Power Play (Crimson Romance) (20 page)

He smiled at her but it was not with humor.

“You made it clear nearly a year ago that you weren’t interested in living the life of a hockey player’s wife. Why the sudden change of heart?”

She faltered and lowered her gaze. “Because I don’t care about being the wife of a hockey player. I only want to be your wife.”

He moved his hand up to trap her fingers against the front of his coat. “Which brings us back to my question, why the sudden change?”

With just hours to rehearse her speech, Lila hadn’t done an adequate job. A dozen reasons came to her lips and she discarded each. She loved him, that was all that mattered. Yet she couldn’t say so to cold gray eyes and that smiling mouth.

When she didn’t answer, he tightened his hand.

“Do you know what I was doing in the weeks before you left me for the second time?”

Her normal voice was hiding in her throat and took a moment to coax out.

“No, Billy didn’t fill me in to that extent.”

He straightened his mouth into a hard line. “That’s because, as with most things I do that concern you, my agent didn’t approve.”

Lila tried to smile. “It sounds important.”

He moved his massive shoulders in a shrug. “That depends on who you talk to. I thought my retirement was pretty important. What fans I have would probably agree. You, of course, didn’t care.”

“Retire?” She sucked the word into her mouth, tasting it like a treat, before spitting out the first thing that came into her head. “You’re barely thirty!”

“It’s a tough sport,” he pointed out. “Many players see their careers end prematurely because of injuries. A lot of players retire in their late twenties or early thirties and many of those who stay on do so past their prime. At the time I was thinking that it would be better to quit while I was still healthy and at the top of my game.”

Lila felt dazed, as if she’d taken a body check from one of her husband’s teammates.

“Quitting at the top,” she mused. “It does have advantages. But it also has problems. The lack of a salary, for one.”

Unlike his cousin, Cahal never pursued corporate endorsements throughout his career and after retirement offers would be hard to come by.

He looked down into her face, which was flushed and confused and, if she had known it, scared.

“That was why I was pursuing the next step, an alternate career.” He nodded an acknowledgement of her wide-eyed stare. “Even the best hockey players retire by forty. That means another forty or so years of idleness. Few men could do that sentence.”

Still he was saying nothing about the two of them, only his career, his retirement. Did he now see their futures as completely separate?

“W-what were you thinking of doing as a second career? Going back to school?”

His laughter was low and long. “It’s a little late for that. No, what I was thinking of didn’t require any better education than I’ve got at present. When you left last year I was in the final stages of working out a deal with the Real Sports station to be their number one anchorman.”

Real Sports was the premier television sports station attracting a cultish following among young and middle-aged men, the exact demographic for which advertisers clamored. The station was based out of Toronto.

“That means — ”

“That means I would stay in Toronto,” he finished. “Permanently.”

“And now?” Lila held her breath.

He leveled a sardonic look at her. “By now the position is no doubt filled by some other athlete seeking a ticket out of the cycle of injuries and championship derbies.”

Ignoring the look, she pressed on. “But if they wanted a hockey player, you’re by far the best choice. You’re famous and at the peak of your game and you’re just coming off of a championship win.”

His mouth jerked out a smile. “Stop. You’ll make my head swell.”

Something in his voice made her pause.

“Cahal,” she said, once she had digested the odd note, “you must know what I think of your abilities. You are a great player.”

Dropping her hand, he moved several paces away. “Except you don’t think what I do is that great.”

“When have I ever said such a thing?”

His broad back told her nothing … and he wasn’t talking, or even turning around to speak to her.

“Cahal, please, talk to me!”

The plea earned her a portion of his face in profile, the chiseled planes of cheek and jaw barely more articulate than his back, particularly since his eyes remained hidden.

“Don’t be dense, Lila. You must remember your grandparents’ views on my profession and no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, I know you must agree with them to some degree.”

“My grandparents’ views?” She repeated his words. “My grandparents loved you!”

“Sure, just as much as they would have loved seeing their only grandchild marry a doctor or lawyer.”

He believed what he was saying and realizing this Lila backed up and tried another tack.

“My grandparents are long gone. What could their views possibly have to do with us?”

He turned abruptly to face her. “They’re your views too. You can’t deny it.”

“I do!” Lila shook her head. “You’re crazy.”

“Right. I’m only a hockey player.”

“And I’m only a librarian,” she shot back. “Do you know how strange people must find the fact that
you’re
married to
me
?”

He lowered his dark gold lashes to shield the sudden glitter in his eyes. “They wouldn’t find it strange if they met you.”

“So why do you think I married you, in spite of my grandparents and your lack of education?”

The sizzling look grew cool as he refused to answer.

A long minute passed.

“Damn,” Lila said. Bitter tears sprang to her eyes that she blinked back. “You must be even more cynical than your cousin. At least he’s open with admitting he thinks money is everyone’s motive.”

“You would know all about it.”

Unfair. “It was one night!”

“For all you know so was my … indiscretion.”

That brought her up short. “Was it just one time?”

It would be in character for Chris to exaggerate a single lapse into a relentless pattern of infidelity.

Cahal’s head moved from side to side. “No. It was zero.”

The breath she hadn’t been aware of holding back came out in a quick rush.

His eyes held hers. “You still haven’t told me why you suffered this sudden change of heart? What made you want to be my wife again, if only for a crazy second?”

The crazy second was more like a few crazy days, ever since she heard those men on the bus talking about Cahal moving thousands of miles away. How could she explain that piercing stab of grief she felt at the thought of such a distance forever lying between them? How could she tell him that as long as he had lived in the city she had lived with the strangest notion that he was still bound to her, that any day now she might find him at her doorstep, ready with all of the sincere apologies and assurances she needed to give their relationship another chance?

“I-I didn’t want to be alone again.”

It was the first thing that came to her head and to say the truth would have been foolish and shameful. Then why did she feel so disappointed in herself?

“You won’t be alone for long,” Cahal predicted. “You’ll make friends.”

In two years, she hadn’t made any lasting friendships. The friends she made in a day were lost in a day.

“Will I make husbands?”

The bitter question passed without comment. With his hands jammed into his pockets, Cahal seemed poised for flight. For once, there was no fight in that tall powerful body.

When she thought he would seize his chance to escape, he hesitated. What did he want, to impart one final civilized well-wishing comment? Lila felt that even a kind word would shred the last of her self-control.

“What did Chris tell you on the night of the charity ball?”

She met his gaze. He already knew the story. Was he just trying to torture her?

“Does it really matter?”

His silence was unhelpful.

Blowing out a breath, she said, “Fine. He told me about the night we spent together. Or should I say, the night we supposedly spent together?”

“What about that night?”

Lila stared up at him. As much as she stared, she couldn’t see into his thoughts. Would it help to finally tell him the truth or would it just hurt him more?

She groped for the wall and leaned against it, resting her hip against the cool plaster. In her damp clothes, she felt awkward and clumsy and with her hair wild on her head she knew she must look like a character from Macbeth.

“I could never remember exactly what happened that night,” she explained. “One minute Chris and I were sitting in the living room sharing a bottle of wine and then next minute I’m waking up in bed. I vaguely remember Chris carrying me upstairs but that’s all. It was Chris who told me what happened.”

“Of course,” her husband gritted out, his voice still emotionless. “What did he tell you?”

She kept her gaze on the floor. Puddles of water marred the cheap tile.

“That we had sex, twice, and we showered together before falling asleep.” Lila shuddered, the memory of the lie still powerful.

Cahal’s voice was very low. “Isn’t that what happened?”

“No.” Her face was suddenly damp again. “He lied. He told me at the ball. He lied about having sex. He lied about the shower we took together. He lied about everything.”

A long silence seemed to swell to fill the room, cold and ugly.

“So he didn’t rape an unconscious woman,” Cahal said. “Instead he pretended to rape an amnesiac one.”

Lila’s eyes lifted as far as his chest. “I wasn’t amnesic. I had too much to drink, that’s all.”

“Wine?” He sounded scathing. “You couldn’t pass out if you downed an entire bottle of that weak stuff we used to keep in the house, much less if you shared it with someone like my cousin. Are you sure he didn’t slip something into your glass?”

She shifted her gaze another few inches upwards. It was true that she wasn’t much of a drinker and she attributed the blackout to her emotional state. Now she wasn’t quite so sure.

Cahal was more certain.

A quick peek revealed her husband’s face to be very grim.

“He knew you were alone and upset and he invited himself over in the middle of the night. I’m sure he came prepared. The premeditated use of an intoxicating substance makes the difference between a vicious charade and a serious crime. Chris was always pretty good at skirting the line. He must have really enjoyed giving that statement to my lawyer. I should have realized something was up from the way he refused to swear it under oath.”

“He did a lot of damage,” Lila agreed.

Cahal was less oblique. “He did what he set out to do and that was to destroy our marriage.”

She swiveled her brown eyes upwards. “Only if we let him.”

He turned away and her gaze was left fixed on the spot he’d occupied. It was too late for the truth. Too late for everything.

A raspy voice came from over his shoulder. “Do you know what I sent him to explain to you at the ball?”

“I-it wasn’t about what happened between me and him that night?”

He shook his head. “No, I just learned about that a moment ago when you told me. My cousin kept that information up his sleeve.”

With a keen sensation of futility, Lila made herself ask, “What is it then?”

Instead of answering, he pulled a cell phone out of an inner pocket and began punching in numbers on its face. The small device was smaller in his big hand and its appearance had the sudden conjure of a magic trick. If only he could produce something magical from that same pocket, something to make everything all right.

After a few seconds, he handed her the phone. “It’s better you hear it directly from the source.”

The recorded voice at her ear told her that there was one saved message, nearly a year old. She pressed another button to hear it.

Cahal. It’s me.

The sound of the familiar masculine voice brought her eyes up to her husband. His expression was unenlightening.

The next part of the recording was more cocky, less hesitant. It became what Lila had always thought of as quintessentially Chris Wallace.

I did what you wanted, cousin. I told her the truth tonight.
A slight pause.
I told Lila that I lied about the women and the cheating. I told her she could ask anyone in the league and anyone would tell her that you were the most faithful husband in the sport.
Another pause.
I think she believed me. Hope you get your happy ending.
Click.

Lila handed the phone back and she watched her husband shut it off with a decisive movement.

“I’ve carried that around for the past year.”

The raspy voice was nearly inaudible.

“Oh my God.”

Lila spun away, her hands feeling for the wall and following it into the living room where she collapsed onto the small sofa.

Cahal followed. “You didn’t know, did you?”

She shook her head. Two years ago, she’d been so ready to believe Chris and just a year ago, in her insecurity, she’d accepted the lie again even though Chris admitted to lying about something just as important.

Cahal would never forgive her. She didn’t think anybody short of a saint could pardon such a betrayal.

“Why did he do it?”

A ghost of a smile played over his hard mouth. “The same reason he sabotaged my equipment when our teams played each other for the junior league championship. The same reason he crashed the motorbike I got for my birthday. The same reason he lied about sleeping with you. He wanted something I had or I wanted and he couldn’t stand to see me with it.”

Lila knew about the motorbike but not the junior league championship. The pattern was evident, yet her sympathy had gone to the wrongdoer.

“You make him sound like a monster.”

With a widening smile, he reclaimed her hand, halting its frenetic twisting. “He’s not a monster, darling, any more than Victoria was. He’s a man who never learned to deal with his jealousy in a straightforward way and let it take control of his life.”