The Forgotten Night by Becky Andrews Read Free Book Online

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,