She raised her head and gazed up at him, love and wonder in her eyes. “You’re not upset that I lied to you?”
“I am disappointed, but under the circumstances, I understand why you did. Just don’t lie to me again.” He paused. “Is there anything else you need to tell me, about him or anything in your past?” he asked with an urgency that surprised even him.
She shuddered and pushed out of his arms. “No.”
Erik watched her closely for a moment then glanced at Cassie’s car loaded with half her wardrobe, and wishing she had trusted him with the truth. He’d known Cassie for twenty-two years, Michelle for three months, and Michelle had just proved that she trusted him more easily than Cassie ever did, and with something far less significant. That told him a lot.
“Why is Cassie’s car out?” Michelle asked, following his gaze. “And why is it filled with her clothes?”
“I’m giving it all away to charity. Someone’s coming by to pick them up later.”
She eyed him warily. “Why now?”
He couldn’t tell her he’d been blind-sided by the woman he’d loved for most of his life. He held up his left hand. “See, the ring is gone. I tossed it into the Potomac River, and I let go the private investigator I’d hired to find the drunk who’d killed her. I’m done living in the past. I want my life back.”
Michelle’s heart danced with excitement. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Erik was ready to move on. There was no need to tell him that her father was a drunk since he was long gone by the night Cassie was killed. Just like Erik, she was ready to let go of the baggage of her past. Well, that part of it. She was still certain that Dwight Carter was hiding something, especially since Robert had begun searching through the boxes of old papers and stuff they’d stored from their past in his brownstone, and so far, hadn’t found anything that linked Dwight to a life before New Hampshire.#p#分页标题#e#
Strange. Very strange, indeed. Everybody kept links to their pasts. That is if they had nothing to hide. It was as if Dwight had fallen from the sky with a four-year-old son and a pregnant wife, plop into the middle of Manchester.
“Hey, baby, where did you go?”
Michelle started at the sound of Erik’s voice. She looked up at him. “When you said you were in the middle of something important, I never thought it was this big. Actually, when you didn’t come down for coffee this morning I was kind of scared that you were regretting what happened between us.”
His chest heaved. “So much has happened in the past two weeks to keep us apart, but I’ve missed you every moment of every day. I need to be with you. I need my wife.”
“I’ve missed you too, Erik. I’m going insane with my need for you.” She glanced up at the house, hope dancing in her eyes. “Can we make love tonight after Precious is in bed?”
“We’ll make love tonight, but not here,” Erik stated brusquely. He didn’t want any memories of Michelle tied to this house. As a matter of fact, he was thinking about selling it and moving back to Granite Falls. He missed his home, the place where he was born and raised. He’d only moved to Amherst to be close to his mother. She’d been denied the opportunity of raising her son, and he was hell-bent on giving her the chance to make it up with her grandchildren—well, her only grandchild, he thought with a sour twist of his lips. But recently, Felicia had been spending a great deal of time in Granite Falls, comforting his grieving father. Cassie was gone, and since it seemed the police would never find the man who killed her, there was nothing keeping him here.
Except, maybe Michelle. He still hadn’t quite figured out what his true feelings for her were. Or maybe he knew and just didn’t want to admit them—especially after just learning that his darling wife of twelve years had deceived him for five. The only thing he knew right now was that he needed Michelle. He was burning up with a hunger only she could satiate.
“So what are we going to do?” Michelle asked him. “Rent a hotel room for a few hours? It’s not like we can spend the night together without creating suspicion. Our relationship, our marriage, is still a secret to the rest of the world.”
“I was thinking we could spend the weekend in Cape Cod.”
Her eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Hmm. Plus, Sunday is your birthday and I want to do something special with you away from here.” In a place that had no memories of Cassie.
“You remembered my birthday?”
He grinned at her enthusiasm. “Well, Precious reminded me this morning. I called the caretaker and the cottage is being prepared as we speak.”