was crumbling now, the fortress she’d constructed around her mind and around the warm core of soft feelings deep inside her chest. She faced front again and shivered under her burgundy trench coat. She looked across expansive Grosvenor Square and caught a glimpse of the statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt before turning and heading up to Oxford Street.
A picture of Eric filled her mind and, for the first time, it was not a picture of Eric as a college graduate, an enthusiastic teaching assistant lecturing to an entire class but sending a secret signal through his hypnotic eyes to Cassidy and Cassidy alone.
It was a picture of the Eric she’d never seen before today, and hadn’t wanted to ever see. Eric the man, the man with gray in his hair, the man experienced at having his heart torn in two by the woman he loved.
No. Cassidy gritted her teeth. Something else, something else. Franklin D. Roosevelt. She tried to fill her head with historical facts to shove out the sad picture. FDR. New Deal. Was that him? The New Deal. The New Deal was… She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t believe that she couldn’t remember. Her memory was not normally a flawed one. He shot bears. Didn’t he? And then—no. Crap. That was Teddy Roosevelt. Because of teddy bear. Right? Right? Was she remembering any of this right?
She turned a left, taking her past the famous Selfridges’ storefront. Oxford Street was the usual tourist zoo and as she weaved in and out between clueless people clutching Underground maps, she let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. In this rush-hour crowd, no one would ever notice one woman in a dark coat carrying a briefcase. She whipped a wrinkled white diaphanous scarf from one pocket and tied it around her hair, binding up her one distinctive trait the best she could. For the first time ever, she wished it already was the middle of a bitter London winter, so she could conceal herself in a hat and muffler.
Why, Cassidy? Eric’s broken voice bounced off the walls of her skull, reverberating over and over again. Why, Cassidy?
Why, Cassidy, she heard again, and this voice was ugly, sneering, triumphantly lecherous. Randall Greene. I had no idea you would be as good as you looked. Virgins hardly ever are, you know?
Cassidy strangled a sob back down her throat and forced her feet to go faster, slamming her heels so hard into the concrete that her shins ached.
“Go away, Eric,” Cassidy said out loud, not caring if it elicited strange looks from the pedestrians hurrying beside her. The Bond Street Tube station was only one block off. She matched her chant to her steps. “Go away, go away, go away.”
London was her city. She belonged here. Eric would leave. He had to.
Right. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was elected president in the year…
She glanced up at the street sign and froze. Someone slammed into her from behind, then roughly pushed around her, cursing her over his shoulder.
Cassidy stared wide-eyed at the sign. Gilbert Street.
Had she seen this before? Had her mind never made the connection to her old professor and friend?
She clenched her fists inside her pockets, angry at everything, angry at her city for failing to be her safe haven forever.
She knew, she just knew, that her no-thinking method couldn’t save her from herself anymore.
She broke into a run, blindly shoving at down parkas and shopping bags, and slipped underground.
When Cassidy broke into an unexpected sprint, Eric cursed and quickened his pace as fast as he could considering the foot traffic. The line at the Tube ticket window was dozens deep, and Cassidy slipped through the turnstile, likely with some sort of commuter pass. Luckily, Eric had anticipated Cassidy’s bolting from him and buying Tube tokens ahead of time was one of his preparations. The subway was sliding into the station just as Cassidy reached the platform, and with a bit of crowd-maneuvering, Eric managed to position himself behind her in the same car, where she’d have to turn her whole body around to see him. She didn’t, though she definitely appeared to have a case of nerves, judging by her white fingers gripping the metal pole and the way she brushed a stray invisible strand of hair from her eyes over and over.
Good, Eric thought with defiance. Good. He’d suffered grief for such a long time. Inciting an attack of nerves on the woman he’d loved was at least some kind of weak revenge.
He was so busy watching her, and watching the way she glided toward the door three stops later at Holborn, that he almost didn’t follow her. He leaped out at the last minute, just as a loud automated voice warned him and other passengers, “Mind the gap!” He straightened, afraid that his display of stupidity had alerted her to his presence, but she was already off and running.
They emerged, not quite together, into London’s early evening. The streets were quieter in this neighborhood, and Eric had to drop back about a block and a half to continue trailing her. The buildings had brownstone fronts with varying doors—some high-polished blond wood, some functional dark brown, some with chipping paint and tarnished knobs. They reminded Eric of Boston.
Boston. Where he should be right now, working, and not halfway around the world, chasing someone who didn’t want to be caught.
Cassidy abruptly turned and headed up the steps of a corner building. Eric quickly sidestepped into the doorway of a small Italian pastry shop. The scent of cannoli filled his nostrils as he watched her pull a pile of keys from her pocket and peer over her shoulder once before letting herself in.
Eric went into the shop and bought a cappuccino, staring out the large window at the building Cassidy had just entered. He stepped outside with his steaming cup, taking his eyes off the building’s door just every now and then to study the unfolded London street map he’d picked up at the airport. He determined he was in the Bloomsbury section of the city. He mentally drew the route he’d have to take back to his hotel. After about twenty minutes he strolled over to Cassidy’s building, sat on the top step and waited.
He wouldn’t ring for her, because it would be much too easy for Cassidy to refuse to let him in. Better for him to wait. She’d started to say she had something going on tonight. Provided it took her outside her home, he’d just surprise her on her stoop and have his little chat with her then.
She’d made it pretty clear she hadn’t intended to keep their date at seven. And it was pretty obvious that if she’d hung around late, Eric would wait at the embassy as long as necessary. He had to hand it to her. She did make the better call, leaving early. She did her best.
But Eric had been blindsided that day she’d left him forever. Today, he could keep up with her, because he had more of an idea what Cassidy was all about. And that was her misfortune.
Because he was going to talk to her.
And in the hours between when Cassidy had stalked away from him and when he followed her home, he’d tried to decide whether he was going to make her talk to him.
He’d come here for Gilbert.
And he’d come here for himself.
But Gilbert was the one in a dire situation. Eric merely wanted an explanation for a long-ago wrong. Was it right to cross-examine Cassidy about her running away if it resulted in her refusal to come back to help the embattled professor, who really needed her?
Could Eric be so selfish? Gilbert had always been a confidant and mentor, not just to him, but to so many at Saunders.
No.
