“Do you think they believe you? I’m sure someone saw me left with Jerry.”
“It’s hard to tell. They were probably too discreet to ask about it. They literally pushed me up the stairs to go be with you.”
“Aww! How sweet! Your friends seem like nice people.”
“They are, except for a couple exceptions, of course.”
She knew exactly who he was referring to.
“Did they ask about Jerry?”
“No.”
“Do you think they know what happened with him?”
“I’m not sure. And even if they do, it does not matter. They all know that
Jerry is struggling with his demons. I don’t think any of them really wanted him
here tonight. I just invited him because I wanted the old group back together. Jerry has gotten himself into a lot of unpleasant situations over the years. There were talks of him and his family paying off several women to stay quiet about what he had done to them.”
“Wow! He’s that bad!”
“Jerry’s family is from old money. There are rumors that his father and uncles
are the same way. They think money can get them out of any trouble they find themselves in. But their demons will catch up with them eventually—not even their millions will be able to keep them out of jail when that time comes!”
“You are not like that—why do you keep him around?”
“I guess, unlike everyone I didn’t want to believe that Jerry was capable of such awful things. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. I know he has been to rehab more than a few times. I thought I was being a friend to him. I know I was wrong about him now. We won’t have a friendship anymore after tonight. I don’t want him anywhere near you, ever! It shouldn’t have taken you almost getting hurt for me to step away from him. I should have done it a very long time ago!”
“You have a good heart, honey. Do you regret the way things turn out
tonight?”
“No. I’m sorry that you had to go through that hell with Jerry. I would take the
whole thing back if I could erase what he tried to do to you.”
“I’m fine,” Becca told him. “Let’s not talk about Jerry anymore.”
Keane wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He slipped his finger under her
chin and turned her head around towards him. He lowered his lips to hers, and kissed her.
“What do you suggest we talk about?” He nibbled on her earlobe after he had
kissed her.
“Let’s not do any talking.” She spun around and put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Let’s just hold each other.”
“I will love to do that.” He took her face in his hand and kissed her cheek.
“And after?” he asked, gazing longingly into her eyes. “I can think of a few alternatives, if you are interested.” He circled her small waist with his hands
and drew her to him.
“Am I ever!” Becca wrapped her long legs around him, and smiled. “I think we’ve had enough of this tub,” she told him.
“No need to say anymore.”
Keane lifted her dripping body from the soapy water and carried her back to the bedroom.
Chapter Thirteen
“Tell me about Larissa?” she asked Keane out of the blue, just before they fell asleep, one night, a couple days after the party.
She had heard so much about Keane and Larissa—Larissa and Keane that she couldn’t possibly go to another day without asking him about her.
“Darling?” she asked, thinking that he hadn’t heard her.
There was no way for her to see the tormented look on Keane’s face as he stared over her head into the darkness. He had been dreading the day when she would find out about Larissa, and asked him about it.
“There isn’t much to tell.” His voice was strained and dismissive.
“Your friends didn’t seem to think so. It was all they could talk about on the night of the party.”
She heard him let out a deep sigh. “I’m surprise they would talk about Larissa with you, knowing we are together now.”
“Well, they did. They think you guys were well suited for each other. What happened between the two of you, Keane? Why did you break up?”
There was an edge to his voice when he spoke. “Larissa and I were far from
being the perfect couple.”
“Then why were you with her?”
“Sometimes two people are brought together for a lot of different reasons.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about her, Keane?”
She sat up and switched on the lamp next to the bed. She wanted to see his face when he told her about his ex. She wanted to see if there was still something there.
“Because I didn’t think that it was something you could handle. You are already dealing with a lot as it is. You certainly don’t need my extra baggage adding to it. You deserve better.”
She was disappointed with his answer. She thought he would have come up with something more original, something to make her angry with him.
“So you think mentioning your ex would have pushed me over the edge, is that it? Do you really think I am that fragile?”
“That’s not what I mean, darling.” He tried to reach for her.
“Then how exactly am I supposed to take it?”
“I just felt that making an issue over someone I had a past with wasn’t exactly necessary.”
“Your friends, including Jerry don’t seem to think so. They had absolutely no
problem talking about you and Larissa. They couldn’t wait to tell me how much I look like her.”
“Oh, honey, they are seeing what they want to see! You look nothing like Larissa, well not in my eyes. You may have the same hair color and green eyes, like she did, but that’s where it ends.”
“So you think your friends are mistaken?”
I can’t speak for them, but yes, they are. You are a completely different
person, darling. You are smart, funny, desirable, and sweet.”
“And Larissa was none of those things?”
“Like I said, you are nothing like her.”
“Let be the judge of that. Do you have any old photographs of her lying around,
maybe an old one tuck away in the back of your wallet?”
He sat up and looked at her. “I know what you are trying to do. And the answer is no. I do not carry around any old photos of my ex with me. Larissa was someone I shared a past with, and now it’s over.”
“Did you love her?”
“Not the way I love you. It wasn’t the same with her.”
“What do you mean?”
“We didn’t fall in love immediately, the way you and I did. Larissa and I kind of grew up together. We knew each other since we were kids.”
“Were you high school sweethearts?”
She was getting a little jealous that he had shared something special with
someone else before her.
He laughed lightly. “No. I went to boarding school in Connecticut. My parents weren’t around much, so they thought that was the best thing for me. Then I went off to Yale. I don’t think Larissa ever left here. We ran with the same crowd whenever I came back here for the summer or holidays. We didn’t start dating until about two years ago.”
“Did you steal her away from Jerry? He seemed to think so.”
“Jerry is delusional, has always been. He and Larissa probably went on a couple dates before she broke it off with him. She couldn’t deal with his excessive drinking, partying and drugs. Jerry resented the fact that Larissa chose me over him. I thought he was over all that, but what he almost did to you told me otherwise.”
“She must have been very beautiful to have you guys fighting over her like that.”
“Yes, she was pretty, but not as beautiful as you are, darling. There were sparks flying between us the moment we saw each other, remember.” He stroked the small of her back. She rememb
ered. “Well, it wasn’t like that for Larissa and me. I love you.” His hand reached up to caress her hair and then a side of her
cheek. “And to correct you, I was never at war with Jerry over Larissa. Jerry just
wouldn’t let go.”
“Do you regret that you guys aren’t together anymore?”
He gave her a pensive look. “Yes. I miss her, but not the way you think.”
“Would you ever rekindle your romance with her? I know it’s something unusual to ask, but I must know if there’s still a chance of you and Larissa getting back together.”
He sighed, and popped his head up on his arms to look at her. He looked sad, and angry; more sad than angry.
“If I’m given a second chance to see her again, yes, I would gladly take it.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear from him!
“Then why don’t you! I will be more than happy to step aside and let you and Larissa be together!” She rolled away from him.
He could have been a little bit more discreet about his feelings for his ex.
“Darling!” He tried to reach for her, but she moved further away from him.
“You obviously still have feelings for her. I’m not surprise, not with the way everyone was carrying on about you two! No wonder you refused to tell me about her!”
He gave her a hurt look. “Don’t!” He tried to stop her.
“I wish I knew how you felt about her before I slept with you!”
“Don’t say that.” He took her arm. “Please, don’t get upset about this.”
“Upset! I’m far from being upset! Hurt and disappointed is more like it! You
could have had the decency to tell me that you still have feelings for your ex! Believe me, it would have saved me a heartache of troubles!”
She was on the verge of tears. The possibility of losing him to another woman; one that he shared so much with, was getting a little too much for her to take.
He rolled over, took her in his arms and held her tight, so tightly that she couldn’t pull away from him again. “Darling, I wish that you wouldn’t take this the wrong way. None of it is what it seems.” He pressed his lips to her hair.
“How am I supposed to take it, Keane?” she asked him in an exasperated voice. “You have just confessed your true feelings for another woman—your ex at that!”
He spun her around slowly by the shoulder, and she lowered her head to avoid looking at him. She was misty eyed—she was upset—she was hurt—she didn’t think she could bear looking into his eyes.
He slipped his finger under her chin and brought her head up to look at him.
“Look at me,” he said to her.
She bit down on her trembling lips and kept her eyes down.
“Becca, darling, please! Don’t do this to us.” His hand went up to smooth her
hair. “You don’t know the whole story.” His voice sounded sad and tired.
Becca gave him a perplexed look. “What story?”
“About Larissa.”
“I think I’ve heard enough!” She tried to struggle out of his arms, but Keane wouldn’t let her go. “I don’t want to hear anymore. Please let go of me!”
“Not until you hear what I have to say.”
“Good! So there is more!”
“I can see from your reaction that Jerry and the others didn’t tell you everything.”
She stopped struggling and turned around to look at him.
“Were they supposed to tell me anything more?”
He sighed. “Maybe they didn’t want to be the one to tell you, or they just assumed that you knew.”
“This is a bit confusing, Keane. You are making it sound as if there’s some sort of big mystery surrounding you and Larissa. So, is there?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Larissa had an accident about a year ago.” She had never heard so much pain in his voice.
“An accident?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know. I…I.” Her voice trailed off.
“I’m surprise they left that part out.”
“What happened? Is she okay?”
He had that same pained look in his eyes again. “She didn’t survive,” he told
her softly.
Her hand went up to her lips. “Oh, my god, Keane! No! That’s terrible! I…I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not! I behave terribly! There’s no excuse for the selfish way I acted. This must have been so hard for you, living with so much pain for such a long time. I can’t believe I got angry and jealous of someone who’s not even here to defend herself. I’m sorry—I really am!” She rested her hands on his, and looked into his eyes.
“It’s not your fault. I should have said something to you before. You didn’t know.”
“I understand now why you didn’t want to tell me. Were you involved?”
She swallowed hard, and looked at him.
“Somewhat.” He appeared angry.
“Were you hurt too?”
“Not physically. It was more emotional pain, than anything else. I spent the last year blaming myself. None of it would have happened if I hadn’t brought the man who was responsible into our lives. Larissa was with him when he drove the car off the bridge and into the lake.”
“Oh, my god!” She gasped and wrapped her arms around him. “But I don’t see
how any of it could have been your fault. You weren’t driving.”
“The guy was someone I knew, Becca. Larissa was only in his car because of my association with him. He had offered to drive her up to the ranch. I was out of town on a business trip at the time and was supposed to meet her there the next
day.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and ran his fingers through his hair.
She could see that he was still in pain and struggling.
She held him tightly. “I understand you would feel responsible, darling, but you aren’t responsible for someone else’s actions.”
“I guess I feel I am in this case. I feel guilty because I wasn’t there to protect her. Larissa didn’t get a chance to save herself, but he did. He made it out of the car and left her there to drown. It was late at night, and he never alerted the authorities until the next morning. By then he had sobered up, and Larissa was dead. And being the scumbag that he is, he blamed it all on her. He told the cops Larissa was the one behind the wheel. He swore that she was high on drugs, and that he had been trying to get her to stop the car.”
A loud gasp escaped her lips. “How can anyone be so deceptively cruel—so
heartless and despicable!”
“He hasn’t shown an ounce of remorse or took any responsibility for what he
did, up to this day. He got away with it.”
“Wasn’t there an investigation? Surely, they must have found that a crime had been committed, and that he was lying about the whole thing?”
“They investigated alright! By then the guy had sobered up and lawyered up. By the time he submitted a blood and alcohol sample, whatever he had in his system was already gone.”
“And Larissa?”
“I’ve never known her to do drugs, and she wasn’t a heavy drinker; a couple glasses of wine the most. They didn’t find anything in her system either. But the autopsy did reveal a big bump on the side of her head and bruises on her upper arm and legs. She wasn’t in the car when they pulled it from the lake. It was hard to prove who had been driving.”
“So they only had his word to go on.”
“Something like that. Mind you, I wasn’t surprised the way the cops handled the investigation, considering that he’s from an influential political family.”
“That doesn’t mean that he should get away with murder.”
“Well he did.”
“But wasn’t he charged with anything? Didn’t the bruises on Larissa’s body
mean anything?”
“Not to his l
awyers. They argued that they could have come from anywhere.
There was no evidence that she suffered them before the car went off the bridge.
He was only charged with a misdemeanor for leaving the scene of an accident.”
“That’s a slap on the wrist!”
“I never believed that this was just a freak accident, and neither did Larissa’s parents. Something terrible took place in that car. Larissa’s parents pushed to have the case reopened. A judge finally sided with them.”
“I hope her parents get justice and the closure they are hoping for.”
“So do I. It’s been hell for them. They are convinced that the guy killed their daughter. Larissa was their only child, so you can see how this would hurt them.”
“And you, do you agree with them?”
“I think something went down in the car with them before it went off the bridge. Larissa was barely a hundred and fifteen pounds. He was a strapping two hundred and twenty pound guy who played football in college.”
“Do you think he tried to force himself on her?”
“It’s possible. Knowing what I do about him now, it’s extremely likely.”
“Oh, my god, Keane! I’m so sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am for putting her in danger.”
“You can’t go on blaming yourself.”
“I guess you are right. It won’t bring Larissa back.”
“And I’m sure she would have wanted you to be happy, and not feel responsible for something you couldn’t control. The guy was a predator; he would have found some other way of getting Larissa alone with him. It’s what predators like him do.”
He took a deep breath. “You are right. Now you see why I didn’t want to talk about it.”
She rested her hand on him. “Are you okay?”
He managed a smile. “You want to know the truth.”
“Please.”
“It feels like a big load has been lifted off my shoulders.”
“And that’s just from talking to me?” She gave him a wide smile.
“It’s a great feeling to finally open up about this to someone without
being judged. I’ve spent the last year feeling like less of a man because I wasn’t there when Larissa needed me.”
“Oh, honey, don’t! You would have been there to protect her, if you knew.”
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