She lifted her head and was bound by Alex Rivers’s eyes.
Taboo.
“Cassie?” He took a step forward, and then another one, and she unconsciously stepped closer to Will. “Do you know who I am?”
Of course she knew him;everyoneknew him, he wasAlex Rivers, for God’s sake. She nodded, and that’s when she noticed how faulty her perception had become. Alex Rivers’s face kept shimmering in and out, the way the heat rising off asphalt in the summer sometimes makes you see double. One moment, Cassie saw him glossy and larger than life;
in the next, he seemed to be nothing more than a man.
An instant before he reached for her, all of Cassie’s senses seemed to converge upon one another. She could feel the warmth coming from his skin, see the light reflecting off his hair, hear the whispers that wrapped them closer together. She smelled the clean sandalwood of his shaving cream and the light starch of his shirt. Tentatively, she stretched her arms around him, knowing exactly where her fingers would meet the muscles of his back.Anthropology, she thought,the study of how people fit into their world. She closed her eyes and fell into the familiar.
“God, Cassie, I didn’t know what happened. Herb called me in Scotland.” His breath fell just over her ear. “I love you,pichouette.”
It was that word that made her pull away. She looked up at him, at this man every woman in America dreamed about, and she took a step back. “Do you have a picture?” she asked softly. “Something that shows, you know, you and me, somewhere?”
She did not question why, days ago, when she wasn’t thinking clearly, she had so easily trusted Will; yet here she was asking for proof before she’d let Alex Rivers take her away. Alex frowned for a moment,
and then pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. He handed her a laminated picture, a wedding photo.
It was certainly him, and it was certainly her, and she looked happy and cherished and sure. She gave it back to Alex. He put away his wallet and held out his hand.
She stared at it.
Somewhere behind her, she heard a desk clerk snicker. “Shit,” the woman said, “if she got her doubts, I’ll go with him.”
She laced her fingers through Alex’s and watched as his expression completely changed. The vertical line of worry between his brows smoothed, the thin line of his lips softened into a smile, and his eyes began to shine. He lit up the room, and Cassie felt her breath catch.
Me, she thought,he wants me.
Alex Rivers let go of her hand and put his arm around her waist. “If you don’t get your memory back,” he whispered, “I’ll just make you fall in love with me all over again. I’ll take you back to Tanzania and I’ll mix up all your bone samples and you can throw a shovel at me—”
“I’m an anthropologist?” she cried.
Alex nodded. “It’s how we met,” he said.
She bubbled at the thought of that. Her hand. It was her hand, after all; and through some miracle of God Alex Rivers seemed to be in love with her, and—
Will. She turned to see him standing a few feet away and shrugged out of the circle of Alex’s arm. “Iaman anthropologist,” she said, smiling.
“I heard,” he said. “So did most of L.A.”
She grinned at him. “Well. Thank you.” She raised her eyebrows. “I wasn’t really expecting it to end this way.” She stuck out her hand, and then impulsively threw her arms around his neck. Over her shoulder, Will did not miss the flicker that iced Alex Rivers’s eyes for a fraction of a second.
He loosened Jane’s—Cassie’s—arms and held them down at her sides, furtively slipping into her palm the piece of paper he’d marked with his address and phone numbers. He leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “If you ever need anything,” he whispered, and then he stepped back.
Cassie stuffed the paper into the pocket of her jacket and thanked him again. She apparently led a storybook life. What would she possibly need?
Alex was waiting patiently at the door of the station. He framed Cassie’s face in his palms. “You don’t know—” he said, his voice faltering. “You don’t know what it was like to lose you.”
Cassie stared at him, absorbing the fear in his tone. She was frightened too, but that seemed secondary all of a sudden. Acting on instinct, she smiled up at Alex. “It wasn’t for very long,” she said softly, reassuringly. “And I wasn’t very far away.”
Cassie watched Alex’s shoulders relax. Amazing—when he seemed to be calmer, she felt better too.
Alex glanced out at the swarming media. “This isn’t going to be pleasant,” he said apologetically, as he anchored her close to his side and opened the heavy front door.
He held one hand in front of his eyes and pushed a path for them through the growing throng of paparazzi and cameramen. Cassie looked up, dazed, only to see a looming face and then the explosion of a flashbulb. The early air closed in around her throat and, blinded, she had no choice but to turn her face into Alex’s chest. She felt him squeeze her arm, felt his heartbeat against her shoulder, and she willingly sacrificed herself to the strength of this strange husband.
CHAPTERFOUR
