woman would have cried, “What are you doing, kissing me at the main door of the U.S. embassy, for crying out loud! I work here! And who do you think you are, kissing me like that, touching me like that? Get the hell away from me!”
But this was Cassidy, whose wordless emotions were always written all over her face. Eric flinched as if she had actually spoken.
He also flinched from the strength of his memory. Those three memories he never let himself remember?
Well, the first one smashed into him now. Hard.
Cassidy, glowing with new beauty at her Sweet Sixteen party. She coaxed him into the hall, away from her giggly girlfriends and clearly hopeful male friends. “It’s my birthday,” she said. “But I have a present for you. Happy birthday to me.” Then she kissed him. An immature, inexperienced kiss. She looped her arms around his shoulders, touched his neck, and he felt her fingers trembling.
Their first kiss. And their last kiss.
Until now. His mouth still felt hers.
“Cassidy,” Eric said. “I—”
She turned to walk away from him.
“Cassidy, please,” Eric said. “I didn’t come here for that. I didn’t mean for that to happen. It just—I saw you and it just—it did. I’m sorry.”
She looked at her arm where he grasped it. He let go and she looked into his face.
“I didn’t even come here for me,” Eric said.
Cassidy raised one thin, arched brow. He remembered when she learned how to do that in fifth grade. She’d given raised-brow questioning looks to people for three days, thrilled at her new form of expression.
“I came here for Professor Gilbert Harrison.”
Cassidy did look genuinely confused then. She probably hadn’t heard the teacher’s name in ten years, Eric thought. She’d not only left him behind, she’d left everyone.
“I know you’re at work,” Eric said. “And I’m sorry to track you down here. I didn’t know where you live and I needed to find you. Will you talk to me later? There’s things I have to fill you in on.”
Cassidy appeared to really want to shake her head no.
“Please,” Eric said. “I came all this way. Gilbert really needs your help. He called a bunch of your old friends, and they want you to help, too.”
“He didn’t call me.”
“No,” Eric conceded. He had wondered why Gilbert hadn’t called Cassidy, his former work-study student, who’d spent so much time with him and admired him so much. But Gilbert had said on the phone that he didn’t want Cassidy to have to make the long journey back to the United States. On the other hand, a bunch of Saunders grads—particularly Ella Gardner, were positive Cassidy would drop everything and run back. Eric had run into Ella recently in Boston. She was the one who told him about Gilbert’s predicament, and suggested Eric fetch Cassidy. She also asked him about the “crush” she’d suspected he’d had on Cassidy at Saunders. Eric would have laughed at the gross understatement if it hadn’t been his own tragedy.
“No,” Eric repeated. “But your friends insisted you should be found. And I guess I really had to agree.”
Cassidy glanced behind her at the main door, either concerned she should be working—or searching for a place to flee.
“What time do you finish for the day?”
Cassidy glanced behind again.
“What time, Cassidy? I’ll meet you here.”
He wasn’t going to let her leave without responding. She figured that out, because she said, “Seven.”
“Seven?”
“Usually—but tonight, I have—”
“I’ll meet you right here at seven.”
She nodded.
A part of him longed to just stand in awe of her, gaping at the beauty she’d matured into. The girl he’d remembered wasn’t even as beautiful.
But the other part of him, the part that had kept him awake for days and weeks and months on end, that distrustful part of him, made him say, “You won’t be here at seven, will you? You’re going to make me chase you, which is the only thing my pride has managed to stop me from doing.”
Cassidy blinked very slowly, translucent lids covering and uncovering two golden lights.
Then she turned on her heel, yanked on the main door and disappeared into the building.
Eric stared at the spot she’d just vacated. A whiff of unfamiliar perfume lingered in her wake, a scent he’d already begun to miss.
His heart ached with emptiness. “That went well,” he said to the wall.
Chapter Three
“Ambassador?”
Alan Cole looked up from his desk with a pleasant smile, a smile that came easily even though he’d been running around today longer than Cassidy herself had. “Yes?”
Cassidy handed him a few e-mail printouts. “You may want to take a look at these today. I’m leaving now, so…”
The ambassador pulled up the sleeve of his suit jacket, checked his gold watch and frowned. “I’m not sure about this…”
Cassidy hurriedly added, “Unless you need me to stay, of course. It’s not necessary for me to leave now. Never mind, I’ll just be in my office.”
“That’s right. According to my calculations, you’ve only put in a thirteen-hour day.”
The shock of earlier events slowed Cassidy’s ability to recognize the joke. She had turned all the way around to leave before she realized it, and then she turned back to the ambassador, who was fixing her with a shrewd look.
“Actually,” he said, “I very highly recommend you do leave. Your day started before dawn. Anyone else would be long gone.” He smiled again. “Anyone but the determined Ms. Maxwell.”
Cassidy relaxed a bit.
Ambassador Cole was an admirable figure, both politically and as one of London’s most eligible bachelors. His wife had died of breast cancer seven years prior, and Cassidy, who had been a junior staffer then, had sadly watched his heart breaking, along with the rest of the embassy. After that, the ambassador had dedicated his whole waking life to his work, and established himself as an influential voice for the United States in Great Britain. About a year ago, he had become fodder for tabloid speculation after he was seen with a stunning middle-aged blonde at an opera opening. The blonde turned out to be only a cousin, but society reporters persisted in their interest in the attractive politician, making it obvious they felt they’d kept their respectable distance long enough.
Alan Cole had short, graying-brown hair and deep
