The thin line of gold on her third finger, left hand. She hadn't worn her engagement ring home this time, just her wedding band, that said it all, as his eyes met hers and she nodded. “You're
“I am,” she said sadly, feeling, despite all her explanations to herself, and the fact that he had told her to move on, that she had betrayed him. She could have waited. But she hadn't. “I got married three months ago… I would have told you… but you never wrote anyway… and I didn't know what to say…” Tears rolled slowly down her cheeks, and her voice caught as she told him.
“Who?…” Billy had looked very uncomfortable with her, and they had come home together. Nick had always felt they were right for each other, and he was the right age. It was what he had wanted for her, but it hurt so damn much now thinking of it, it brought tears to his eyes. “Billy?” he asked in a choked voice, trying to sound noble, but this time she laughed through her tears, and took her hand away gently.
“Of course not.” She hesitated for a long time, looking away, and then, finally, back up at him. She had to tell him. “Desmond.”
There was an endless silence in the warm night air, and then a shout of disbelief, almost of pain, as he understood it. “Desmond Williams?” As though there were ten others with the same first name. He stared at her in outraged agony as she nodded. “For Cod's sake, Cassie… how could you be such a fool? I told you, didn't I? Why the hell do you think he married you?”
“Because he wanted to, Nick,” she said with a tone of annoyance. “He needs me. He loves me, in his own way.” Though she knew better than anyone that most of the time there wasn't room in his life for more than planes and papers.
“He doesn't need anything but a flight director and a newsreel crew and you know it. I haven't seen a newsreel that's less than five months old in a year, but I bet he's pumped the hell out of marrying you, and you've spent more time posing for pictures than Garbo.”
“It's five weeks before the tour, Nick, what do you expect?”
“I expected you to have more brains, to see him for what he is. He's a charlatan and a bullshitter, and I've said it since the day I met him. He's going to use you until he's squeezed you dry, or fly you till you drop, or wind yourself around a tree somewhere in a machine that's too much for you. He cares about one thing: publicity and his goddamn aircraft company. The man is a machine, he's a publicity genius, and that's all he is. Are you telling me that you love him?” He was shouting at her, and she flinched as he stood right in front of her and cast aspersions on her husband.
“Yes, I do. And he loves me. He thinks of me constantly. He takes care of… sure he cares about his planes, and the tour, but he's doing absolutely everything
“Like what? Sending you with waterproof cameras and a frogman crew? Come on, Cassie, come off it. Are you telling me he hasn't publicized the hell out of your marriage? I haven't seen any of it, but I'll bet they have here. I'll bet you tossed your bouquet right at the cameras.”
“So what for God's sake?” He was closer to the truth than he knew, but Desmond was always telling her to cooperate and be patient, that the press was an important part of their life, and her tour. But she was sure he had not married her because of it. That was disgusting, and hearing Nick say that made her angry. What right did he have to criticize? He hadn't even written to her. “What do you care anyway?” she fought back. “You didn't want me. You didn't want to marry me, or write to me, or come home to me, or even offer me any hope if you did get back from the war. All you want to do is play ace in somebody else's dogfight. Well, go for it, flyboy. You didn't want me. You told me that. You just wanted to smooch around with me while you were here and then go off to your own life. Well, go for it. But I have a right to a life too. And I've got one.”
“No, you don't,” he said viciously, “you have a figment of your imagination. And as soon as the tour is over, and he doesn't need the illusions anymore to feed the press, he's going to dump you so fast your head will spin, or maybe he'll keep you around and ignore you,” It was what he was doing now, but she knew it was because he had so much work to do before the tour. She wanted Nick to be wrong. Everything he said was unfair, because he was a sore loser and he was angry. And then he went on to make it worse as he took another step closer to her. He wanted to yank her right off the log and into his arms, but out of respect for her, he didn't. “I hear he keeps half a dozen mistresses quietly stashed away, Cass. Has anyone told you that, or have you figured it out for yourself yet?” He said it viciously, but he also looked as though he believed it. “That's ridiculous. How would you know anyway?” “Word gets around. He's not the saint he appears to be, or the husband,” he said sadly. He wished he had married her himself, but it seemed so wrong to him when he left. It still did. But so did her being married to Desmond. “The guy's a bastard; Cass. He probably doesn't love you at all. Face it. He's a showman and a con man. You didn't marry him. All you did was join the circus.” But hearing Nick say those things about Desmond frightened her so much all it did was make her want to strike out to stop him. She reached back to slap him with all her strength, but he was faster than she was. He grabbed her arm and pulled it behind her, and then he couldn't help himself. He kissed her harder than he ever had, harder than he would have dared at any other moment, but she wasn't a little girl anymore, she was a woman. And without even thinking, she felt herself respond to him, and for an endless piece of time, the two clung to each other in unbridled passion. It was Cassie who finally pulled away, with tears rolling down her cheeks. She hated what was happening to them, hated herself (or what she had done to him, but it had seemed so right at the time to marry Desmond. Maybe she was wrong.
But that wasn't the issue now. The issue was Nick, and what they no longer had a right to.
“Cassie, I love you,” Nick said urgently as he held her in his arms again, but this time he didn't kiss her. “I always have, I always will. I didn't want to ruin your life, but I never thought you'd do anything this stupid… I thought you'd wind up with Billy.” She laughed at the idea, and sat down next to him on the log again, thinking about the mess she'd created. She was in love with two men… or maybe only one… but she was obsessed with one, and married to another.
“Being married to Billy would have been like marrying Chris,” she laughed sadly.
“And being married to him?” he asked in a choked voice. He wanted to know now.
“He's very serious,” she sighed, “everything he does is for the tour right now. I think he's doing it for me. I don't know, Nick… I thought I was doing the right thing. Maybe I made a mistake. I just don't know.”
“Cancel the trip,” he said urgently. “Divorce him.” He was panicking. He would do anything. He would marry her if that was what she wanted. But every fiber of his being told him she was in danger.
“I can't do that, Nick,” she said honorably. “It wouldn't be fair. He married me in good faith. I can't walk out on him. I owe him too much now. He's got so much riding on this tour, he's invested so much in it, not just the plane…” It didn't bear thinking about.
“You're not ready for it.”
But she was. And she knew it. “Yes, I am.”
“You don't love him.” He looked suddenly so young and so vulnerable. She wished she had waited for him, hut she hadn't.
“I'm not in love with him. I never was. He knew that. I told him about you, and he accepted it. But I do love him. He's been too good to me for me not to love him. I can't let him down now, Nick.”
“And afterward? Then what? You're stuck with him forever?”
“I don't know, Nick. There are no easy answers.”
“They're as easy as you want them to be,” he said stubbornly.
“That's what I said to you two years ago, Nick, before you left. And you didn't listen to me either.”
“Sometimes things seem more complicated than they are. We make them that way, but we don't have to,” he said wisely.
“I married him, Nick, for better or worse. Whether I loved you or not. I can't abandon him, just because you say so.”
“Maybe not,” Nick said tersely, “but he'll abandon you one day, emotionally if not otherwise, when this is over. It's all for publicity. You'll see, Cass. I know it.”
“Maybe. But until then, I owe him something. And I'm not going to break my word, or betray him. He is my husband. He deserves better than the two of us defiling him. I won't do it.”
He looked at her for a long time, and then seemed to sag as the force of her words hit him. “You're a good girl, Cass. He's a lucky man. I guess I've been a fool all along. I thought I was too old for you… and too poor… and too foolish. I was part right anyway.” And then he couldn't resist a cheap shot, “How does it feel to be married to one of the richest men in the world?”
