They had been warm ones, she realized with relief. She'd been touched both by what he'd said and the tentative tone in his voice. He'd known, she realized. He'd known that she was aware of what he was doing. And he'd had regrets.

Tears pooled and fell, but they were not hard to bear this time.

Her chest cavity had been swept clean of anger, the dark emotions leaving a calm acceptance in their wake. And that peace gave her the ability to remember other parts of him, other parts of them.

The fondness. The mutual respect. The caring.

"Oh, Reese. We tried, didn't we? And we would have remained friends when we'd split. That much I know."

As the grandfather clock chimed behind her, she wiped her face and went to the guest room she'd started staying in about a year ago. She fell into bed and slept for twelve hours.

Cass woke up hungry, but for some reason all she wanted was eggs. As they were the only thing that appealed, she had seven of them. Fried in butter.

God, how gross, she thought as she finished the last one and considered having an eighth.

Marie, her maid and dear family friend, arrived at ten, and Cassandra chatted with the woman for a while before taking a shower. Under the rush of water, the nausea came back, but then what could she expect considering she'd wiped out a henhouse for breakfast?

As she opened up her walk-in closet and tried to decide what to wear and how to spend the day, she heard a bleating noise from her purse over on the dresser. Her cell phone was ringing.

She dug it out. "Hello?"

Doc John's voice came across loud and clear. "Congratulations! You're pregnant."

Cass took the phone away from her ear and stared at it. Actually thought about shaking the thing a little.

"Hello?" he said in a tinny reverberation. "Can you hear me?"

She put the phone back to the side of her head. "I'm sorry, I can't be pregnant."

"You're going to need to see an obstetrician, and I'd like to call you in a prescription for prenatal vitamins. Also, you have to eat more. Find things you can stomach and start munching. Think high fat, lots of carbs. You need to put on some weight fast."

"But you don't understand, I can't get pregnant. I'm not pregnant."

"You are."

Cass thought about the nausea and exhaustion, but couldn't believe they were tied to a baby. They had to be from some sort of flu. After all, she and Alex had been together only twice, well, three times really. The first of which being only about three weeks ago. So it was way too early for morning sickness- Wait a minute. There had been that time right before Christmas. Which was like, what, six weeks ago? Except he hadn't- "Cassandra? Are you still there?"

"Ah, yes. I think so. I'm not sure."

He laughed softly. "Do you have any questions for me?"

How much time do you have? she thought.

"I...I'm not up north," she said, "so don't bother with the vitamins. I'll see my doctor today. Uh, thank you."

As soon as she hung up, Cass called her own internist who said she could come in at twelve-thirty. When she put the phone down, she went back into the bathroom and dropped the towel. Standing naked before the mirror, she smoothed her hand over her belly.

What if...

Her eyesight went blurry.

She'd thought she'd accepted the fact that she couldn't have children. She honestly had.

But now a door that she'd assumed was locked forever had unexpectedly opened. What was on the other side was...high voltage joy, bright and warm as sunlight.

Okay, now she was really crying.

Were the weepies another sign of pregnancy? she wondered as she sniffled.

A baby. She was going to have a- Cass thought of Alex.

Oh, God.

She closed her eyes, happy tears drying up instantly. What was Alex going to think?

When Cass let herself back into the apartment that afternoon, she said hello to Marie and went straight to her room. It didn't take her long to pack an overnight bag.

She was six weeks along. Six weeks pregnant with Alex Moorehouse's child.

Somehow that first time they'd been together, enough of him had gotten into her...and biology had taken care of the rest.

She was driving back to Saranac Lake because it was the only thing to do. News like this was not something you wanted to spring on a man over the phone, and explaining it all was going to be tough. She was pretty sure he was going to be horrified.

But she wasn't. She was carrying the baby of the man she loved. So even if she couldn't have Alex, she would always have a part of him.

Cass paused while stuffing a flannel nightgown into her Vuitton duffel. Funny, it had never occurred to her that Reese might be the reason she hadn't gotten pregnant before. The fact that he'd been twenty years younger when his first children had been conceived just hadn't seemed particularly significant.

She checked the clock. It was almost two. If she made good time, she'd be up at the lake by six-thirty. She'd stay overnight and come right back.

She'd been told if she wanted to keep the baby, she better get eating and get some rest. She had every intention of following that prescription to the letter. There was no way in hell she was doing anything to jeopardize the gift she'd been given.

She told Marie she would be back in the middle of the following day and hurried out of the penthouse. Punching the elevator button, she waited, tapping her foot. She was in a rush to go up to the lake, do the talking and return home.

The doors opened.

She staggered back against the wall in the hallway. "Alex..."

Chapter Twenty.

Alex reached out, thinking Cass was about to faint again. "Are you okay? You've gone white as snow."

"What-are you doing here?"

"I came to see you." He eyed her bag. "Look, you're obviously going somewhere, but can we talk? I won't take long."

"How did you get to Manhattan?"

"Spike. He's waiting downstairs."

"Oh, of course."

Her eyes latched on to his face and she stared at him in the strangest way. As if he were...he didn't know what. He couldn't decide whether her eyes were glassy or reverent.

"Cassandra? Can we go inside?"

"Of course. Come in."

Alex took a quick look around as he went through the door. He'd never been in their penthouse before and wasn't surprised it was tricked out like a museum.

But the decor didn't interest him because he was focused on Cassandra. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing her parka. As if she were going to the country.

He knew better than to think she'd be coming to see him and wondered where she was off to. Not asking was killing him, but he reminded himself that it wasn't his business, even though he wished liked hell it was.

"Marie," she called out. A dark-haired woman came around a corner. "Perhaps you'd like to take the rest of the day off?"

Marie nodded and smiled. "Merci, Madame."

Cassandra said something in French to the woman. Then she lifted her hand, indicating an ornate doorway.

"Let's sit in here."

The room they went into was a nice parlor kind of thing. Silk couches, big view, grand piano.

God, he hoped he could get through this in one piece.

Cassandra sat down on a chair, arranging herself as if she were in a ball gown, not slacks and a sweater. Her innate elegance astounded him, drew him, floored him. He was struck by the need to fall to his knees in front of her.

Instead he did his best to play real man even though he felt as if he was falling apart. He took the couch, stretching his leg out.

"Alex-"

"Cassandra-"

They both shut up.

He took the lead in ending the silence. "I need to tell you about...Reese. And that night. In the storm. I know you have an idea of what happened, but I want you to know everything."

Cassandra went perfectly still.

"The storm came up on us hard and fast. We'd expected bad weather, but not on that kind of magnitude. No one did. The barometer kept falling and falling and we'd decided to head back to shore when we got caught in the hurricane. We weathered the first hour or so fairly well, but then our mast snapped in half from the wind. Reese went aft to try and cut the sail loose because the gusts were grabbing it and pulling us off keel. He was struck in the shoulder by a loose piece of rigging. I saw him hit the deck, and then a wave came crashing over the bow. He didn't have his harness on and he couldn't find anything to hold on to. I scrambled to get to him. I grabbed his safety jacket, but it slipped and then I caught his hand. I..."

He stammered. Fell silent.

"Alex?"

He rubbed his face, bearing the horrible memories with no strength whatsoever. He felt as if he couldn't breathe.

"Alex, what is it? What happened?"

He looked at her. When he spoke, his voice was so thin, it was barely audible to his own ears. "I...killed him."

Cassandra's mouth opened slightly. "What? No, no, you didn't-"

He couldn't bear to look at her because he was afraid he was going to lose it. He put his head in his hands.

"Cassandra, I let the sea have him. I let him go. I let go...of his hand...I let go of his hand. I let it go...I let go..." He broke down completely, great sobs cutting through his chest, his body. There was no end to the weeping, to the hoarse words that wouldn't stop coming out of his mouth.

Eventually he lost his voice and the crying slowed.

He felt something grip his forearms and then his palms were pulled from his face.

Cassandra's green eyes were full of compassion as she stroked his cheeks.

"Oh, Alex...you couldn't have kept ahold of him. The wind, the waves, the tossing boat. The Coast Guard told me what it was like. He was taken from you. You didn't let go."

"I did! It happens in my dreams, over and over again. I feel him slipping and...I just let him go."

"Shh...it's all right. I don't want you to blame yourself. You had no reason to want him dead-"

"I did. I do."

Cassandra recoiled. "But why?"

He shrugged out of her hold. Got up and went to the window. "He had what I wanted. What I needed. Something I cherished...."

Cass watched Alex as he stood across the room. His back was straight, his legs braced. Against the yawning view of the city, he seemed as rigid as the skyscrapers beyond his broad shoulders.

"What did you want, Alex? What did he have that you wanted?"

He turned around. His face was bleak as an Adirondack winter. "You."

Cass frowned. Leaned forward a little. "Excuse-What? Me?"

"I...have...loved you since the first day I saw you. I've wanted you, I've obsessed about you, I've fantasized about you. You...you are my Miracle. I let him go...because I wanted you."

His words went into her ears, but her brain couldn't process them.