Leah Braemel - Deliberate Deceptions

Or watch whatever they ended up doing. Be it yelling or making love.

The two of them walked along the path back to the house without speaking. While they walked, Chad wondered if Lauren was composing answers for him with the same deliberation he was preparing his questions. For years he’d been composing what he wanted to ask. Yet so many of the questions now seemed futile or petty. She’d walked away from him. She’d been clear she hadn’t agreed with his decision about the FBI. She’d been furious when that video of the two of them having sex in their bedroom had been posted on the internet and gone viral, how stills had been splashed across every goddamned newspaper on the east coast and beyond. To this day he figured out how someone had managed to sneak a camera into the house. He’d gone over the place with every detector he could lay his hands on and never found a trace of the goddamned thing.

He’d done every damned thing she’d asked. Yet it hadn’t been enough. The sense of hope that had flared to life twisted on him, turned into a serpent intent on destroying his dreams.

Once they were in her room and he’d closed the door, Lauren took a deep breath and faced him. “I really am sorry. About leaving you. I know it was wrong. I apologize for that.”

“You’ve said that already.” He scrubbed his hands over his face as he fought for control. “Look, I know you were unhappy. I know you didn’t agree with some of the choices I made. Thalia told me-”

“Let’s not talk about Thalia right now.” The bleakness in her eyes sucker punched him, driving away the righteous indignation that had driven him just moments before. “Even before Emily’s death, I was pretty messed up. There was something wrong with me, about the way I watched Emily.”

What had he missed?

He thought back on those months, of watching her nursing Emily, cuddling her, sleeping with her right beside their bed, her hand often resting on their daughter as the two of them slept. “Babe, you were the best mother a baby could ever ask for. You were always there with Emily. You carried her everywhere you went. I know. I saw you.”

“From the day we brought Em home from the hospital, I was terrified to go to sleep.” Her voice cracked. “I was afraid if I did, she’d stop breathing and I wouldn’t know.”

How could that be? How could he not have seen that she’d been afraid? Then again he’d been at work during the day, a lot of evenings too. Especially that last month when he and his team had been winding up that inside trading investigation. Had he neglected his family because of a goddamned greedy banker?

“During the day, when you were at work, I’d keep her in her carry seat, so I could take her with me everywhere. I was afraid to leave her alone.” Her voice was a toneless whisper. “Then one day, she turned over on her own.”

He remembered that day. She’d called him with the news but he’d had to cut her off because they were in the middle of a meeting. She’d been upset with him that night-at the time he’d thought she was angry because she felt he’d blown her off. Had it been fear driving her anger? “That’s one of the signs she was growing up, Lauren. It meant she was healthy, that’s all.”

“They told us at our Lamaze classes we shouldn’t let the baby sleep on her stomach, remember?” He stayed very still, afraid to jar her from her trance-like recitation. “After that, I was terrified. How was I supposed to stop her from rolling over on her stomach if I fell asleep?” She closed her eyes for a moment and took another deep breath. When she opened them again, her voice was steadier, controlled. At what cost? “I’d sit on the side of the bed with my hand on her, making sure she was breathing. Sometimes I’d watch her all night.”

Oh, God, it was right in front of him and he hadn’t seen it.

“I knew something was wrong with me, but I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t say anything to anyone. I just kept hoping you’d see it. That you’d see what was happening and do something. Take me to the doctor or something.”

“Why didn’t say something? Tell me? I would have helped you.”

“Because I was afraid. I terrified they’d say I was an unfit mother. That you’d take Emily away from me.”

“I would never have taken her from you, babe. You loved her more than life itself.” He couldn’t help himself; he wrapped his arms about her and drew her close, stroking up and down her spine, gently, comforting the way she liked.

“That night. You came home late, remember?” Her whole body shuddered in his arms. “You’d wrapped some case up and got your promotion.”

Oh, shit, and she’d fallen asleep after they’d made love. Had she never fallen asleep after the way he did? “Is that why you said it was my fault Emily…died?”

She took a deep shuddering breath, giving him the impression that she was ready to shatter. “Don’t you see? If I’d been awake, I might have noticed that she’d stopped breathing. I might have been able to save her. I know it wasn’t your fault, but I wasn’t thinking straight and I…”

“It wasn’t your fault. You know that. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” Here he’d been blaming himself, thinking Lauren had blamed him for Emily’s death, and she’d been blaming herself. They’d both carried too much crap around for too long.

Her words were muffled but controlled. “Maybe I sensed something but just didn’t realize it. If I’d said something, they could have tested her. Put her on one of those apnea blankets that monitored her breathing. If she’d been on one of those, the alarm would have gone off and we could have saved her.”

Her head shook against his shoulder and he realized there was a damp patch on it. She was crying without making a sound. He held her tightly against him, stroking her back. “You can’t second guess yourself, babe.” He wore the crown of perfect vision hindsight after Thalia’s shooting. He pulled Lauren away and cradled her face in his palms. Tears streaked down her face. He brushed his thumb over her cheek, wiping them from their tracks. “Emily had none of the indicators-she wasn’t premature, she had no physical signs to make us suspect she’d stop breathing. You know that.”

Lauren started to say something but he cut her off. “You read the autopsy report, Lauren. You know what the coroner said. You didn’t do anything wrong. Neither of us did.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, as if she’d been shouting for hours. Her deep shuddering sigh echoed through his bones and settled into his soul.

He continued to stroke her cheek as the tears slowed. “So you ran to England?”

To Tranquil Pastures…which was a fancy name for a private clinic specializing in treating people having…mental difficulties. Oh, God. “You weren’t in charge of security at that spa, were you?”

“No. I was a patient.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why not find something local?” Somewhere I could have visited you. Helped you.

“Thalia found the place for me. I told her I wanted it to be somewhere private so no one could find out that I was there. The press were already tearing you apart. I didn’t want anyone to go after you because I was so weak.” The press had been in a feeding frenzy and were pointing the fingers at him as the poster child of how the FBI had failed the country. What woman-especially one recovering from the death of her child-voluntarily put themselves into a spotlight like that? He wondered who had been advising her. His lawyers perhaps? Or Thalia?

And why the fuck hadn’t Thalia told him where Lauren was or what she’d been going through? He didn’t need to ask how his sister had raised the money. He had a damned good idea where it had come from-she’d been millionaire Cooper Davis’s lover at the time. But however she’d gotten ahold of the cash, his sister was due for a long talk about boundaries, and secret keeping, and interfering between a husband and wife.