Shadow Lover (27 page)

Maybe
Warren
wasn't Carolyn's father at all. But Alex wasn't putting any money on that possibility.
Warren
was the least paternal, least sentimental creature he'd ever met. He was willing to dupe his older sister on her deathbed in order to get his hands on more of her money. He probably wouldn't think twice about abandoning a daughter.

It was one too many shocks reeling through his mind, and Alex rose abruptly, silently, unwilling to face either woman with their secrets in his soul. He needed that drink after all, even if he had to face Aunt Patsy and Uncle Warren to get it. He needed to get royally loaded, as drunk as he hadn't been in more years than he could remember.

* * *

"How's your mother, dear boy?"
Warren
greeted him affably, the picture of expansive bonhomie.

"Dying," Alex said shortly, pouring himself a tall glass of straight scotch.

Warren
winced. "We know that, Alex."

"Then why ask?" Alex took his drink and moved over to the French doors, turning his back on his loving family.

"In this family we believe in polite conversation, darling," Tessa purred, coming up behind him. She smelled of Poison, a remarkably apt perfume that had always turned his stomach, and she slid her hand up his arm.

"I've been on my own for too long," he said, taking a stiff drink of the whiskey. "My values have shifted."

"Values?" Patsy echoed with a slightly high-pitched laugh. "What are those?" She turned her over-bright eyes towards her son. "Fix me another drink, would you,
Georgie
?"

"Don't call me
Georgie
," George
snapped,
his eyes pale and watchful.

"We're all getting a bit testy," Tessa murmured in Alex's ear. "Why don't you and I go someplace where we can be alone?"

He turned to look at her with an assessing gaze. "Is that a come-on, Tessa?"

She smiled a catlike smile. "Are you feeling queasy because we're cousins? Part of your 'values'? Don't worry about it, darling. Marriage between first cousins is perfectly legal in this state."

"I'm not planning to marry you, Tessa," he drawled. "Actually I had other things in mind as well," she purred.

He considered it. For a long, lazy moment he looked down into her pampered, perfect face, down her elegant model's body, and wondered whether he could fuck Carolyn out of his system by screwing her first cousin.

He didn't think so.

He could see the resemblance between the two of them, of course, when he'd never noticed it before. They had the same long, elegant body, though Tessa was sporting a heroin-chic skinniness that was hardly conducive to lust. The same bone structure, though Tessa's mouth was thinner despite her collagen-puffed lips, less generous; and her eyes held an opaque glitter unlike Carolyn's eyes, which reflected her healthy, clear emotions.

No, he didn't want her. He didn't want any of them, or their money, or their lies. He wanted the truth, and then he wanted to get the hell out of there and never look back.

And he could only hope Carolyn would manage to escape as well.

He put his hand over Tessa's thin one and carefully removed it from his arm. "Thanks, but no thanks, Tessa," he said. "I'm not in the mood for recreational sex."

"Then what are you in the mood for?"

"Getting drunk."

"That never solved anything, Alex,"
Warren
intoned. "I know you're grieving the imminent loss of your mother, and feeling tremendous guilt over the long separation between the two of you, but I assure you—"

"Go to hell, Uncle Waldo."

Warren
's carefully groomed, artificially tanned face paled in sudden shock. "I'd forgotten you used to call me that," he said in a strangled voice. "I hadn't thought of that in over twenty years."

It had been a stupid, rebellious move on Alex's part, and he should have known better. "It suits you," he said. He grabbed the bottle of
Glenlivet
and another glass from the tray and headed for the door. "If you'll all excuse me, I think I'll join my cousin in a deathwatch."

"Your cousin? Which one do you mean?" George demanded. Patsy was sitting in the corner, humming to herself, glassy-eyed and vague, and
Warren
was still staring at him in horrified shock.

"Carolyn," Alex answered. "Dear, sweet, loyal Cousin Carolyn."

"She's not our cousin, Alex," Tessa said sharply.

"Isn't she?" He glanced at Warren, who looked as if he was ready to vomit. "Maybe you're in for a few surprises."

Carolyn stirred sleepily when he walked
in,
opening her eyes to watch him in surprise as he poured her a drink and set it down on the medicine-littered table beside her.

"I figured you'd need this," he said, retaking his seat at the foot of the bed.

She made no move to touch the glass. "I don't think Aunt Sally needs you in here drinking yourself into a stupor," she whispered.

"Aunt Sally wants him here, drunk or sober,"
came
a voice from the bed.

It almost sounded like a voice beyond the grave. Sally didn't open her eyes, didn't move, but she reached out her hand for him.

"Then I'll leave…" Carolyn started for the door, but Alex stopped her before Sally's voice could.

"I need you both," Sally said. She opened her eyes then, and the effort to focus on them seemed to take all her strength.

He wasn't about to release Carolyn so that she could run away. He had no guarantee that her love for Sally would overpower her feelings about him, and he was taking no chances. He led her back to her chair and pushed her down lightly, then put the drink in her hand.

"We're both here, Mom." He hadn't called her that since he'd been a little boy, eschewing it as far too sentimental. Sally's eyes filled with sudden tears.

"Are you my best boy?" she
whispered,
an old litany from his earliest memory, a last attempt at asking forgiveness.

"Always," he replied, leaning over and kissing her cool, papery cheek, granting it.

And he retook his seat at the end of the bed and poured himself another drink.

* * *

He'd learned years ago that he had a real problem in holding his liquor. The problem was, he had an almost endless capacity for it and he never passed out. At three in the morning, with Sally stabilized, he left the room and went in search of a cup of coffee and a shower. At five in the morning he went for a walk in the icy mist. At six in the morning he found Carolyn in the hallway, her narrow shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

He looked past her into the sickroom. Sally lay propped against the pillows, almost smaller than she had been before. He moved quickly to the bed, but Sally looked up at him with calm determination. "Take care of her, Alex," she whispered.

"I don't think she wants me to."

"She wants you. Take her away and let me get some sleep. Please." There was a faint, almost beguiling smile on her face, one he knew too well. He knew what she planned, he knew how she wanted it, and he wasn't going to be the one to stop her.

He kissed her goodbye, very gently, and she smiled up at him. "You take care of her," she said again. "Promise me."

"I will."

He closed the door behind him with silent deliberation. Carolyn looked up, startled, her face streaked with tears, but he didn't waste any time. He simply pulled her into his arms, pressed her face against his shoulder, and held her.

She fought him, so he kissed her. She punched at him, and he simply scooped her up in his arms.

He didn't know where to take her. Carrying her upstairs was too melodramatic; besides, she was likely to scream the house down. There were no beds downstairs except for Sally's, and he doubted if anyone had made up the folding sofa in the library. It didn't matter. He carried her in there, dumped her in an overstuffed chair and proceeded to jam chairs under the various doorways.

"What do you think you're doing?" The words were barely audible, muffled in tears and outrage, and he ignored them as he pulled out the sofa. The bottom sheet was still on the mattress, but he had no idea where the pillows and the covers were. He didn't need them.

He came over to her, and she'd already risen from the chair, prepared for battle. He was calm, predatory as he reached up and began to unbutton her shirt. She slapped at his hands in a vain attempt at stopping him, but he simply ripped the pale silk shirt open.

"I thought you weren't going to touch me until I asked you?" she said in a furious whisper.

"Ask me." He pushed the shirt from her shoulders,
then
reached for the waistband of her jeans.

"Go to hell," she said, and kicked him in the shins. He caught her face in his hands, holding it still, tilting her mouth up to his. "Ask me," he said again, his mouth hovering inches from hers.

She stopped struggling. Her face was wet with tears, she looked lost and broken and so damned sweet.

"For what?" she whispered.

"For anything you want."

"What about the truth?"

"I don't know if you really want it," he said.

He expected her to deny it, to explode in a rage. She surprised him, as she often did. "Maybe you're right. Maybe there are things I don't want to know." She closed her eyes, and her eyelashes were wet with tears. "Kiss me."

He was too startled to move. "What?"

"You said any damned thing I want," she said in a small, tight voice. "I want you to kiss me. I want you to lie in that bed with me and make me forget everything. Forget what a liar you really are, forget that Sally's dying,
forget
that someone tried to kill me. I want to see if you're good enough to distract me."

He slid his hands down to the lacy white bra, covering her small, perfect breasts. "I'm good enough," he said in a low voice.

"Prove it," she said. "Do it."

He looked down at her, at her face full of anguish and need. If he were a good man, a decent man, he would simply lie on the bed and hold her. But he'd never been a good man, his sense of honor was nil, and he needed to lose himself in the sweetness of her body just as much as she needed it.

The room was dark, shadowed, only the early-morning light coming in from the
uncurtained
windows. Her face was shadowed as well, but it didn't seem to matter. They lived in shadows, the two of them, with secrets and lies surrounding them.

But what lay between them was real. And that was all that mattered.

He kissed her then, a slow, deep, claiming kiss, and her fingers dug into his shoulders and she trembled. He'd never made a woman tremble before, but Carolyn was different from all the women he'd had over the years. He was through fighting it—he had too many other things to fight. He could lose himself in her body, in her soul. And he wanted it.

"You ran away the last time," he whispered against her mouth. "Are you going to run away again?"

"No."

"Even though I'm a cheat and a liar and a con man and a thief?"

"Are you?"

"Do you care?"

"No," she said in a fierce little voice. "I want you. I don't care who you are, I don't care what you are—none of it matters. I need you."

He hadn't realized he'd been holding some sort of rein on his emotions. Her words broke it, broke through the formidable self-control he'd built up since he was a child.

She didn't want to think, and neither did he. He took a step away from her. "Take off the rest of your clothes," he said hoarsely, pulling his sweater over his head.

For a moment she hesitated. Her eyes never leaving his, she reached for the snap of her jeans. She skinned them off, but she was still wearing plain white underwear and a pair of socks. There was something ridiculously beguiling about those socks, and he didn't want her to take them off.

He shoved his jeans off, stepping out of them, but she still kept her eyes on his. They'd made love before, she hadn't been a virgin, and yet she was still shy about bodies. His and hers.

"Get on the bed."

He could see her uncertainty, and he knew he couldn't force her. "Change your mind?" he asked quietly.

She didn't move. "Have you?"

"Look lower and you'll get your answer."

Her gaze dropped to his erection, then jerked away. "We already agreed I'm too crude for you, Carolyn," he taunted. "You can still run away. This is your decision this time. I'm not going to force you, not going to make it easy for you. If you want to get your clothes back on and leave, go ahead."

"I'm afraid," she said in a very quiet voice.

"I know you are. And I can't figure out why. We've already done it once and you didn't suffer any Victorian trauma. You know I won't force you, you know I won't hurt you. What's the problem?"

She stood very still. "I'm afraid I'll fall in love with you."

He didn't know what to say to that. And then a faint, reluctant smile curved his mouth. "Well, you can't say I haven't been doing everything I can to keep that from happening."