Every Breath You Take Read online

  “I plead guilty to that one,” Mitchell said with an absent smile, because it was finally sinking in that the delightful, irate redhead who was confronting him now was the same Irish girl who’d spilled a Bloody Mary down his shirt, drugged his senses, and stolen his heart. And borne his child. From the very beginning, they’d been meant for each other. They still were. It was so obvious that he had simultaneous impulses to laugh and to pull her into his arms so he could start proving it to her. He wisely decided against doing either when he realized she now looked extremely unhappy with him.

  “It doesn’t really matter that you can’t explain about Zack Benedict,” she said, twisting around and trying to pick up his glass from the table.

  “I can explain,” Mitchell said quickly, touching her arm. She hesitated and then straightened. “As I recall, I experienced a twinge of something that made me not want to tell you right then, but I intended to take you aboard the Julie the next day.”

  “‘A twinge of something’?” she repeated, her eyes lighting up with reluctant laughter.

  “I think it was jealousy. It felt like jealousy.”

  Her lips trembled with laughter, and Mitchell grinned. “I hadn’t felt it since I was a grown man, but I remembered it.” Since she was smiling at him and relaxed now, Mitchell tried to make her understand what had really happened the day they were supposed to meet at the wharf, but the more he told her, the more she seemed to recoil. “Right after you left for the Island Club, my nephew called me and told me my brother’s body had been found. I checked out of the hotel, because I had to leave for Chicago, but I made arrangements with Zack for you to cruise the islands on his yacht during the day. I intended to fly back and forth every night to wherever the yacht was docked so we could spend the nights together. I waited for you at the wharf in Philipsburg until it got dark; then I called the vet and he told me that you and another man had picked Max up hours before. I couldn’t believe you’d left me waiting there. When I saw you at the fund-raiser, I felt exactly like the heartbroken, jealous lover I announced to you that I wasn’t. How do you think that description happened to come out of my mouth?”

  “Mitchell, it doesn’t matter anymore really—”

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Let’s just say that I find it much easier to forgive you than believe you. And let’s leave it at that.”

  Mitchell was dumbstruck, but not angry. “Would you rather believe that Evan told you the truth than believe what I’m telling you?”

  Kate turned her face away, unable to look at him. The picture he’d painted of what happened that day was too unbearable to fathom. The possibility that he’d actually planned to fly back and forth every night to join her on that boat made her stomach ache; the possibility that he’d loved her as much as she’d loved him while he waited for her at the wharf made her cringe inside; the thought of how he would have felt at that fund-raiser when she showed off her engagement ring to him was unendurable.

  Her overburdened emotions sent her reeling precariously close to hysteria. In the last twelve hours, she’d already endured the torment of Danny’s kidnapping and the turmoil of Mitchell’s reentry into her life. The idea that, by trusting Evan, she had been the cause of all the misery and missed opportunities for Mitchell and her was just too much bear.

  Mitchell watched the color drain from her cheeks, saw the tears sparkling on her lashes, and realized exactly why she was reacting that way.

  He tipped her chin up and said with a grin, “You’re exhausted; so let’s just step back from this conundrum and then move around it.”

  “What did you just say after ‘you’re exhausted’?”

  “I’m suggesting that you get some sleep and we deal with the other things tomorrow. In the meantime, we need to arrange for you and Danny to stay somewhere with limited access.”

  Dealing with mundane details was a welcome reprieve from other thoughts, and Kate rose to the occasion. “My friend Holly lives in a high-rise that has a guard at a security desk in the lobby.”

  That was not the solution Mitchell had in mind, so he threw in as many complications as he could think of. “Does she have room for Calli and Danny’s nanny, too? You may need to stay there for weeks until Billy is captured.”

  “She only has one spare bedroom.”

  “Good,” Mitchell said before he could catch himself. “I’ll make all the arrangements. All you have to do is pack what you need and be ready to leave with Calli by ten in the morning.”

  “All right,” she said with a weary, grateful smile.

  “Let’s find something to write on,” he continued, taking her arm and pointing her toward the bar. He wrote down his cell phone number and the Farrells’ home number on a cocktail napkin for her, and then he wrote down the numbers she gave him.

  “What about your meal?” Kate said, her brain snapping into focus now that she understood that he was about to leave. “I can’t imagine what happened. Let me go see—”

  “The waiter brought it and left when he saw us. I’ll get something to eat at the Farrells’.”

  “I feel really badly about this—your food, I mean.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mitchell said as he picked up his jacket and shrugged it on. She followed him, watching, her expression anxious because he hadn’t eaten.

  “Will you give Danny a good-night kiss for me?” he asked, turning around and smiling into her eyes.

  She nodded unhesitatingly.

  “Good,” he said. Curving his hands around her shoulders, he pressed a light kiss to her smooth cheek. “That one’s for Danny …” His arms slid around her, drawing her against his full length, and Kate braced herself for what was coming next. “This one …” he whispered, holding her gaze and very slowly bending his head, “is for … me.”

  Kate had expected him to say the kiss was for her, and she giggled an instant before his lips touched hers. His warm mouth brushed over hers softly and slowly, and then possessively, and Kate yielded to the sweetness of the moment, sliding her arms around him and holding him close. He ended the kiss rather abruptly, gazing down at her with heavy-lidded eyes and a warm, thoughtful smile. “Why don’t I take you upstairs and tell you a bedtime story?”

  Kate smiled helplessly but shook her head. “No thank you.”

  “I’ll tell you the story of my life,” he joked.

  “I already know the story of your life.”

  “But you haven’t heard it in French. It’s much better in French.”

  He was so sexy and so endearing when he teased her that she leaned up and kissed his hard cheek. “No.”

  Completely satisfied with the outcome of the evening, Mitchell picked up the scrapbooks and his briefcase, then turned to her. “I’ll have a car here to pick you up at ten.”

  Kate watched him stride out of the room; then she leaned weakly against the back of a chair, filled with happiness and doubt and disbelief.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  “HE IS HANDSOME AS SIN,” HOLLY CONCLUDED IMPARTIALLY, watching a rerun of Mitchell’s statement to the press the night before when he left the restaurant. The television stations were running that newsclip adjacent to the police bulletin involving the search for Billy Wyatt, positioning the two news items adjacent to each other to make certain that a mere kidnapping was elevated into a titillating scandal for their viewers. “He also has presence. And I liked the statement he gave.”

  “I’ll take a little credit for the last part,” Kate said, walking into the living room of her apartment, carrying a duffel filled with additional articles for Danny and a few for herself. Holly had arrived at Donovan’s a few minutes after Mitchell had left the night before, and she’d gone upstairs with Kate to see Danny, but exhaustion overcame Kate before they could talk about Mitchell. Holly’d returned a few minutes ago, hoping to have some time to talk, but it was five P.M., and Kate was anxious to get back to the hotel and find out how Danny and Mitchell had fared together.

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