CASS WINTHROP and LILA ROBERTS

(Married on June 25, 1999.)

In 1998, Cass made his legal services available to Lila, who found herself frequently in need of them. He quickly summed Lila up and didn't like what added up. He was free with the advice and even quicker with the criticism. But Lila gave it back to him with both barrels, and Cass couldn't gain an inch on her.

During one of their frequent arguments, Cass shouted an impromptu marriage proposal, and in another, kissed her for the first time. Cass tried in vain to appeal to Lila's better nature, but she viewed him as a moralistic prig. When she found herself softening up to Cass (whose own enamorment was by this time a foregone conclusion), she had committed herself to marrying Matt Cory for the sake of her baby, and her bank account.

Lila weasled her way down the wedding aisle, but Cass brought a halt to the ceremony when he revealed a legal loophole. Lila was furious with Cass and resolved to never speak to him again, but they were back to bickering before long.

Cass coached Lila as she was delivered of a daughter, Jasmine. The baby was kidnapped by Jordan Stark as part of his plan to keep Lila (his "in" to the Cory family) in line. Jordan returned Jasmine, then brain-washed Matt into marrying Lila. Lila realized almost from the start that being Mrs. Cory wasn't what she wanted from life.

Baring his soul on a park bench, Cass broke down Lila's defenses. Overcome by both their emotions, Lila agreed to marry him. But when his back was turned, Jordan Stark's flunky threatened her, and she broke off with Cass. When Stark's threats became unbearable, she revealed Stark's manipulations to Cass and they united. Stark's brain-washing wearing off, Matt himself eventually gave his blessing (however half-heartedly) to the couple.

The night they first made love, their most serious threat reared her head, Anne O'Donnell, a dead ringer for Cass's late wife, Frankie. Anne ingratiated herself into Cass and Charlie's lives by playing on her resemblence to Frankie. Lila felt left out, and was hard-pressed to resist Matt's hard-felt pleas for a reunion. When Cass learned Anne was just trying to atone for Frankie's murder (having been the defense attorney who allowed Fax Newman to go to Bay City), he and Lila quickly made up. They were married by Tyrone Montgomery in a beautiful ceremony in Foster Park, only slighly marred by Cass's kidnapping by love-struck gorilla Carolyn.