“Of course, miss.” The man snapped his fingers and another waiter appeared with a different tray of drinks. “The elder Mrs. Steele doesn’t drink, so we also have sparkling cider and sparkling fruit waters available for guests.”
Kat was surprised, but pleased. Alcohol was what she probably needed to calm her nerves, but at least she could have a crystal flute to hold, and feel like she belonged. She reached out and selected a glass of faintly pink bubbling water with a plump red strawberry wedged on the rim. “Thank you.”
The waiters nodded and left, leaving Kat no choice but to finally move on. She slowly followed the trail toward the crowd, ignoring the drag of her feet, which felt almost as heavy as concrete. She knew it wasn’t the shoes. If she allowed herself to turn and leave, she could probably sprint. She just didn’t want to go to this party.
“Katherine?”
Kat wasn’t used to people using her full name. Her mother was really the only one who ever called her Katherine. She stopped and turned her head toward the voice, seeing a stunning young blonde heading her direction. She immediately tensed. She didn’t know who this woman was, but could tell in an instant that this was perhaps the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen in person.
Her hair was platinum blond, and she had big doe eyes and a wide grin, her fuchsia-colored lipstick matching her dress. She was tall, thin and elegant, moving with a swift grace in Kat’s direction despite the four-inch heels she was wearing.
“You are Kat, aren’t you?”
Kat took a breath and did her best to return the smile. “I am.”
“I’m Jade, Finn’s sister. I recognized you in the dress I sent over with Sawyer for the party.”
With a sigh of relief, Kat felt the muscles in her shoulders start to unwind. At least she had one friendly face in the sea of strangers. “Oh! Thank you so much for sending this. You didn’t have to, but it’s lovely.”
“Yes, I did have to. It fits you perfectly, I’m so glad. Asking Sawyer about your measurements was like asking a tiger how to prepare a five-course vegetarian meal.”
Kat looked down to admire the coral lace and smiled. “I appreciate you thinking of me. Honestly, I’m not sure if I would’ve come today if you hadn’t sent the dress over with Sawyer. I’m so nervous.”
“I understand. The first time I met the Steeles, I was almost thirty years old. I was their biological daughter, and yet I’d never laid eyes on any of them, or them me. Seeing them face-to-face and finally learning the truth about our family and what happened was so stressful. But I don’t regret it. Now I have two amazing families, four brothers and a sister of sorts that I adore.”
“It’s different for me,” Kat replied, feeling her smile fade ever so slightly. “You were taken from them, but you belonged here. I’m an outsider who could be using their grandchild as a means of shoehorning her way into the family fortune.”
Jade narrowed her gaze at Kat for a moment. “Is that what you’re doing?”
Kat shook her head. “No, but I wouldn’t believe me if I were in their shoes. Sawyer is certainly suspicious enough of my motives.”
“Sawyer is suspicious of everyone. That’s just the way he is. Ignore him.”
Kat bit her tongue, but she wanted to say that was easier said than done. The serious Steele twin had gotten under her skin. Whether he was accusing her of something terrible or looking at her with blatant desire in his eyes, Kat couldn’t help but want to be nearer to him. She’d never had that happen with a man before. Being aggravated by and attracted to a man at the same time was infuriating and confusing. Never mind having all those thoughts about the wrong person.
“Have you met Grandmother yet?”
“I haven’t met anyone. I just got here.”
“Well then.” Jade grinned. “Let’s go find ourselves some Steeles.” She reached out and took Kat’s hand, leading her across the lawn to the tent.
It was probably just as well that Jade was virtually dragging her through the party, because Kat wasn’t certain she could do it herself. The farther into the crowd they went, the more curious gazes she could feel upon her. No one knew who she was or why she was at such an exclusive event, she guessed. She wasn’t really sure why she was there, either.
“Mother Patricia? Guess who I found loitering near the car lot.”
Another pale blonde turned toward them and Kat would swear she was the spitting image of what Jade would look like in twenty-five years. They actually could’ve been confused as sisters. The woman took a moment to study Kat, and after her gaze fell on the slight curve of her stomach her dark eyes immediately shot back up to her face. “You must be Katherine,” she said, with a smile that was warmer than expected, yet a little formal and stiff at the same time.
“Please call me Kat,” she said, reaching out to shake the woman’s hand.
“Kat, this is Patricia Steele, our mother.”
Kat could’ve guessed that much without being told. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Steele.”
Patricia looked around the crowd and frowned. “I think Trevor just slipped away into the house to talk business. He hates these dull affairs. Until he shows up again, I can introduce you to his mother, Ingrid. This party is in her honor. She’s just returned to Charleston after several years in Europe.”
Kat nodded blankly and let herself be carried along to meet someone else. She didn’t expect what she found, however. Sitting in a chair near the stage was an older woman with the carriage of the queen of England. She was wearing a light pink suit dress with a matching blazer, white gloves and sensible white flats. There was a single strand of pearls around her throat and teardrop-shaped ones hanging from her ears. Her white hair was elegantly curled and coiffed, missing only a tiara to complete the look.
When the woman turned to look her way, Kat felt a surge of nerves worse than anything she’d felt before. This was the family matriarch, the guest of honor, and likely the one whose opinion would weigh the heaviest where Kat was concerned. Making a good impression was paramount.
“Mrs. Steele,” the younger Mrs. Steele said. “I’d like to introduce you to Katherine McIntyre. This is Finn’s lady friend.”
The woman narrowed her dark brown eyes at Kat and smirked. “Judging by that little tummy, she’s more than just his lady friend, Patricia.” She turned away from her daughter-in-law to focus her full attention on Kat. “Come closer, dear. Have a seat beside me.”
She patted the empty chair beside her with a gloved hand and Kat knew better than to decline. The older woman was no cookie-baking granny—she was sharp-tongued and quick-witted. Kat needed to stay on her toes with Finn and Sawyer’s grandmother, she could tell.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs. Steele. I’ve been told you just returned from Europe? That sounds amazing. I’ve always wanted to travel more.”
The older woman shrugged nonchalantly, as though she hadn’t been globe-trotting for the last few years. “Sometimes you need to run away from home to get some perspective. Though most people don’t wait until they’re eighty to do it. Katherine, is it? Or Kate, perhaps?”
“Kat.”
“Kat. I like it. I’m Ingrid. There’s too many Mrs. and Miss Steeles around here. It gets confusing. So just call me Ingrid to keep things simple.”
Kat nodded, noticing Patricia stiffen beside her. It made her wonder if she was allowed to call her mother-in-law by her first name.
“Why don’t you run along, Patricia. I’m sure you have guests to tend to. I want to get to know this young lady better.”
Patricia looked at Jade with a bit of concern, then pasted a smile on her face. “Of course. We will have plenty of time to spend with Kat. Call me if you need anything, ladies.” She took Jade’s arm and led her daughter to the other side of the tent, where some ladies in decorative hats were chatting.
Ingrid turned to Kat and placed a gentle
hand on her knee. “Relax, dear. I know it’s stressful, but I’m not going to bite. It’s never easy being the wife of one of the Steele men. It’s been over sixty years and I still remember the night Edward—that’s Trevor’s father—introduced me to his parents. It was nerve-racking to say the least, but I held my own. And so did Patricia. And so will you. Becoming Mrs. Steele is like taking on a new identity.”
Her words were kind and reassuring, but Kat wondered why Ingrid was telling her this. Yes, she wanted to do the right thing and marry Finn, but she hadn’t said as much to anyone aside from Finn himself. Then again, the family probably assumed that was what Kat would want: a diamond ring and a piece of the Steele pie for herself. That wasn’t exactly the way she envisioned it.
“When my husband died three years ago,” Ingrid continued, “I realized I didn’t know who I was any longer. Who was Mrs. Steele without Mr. Steele? I was just some grandmother shuffling around the house having tea and waiting to die myself. That’s why I left. I went to Europe to mourn Edward and find out who Ingrid was now. I went to London, to Barcelona, to Florence and finally to Paris. I sat on my balcony on the Île Saint-Louis overlooking the Seine and listened to the bells of Notre Dame cathedral ring every day. I sipped cafe crème, ate whatever I liked, and took long strolls down streets without knowing where I was headed. I found Ingrid again in Paris. And the night the cathedral burned, I decided it was time to come home.”
Kat couldn’t imagine living a life like that, but it sounded like the kind of thing that would feed an artist’s soul. She wondered if Ingrid had some artistic talents, as well.
“It was time to come back to my family. And now I know why. I needed to come back here for you.”
At that, Kat perked up in her chair. “For me?”
The older woman smiled and nodded. “Yes. As I said, it isn’t an easy road to becoming Mrs. Steele, especially in your situation. People will talk, as though they have any room to judge someone else. You need someone on your side. The minute I laid eyes on you, I decided I was that person.”
Kat’s nose wrinkled and she took a nervous sip of her drink. “Shouldn’t you be on your family’s side?” she asked, when she worked up the nerve.
“I am,” Ingrid said with a curt nod. “They just don’t know it yet.”
* * *
Sawyer wasn’t sure how Kat did it. He’d seen people nearly pass out from anxiety when meeting his grandmother. She didn’t mince words, always speaking her mind whether she should or not. She also had an uncanny ability to see through people’s bullshit. Her words, not his. Anyone approaching her with an ounce of haughtiness would be quickly cut down to size, his own mother included.
And yet, there Kat was at his grandmother’s side. She’d been there almost all afternoon. The party was to welcome his grandmother home from Europe, and he was certain there were people anxious to speak with her, but Ingrid Steele simply didn’t care. She seemed to be entranced by the young Miss McIntyre.
Sawyer knew exactly how she felt.
Leaning against one of the aluminum posts that held up the gigantic tent, Sawyer had watched over the two of them—Kat in particular—for quite a while. He’d argued with himself about why he was keeping such close tabs on his brother’s lover. Of course, he told himself that he was waiting for the truth to come out about her and her motives. If anyone could get to the bottom of Kat and what she was after, it would be Grandmother. And yet the two of them were chatting, laughing and nibbling on tea cakes like old friends.
In that case, Kat was either an incredibly skilled con artist or she was telling him the truth. Despite his suspicious nature, he hadn’t found out anything about Kat that would raise a red flag. Jade’s fiancé, Harley Dalton, owned a security and investigations firm and had personally done a background check on her. She came back squeaky clean. Probably even cleaner than Sawyer would.
She’d been orphaned in her late teens when her parents were killed in a car accident. She’d inherited a tidy sum from her parents’ estates and insurance policies. From what he could tell, she’d left most of it invested and lived on the interest after buying her house. No police record. No bad debts. They couldn’t even find an off-color social media post that could come back to haunt her.
Unless she’d suddenly decided to better her position by seducing and getting impregnated by the richest guy she could find, it was probably truly an accident, as she’d said. He hated to admit it, but all the evidence pointed to that outcome. Even Finn had mentioned that Kat was reluctant to accept any of the things his lawyers had offered her. If she was a scam artist, she was either terrible at it or positively diabolical.
Deep down, Sawyer knew she was innocent of the things he’d accused her of. Of course, once he stopped looking at her with suspicion, he couldn’t help but look at her in a way that could only cause trouble for everyone involved.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were checking out that hot redhead with Grandmother.”
Sawyer turned at the sound of his sister’s voice. “That’s just what Morgan would say if she were here, instead of on her honeymoon, gallivanting about.”
Jade laughed. “Today, the role of the Steele daughter will be played by the understudy, Jade Nolan.”
Sawyer wrapped his arm around her and tugged her close. “You’re not an understudy. You originated the part for a short run before leaving the production for a gritty indie role.”
“Cute. But don’t change the subject.” Jade tilted her chin in the direction of Ingrid and Kat. “Why are you over in a corner leering at Finn’s baby mama?”
“I am not leering.” Sawyer pulled away and crossed his arms over his chest. “I told Finn I would handle things for him and keep an eye on her until he got back from China.”
“I don’t think he intended for you to keep that good a watch on her. I suppose you can’t help it, though. If you built a woman in a computer to your precise specifications it would come out Kat McIntyre.”
Sawyer turned toward his sister with an irritated scowl. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jade arched an eyebrow and nodded. “If you say so.”
“Besides,” he argued, “she’s not available even if she was my type. She’s with Finn.”
“Do you really think so?” Jade looked over at Kat and narrowed her gaze in intense study. “I never pegged him for the settling-down type. Even with a baby in the mix. I don’t imagine those two are going to ride off into the sunset together when he gets back from China.”
Finn wasn’t the settling-down type. But in this family people didn’t always get to do what they wanted to. If they did, Morgan wouldn’t have had to marry her husband, River, twice. “You never know what will happen. Something brought them together once, so it could happen again. And even if they just end up as co-parents or whatever...that doesn’t mean there’s a blank space in her life ready for me to occupy.”
“Why don’t you let her be the one to make that decision?” Jade asked. “I’ve seen her look at you a few times this afternoon when you were distracted.”
“What does that mean? I look exactly like Finn. She was probably just glancing at me and thinking about him. Or wondering if their baby will look like her or Finn. Even if she was staring me in the face, it’d be like she was looking at him.”
“But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at you. And appearances and birthdays aside, there’s very little in common between the two of you.”
Sawyer sighed heavily. “What’s your point, baby sister?”
“My point is that if Kat had to choose between the two of you to be her husband and father to her child, the rebellious, irresponsible playboy probably wouldn’t be her first choice. That’s all.” Jade gave Sawyer a pointed look and slowly strolled off in the direction of her fiancé.
Sawyer watched her head over to where Harley was standing and slip com
fortably into his strong embrace. The man was huge, ex-navy, and intimidating enough to get a confession out of the toughest insurgent. And yet with Jade, he was like a big teddy bear. If she could turn a bad boy like that into marriage material, there might be hope for Finn and Kat.
That’s what he should want, right? For things to work out between them? That was what Kat seemed to want. And it was best for the child to be with its father, after all.
But that wasn’t what Sawyer wanted when he looked at Kat. When he saw her, all he could think about was kissing her again. That afternoon in her studio had haunted him. Her soft mouth against his, the curves of her body pressed into him, the taste of her lingering on his lips long after he’d left the District... He’d lived the moment over and over in his mind.
She’d pulled away, but he wasn’t sure she’d really wanted to. Maybe Jade was right and Kat was interested in him, but she had a guilty conscience. Or the desire to do the right thing for her child outweighed everything else.
Sawyer knew about trying to do the right thing. Sometimes he thought he was the only one in his family who even attempted to do what was right. For all the good it did him. It didn’t garner him any additional praise from his parents. No additional promotions or important assignments at work. It was almost like it was taken for granted that Sawyer would do the right thing, and he was ignored because of it.
Glancing back at Kat and his grandmother, he found Kat looking at him. Jade had been right about that, at least. When she realized she was caught, she smiled softly and wiggled her fingers at him in greeting.
No, kissing Kat hadn’t been the right thing to do. But it had certainly felt right. Right enough that he wanted to do it again the moment he got her alone.
For once in his responsible life, Sawyer wanted to do the wrong thing.
Six
“Come on, you stupid Jeep!”
The valet had returned a few minutes ago, after attempting to bring her car around, and given her the bad news—her Jeep wouldn’t start. With a groan of resignation, she’d taken the keys from him and trekked across the yard to where the vehicle was parked. Now she was sitting in it, hoping she had some sort of magic mojo the valet didn’t, and the car would start.
From Seduction To Secrets (Switched! Book 3) Page 6