The Forgotten Night Read online

  Andrew smiled at her. “You look beautiful tonight, Cassie. You looked beautiful at the Christmas party too.”

  She smiled. “You told me that the night of the party, when I took you upstairs.”

  “Really? I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?” A sick feeling bloomed in the pit of her stomach.

  “Well, I really don’t remember much from that night.”

  “You don’t remember anything?” Cassidy asked incredulously.

  “No, just playing with the guys and walking up the hallway and then the rest is kind of a blur.”

  Cassidy stood up and strode over to her window. Tears threatened, and she blinked them back furiously. She could not let him see her cry. How could she have been so stupid? She’d know he was drunk, but never dreamed he’d been that drunk.

  “You okay, Cassie?”

  “Yeah sure, obviously it didn’t mean much,” she mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, I just said that it must be weird, not being able to remember, I mean,” she said, wiping her eyes on the edge of her drape.

  “Are you okay? Did I say something?” Andrew asked, sounding confused.

  “Hey, guys, I didn’t bring your drinks because it’s almost midnight. Cass, your dad wanted us to come downstairs, so I figured you could get your own,” Rachel said, walking back into the room.

  “Okay, great,” Cassidy said, ignoring the piercing stare Andrew was giving her and following Rachel out of the room and down the stairs.

  They walked into the main area where most of the guests had gathered. Hired waiters were passing out champagne glasses and Cassidy and Rachel took one off the trays as they entered. Andrew was right behind them and grabbed one too.

  “Hey, I think I see Alex,” Rachel said over the music.

  “I thought you broke up with him last year,” Cassidy said.

  “I did, but who else am I going to kiss at midnight?” Rachel winked and walked off.

  Cassidy shook her head at her best friend and turned around, almost bumping into Andrew.

  “Did something happen on Christmas Eve?” Andrew asked.

  “Andy, you can’t remember anything, right? Well, if you don’t remember, the only thing I can tell you is that I took you up to your room like usual and then left.”

  “But you forgot about my trashcan and my clothes,” Andrew said.

  “I’m not your maid. I’m tired of helping your drunken ass up the stairs,” Cassidy said angrily, suddenly furious. She couldn’t believe she’d given him her virginity and he didn’t even remember it! “If you don’t remember what happened then it obviously isn’t worth remembering.”

  Andrew looked into her eyes and seemed about to say something when he was cut off.

  “Drew! There you are, I’ve been looking all over for you,” Ashley said, walking up to them.

  “What are you doing here?” Cassidy snapped.

  “I was invited, Cassidy Ames,” Ashley answered.

  “Not by my family and certainly not by me,” Cassidy returned heatedly. The last thing she needed right now was to have to deal with Ashley.

  “No, by Drew,” Ashley said with a triumphantly.

  “What?” she and Andrew said at the same time.

  “You don’t remember? At the Christmas party, after we had sex. You asked me to come to this party with you.” Ashley gave Andrew a wide smile.

  Cassidy’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  Andrew had a similar expression on his face but was the first to recover. “I never would have done that.”

  “Well, alcohol tends to have that effect on people, especially when someone has been drinking a lot, like you were.”

  “C'est pas vrai! J'arrive pas le croire,” Cassidy murmured. It couldn’t be true. She couldn’t believe it. Andrew and Ashley, her Andy? Her head was spinning with the information. She had believed Andrew loved her, but then he’d gone and slept with Ashley after he’d slept with her? A lump grew in her throat as she forced herself to hold back her tears.

  “It can’t be true, I never would have done that, not even under the influence of alcohol,” Andrew claimed, sounding nearly as upset as Cassidy.

  “Well, we did and you told me it was the best you ever had.” Ashley smiled wickedly. “And, baby, it was the best time for me too. Three times, to be exact.”

  Cassidy narrowed her eyes. Without thought, her hand swung back and she slapped Ashley across the cheek. She turned to face Andrew, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Salaud, je te déteste!” In one fluid motion, she tossed her champagne at Andrew.

  Cassidy turned to go, but he was quick to grab her hand. “Cassidy, wait!”

  “Let me go! Comment pourriez-vous me faire ça? Je ne veux plus jamais te parler. Je te hais!” she yelled and wrenched her wrist away from his grasp and ran out of the room and up the stairs.

  Andrew watched Cassidy run away from him, wiping away the champagne she’d thrown on him in shock. What the hell had happened?

  “Did Cassidy just throw her drink at you?” Rachel asked, hurrying to his side. “Let me guess, she found out?”

  Andrew nodded, then turned his angry gaze to Ashley, who was still holding her cheek where Cassidy had hit her.

  Rachel followed his gaze. “Oh no, don’t tell me—”

  “No! I know it’s not true, but she just blurted it out and now Cassidy will think—”

  “You have no proof. How do you know she’s lying, as much as I hate to admit it?” Rachel asked.

  “My heart is my proof. I never would have had anything to do with her, even if I was piss-ass drunk, Rach. I couldn’t do that, not to Cassidy.”

  “Yeah, but you could sleep with someone else?” Rachel snapped.

  “No!” Andrew interjected but realized he had no idea what had happened that night, and he hated admitting the fact he could have slept with anyone. He only wanted Cassidy and to see the pain in her eyes was killing him. “Go talk to her, you’re her best friend.”

  “No, she needs time to be alone,” Rachel said calming down a bit. “Come on, we should go.”

  “What about me? What does this mean for us?” Ashley cried, getting over her shock enough to grab his arm.

  “Us? There is no us, there never was and there never will be. And even though you say that we slept together the other night, I don’t believe you for one second. I would never do that,” Andrew said, then pushed her clinging hands away from him and followed his sister outside just as the clock stroke twelve.

  * * *

  Cassidy pushed her way through the staring crowd and ran up the stairs to her room. She shut the door and locked it, hoping no one, not even Rachel, would come looking for her. She didn’t want to explain herself, and she knew Rachel would see straight through her ‘I-just-don’t-want-to-see-him-with-Ashley’ excuse and possibly realize her depth of emotion for Andrew.

  Cassidy leaned against her door and let the tears flow freely. She hated being weak. No, she hated Andrew Winbright for ripping her heart out and throwing it away. She’d believed everything he’d said to her that night, but he’d obviously only said those things to get her into bed. If he had loved her, he wouldn’t have done this to her. He wouldn’t have slept with another woman, especially not Ashley Kingston.

  Cassidy unzipped her dress and put on her fuzzy pajamas. Tonight she would wallow, tomorrow she would hate, and the days after she would be indifferent.

  If Andrew had used her and couldn’t even remember, and her first time too, there was no point in letting him know the depth of her misery. She would act as if nothing happened.

  She would go back to NYU in a few more days, Andrew would leave for Yale, and they wouldn’t see much of each other. She could successfully dodge him if he came around before she left.

  This would work, it would have to. It would be the only way she could forgive and forget.

  Chapter Three

  Seven Month
s Later…

  “Cassidy, are you sure you don’t want to go with us?” Rachel asked as she stood in her bedroom at their apartment, packing the rest of her clothes. “I’m sure your dad could pull some strings. I thought this cruise was supposed to be our graduation gift. Not just mine. I can’t go without my best friend. I mean I’ll be with Drew a whole month, I can’t talk to him about the cute guys that we’ll see or any girly stuff.”

  “You’ll be fine, Rach. The Colombia Speech Pathology Masters program starts next week, I can’t be off on some cruise, skipping the first three crucial weeks.”

  “They had a delayed start day, but you just chose to start early.”

  “That’s because the later date was an accelerated program. It will be hard enough as it is, I don’t need to add an accelerated pace to it as well.”

  “Fine, just know that I’ll miss you.”

  Cassidy laughed. “Just think of me every time you see one of those cute guys you talked about.”

  Rachel smiled and turned to zip her suitcase. “You in here, sis?” Andrew called from the apartment entrance.

  Cassidy and Rachel had lived in the same apartment since sophomore year at NYU. Now that Cassidy would be attending Colombia for her Masters and Rachel would be staying at NYU for a Masters in Art, they decided to keep the place. It was situated right in the middle of Manhattan so it was the perfect location for both girls.

  Cassidy tensed upon hearing Andrew’s voice. After the horrible New Year’s Eve party, she had calmed down and apologized to Andrew for throwing champagne on him. She had managed to convince him that she was just surprised to find out the news and was upset to find out from Ashley. They’d never brought it up after that, and Cassidy managed to avoid Andrew whenever he came to New York to visit. She was either studying in the library or working on upcoming projects.

  “Hey, we’re in here!” Rachel called out.

  Cassidy went to help Rachel zip up her overstuffed suitcase.

  Andrew walked into the room and smiled at Cassidy when she looked up at him. She gave him a small smile then averted her eyes. She hadn’t given him a real smile since the New Year’s Eve party. Andrew looked visibly disappointed, but didn’t comment.

  “Are you ready, sis?” Andrew asked.

  “Yeah, here take the suitcase,” Rachel said, pulling it off the bed.

  “God, Rach, what do you have in here?” he asked.

  “I’ll be gone a month,” Rachel replied.

  “Whatever,” Andrew said as he began to wheel the suitcase out of the room.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind?” Rachel asked pleadingly.

  “I can’t, Rach.” Cassidy could never bear to spend that much time with Andrew, not after what had happened. She resented Andrew for ruining this for her, because she and Rachel had been talking about this cruise for ages.

  “You can’t or you won’t?’ Andrew asked, giving her a shrewd look from the doorway.

  Cassidy sighed and looked at Andrew. “I can’t.”

  Andrew nodded, a sad look in his eyes. “Well, see you later, Cassie.”

  Her heart still flipped in her chest when he called her by his own nickname, but she had to remember it meant nothing. She meant nothing to him. She was just his little sister’s best friend. Cassidy smiled then turned to Rachel. “I’m going to miss you. It’s going to be lonely here without you, a little quieter too.”

  “Shut up, Cass, I’m gonna miss you too,” Rachel said and embraced her. Rachel had obviously seen the change in Cassidy since the New Year’s Eve party. She wasn’t falling for her excuse and knew there was more to the story, but she never pushed Cassidy for answers.

  “All right, let’s go,” Rachel said, stepping out of the embrace. She picked up her backpack and followed Andrew out of the apartment.

  Once they were outside, Andrew put Rachel’s suitcase in the back of his BMW. They were driving home first to drop off his car. The family driver would take them to the airport, where they would catch a plane down to Florida then take the cruise from there.

  “She still hates me,” Andrew said as he pulled out of the parking lot.

  “She doesn’t hate you.”

  “She won’t look at me for more than a few seconds and barely says two words to me. It’s been like this since Christmas. Every time I come and visit she’s off studying or working, she never hangs out with us, with me anymore.”

  Rachel looked over at him, her eyes serious. “Do you love her?”

  “What? Why would you ask that?” he asked briefly, looking over at his sister before turning his attention back to the road.

  “The night of the party, you had said your heart was the proof, that you could never hurt Cass. Drew, you haven’t dated at all since your senior year in college. Not since we went on that trip to LA, come to think of it. I should know, I hear it often enough from your buddies. So don’t sit there and tell me bullshit, tell me the truth. Do you love her?”

  Andrew stopped at the red light and sighed. He turned to face his sister and looked her in the eyes. “Yes.”

  Rachel nodded, obviously unsurprised.

  “I have for a long time now. I just didn’t realize it until that trip. Are you mad at me?”

  “Drew, why would I be mad at you?”

  “She’s your best friend, like your sister. I thought that it might—”

  “I’ll admit I was a bit upset at first.”

  “At first? What?”

  “It wasn’t painstakingly obvious, but I figured it out. So, I was a bit annoyed at first, but really, I couldn’t be happier. My best friend and my brother?”

  “I wish you would have told me this before the Christmas party.”

  “Do you recall anything?”

  “Not really, I think about it often though. It’s like everything I see from that night is blurry and no matter how hard I strain my eyes I can’t seem to make anything out, but I still know I never had sex with Ashley.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The dreams I keep having about that night—the images, the emotions—aren’t those of just having raw sex.”

  “Eww, I don’t need to know, forget I asked,” she tried to say over him but he finished anyway.

  “My dreams, me and this mystery woman, are making love, not just having sex. That’s how I know it wasn’t Ashley.”

  Rachel listened to his words, then shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I think the key phrase in there would be ‘making love’. Who the hell do you think it was?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered, not sure what his sister was getting at. “I told you I can’t remember.

  “What was Cassidy like when you first saw her on New Year’s Eve, before any of the drama?”

  “Well, she was at the bar taking a shot and when I spoke in her ear she turned around and had the brightest smile, her eyes were glowing.” He sighed, missing her bright smile.

  “Did you talk about the Christmas Party before Ashley showed up?”

  “Yeah, up in the room when you went downstairs for drinks. I told her she looked as beautiful as she did at our party but she said I had told her that night. And then she was shocked that I couldn’t remember anything, she sort of got a little upset afterwards. But then, you came in and we headed downstairs and Ashley showed up.”

  Rachel looked out of the window, shaking her head again. “You dolt! You broke her heart. You want to know why she’s been avoiding you, why she was so upset that night? It was because she loves you too.”

  “What?” Andrew breathed.

  “I guess I always figured, but now there’s the proof.”

  “She loves me?” Andrew asked again.

  “Yes, you idiot! I’m betting for as long as you’ve loved her, maybe longer. You broke her heart that night. That’s why she’s been acting strange.”

  “She loves me?” he asked again, still not believing it. All those times he thought he saw the love in her eyes, he had been right. He s
hould have just told her when he knew. He should have told her how he felt then none of this nonsense would be happening.

  “I have to tell her,” he said as he pulled the car to a park in front of their house.

  “No! You can’t!”

  “What? First you’re telling me yes, now no?”

  “You can’t tell her now. She’s still mad at you. She still thinks you slept with Ashley. You have to make sure you didn’t.”

  Andrew stared at his sister for a long moment. The magnitude of his stupidity hit him like a brick. He’d made love to Cassidy on Christmas Eve. She’d given herself to him, and then he hadn’t even called her the next day. He’d let a whole week go by, then he’d told her he didn’t remember anything that had happened that night. No wonder she’d been so angry with him. Was there anything he could ever do to earn her forgiveness?

  Chapter Four

  December 24 - Winbright Christmas Party

  Andrew saw Cassidy the minute she arrived at his parents’ party. He had been sitting in the corner, waiting for her to show up. She looked even more beautiful than the last time he’d seen her as she went directly to the bar and ordered a drink. She wore her red spaghetti-strap A-line dress with a bubble hem skirt that fell just below her knees, complete with black sash. Cassidy had never liked wearing it, but her mother always insisted. He wondered why she wore it tonight. He watched her as she downed the contents of her cup and turned around to leave.

  As she slowly made her way out of the living room, he jumped up and followed her, wondering what she was doing. Normally she would have sat down and pulled out her book, but she wasn’t even carrying her clutch. What was going on? She walked across the ballroom and leaned against one of the walls, watching as couples danced. He stepped inside, determined to talk to her, just as a friend. Rachel was right, he needed to wait until he knew exactly what happened that night before confronting her with his feelings. As Andrew stepped closer, he stopped when Cassidy’s attention was drawn by a man who walked up to her.