by Noelle Adams
Mentally, Cassie did the room count again. Okay, maybe Uncle Ed and Aunt Rose would take the master suite and she wouldn’t have to worry. She didn’t realize that she’d spoken the words out loud until Stephen commented. “Nonsense, you know your aunt; she hates to be higher than the second story. Fear of heights and all. Just take the master suite, Cass, and be done with it, okay?” His tone was light and Cassie was sure that he had no idea what he would be subjecting her to.
Over the course of the next two hours, all of their guests arrived and it was joyful chaos. Poor Matt got stuck with moving everyone’s luggage all around the house and the noise level was near deafening at times. Cassie looked at the clock and saw that it was nearing four o’clock and she instructed her servers to get the prepared snack trays out of the refrigerator and to put the lasagna that she’d made ahead of time into the oven so that they could all be eating dinner at five-thirty.
When she felt that everything was under control, Cassie decided to face her demons and walked up the back stair case to the master suite. As soon as her feet touched the plush carpeting she felt her knees buckle. Forcing herself to keep moving, she shut the door and walked to the bathroom to freshen up.
So many memories assaulted her that she felt as if she were being smothered. Everywhere she looked she could see Adam, feel him. Every touch, every word played through her mind and with a cry of despair, she stormed from the bathroom and went out to the balcony and faced the cold, winter air. She welcomed the frosty bite as she stared out at the ocean. There was a time when all she wanted was to be able to look out at this view any time she wanted to, now she knew that for the next several days it would just make her sick.
With a fortifying breath, Cassie stepped back into the bedroom, closed the doors to the balcony and walked across the room, knowing that sleep was going to elude her tonight. At the doorway, she turned and looked at the bed. Like a flash of light it hit her; she had told Adam that she loved him that last night they’d spent here. Was that what freaked him out? Was that why he had turned on her the way that he had?
A lone tear rolled down her cheek. What did it matter? He was gone; refusing to even come to his own mother’s wedding so that he wouldn’t have to see her. How was that for rejection? Wiping the stray tear away, Cassie walked out of the room and went down to the kitchen to check on the meal.
As she suspected, no one seemed to notice her absence. A quick peek into the oven showed that the lasagna was cooking nicely and that her staff had it all under control. She turned toward the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water when someone came up behind her, placed a firm hand on her hip and leaned against her.
She’d know that touch anywhere.
With a gasp of surprise, Cassie turned toward Adam’s smiling face. “Sorry I’m late, darling. I didn’t miss dinner, did I?” He kissed her lightly on the cheek and had to hold back a laugh at the expression on her face. Clearly she was surprised to see him; he just wasn’t sure if it was a good surprise or a bad one.
Cassie stared at Adam as if he was from another planet. What in the world was he doing here? Her entire family had promised her that he wasn’t coming! A quick glance around the room showed no one other than herself to be surprised by his appearance. Taking a cautious step back, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
With an easy chuckle he looked at Cassie and smiled, touching a finger lightly to her nose. “My mother’s getting married; where else would I be?”
Before Cassie could find the words to tell him exactly where she thought he should be, Adam was being welcomed by her traitorous family. She stood, mouth agape, as her brother shook his hand and welcomed him. Her father followed suit and then both of her sisters walked over and hugged him! Blinking rapidly and wondering what on earth was going on, she almost choked as Katie handed Ella to Adam and he readily took the baby into his arms!
The room began to tilt and spin and Cassie reached behind her to grab hold of the counter to stay upright. It was like being in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Any minute she expected to just pass out but luckily one of her servers approached and had questions about the evening meal. Thankful for the distraction, Cassie busied herself. Unfortunately, time moved quickly and before she knew it, she found herself seated next to Adam in the formal dining room and being served dinner.
Conversation rang out all around her but all Cassie heard was her own heartbeat drumming in her ears. Adam hadn’t said anything else to her since his initial comment and she was thankful for his silence. She took a deep breath and reached for her glass of water and took a long drink from it.
“Everything looks and smells wonderful, Cass,” Matt said as he stood to toast the soon-to-be bride and groom.
Cassie was sure that his words were eloquent and wonderful and she raised her glass at the appointed time but still couldn’t focus fully on any of it. She could smell Adam’s cologne; feel the heat of his body next to hers. Dear Lord, how on earth was she going to survive the next three days?
Dishes were being passed and without touching a thing, she found her plate full. Looking around in confusion as to how it all got there, she turned to find Adam smiling at her. “I hope you don’t mind, but you were holding up the line.” His tone was light and easy and very unlike she had ever heard him speak before. He looked so relaxed that Cassie found herself wanting to smile back at him but couldn’t seem to make her face cooperate.
“Um…thank you,” she murmured and then turned her attention back to her meal and began to eat. The food was like sawdust in her mouth and hoped that she was the only one feeling that way. A look around the table showed her that everyone seemed to be enjoying it so she let herself relax a bit.
Once dinner was done and everything cleared away, people dispersed around the house. The men had taken over the game room while the women sat around the fire in the living room talking about the wedding. Cassie stayed in the kitchen longer than was necessary and finally found herself about to relax.
A dessert buffet was put out and everyone ate and visited some more. Before she knew it, people were starting to say their goodnights and walking to their rooms. Now that Adam was here, Cassie figured she’d bunk down in the game room with her servers. Not wanting to face Adam in the bedroom, she went up and began collecting her things. She was almost done when she turned to find him standing in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I didn’t realize that you’d be here; everyone said that you weren’t.” She cursed the tremor in her voice and was thankful that her hands were busy putting clothes back in her suitcase so that he wouldn’t notice them shaking as well. “I had no idea that so many relatives were going to be here so I’m going to bunk down in the game room with the girls.”
Cassie was waiting for Adam to play the role of the gentleman and tell her that it wasn’t necessary for her to leave because he would, but he didn’t. Instead he walked into the room and sat down on the bed and removed his shoes. She stopped her packing and merely stared at him. Mild disappointment swamped her when he didn’t make the offer to be the one to leave. When he stood to put his shoes away, Cassie went into the bathroom to collect the few items she had placed in there earlier. When she came out her suitcase was no longer on the bed. She found Adam emerging from the walk-in closet.
“Where’s my suitcase?”
“In the closet.” His response was said lightly as he walked back over to the bed and reclined against the pillows; his smile serene.
Many emotions were raging inside Cassie but confusion won. “Why? It’s been a long day and I need get my things so I can go downstairs without waking the girls up.”
“Amy and Madison are already camped out. All you’ll do is wake them up and they’ve got a lot of work to do over the next couple of days.”
Sighing heavily because she hated having to talk to him like he was a child, she said, “Be that as it may, I have to sleep somewhere.”
“Sleep here.”
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nbsp; Cassie looked at Adam as if he’d lost his mind. All of her anguish and frustration from the last six weeks boiled to the surface. “Sleep here? What is wrong with you? You humiliate me – again, might I add – in front of my family and then I don’t hear from you for over a month and then you think you can just waltz in here and ask me to sleep with you?” Realizing that the bedroom door was open and her voice was getting near a screech, she stormed over and shut it before rounding on him again.
“I’ll admit that it’s my fault that you just assume that I’d want to, I mean after all, you’ve done this in the past and somehow I manage to keep ending up back in bed with you. But not this time, Adam. I’ll sleep out on the damn deck before I get in that bed with you!” Feeling confident that she had made her point, Cassie turned and headed for the closet to retrieve her luggage.
Her heart was pounding and she was mumbling to herself about what kind of an idiot people must take her for when a shadow cast across the doorway.
“If you pick that up, I’m just going to take it and put it back.”
Cassie stood up straight and turned toward Adam. “I thought I made myself clear out there. I am not sharing a bed with you. You may have conned my family into welcoming you here but they don’t know the real you like I do; you act sincere and then as soon as you’re done getting your way, you just walk out. I’m not going there with you again, Adam,” she said, her voice finally cracking. “I can’t.”
He stepped in the closet and took Cassie in his arms. It felt so good to hold her in his arms again and he was surprised that she didn’t put up more of a fight; instead, she started to cry.
“Why couldn’t you just stay away?” she sobbed. “I don’t understand why you feel the need to just be cruel.”
Her words cut him deeply and he placed a finger under her chin and forced her to look at him. “I’m not trying to be cruel, Cassandra,” he said softly, “I realized that I couldn’t stay away. I missed you.”
Disbelief marked her face and Adam knew that he had to come clean. “I had to be here; I couldn’t stay away.” His eyes scanned her face, the beautiful face that had been haunting him for weeks. Deciding to lay it all out the table, he took a deep breath and said, “I know.”
Eyebrows arched, Cassie leaned back and stared at him. “You know what?”
A small chuckle emerged because Adam knew that life with Cassie was never going to be boring. She was going to make him work for this. “I know about the baby.”
She stepped out of his arms and nearly stumbled over her suitcase in her attempt to put some space between them. “What baby? What are you talking about?”
Now it was Adam’s turn to be confused. “Our baby,” he said simply, although there wasn’t a lot of confidence behind the statement. “I heard you on the phone that day in my office. You’re pregnant.”
Cassie laughed out loud and stepped past him to get out of the closet. “I don’t know what you thought you heard, Adam, but I am most definitely not pregnant. And what were you doing listening in on my conversation?”
Following her out into the bedroom, Adam felt a slight sense of panic at the turn in the conversation. “I wasn’t intentionally listening to your conversation, you were in my office! Grace told me that you were on the phone and I heard you talking about being pregnant and that you weren’t going to tell me!”
“Is that why you freaked out in the restaurant? Rather than talking to me about what you thought you heard, you thought it would be better to rant and rave and say horrible things to my family?”
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath to try and calm himself. This was not going the way that he had planned at all. “Look, I will admit that I behaved badly that night to everyone and I have apologized to all of them for it…”
“Not to me,” she snapped.
“I was getting to that,” he snapped back, mentally counting to ten before he continued. “My feelings for you, terrify me; I’d never felt for anyone what I feel for you. I don’t trust easily and there I was, willing to try and then you announcing that you were pregnant but not wanting to ever tell me just sort of flipped a switch. I am so sorry for the way I reacted, Cassandra, but I want you to know that I’m excited about the baby!”
With a mirthless laugh, Cassie turned and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Look, Adam, you completely misunderstood what you heard that day. I’m not pregnant.”
“But on the phone…you said…”
“I was on the phone with Danielle Chamberlain who actually is pregnant. She and Max are overly excited at the thought of being parents but she didn’t want me to tell you about it because Max wanted to be the one to do it. So I promised not to tell you. That’s what you heard.” Cassie sighed wearily, waiting for Adam’s retreat.
“If you had simply asked me when you came in to the office, I would have told you. Then we could have avoided all of the ugliness that happened and we could have just ended our relationship differently.”
Sitting down beside her, Adam took her hand and stared at their connection. “What makes you think it would have ended?” he asked softly.
“I’m not stupid, Adam. I knew when we left here that you were having regrets and that it was only a matter of time. I just figured that we would phase out and try not to be awkward with each other when our parents got married.”
Sighing sadly, Cassie raised her head and looked at Adam. “So you’re off the hook; I’m not pregnant. No one is trapping you into anything. You don’t have to be here, pretending to have a good time so that an angry mob won’t come chasing after you over my honor or anything.”
He was just about to respond when there was a knock on the bedroom door. Stephen and Bev walked in, full of smiles. Adam and Cassie stood and faced them, both plastering smiles on their faces as they approached.
“We just want you both to know how much we appreciate all that you’ve done to help with our wedding,” Bev started. “The house is so beautiful, Adam, and I love how it is like a Christmas wonderland everywhere I turn.”
“It was my pleasure, mom,” he said gruffly. “You deserve to have a beautiful wedding.”
She beamed at his words and then stepped forward to hug him. “It means the world to me that you’re here to share it with me and to walk me down the aisle. Thank you.”
Stepping back she turned towards Cassie. “And you,” she said, hugging Cassie as well, “you have outdone yourself already with all of the food and with all that you’ve done with the preparations! I am the most relaxed bride in the world. Thank you.”
“You are very welcome,” Cassie said genuinely. “I want your wedding to be everything that you want it to be so that you can start your lives together on a good note.”
“That’s my girl,” Stephen said, taking a turn hugging Cassie. “You make me proud every day, Cass.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“I know it’s getting late but we just wanted to say how happy we are for the two of you; this wedding is even more special because the two of you are back together.” Cassie tried not to react to Bev’s words and instead simply smiled and nodded, hugging the couple one last time before they left the room, shutting the door behind them.
“We’re back together?” Cassie asked as soon as the door was shut. “You told your mother that we’re back together?” Her voice was nearing hysteria and Adam reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders to try and calm her.
“I didn’t technically say that we were back together but that I was hopeful. You see when I talked to everyone…”
Cassie threw Adam’s hands from her shoulders. “When you talked to everyone? So you told my whole family that we were getting back together? And nobody questioned that or bothered to say anything to me?”
Adam was used to thinking quick on his feet but he had a feeling that no matter what he said, Cassie was still going to be upset. “I asked them not to upset you because of…well…” his eyes strayed to her stomach and it took mere seconds
for him to realize his mistake.
“You told them all that I was pregnant?”
“In all fairness, at the time it seemed to work in my favor. After all, how could they hate the father of your child especially when I was stepping up to do the right thing?”
“Have you gone completely insane, Adam? You went behind my back and told my family something that even if it was true was none of their business! How could you do that?” Cassie demanded as she began to pace the length of the bedroom.
“Is that why everyone has been acting so weird towards me? Why I haven’t done more than lift a dish without someone swooping in to help me?” She wasn’t really asking him the questions as much as putting together all of the odd behavior of her family for the last couple of weeks. “That must be why Matt came and loaded the van for me and why Lauren has suddenly taken an interest how I’ve been eating!” She turned to face him. “Did it ever once occur to you to come and talk to me first?”
Feeling cornered, Adam stared mutely at her for a moment. “I…it just happened! Your father came to see me to invite me to the wedding and we talked and I told him what I’d heard and he promised to keep it to himself. Then I had to go and see my mother and beg for her forgiveness and then she asked about you and it just came out.” He ran a hand through his hair. “By the time I got to your brother and sisters it just seemed a way to smooth things over with them.”
Cassie stared at him in disbelief.
“Looking back I can see how that was not the way I should have gone but what I am supposed to do? Tell me how to fix this and I will.” Walking towards her, Adam reached out. When Cassie flinched and moved out of his grasp he felt as if all hope was lost. He waited what seemed like hours for her to speak again.
“In the midst of all of this wedding hoopla, I now have to either upset our parents by telling them the truth or lie to them. Have I got that right?” she asked wearily.
“You don’t have to lie, Cassandra. Give me another chance. No one will be thinking about the possibility of you being pregnant because they’ll all be wrapped up in the wedding festivities. We’ll deal with that issue after the New Year. Please, say you’ll give me another chance.”