'All I can see is that you want me to put you first,' she threw back at him. 'And you're angry because I won't do that. You said you need me—and perhaps you really do, although God knows, you've never shown it. But from now on, my father needs me more. He doesn't have anyone else.'
'And I do?'
She didn't want to answer that question. Instead, she began gathering her clothes together. 'I'll get dressed and packed. Can you arrange some sort of transport? I don't know if we can get an ambulance all the way to London, but I'd be grateful if you could try. I don't think there's any other way to get him there.'
Yet still Jared didn't move. It was as if he couldn't quite believe she would really go.
'You realise you're suffering from shock?' he said evenly. 'If you'd only give yourself some time to think, you'd start to behave more rationally.'
'I can see things perfectly clearly. It's a question of priorities—'
His silver eyes suddenly blazed. 'And obviously, I come pretty low on the list!'
Cassandra stared straight back at him. 'What you or I want doesn't count right now. Things have changed. Why can't you see that?' Part of her couldn't quite believe she was saying all these things, not to Jared. Then her gaze swung back to the bowed, defeated figure of her father, and guilt washed over her again in great waves. It was because of her he was like this, a mental wreck. 'Are you going to phone for that ambulance, or do I have to do it myself?' she said in a flat, cold voice.
'I'll do it,' Jared growled. He went to turn away, but at the last moment swung back to her and gripped her wrist painfully hard. 'Change your mind,' he got out roughly, and there was almost a note of pleading in his voice. 'Cassandra, don't do this. Try and see sense!'
She tried to pull away from him, but couldn't. Suddenly terrified that she might weaken, that she might look into those silver eyes and see a whole lot of things that she couldn't bear to look at right now, she stubbornly refused to meet his gaze.
'You're just like my father,' she flung at him accusingly. 'You won't let me go!'
Jared's face went completely white with shock. An instant later, he released his grip on her, his fingers flexing and unflexing, as if they suddenly hurt.
'Oh, I'll let go of you,' he told her grimly. 'If you really think I'm anything like your father, then I've obviously not been getting through to you on any level. I happen to think you're wrong, but you're not interested in seeing things from my point of view. And while things are like this, I don't think there's much future for the two of us.' His silver eyes scanned her intently, but she still wouldn't look at him. 'All right,' he said flatly. 'You've made your choice—now you'd better live with it! I'll phone for the ambulance, and the two of you can leave.'
With that, he strode out of the room, leaving her with the silent figure of her father, and her own sudden hot and painful tears.
CHAPTER NINE
The first couple of weeks back in London seemed like a continuous bad dream. Getting her father into a hospital, the long talks with the doctors, telling them a lot of things that she would have much preferred to have kept private, yet couldn't because they needed to have so many background details before they could begin to treat him. Then, almost too tired and drained to think, the effort of trying to pick up her old life, to get her interior design business going again, even though she had absolutely no interest in it any more. And, all the time, the memories of Jared in the background, intruding relentlessly on her days—and her nights—no matter how hard she tried to keep them out.
Things improved just a fraction once she finally managed to establish some sort of routine. Work in the mornings, taking on only small commissions so she could take off a couple of hours every afternoon to visit her father. She dreaded the visits, yet forced herself to go through with them. To cover her own feelings, she talked to him brightly about the past, about the times they had shared together back in her childhood. Her father had come out of the almost catatonic-like state he had been in when they had first brought him in, but he wasn't the same man he had been before. The bluster, the confidence, the ruthlessness had all gone, but there didn't seem anything there to take its place except a quiet apathy. The only thing that seemed to arouse a spark of interest in him were her visits. He seemed to live for them, as if they were the sole thing that kept him going.
And that kept the guilt in her alive and thriving, because there was one thing she had been forced to admit to herself very early on. She felt desperately sorry for him, and she hoped he would eventually get completely well again, but, try as she might, she just couldn't feel any love for him. She came out of a sense of duty, and pity. She knew it was wrong, that he was her sole surviving parent, and she ought to love him, but it was impossible. Sometimes, she thought that she had never loved him, and that made her feel even worse.
November came and went, and there were times she thought she would go a little crazy herself, but she didn't. Work helped to keep her sane. That, and the knowledge that she had to keep going, in order to keep up the endless round of visits to the hospital.
Then, on one visit, at the very beginning of December, the doctor who had been treating her father came out just as she was leaving.
'Do you mind if I have a word with you before you go, Miss Gregory?'
'Of course not.' She followed him along the corridor, to his small office.
'Come in and sit down,' he invited.
'Is something wrong?' she asked anxiously. 'Is my father worse?'
'No, he isn't.' But before she could sigh with relief, he added, 'But neither is he getting any better. I think you must have noticed that yourself.'
'I thought he seemed a little more cheerful today,' she said slightly defensively.
'I don't think there's been any noticeable improvement,' the doctor said crisply. 'That's why I'd like to ask you if you'd agree to a fairly radical change in your visiting arrangements.'
Cassandra's heart instantly sank. 'You want me to come more often?' she said, hoping he couldn't hear the dread in her voice. 'Mornings, as well as afternoons?'
'Quite the contrary,' replied the doctor. 'We'd like you to cut down your visits considerably. In fact, we'd prefer it if you came just once a week, and stayed for no more than half an hour.'
Cassandra simply gaped at him. 'But—why?'
He sat back in his chair, and didn't reply at once. Finally, though, he tapped his pencil thoughtfully on the table and said, 'When your father was first admitted, you told us quite a lot about your home life, and your relationship with your father. You were very frank, and we appreciated that. We've also had a chance to talk to your father at length, and I have to say that my overall impression is that this close relationship you have is very much one-sided. He can't seem to live without it—but you deeply resent it, and want to break away, so you can get on with your own life.'
Cassandra was about to hotly deny it, but at the last moment she remained silent and slumped back in her chair.
'There's no need to feel in the least guilty about it,' the doctor went on more gently. 'Yours is a very healthy attitude to take, Miss Gregory. It's your father's attitude we have to try and change. And to be honest, I think we have a much better chance of achieving that if you aren't around.'
'But you've just said he can't live without me!'
'That was the wrong choice of word,' said the doctor. 'I should have said "won't", not "can't". He's quite capable of living his own life. It's just that, for reasons of his own, he's chosen not to. That isn't fair to himself. And it most certainly isn't fair to you.'
'You mean that I'm actually doing him harm by staying around?' she said incredulously.
'If you want to put it bluntly—yes,' said the doctor. 'If you're always there, he'll simply lean on you more and more, until he ends up being totally dependent. That'll be a disaster for him, and a nightmare for you.'
Cassandra suddenly felt very cold. Although he had used different words, Jared had said virtually the same thing. Yet s
he had refused to listen to him, had broken up their relationship because she wouldn't believe him.
The doctor was looking at her sympathetically. 'I'm sorry if this has all come as rather a shock.'
Cassandra gradually began to recover her wits. 'To be absolutely honest,' she said slowly, 'it's a relief.' She looked up at him. 'Does that sound awful? But I hated those visits so much.' She shuddered. 'Some days I had to force myself to walk through the door. I know how that sounds, but I can't help the way I feel. I don't love my father,' she blurted out.
'There's nothing at all unusual about the way you feel,' the doctor assured her. He gave her a brief smile. 'And you're not a monster. There's nothing unnatural about not being able to love a parent. Sometimes, it works the other way round. Parents find they can't love one—or even more—of their children. And brothers and sisters are notorious for falling out, perhaps going for the whole of their lives without speaking to each other, or having any contact. Family relationships are really no different from any others. Sometimes they work out, and sometimes they don't. Only, we feel much more guilty if we can't love a member of our family because we've been brought up to believe it's very wrong, almost a sin.'
'You're right, I do feel guilty,' Cassandra admitted in a low voice. Then she lifted her head and looked directly at the doctor. 'Will my father really get better more quickly if I'm not around?'
'I'm certain of it,' he replied, 'It'll take time, of course—we're probably talking about months, not weeks—but he's basically got a strong character. And once we can make him accept that he's got to build an independent life for himself, that it isn't fair of him to demand to share yours to the point where there's no room for any other relationships for either of you, I think you'll see a radical improvement.'
Cassandra shook her head slowly. 'You're going to find it very hard.'
Unexpectedly, the doctor smiled. 'Don't worry. I think we're up to it. Just leave it all to us.'
She still couldn't quite believe that the crushing burden had been lifted from her shoulders so completely.
'You're sure I can't help?'
'Absolutely certain,' the doctor said firmly. He paused for a moment, then added, 'You do know why your father couldn't let go of you, don't you?'
'Not really. He's always been very possessive. When I was young, I thought he was just being over-protective, and it would get better as I got older. It didn't, though. In fact, it got worse.'
'There's a good reason for that,' the doctor said gently. 'It's because you look so much like your mother.'
Cassandra's head shot up. 'My mother? I don't understand,' she said, in some bewilderment.
'From the talks I've had with your father, it's very obvious he never got over your mother's death. He couldn't get interested in relationships with other women, so gradually his personal life became entirely centred around you. And the older you got, the more you grew to look like your mother. In his mind, you started to take her place. It was almost like having her back again.'
Cassandra gave a brief shiver. 'That's rather sick, isn't it?'
'It's certainly not healthy,' the doctor agreed. 'Although it wasn't perverted in any way. His feelings for you weren't sexual. In every other way, though, he began to confuse you and your mother in his mind. It was why he was so extremely possessive, why he tried to keep you close to him all the time. And why he finally cracked when he found you with another man. He couldn't stand the thought of you loving someone else, and belonging to them instead of him. It was almost like having his wife run off with a lover.'
'Perhaps it's my fault,' she muttered. 'I should have stood up to him more, left home earlier, got right away before things reached this stage.'
'Don't blame yourself,' the doctor said immediately. 'None of this was your fault. And don't feel guilty about leaving him to face this on his own. Believe me, it's the only way he'll make any sort of recovery.' He looked at her squarely. 'Do you want my advice, Miss Gregory? It would be to get out of here, and get on with your own life.'
Yet it wasn't quite as easy as that. She walked away from the hospital knowing that she ought to feel free, but the next few days seemed oddly empty. Without the regular visits to the hospital, the afternoons seemed to stretch on for ever, and, no matter how hard she tried to work, she could never keep her mind fully occupied with what she was doing. One thought haunted her. She had turned her back on Jared so she could be with, and help, her father. But that help wasn't needed—had never been needed. Having her around was only worsening his condition.
So, what did she do now? She didn't know. One thing she was pretty sure of, though. Jared wouldn't want her back. 'Get on with your own life,' the doctor had told her. Yet she didn't know how to do that. She felt as if she were drifting in a sort of no man's land, with no aims, no ambitions, not even any really good reason for getting up in the morning.
To make it worse, it was getting near to Christmas. The shops were full of cheerful decorations and the counters piled high with tempting goods. She bought a few gifts for friends, and a dressing-gown for her father, but she was always glad to escape back to the quiet emptiness of her flat. She found other people hard to take at the moment. Friends had got in touch when they had heard she was back in London, but she had refused all their invitations and rarely left the flat except to go to work.
December dragged on, and seemed to turn into the longest month of her life. She made no plans for Christmas—in fact, apart from buying those few gifts, she simply ignored it. She worked until late on Christmas Eve, ostensibly picking out fabric samples, but in reality putting off the moment when she would finally have to go home.
At last, though, she pushed the pile of fabrics to one side and gave a brief sigh. She supposed she would have to leave. She couldn't stay here all night.
She was just about to switch off the light when she heard footsteps in the outer office. Instantly, she tensed. This late at night—and on Christmas Eve—the building should be virtually empty. Whoever was outside almost certainly had no business being there. And she was trapped in this inner office—a very convenient victim.
Then the door to her office opened, and Jared Sinclair walked in.
The sense of shock at seeing him was so great that she backed behind her desk, and then fell weakly into her chair.
Jared gently lifted one eyebrow. 'Now I know what they mean by the phrase "to bowl a maiden over".'
'I just didn't expect—I never thought—when I heard someone—' She tried hard to stop gabbling, and finally succeeded. 'I didn't think it would be you,' she finished, rather feebly.
'Were you expecting someone else?' The words might have been casual, but his tone definitely wasn't.
'No, of course not.'
Her reply seemed to please him, because he lounged in a more relaxed fashion against the doorway. 'I remember the first time I came here,' he remarked. 'Do you know what a shock it was when I first set eyes on you? I didn't expect Randolph Gregory's daughter to be a raving beauty, with a mass of gorgeous pale blonde hair and huge violet eyes.'
'You didn't look as if you were particularly impressed at the time,' she retorted.
'I wouldn't let myself be impressed. After all, I had come here with the firm intention of abducting you,' he reminded her.
Cassandra decided she didn't want to remember where all that had led to.
'What are you doing here?' she muttered.
'It's Christmas Eve.'
'I know that!'
'I don't think anyone should be on their own at Christmas, do you?'
She shrugged. 'That depends if you're feeling in a sociable mood or not. But if you're that desperate for company, I'd have thought there were plenty of places you could go.'
Jared's silver eyes briefly flickered. 'I was talking about you,' he said gently. 'You're the one who shouldn't be on her own.'
His attitude unaccountably annoyed her. She wasn't some lame duck who couldn't get through the holiday period on her own!
'So what is this?' she retorted. 'A charitable gesture? A "take someone into your home for Christmas" scheme?'
'You do like to make things difficult for yourself, don't you?' remarked Jared.
She stared at him in disbelief. 'How can you say that? You're the one who said I had to live with the choice I'd made. And since that choice didn't include you, I assumed I wouldn't be seeing you again.'
'I said a lot of things that afternoon that I deeply regretted later on,' Jared said in an unperturbed tone. 'And I'm ready to admit that my attitude was pretty selfish, expecting you to completely abandon your father in favour of me. My only excuse is that it's rather hard to be rational after a man's just pointed a gun at you, with apparently every intention of killing you. And it makes it even harder when the girl you love declares her intention of walking out on you, and going off with that same man.'
Cassandra blinked. 'The girl you love?' she echoed in a rather odd voice. 'What exactly do you mean by that?'
'I'd have thought it was fairly self-explanatory.'
'But you've never said it before. Not all the time we were at Glenveil. Not even on that day when I left.'
Jared still looked entirely comfortable. 'It takes me rather a long time to get round to some things. I thought you knew that.'
'I'm not sure that I know anything about you at all,' she said slowly.
'Then perhaps it's time you started to learn.'
She didn't know what to say to that. Instead, she just stared at him warily, still not at all sure that any of this was really happening.
'How's your father?' asked Jared.
The rather abrupt change of subject surprised her. 'Do you really care?' she challenged him.
'It's rather difficult to feel too much concern for someone who wanted to shoot me,' he admitted. 'But for your sake I'm willing to give it a try.'
'If you feel like that about it, don't bother!'
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