Every Breath You Take Read online

  Kate nodded agreement. By then, she would have nodded agreement if he’d suggested they jump off the balcony headfirst, but once they were in the suite, his tone and his words startled her out of her sensual haze.

  “We need to talk, Kate; sit down.”

  Surprised by his businesslike tone, Kate perched her hip on the arm of a sofa and watched curiously as he walked over to the windows, shoved his hands into his pockets, and looked down for several seconds as if composing his thoughts. When he turned, his expression was friendly but resolute. “Before you get into that bed with me, I want to be sure you don’t have any false illusions about what’s going on between us. I’m telling you this because I never want you to look back on our time together with any kind of regret.”

  “Go on,” Kate urged when he paused to let his words sink in.

  “By your own admission, you’re a ‘romantic,’ and last night, we were caught up in a situation that might have seemed more … meaningful … than it actually was. What I’m trying to say is that there’s an amazing amount of physical chemistry between us, but last night, on the beach in the moonlight, those few kisses of ours may have seemed … What’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Magical?” Kate suggested, using the word that best fit her own impression of last night. The instant she said it, she regretted betraying that much of her own feelings about the night before, but Mitchell seemed to agree with her assessment.

  “‘Magical’ is close enough. You weren’t the only one who was influenced by the setting and the moment. I was influenced enough by it that I actually came back to you to answer your questions, which is something I never would have done under ordinary circumstances. However, that was last night and last night was an … aberration.”

  Struggling desperately not to leap to any conclusions and to appear serene, Kate tipped her head to the side and asked with a slight smile, “Are you trying to warn me off?”

  “Not at all. I’ve been dying to get you into bed since we sat down to dinner last night.”

  “Are you trying to establish some sort of ground rules, then?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “I’m having an attack of scruples,” he said with disgust, “and I’m trying to deal with it.”

  “Is this an unfamiliar occurrence for you?”

  “In these circumstances, it’s unprecedented,” he said bluntly.

  “In that case, I’m flattered,” Kate replied, but she wasn’t flattered; she was confused and uneasy and becoming more so by the moment.

  “I’m trying to explain that I need to be sure you’re here with me now for the right reasons, not the wrong ones. Until this morning, I didn’t know your father had just died. The two of you were obviously very close, and you’re feeling a little lost and alone. On top of that, you’re faced with the burden of trying to run his business. You’re worried and you’re scared. All those emotions may be clouding your judgment about what you and I are doing.” He paused for some response from her.

  Wary of saying anything, Kate simply nodded that she understood, even though she didn’t. Not completely. Not yet.

  “Until an hour ago,” he continued, “I thought your boyfriend in Chicago was some middle-aged jerk who likes showing you off and traveling with you. Are you following me so far?”

  Kate nodded slowly.

  “Good. Then here’s the reality: In Chicago, there’s an eligible man who wants to marry you. Here, in this room, there’s a man who wants to take you to bed and make love to you until neither of us has the strength to move anymore. But it can’t go any further than that. It would get much too complicated.”

  “And you don’t like complications?”

  “No,” Mitchell said. “Especially not the kind we’d have.”

  “I appreciate the warning,” Kate said, struggling to view her predicament unemotionally, without feeling mortified that she’d let herself land in this predicament in the first place. Viewed from the right perspective, she knew she was better off finding out now, rather than later, that Mitchell’s only interest in her was as a brief, convenient partner for a little recreational sex. Now that she understood, she also knew she’d end up feeling guilty and disgusted with herself for betraying Evan for something as tawdry and meaningless as what Mitchell was blatantly suggesting.

  Furthermore, Mitchell’s summation of her state of mind was probably right: she was an emotional mess over her father and she wasn’t thinking rationally. Thankfully, Mitchell was thinking very rationally and behaving very honorably by letting her know how he felt. And to give him even more credit, he wasn’t pressuring her to settle for what he was offering her, either. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  Having arrived at these conclusions, Kate felt truly relieved and blessedly clearheaded—and, somewhere deep inside of her, painfully disappointed and thoroughly wretched. For the moment, however, there was nothing she could do except try to be philosophical and good-natured, and then deal with the mental turmoil later, when she was alone.

  “You were undoubtedly right when you said I’m overly emotional these days because of my father’s death, and my judgment is probably impaired, as well.” Even as she said that, Kate’s instincts and her heart insisted that although she may have been wrong about everything else, there was something special about the “connection” she felt with him and that he damned well felt it, too! She decided to take a small risk and lay that all out for him. There was nothing he could do but make fun of her, and she didn’t think he would do that. Raising her eyes to his, she said softly, “I think fate may have intended for us to meet the way we did and to become friends—that it was predestined.”

  The instant she said “predestined,” he gave her a skeptical look, leaned his shoulder against the window, and folded his arms over his chest.

  His body language was an eloquent rejection of any supernatural influences being involved, but Kate refused to let him mock her theory before he understood it. “I like you very much,” she persevered quietly, “and I think you like me, too—”

  “I do. Very much,” he admitted with a sudden smile that was warm and genuine.

  “That’s what I meant when I referred to fate and Predestination. I’m usually slow and cautious about really liking someone, and I was totally predisposed to dislike you—”

  “Why?”

  She chuckled. “Have you ever taken a good look at your face?”

  “I shave it every morning.”

  “Well, it’s too good-looking to be owned by a man who also possesses kindness and character and—and a lot of layers.” Out of words and explanations, Kate gave him the only actual example she could think of. “The best way I can illustrate what I’ve been trying to say is this—” Holding her hands out palms up, she smiled wryly and said, “Look at us now. We’re in a hotel room, the topic is sex, and we’re discussing it as if we’ve been friends forever. Without any anger or pretense, we’ve been deciding we shouldn’t go to bed together.” Finished, Kate waited for him to agree.

  With eyes narrowed in thought, he nodded slowly as if he was arriving at a conclusion that surprised and somewhat displeased him. “That’s what we’ve been deciding?”

  Since he seemed to be asking himself that question, Kate saw no reason to answer it. Furthermore, it was an odd question under the circumstances, and she was running low on clever, rational answers. Instead of replying, she stood up and strolled over to the balcony doors. “Now, since I haven’t cheated on my boyfriend,” she said lightly, “and neither of us has done anything we’ll regret later, why don’t we do what two new friends should do on such a gorgeous island—let’s go sightseeing. When I’m back in Chicago and you’re—wherever you are—we can exchange postcards from other places we go, and write things like—’Remember that charming little café in St. Maarten?’ After we’re done sightseeing, you could drop me off at the vet’s office, if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll pick up Max and take him back