All day he’d stewed over her strange, capricious behavior. It wasn’t like Cassie to blow hot and cold. Now he was all tied up in knots and determined to have it out with her.
He headed for the stairs when Cassie appeared from below. She seemed out of breath, and when she saw him, her cheeks flushed.
“Kirk,” she said, her voice tight. “I was hoping you’d be home.”
Her lips were pink, the same lips she’d kissed her ex with down below in the taxi. He grimaced at her. “Where’ve you been?”
“Uh, at my mom’s place.”
A lie. She didn’t want him knowing she’d been with Russell. “Oh yeah? Had dinner there, too?”
Her cheeks grew redder. “Mm-hmm.”
The urge to grab her by the shoulders and demand the truth overwhelmed him. But it wasn’t entirely her fault. He was to blame, too. He shouldn’t have given in to temptation. He should have ignored his libido and maintained their strictly “friends only” status quo. This friends-with-benefits arrangement definitely didn’t work. Sex had ruined everything. Sex had made her lie to him about Russell.
“So what did you want to see me about?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest.
She bit her lip and tweaked her cotton hoodie, fingers nervously playing with the zipper. “I wanted to talk about us.”
“What about us?”
She shifted from foot to foot, looking even more uncomfortable. “You and I, we’ve done some crazy stuff these past two weeks, huh?” An anxious smile flitted across her face, but he schooled himself not respond. “I never thought it would happen because it seemed I was always just one of the guys to you. No one special.”
Her self-deprecating moue found a chink in his armor. How could she think that? “Cassie, you know that’s not true. You are special.”
She ran the zipper up and down, her teeth worrying at her lower lip. “Maybe,” she muttered, reddening, “but how much?”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
The blush spread to every inch of her face. “I want to know—” She gulped, voice wavering. “I want to know exactly how special I am to you.”
He froze at her question. They were friends, the best of friends. Friends who looked after each other. Friends who liked hanging out together. Friends who were there in good times and bad.
But if they were just friends, why had he been in such a bad mood ever since her ex-boyfriend had turned up and stopped them sleeping together? Why did she haunt his thoughts all the time? Why had the sight of her kissing her ex make his heart shatter?
Could it be that Cassie had become more than a friend to him? Could he be in love with her?
No. Something clanged in his brain, a panic bell ringing out, a trapdoor crashing shut. He couldn’t be in love with Cassie. Love was fickle, sly, unpredictable. Love had deluded him, betrayed him, deserted him. Love was the unscrupulous cousin to friendship, and he’d long ago decided that if ever there was a contest, friendship would always win. Friendship was solid, enduring, open. Friendship lasted through marriages, illnesses, years of separation.
No, he couldn’t be in love with Cassie.
“You’ll always be my special best friend,” he said, his conviction firming. Whatever that growing, burning tangle was in his chest, it wasn’t love, he was sure of it.
Cassie flinched as if he’d slapped her. “Is that all? Just a friend? Nothing more?”
Did she want him to say out loud that he had—Christ, this tumor beneath his ribs was really starting to bite—feelings for her? But he’d seen her kissing Russell minutes ago. Maybe this was some ploy of hers, to play him off against Russell. Maybe she wanted him to confess she meant something to him to use that against Russell.
“What more do you want?” He glared at her, ice encasing his hammering heart.
Her face paled, her freckles highlighted like sand speckling snow. “A relationship,” she said. “A connection. A bond.” She drew in a shaking breath. “I realize no one can replace Alison, but—”
“Leave Alison out of this.” The words flew from him, an automatic reaction. Alison meant failure and loneliness. Damn, he didn’t want to be reminded.
Cassie stepped back, a hand pressing against her throat as if she had trouble breathing. Dismay gathered in her wide, brown eyes.
“Look, I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I’m sorry for reminding you about Alison, but I can’t help it. I don’t want to replace her, Kirk, but—but I think you and I, we could be happy together if you gave us a chance.”
A chance to ruin a good friendship? Hell, the friendship was already ruined. The realization sent another burst of anger through him. He wasn’t going to get embroiled in her games with Russell.
“No,” he said, low and emphatic.
Cassie squeezed her eyes shut as if she was in pain. Then she looked at him, shoulders drooping, and nodded.
“I thought you’d say that,” she whispered. “I should’ve known better, after what happened two years ago. My mistake. I won’t bother you anymore.”
She edged past him and hurried down the hallway to her room.
He must have been tired because it took several seconds for her words to sink in. Then he strode after her, pushing open the door without knocking. Cassie was flinging her clothes into her suitcase, not bothering to fold them.
“What happened two years ago?” he asked, the tightness in his chest spreading to his entire body.
She paused, sweeping back a strand of flyaway hair, her face taut and white. “You don’t remember? Not one single iota?”
“Not one.” He stepped right up to her, his uneasiness mounting. “Two years ago. You came back for the funeral.”
“That’s right.” She stood stiff as a soldier on parade, eyes fixed on him.
He scowled as he furiously rifled through his memories of those fraught days and nights. This was important, instinct warned him. Vitally important, yet he couldn’t drag anything significant from those dark, dreary memories.
“You visited me a few days later.” He scratched his jaw. “I think we watched a movie or something, right?”
She was very still now, giving him a barely perceptible nod.
“And I must have fallen asleep,” he said, straining his brain cells. “Because when I woke up the next day you were gone.”
She was still waiting, hardly breathing, tension spiraling out of her as thick as fog.
“I did something while I was asleep?” He was close, he sensed, but still the truth eluded him. He crunched his fists together. “Goddammit, Cassie, just tell me what the hell happened!”
“You kissed me,” she blurted out, swallowing convulsively. “You’d fallen asleep with your head on my shoulder. I fell asleep, too, but then I woke up, and your arms were around me, and—and you started to kiss me.”
His body pounded with emotion. That must be it. That was the memory that had teased him all these years, his tender, warm, blissful memory. That had come from turning to Cassie in his darkest hour and seeking her comfort.
“Why didn’t I remember that before?” He raked his fingers through his hair, agitated by his memory loss, by what he’d missed, by what he might have had.
“You weren’t kissing me.” Cassie threw more clothes into her suitcase and slammed the lid shut. “You thought you were kissing Alison.”
Kirk sucked in a breath. “And you know this how?”
“Because you muttered her name over and over while you were kissing me.” She zipped up the suitcase with sharp, jerky movements and heaved it to the ground, snapping up the extendable handle.
He couldn’t exhale. His lungs felt like they were bursting.
“I did what?” he stuttered.
With a sigh, she straightened, her eyes steely. “You moaned ‘Alison, Alison’ all the while you were kissing me.”
Pain hammered at him. “No, I can’t have! It’s not true.”
Cassie wearily rubbed a hand over her face. “Why would I lie about something like that?”
“But it’s a god-awful thing to do to any woman, let alone you.” Sweat broke out from every pore as his heart thrashed, the roar filling his ears to bursting.
Cassie swallowed deep. “I don’t blame you. You were exhausted, emotionally shattered. You didn’t know what you were doing. But it made me realize that Alison meant the world to you, and she could never be replaced.” She hesitated, her chin trembling, before she shook her head and grabbed hold of her suitcase. “I kind of forgot that when you and I hooked up. I won’t forget anymore.”
She walked out the bedroom, pulling the suitcase behind her. Panic tore through him.
“Where the hell are you going?” He caught up with her and stopped her, gripping her upper arm.
He felt a deep tremor ripple through her before she pulled herself free. “It’s obvious I can’t stay here anymore.” Her voice quivered as she tipped up her chin. “I’m going to my mom’s.”
“Your mom’s? I thought you couldn’t stand staying with her.”
“Well it’s better than staying here!”
She might as well have spit in his face. Insidious ideas snaked through his mind. She wasn’t going to her mom’s; she was going to Russell’s hotel. He was certain of it. Furious chagrin seethed through him. He yanked the suitcase from her hands.