass brought her back to the present. Alex put the bottle down and stared at what he had poured.

“You must miss him,” she said.

Alex rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. I do. He was my partner and my friend.”

“I thought you would come to the funeral. When you didn’t, that’s how I knew you were really injured.”

“I just couldn’t be there. I heard it was a beautiful service.”

“It was. He would have liked it. All the people. The speeches. He was loved by so many. I can’t tell you the number of letters I got from all over the world. He seemed to have friends everywhere.”

There was a long silence. Then Alex asked, “How are you getting along without him?”

Cass pushed a piece of chicken around her plate. “Okay. The adjustment is slow.”

Alex looked at her strangely.

“Is that the wrong answer?” she murmured.

“No.” His navy blue eyes narrowed and he considered her with the full force of his intellect. Which made her feel like she was under a spotlight. “I guess I just expected something different.”

“The my-life-is-over response?” she said sadly.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Cass put her fork down and moved her plate away. “Reese meant a lot to me. So of course I miss him.”

But her life was not over, and somehow that felt like a betrayal, almost equal to his with the other women.

“You know,” Alex said, “he used to talk about you all the time. On the boats. When the work was done and the crew was sacking out, he would sit in the cockpit with me and talk about you.”

“Really?”

“Why are you surprised?”

Because if he’d really loved me, he wouldn’t have needed the other women, she thought.

God, why was she just figuring this out now, when he was gone?

Then again maybe it did make some sense. Reese had been like a Klieg light, brilliant, distracting, gathering fanfare around him. Between keeping up with him and working, she’d had little time for reflection. And maybe she’d liked that.

“He used to talk about you, too,” Cass said. “He used to tell me about all the things you did, how you handled things. He respected no one more than he did you, Alex. He used to say you were the brother he never had, the son he didn’t get and the father he lost too soon.”

She glanced up. Alex seemed to have retreated into himself, tension suffusing his face, darkening it.

“I am none of those things,” he muttered.

“To him you were. And I have to say, I always felt badly for his son, Daniel, because of it.”

“How old is D.C. now?”

“He’s almost thirty. He’s inherited the businesses and I think he’s going to do very well. Sean’s going out of his way to help him. The three of us had dinner before I came here and it was clear how much D.C. is capable of absorbing. He’s very smart.”

Alex drained his wineglass and nodded at her plate. “Looks like you’re finished.”

“What—oh, with the food. Yes, I think I am.”

Alex pushed back his chair and got to his feet. When he started to clean up, she said, “I’ll get all this. Don’t worry about it.”

He nodded and flipped open his cell phone. A moment later he said, “Hey, man. Got time for a pickup? Yeah? Thanks.”

While she let the dog in and cleared the table, Alex disappeared into the laundry room. Ten minutes later, he came out with a duffel bag. His timing was perfect. A pair of headlights swung around the drive.

“When’s Libby getting home?” he asked.