Picture Perfect Read online

  Cassie sank down onto the pile of fallen clothes, clothes Alex had bought her, clothes that matched all the trappings of a life like this. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, trying to push away the image of the graveyard at St. Sebastian's, and what had driven her there.

  IT WAS THE NIGHT ALEX WAS SCHEDULED TO FLY TO SCOTLAND FOR on-location shooting, and he was in one of his moods. She had learned to gauge him by his eyes: the darker they turned, the further away she stayed. It had been months since the last time. She should have known.

  At dinner, Alex kept drumming his knife along the edge of the table. It made a dull, thudding noise against the tablecloth and Cassie's heart took up its rhythm. "How did it go today?" she asked.

  Alex clattered the knife against the edge of his plate. "It is over budget; it is being directed by a moron; it is barely a week into production." He ran his hands through his hair. "Thank you so much for bringing it up."

  Cassie sat back in her seat and concentrated on keeping her mouth shut and eating with the minimal amount of noise. She had found out today about the baby and she wanted to tell Alex before he left, but maybe this wasn't the time. She had to catch him at the right moment. She had to be able to make him see that it wasn't lousy timing; it was going to change their lives. It was going to give them a second chance.

  Alex pushed back his chair. "I have to pack. I've got less than an hour."

  Cassie glanced at his plate, full of food he'd pushed around but barely eaten. "I'll make a sandwich for you to take on the road," she said, but Alex had already left the room.

  In the three years since it had begun, Cassie had become very good at staying out of Alex's way. After all, it was a big house, and with the staff gone for the night no one would think it strange if she went down to her lab at three in the morning, or decided to finish a book in the library until the sun came up. But her instincts weren't sharp that night; she had spent too much time during the day drawing rosy images of a little boy with Alex's silver eyes. She walked to the bedroom and sat in the middle of the bed, where she could watch Alex pack. Looking at him would be like getting a glimpse of her baby. "Do you want me to get together your shaving kit?" Alex shook his head. She reached for a sweater he'd tossed into the bedroom. "I'll fold for you," she offered, and she started, arm over arm, but Alex's hand caught her wrist.

  "I said I'd do it," he muttered.

  Something was eating away at Alex from the inside, something that had been part of him long before she'd ever met him. It was what made him the consummate actor, although nobody else in the world knew it. They saw the pain, but after Alex had cloaked it in another character's actions. Only Cassie had looked at him when his open eyes went blind; only Cassie had pressed her hands to his chest and felt the skin stretched over a heart swollen with rage.

  She loved him more than anything in the world. Even more than herself--hadn't she proved that? She knew that even if she couldn't heal him this time, the next time he hurt she would be able to. That's why Alex had come to her. She was the only person who could make it better.

  But it was a double bind. She was the only one close enough to Alex to help, but that also brought her underfoot. It wasn't his fault that she got in the way. When it happened, she could only blame herself, forgive him.

  Alex sank down beside her on the bed. "I don't want to go to fucking Scotland," he said, his voice rough. "I want to take some time off. I want this goddamn Oscar broadcast to be over and I want to drop off the face of the earth."

  "So do it," Cassie urged, rubbing the muscles in his shoulders. "PutMacbethon hold, and come with me to Kenya."

  Alex snorted. "And what the hell will I do while you play in your sandbox?"

  Cassie flinched. "Read screenplays," she suggested. "Get a tan."

  Alex began throwing clothes in the suitcases that he'd laid open on the floor. "Today I found out about the pre-Oscar interview we taped with Barbara Walters." He sighed. "She's putting me on with some comedian and Noah Fallon." Cassie stared at him blankly. "For Christ's sake, Noah Fallon.He's up for Best Actor too." Alex sat on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest. "She's airing me second. Fucking second. Fallon's going last."

  Cassie smiled at him. "At least you're in the broadcast," she said.

  Alex turned away from her. "In the past three years, when Barbara Walters's Oscar special features a nominee in the third slot, that nominee has won. It's like a goddamn barometer of how the Academy's votes will go."

  Unsure of what to say, Cassie slipped off the bed and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm not going to win," Alex said, his words falling softly onto her shoulder.

  "You'll win," she whispered fiercely. "You're going to win."

  In the way that it usually happened, Alex changed in the space of a heartbeat. He stood, grabbing Cassie by her wrists and shaking her so hard her hair fell down around her face and her neck snapped back. "How do you know?" he demanded, his breath hot against her cheek. "How do you know?"

  Words caught in Cassie's throat, the ones she always wanted to defend herself with that never slipped past her clenched jaw. Alex shook her again, and then pushed her to the floor so she was at his feet.

  She tripped over the luggage as she fell, and struck her head against the closet door, feeling a wound open that did not hurt nearly as much as the shame that ran through her. She had just enough time to see Alex's foot coming at her, and instead of curling into a ball as she usually did, she rolled so he caught her square on her back, the pain running up her spine but sparing her stomach.

  "My baby," she breathed, and then her hands flew to her mouth and she prayed that Alex hadn't heard. But he was already facing away from her, his head in his hands. He knelt down at her side, cradling her the way he always did when the anger had subsided, his hands running over her with the tenderness that was a Siamese twin to his rage. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to."

  "It's not your fault," she said, because she knew her lines, but for the first time she didn't believe her own words. Anger started to seep from a crack deep inside her that had been patched over too often to hold fast. Goddamn you,she thought.

  She knew Alex needed her, but she also realized she could not stay. She couldn't risk the safety of this child made by her and Alex. She would do for her baby what in three years she had not done for herself.

  When John buzzed in over the intercom, Alex left Cassie's side and threw all his clothes, suits included, into the suitcases. He dragged the luggage outside the door and then leaned over to kiss her. "I love you," he said, the words swollen. He laid his hand over hers where it rested on her stomach.

  She waited until she heard the car crunch out of the driveway and then she grabbed her jacket and walked out of Alex's house. The world swam, and she had to concentrate with every footstep to convince herself she was doing what had to be done. She told herself that if she went away now while Alex was out of town, maybe it wouldn't hurt him quite as much.

  She walked down the street with no destination in mind. She would have gone to Ophelia's but that was the first place Alex would look when he found her missing; and there was nobody else she could turn to. It was Cassie's word against Alex's gold-plated media image, and like her Greek prophetess namesake, no one would believe her when she spoke the truth.

  SHE HAD BEEN SO CLOSE. CASSIE'S FISTS WERE BALLED INTO HER LAP, she was crying, and she realized that she had betrayed herself by losing her memory. Otherwise, she would have been able to stay one step ahead of Alex.

  He had been supportive and considerate, probably because she hadn't started shrieking accusations to the press the minute she'd laid eyes on him at the police station. Not that she ever would do such a thing; Alex should have understood that much. She didn't mean to hurt him--she hadnever wanted to--she only wanted to protect herself. She'd never thought that the two were mutually exclusive.

  However, Alex did, so he had found her. But the life he had spread before her like a winning hand was not what i