Power Play (Crimson Romance) (15 page)

“
My
safety?” Lila tilted her head back. “But … ”

“The restraining order names us both,” he explained, “but it was your safety that mattered. If I was still the only target of Victoria’s campaign I would have never considered going to the courts.”

It took a moment for Lila to take this in. He was doing this for her. The time and expenses, the publicity that could destroy his career, the challenge against one of the team owners. While he had gotten her into this mess, he was going far beyond modest measures to extricate her.

“You always had an over-inflated sense of responsibility.”

She was thinking of his parents and even Chris.

Cahal’s smile was restrained. “You may be right. I’m leaving early in the morning for court so I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

Lila remained awake long after he was gone. All throughout the night, the messages rolled into her new phone. Each text message was only two words in length, stark and to the point.
He’s mine. He’s mine. He’s mine.

In the end, Lila was ready to agree with the other woman. Lila was never able to give her husband what he needed.

• • •

The least respected of the city’s three serious newspapers broke the story the next day.

On her way to work, Lila saw the front page headline and nearly turned back. It was bad enough that she was unable to accompany Cahal to the courthouse for the first hearing; now her knowledge of the events of her own life was no better than any member of the public.

The streetcar took her past the courthouse, a slim commercial-type building aesthetically unsuited to the emotionally fraught cases it handled. The lobby overflowed with reporters and for an instant, Lila thought she saw her husband’s broad-shouldered lean-hipped figure within the crush of eager bodies. Closing her eyes, she didn’t open them again until her stop was announced. The squat brown-brick library was a welcome sight.

During her morning break, she used one of the television sets from the audio-visual department to check the local twenty-four hour news channels. The scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen gave the same information each time: Toronto goaltender Cahal Wallace in court today against alleged stalker.

The midday newscasts expanded the story. Every local news station sent a reporter to the courthouse and each camera showed a different angle on Cahal’s clear features. Accustomed to cameras and giving interviews at a young age, now he was silent, no doubt warned by his lawyers not to speak to reporters about the case. The lawyers’ statements were curt. Mr. Wallace regretted the need for such a step. Mr. Wallace hoped for a quick and effective judicial determination.

The opposing lawyers spoke as well, calling the case a ruse and a publicity stunt. As if anyone would want to call that kind of publicity on themselves. The reporters said little about the alleged stalker, mentioning Victoria’s name only once during the broadcast.

As of four o’clock that afternoon, Cahal was still in court. He called twice, each time to say nothing more than he was still waiting, yet the fact that he was calling told her a great deal.

Lila learned the outcome of the long day in court from the evening news. Presumably Cahal was conversing with his lawyers or stuck in traffic. Or maybe he was just avoiding her. After eight hours in court, he came away as he went in … with nothing. Not a piece of paper protected him from Victoria Brantford’s attentions.

The ultramodern condo was a steel-and-glass cage. While Victoria was free to wreak havoc on her life, Lila was forced to take shelter and hide. That workday had felt long with the phone ringing and having to pretend that she was someone else whenever she answered. She couldn’t face the thought of another day like that, and another, and another.

Cahal came home at eight. He looked at her huddled figure on the couch and swept her into his arms. The television babbled nonsense as he kissed her sore eyelids, touched the pale curve of her cheek, and an annoying commercial jingle rang out as his lips met her mouth.

The kiss moved from comforting to explicit in seconds, the change leaving her frozen. Sensing the sudden withdrawal, Cahal drew back and she could see the lines of tension etched along the side of his mouth.

“Rough day?”

He smiled as he stroked her face. “It’s getting better.”

Though it threatened his beautiful smile, she had to ask, “What did Victoria have to say?”

The smile disappeared. “You mean what did her lawyers have to say? Mainly that I was a liar, followed by a blatant self-promoter who was willing to do anything to further his career and possibly a sociopath. At best, I was an adulterous fame-whore who led a poor fragile heiress to believe that I would leave my wife to marry her. Hell!”

The last curse was convincingly uttered, and Lila was forced to re-evaluate her thoughts.

Plunking down next to her on the couch, Cahal buried his face in his hands for a brief moment. “It was a nightmare, baby. My hotshot attorneys didn’t stand a chance. The judge refused out of hand to make a single ruling until he saw more evidence.”

Lila brightened. “You can get more evidence. What is the next court date?”

He told her the date. “There is no more evidence,” he added. “The lawyers urged me to put my best foot forward for this hearing and we put everything we had in front of the judge. Both Brian and Mike took the stand. Victoria’s testimony blew them away.”

Uncomfortable with the mental image of the other woman perjuring herself for the courts, complete with bewildered tears, made Lila angry.

“Did you take the stand?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t. The judge ruled that because I had no direct knowledge of the incidents of alleged harassment that my testimony would be of no use to the court.”

To Lila, the solution was simple.

“Why don’t I testify?”

“No.”

Ignoring the quiet explosion, she persisted. “I am the person at the center of this case. I am the one with the so-called direct knowledge of the harassing incidents and I am the one most affected by them. If I testify, the judge will have a fair chance to assess both sides of the situation.”

“It’s out of the question, Lila.”

“The decision is not up to you,” she pointed out. “I’ll call the lawyers to find out if it’s a good idea and then I’ll come with you to court next time.”

For a long time he was silent, his steel-gray stare fixed on his hands. Finally he said, “I refused to accept the suggestion when my lawyers first brought it up.”

Stifling a burst of irritation, Lila asked, “When did they first bring it up?”

“When I filed the application for the restraining order.”

“Cahal — ”

“I told them the same thing I am going to tell you — it’s too dangerous. I don’t want you to become involved in this case any more than you are now. Victoria has already demonstrated her willingness to turn her anger and frustration on you. I don’t want her to go any further down that road.”

His intractable attitude made her want to shout yet she kept her voice thinly level. “Keeping quiet won’t help to stop Victoria Brantford. You’ve tried to be reasonable and restrained every step of the way and every time we’ve had to step up our tactics to match hers. I won’t stay out of the court case, Cahal. I can’t.”

A pair of long arms engulfed her and she was pulled into his strength.

“Baby … ”

“Don’t ‘baby’ me.” Her voice was muffled by his suit jacket. “Sometimes I think you fail to realize that I’m not the teenager you first kissed.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Lila shook her head, aware that she was costing herself the comfort of his embrace.

“Look at us, Cahal. We’re different people from who we were six years ago and somehow we never noticed it.”

His hands dropped. “Is that why you turned to Chris?”

Again her head moved negatively. “Chris was there to listen. He was … convenient.” Drawing an unsteady breath, she told him, “It was an enormous mistake, the worst I’ve ever made.”

“Is that an apology?”

Gulping back a longer speech, she said, “Yes.”

He studied her open face for a long time before rising to his feet. “I think I’ll call it a night.”

Lila’s eyes went to the crystal clock on the iron mantle. “Already? You haven’t eaten dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Coming from a six-foot-four professional athlete, it was an amazing statement. She gaped at his back until it was out of sight. Far from healing old wounds, her apology seemed to have made everything worse.

Lila’s testimony tipped the decision, forcing the judge hearing the case for the restraining order to grant one but only for her. According to the judge’s ruling, not enough evidence existed to extend the restraining order to Cahal.

On the trip to the airport afterwards, Cahal declared the judgment a victory. His lawyers were more reserved. They warned Lila that the first few weeks of the order would be a test period to see whether Victoria Brantford complied with the ruling not to harass, annoy or molest. Their reserve stemmed from the fact that the judge had declined to specify a distance from which Victoria would have to keep away. Without that term, the restraining order was open to interpretation.

The lawyers spelled out that numerous telephone calls could be deemed harassment, particularly if they were for no reasonable purpose. But what about waiting outside of the building to speak to Lila? What about attending the same functions? The lawyers refused to give a firm answer to those questions, choosing to note that a final decision about a breach of the order would be up to the courts.

The team’s latest road trip took them on a comprehensive tour of the western Canadian provinces and American states. Cahal would be gone for weeks. So added to the uncertainty of the order she’d just won, Lila was once again left to her own devices as the busy holiday season crept up on her.

December flew by in a busy rush. Many of her chores were familiar; writing up long lists of Christmas gifts, buying the necessary holiday cards and decorations, helping out with the annual toy drive at the library and the Wives’ charity event, which was now scheduled for early in the New Year to coincide with the break given to the whole league for the Superstar Game. Added to her other responsibilities, Lila found that the Christmas tree and ornaments she had put up for the past five years in the Chicago house had gone missing during the move to Toronto and now she was forced to shop for new ones.

She settled on a mix of expensive gifts and cheap decorations. Next year, no doubt Cahal would want to decorate his home in holiday best but for now they only needed a bright show of festivity for any guests they might wish to invite back to the penthouse. With strict security measures still in place, the only person who saw the interior of Lila’s apartment across town was the cleaner hired to dust and air the unit out every week.

George Wallace brought his new wife and their kids to visit in the middle of the month and Lila was nearly as excited as the children to tour Bloor Street and see all the shops and boutiques decked out for the holiday season. Cahal’s half-brothers and half-sister, all under the age of six, were adorable though they ran amok in the flagship store of a national toy chain and made such a mess in the restaurant where they stopped for lunch that George felt obliged to double the tip the long-suffering waitress.

The visit ended with George and Cheryl begging Lila to spend a weekend up north with their family and while Lila made vague promises, everyone knew that she would not be keeping them. Without Cahal, she couldn’t commit to any engagements anyway. As always, his schedule dictated their lives.

As the end of the team’s road trip approached, Lila made an effort to slow down. The library owed her some vacation time and she arranged to take the days off at the end of the year. She needed the time to think.

Three months ago, her life was planned out in front of her, perhaps not exciting but the path ahead was comforting and peaceful. With Jack, she would have always come first. Yet, in all of the empty December days, she never once contemplated going back to Jack. He was firmly a part of her past.

She watched every one of Cahal’s games on television, even the one game where the back-up goaltender handled her husband’s duties. The team lost only one game out of the six they played.

Lila paid special attention to the breaks between periods when the players were often interviewed by waiting reporters, watching for Cahal. The Canadian journalists were conservative, sticking to questions about that night’s game or the team’s chances for remaining healthy — a crucial component of any winning team, for the injuries began to pile up starting from around midway through the season.

The American reporters were more outspoken. With all of the media attention in recent weeks, was Cahal’s newly reconciled marriage suffering the strains? Would Mrs. Wallace be cheering him on during the Superstar game? The fact of his inclusion in the prestigious event was all but a foregone conclusion.

Answering the questions with a smile and a few words that could have meant almost anything, Cahal looked thinner and more hardened onscreen. Only the hungry glint in his steely eyes remained unchanged.

The restless look was intact when he arrived back home. With a series of home games ahead, he skipped all of the optional practices, spending most of his free time in the condo on the phone with his agent or on the computer checking his email. Lila was worried. Time with his agent inevitably meant trade talks and the emails could be anything from contract revisions to offers from other teams. Where was his next stop? Vancouver? Florida? Los Angeles? It was sure to be somewhere that would take him out of her life for good.

With each passing day, it felt to Lila as if a chance was slipping out of her fingers.

Talking to Cahal proved difficult. When he wasn’t on the phone or the computer, he was in front of the television watching sports commentary shows, which were something he could never stand before. Meals forced them together, yet even then he was unresponsive to her conversational gambits, answering most in monosyllables and in such a way that made further discussion impossible.