Every Breath You Take Read online

  Mitchell knew that was a perfectly logical solution, but for some reason he suddenly found the notion extremely distasteful—almost as if it were he, rather than merely his jacket, that she would be pulling a bag over and hustling out to the front desk.

  “Or I guess I could have put it in the closet and waited for you to phone and tell me what to do with it.”

  Mitchell restrained the idiotic urge to ask her if she thought the lawyer and he wore the same size jacket; then he glanced at the telephone and imagined the lawyer standing there, answering Mitchell’s phone call about the jacket or playing back Mitchell’s voice mail about it. As he looked at the telephone, it occurred to him that the red message light was no longer flashing, as it had been earlier. That meant Kate had already retrieved her voice mail message sometime during the evening.

  He glanced at her, half expecting her to be looking at the telephone, too, but she was looking at the bed with a decidedly guilty expression, rather than the soft, yielding expression she’d had a few minutes ago. Although the lawyer wasn’t present in the room, he’d become a pronounced obstacle to their unrestrained enjoyment of each other, Mitchell realized with disgust. “Is he still planning to arrive tomorrow?”

  Kate shook her head. “The day after tomorrow,” she said, but their conversation about Evan had made her feel so uneasy that she couldn’t look at the bed in the alcove without feeling despicable about being there with Mitchell. Ethically speaking, this wasn’t her hotel room or her bed. Evan was paying for them. Decide now, her brain prompted. Decide. Decide. Engaged in her personal struggle with ethics and logistics, Kate turned in shock when, from the corner of her eye, she saw Mitchell shrugging into his jacket. “Are you leaving?” she asked, sounding as stricken as she felt.

  He nodded; then he partially dispelled her fears over his reasons by capturing her wrist and pulling her firmly into his arms.

  He looked amused, not annoyed, she noted. “But, why?”

  “Because,” he said drily, “something tells me that nice Irish choir girls think it’s naughty to sleep with a man in another man’s room.”

  Kate’s eyes widened at his acuity, but the term choir girl seemed so inappropriate under the circumstances that she couldn’t hide behind the falsity of it. “I am hardly behaving like a choir girl.”

  “Did I guess wrong about the room?” he countered with a knowing smile.

  “Not exactly, but—”

  “And I also think that if we sleep together ‘on the first date,’ one of us will decide tomorrow that our behavior tonight reeked of tacky, indiscriminate sex.”

  “Do you mean you?” Kate said dazedly, and he gave a short bark of laughter.

  “Not me. You.”

  Kate thought about what he was saying, and she made no effort to hide the yearning or confusion she felt. “I never realized what a prude I must be.”

  In reply, he slid his fingers through the sides of her hair and turned her face up to his for a demanding kiss that ended on a gruff command. “Get over it by tomorrow.”

  Kate tried to think of a clever rejoinder and instead said softly, “I will.” Satisfied that the matter was settled, he dropped his hands and turned toward the terrace doors, apparently intending to walk outside and around the building. “There’s a front door in here, you know,” Kate pointed out.

  “If I walk past that bed with you, I’ll have you in it in thirty seconds.”

  “You’re awfully sure of yourself,” she teased.

  He tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and said, “Please, just dare me to prove it. Just give me one excuse. That’s all I need right now—just one infinitesimal excuse and my fragile new scruples won’t matter.”

  Kate wisely decided not to do that, and he opened his eyes. “I’ll pick you and Max up at ten o’clock. We’ll take him to a vet in St. Maarten and spend the day on the island. And the night,” he added meaningfully. When she didn’t object to that, he said, “Do you like to gamble?”

  Kate looked at the man she’d agreed to spend the night with after knowing him only a few hours and said with a winsome smile, “Obviously.”

  He caught her meaning and grinned. “Then bring a change of clothes for the evening—something nice.”

  He turned and disappeared through the doorway.

  Chapter Twelve

  SEATED ON THE AFT DECK OF ZACK BENEDICT’S YACHT with a cup of coffee, a plate of toast, and a newspaper on the table in front of him, Mitchell looked toward the railing as the yacht’s captain swore under his breath and glared at an approaching boat.

  Clad entirely in white, from the starched collar of his short-sleeved shirt to the toes of his spotless deck shoes, Captain Nathaniel Prescott was tall and gray-haired with a ramrod posture and an aura of exacting competence. “Brace yourself,” he warned Mitchell. “Here comes another one.” As he spoke, a ferryboat, bound for one of the neighboring islands and loaded with tourists, slid by the yacht less than fifty feet away, and the ferry captain’s voice blared an announcement over the boat’s loudspeaker to his passengers. “Ladies and gentlemen, lying off to our starboard side—that’s ‘right’ to you—is the 125-foot yacht owned by movie star Zack Benedict, which is named the Julie, after his wife. Get your cameras ready, and I’ll take us in a little closer. I see a man aboard who could be Benedict.”

  Mitchell swore under his breath and raised the newspaper, concealing his face. “I don’t know how Zack puts up with this. I’d start waving a shotgun at them.”

  Until yesterday, the Julie had been peacefully docked at a pier in one of St. Maarten’s beautiful marinas, but some avid fans of Zack’s had seen the yacht and realized to whom it belonged. The word had spread like wildfire across the island. Within hours, their pier became a tourist attraction of its own, with Zack’s fans milling around the boat, hoping for autographs, taking photographs, and making a damned nuisance of themselves. Some of them were still hanging around last night when Mitchell returned from his evening with Kate, and to give Mitchell some peace, Zack’s captain had moved the boat away from the pier as soon as Mitchell was aboard. Now the yacht was anchored just outside the marina, which isolated them from annoying pedestrians, but gave them no protection from tourists on the ferries and tour boats.

  “I’m checking with the other marinas to see if they have a slip available that’s large enough to accommodate us,” Prescott said in the resigned tone of a man who’d been through this drill many times in the past. “Unfortunately, for now, we’ll have to use the launch to get you back and forth to shore.”

  “That’s fine,” Mitchell said. “I have some errands to do in St. Maarten this morning.”

  “I’ll tell Yardley to have the launch ready to leave in—?” He paused, waiting for Mitchell’s answer.

  Mitchell glanced at his watch. It was 8:15. “In half an hour.”

  “I’ll call you on your cell phone, and let you know where we’re docked so you can find us this evening,” Prescott volunteered.

  “I won’t be back tonight. I’m staying in a hotel.”

  “You’ll probably get more peace and quiet that way,” Prescott said with an apologetic sigh. He started to leave; then he turned and said with a slight smile, “Mr. Benedict phoned from Rome earlier. I told him we’d been forced to move out of the marina last night. He said to tell you everything is delightfully quiet and pleasant where he is.”

  Mitchell acknowledged Zack’s joke with a brief smile. Zack was staying at Mitchell’s apartment in Rome while he finished shooting scenes for his new movie there; then he and Julie were flying to St. Maarten to join Mitchell.

  When Prescott left, Mitchell leaned back in his chair and watched a flock of seagulls wheeling in circles overhead, his thoughts drifting to his extraordinary behavior with Kate Donovan the night before.

  This morning, in the bright light of day, he was amused and a little embarrassed by the lengths he’d gone to to please her. When she’d asked him to help a stray mongrel, he’d promptly summoned a