Every Breath You Take

by Judith McNaught

  “Now,” he said with a solemn smile, “before you go, will you answer a question for me?”

  Kate realized he was bringing the ordeal to an end without forcing her to acknowledge that he could be right about Mitchell, and she loved him for that. He believed he was right, she knew, but he didn’t know Mitchell the way she did. Furthermore, no matter how straightforward he was trying to be, he was being jilted for another man, and that was understandably coloring his view of his adversary. She didn’t want to hurt him by siding with Mitchell, singing his praises, or playing devil’s advocate on his behalf. She wanted to get through this as soon as possible, doing as little damage to Evan’s pride as she could, and then she wanted to go to Mitchell and never let on that she knew the heartbreaking story of his childhood. He’d confide in her in his own time. He already had, a little bit. In answer to Evan’s question, Kate nodded and smiled. “What question is that?”

  “I’ve known you for a long time, and you’re not easy to dazzle, Kate. Or maybe I just didn’t try the right methods. You never seemed to give a damn about social status, or money, or anything else like that that I had to offer. So my question is this: How in the hell did he accomplish in two days what I couldn’t accomplish in four years?”

  “Evan, please don’t do this—” Kate said, her eyes filling with sudden tears because she’d never imagined he loved her so much that he would humble himself this way.

  “Tell me. I need to know. Wyatt’s aunt, Olivia Hebert, told people at the party that he’s building a house here on Anguilla. Have you secretly dreamed of a house on an island? Did he show you around it and make you envision yourself living in it?”

  Kate managed to keep her expression noncommittal. It didn’t matter that Mitchell hadn’t mentioned building a house here. They’d been too busy making love and getting to know each other. “No,” she said calmly.

  “On the ferry coming over here, I heard that Zack Benedict’s yacht is down here, and according to what I read on the Internet, Wyatt is a bosom buddy of Benedict’s—and a big investor in his films. Benedict’s yacht is undoubtedly the friend’s boat that Wyatt said he was going to stay on down here. Did he take you for a cruise and promise you a life of leisurely cruising with movie stars? Is that what you’ve always wanted?”

  “No,” Kate said, trying to sound offhand. But the realization that Mitchell had let her go on and on about Zack Benedict after their boat captain pointed out the Julie made Kate feel a little ill. Still, he hadn’t really lied when he said he wasn’t “a fan” of Benedict’s. Mitchell was apparently Zack Benedict’s friend. And to give Mitchell credit, he was certainly no braggart, either.

  Evan wasn’t fooled by her replies. Her complexion was too fair and her eyes too expressive to hide shock or dismay. “You didn’t know about the house or the yacht, did you?”

  “I think this conversation is pointless and needs to end,” Kate said firmly.

  “Right after you answer one more little question for yourself, not for me: How in the hell does it happen that you know Wyatt lives in Europe and New York, but you don’t know that he also has a Chicago address?”

  “He doesn’t know anything about Chicago,” Kate said before she could stop herself. “I talked a lot about Chicago—he would have told me if he knew anyone there. In fact, he had to ask me how long it takes to get down here from there! Evan, we aren’t talking about the same man.”

  “I hope you’re right, honey, because the man I’m talking about has been living in Chicago with Caroline Wyatt.”

  “Who?” Kate said in frustration. “Caroline Wyatt. Late last year, a man named William Wyatt disappeared. Remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “The beautiful Caroline was, and still is, William’s wife. Your Mitchell is shacked up with his half brother’s wife, and he moved in just as soon as her husband disappeared!”

  “He told me about his brother,” Kate said quickly, glad for once that she knew something. “He liked William very much, and if Caroline’s home is typical of most of your friends’ and relatives’ houses, then it’s the size of a hotel.”

  Lifting his hand, Evan smoothed her hair back off her forehead, then he dropped his arm. “Don’t let that son of a bitch hurt you too badly. And when he does,” Evan added tenderly, “you remember that it was me, not you, he wanted to hurt. Maybe that will make it easier.” He picked up his drink and glanced at her luggage. “I should carry those for you, but I can’t make myself help you go to him. I’m sorry, Kate.” It was a gruff apology, not a parting taunt.

  Shaking inside, Kate watched him walk out onto the patio and into the garden.

  Questions and doubts were raging through her as she walked into the bathroom to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything behind. Instead of doing that, she stood in front of the sink, trying to rid herself of Evan’s slant on everything Mitchell did, and to think things through for herself. In her mind, she heard Mitchell whispering, I felt all the same things you did last night, and you know I did, and her spirits lifted. That was real. That was the real Mitchell, not Evan’s version of him.

  Evan’s description of Mitchell’s childhood explained exactly why he’d evaded Kate’s questions that first night. The story of his life wasn’t the sort of story a man would want to share with a stranger. Furthermore, the fact that Mitchell hadn’t simply invented a more impressive past for himself, one that he could dispense freely and impress strangers with, was even more to his credit. It showed tremendous strength of character.

  As far as everything else Evan had brought up, Kate could think of valid reasons and explanations for all of it, including gossip. There was just one thing she couldn’t justify, no matter how hard she tried: If Evan was right about Mitchell living, even temporarily, in Chicago, there was only one possible reason for Mitchell’s having concealed that from her—he had no intention of seeing her after they left St. Maarten.

  She needed an answer to that right now, not later when they were face-to-face and he could disarm her or distract her. A simple, straightforward answer. After all, Mitchell had sent her here expecting her to break up with Evan “in the shortest possible time,” and then to “hurry back.” She had every right to expect a straightforward answer to her question.

  Closing the bathroom door, she dug in her purse for her cell phone and the brochure from the Enclave. Her fingers trembled as she pressed the buttons on her cell phone, and her pulse edged up with each ring. By the time the Enclave’s operator answered the phone, Kate was leaning back against the vanity for support, and her voice actually wavered with nervousness when she asked to be connected to Mr. Wyatt in the Presidential Suite.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the operator said a moment later, “Mr. Wyatt has checked out.”

  “Checked out? Did—did he leave a message for me, for Kate Donovan, I mean?”

  “One moment please.” Kate’s knees began to knock while she waited. “No, ma’am. No message,” the operator stated with certainty.

  Kate twisted around and made a grab for the vanity, trying to hold her quaking body upright while Mitchell’s mocking voice whispered in her ringing ears. “I want to be sure you don’t have any false illusions about what’s going on between us. … It can’t go any further than that. It would get much too complicated. … But I do intend to ravish you.”

  The sound of her own sobbing drowned out his voice, and Kate groped blindly for a towel, holding it tightly to her face, trying to muffle her cries before Evan heard them. Desperate to get herself under control and to get out of there before Evan walked in from the garden, she threw the towel down and splashed cold water onto her face; then she opened the door a crack and saw that the living room was empty. With tears pouring from her eyes and blurring her vision, she grabbed her suitcase and garment bag, made an awkward dash for the door, and struggled with the knob.

  Her shoulders shaking with silent sobs, she nudged the door open with her knee and was halfway outside when Evan walked in from the patio. �
�Kate, wait, let me help you with—”

  “I’m fine, stay there,” she called, keeping her face averted, but she couldn’t stop her shoulders from jerking.

  “What the hell—?” His hands locked on her arms, turning her around. He took one look at her tormented face and pulled her against his chest. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “Please d-don’t be n-nice to me; I was l-leaving you for him, and he’s gone.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said drily. “I don’t feel like being very nice to you right now. Why don’t I take you home?”

  Kate nodded, too choked up to speak. “I have to pick up Max.”

  Max bounded onto the floor of the taxi’s backseat and Kate scooted over into the center. Evan went around to the passenger side and opened the back door. “This is going to be a tight fit,” he said, wedging himself in beside her. Once he was inside, his left thigh and leg were pressed against hers, and there was no room for his left arm, so he put it across the back of the seat behind her.

  They’d sat this way hundreds of times before, but now their proximity felt awkward, and having his arm casually resting there seemed all wrong. He felt it, too; Kate could sense his tension. He was wounded and angry at her betrayal. She didn’t deserve his kindness or his compassion, and the fact that he was offering both right now, when she needed them most and deserved them least, made her feel so ashamed that she bent her head and tears gathered in her eyes. Max laid his big head on her knee, his unblinking, adoring gaze on her face, and she reached out to scratch his head while two tears ran down her cheeks. It belatedly dawned on Kate that she hadn’t even given Evan the courtesy of an apology, and she swallowed twice, trying to drag her voice through the knot of emotion in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “I know you are.”

  Wishing desperately that she had a tissue, Kate felt in her purse, but there were none in there. His duffel was on the seat beside her, and she reached for the zipper on it while tears began streaking in earnest from her eyes. “Do you have tissues or a handkerchief or something I could use in here?”

  “I think so,” Evan replied. “Pass it over to me and I’ll look.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said, already tugging on the zipper. “I’ll do it—”

  “Don’t open—” Evan said, but it was too late.

  Lying atop all the neatly packed masculine apparel in Evan’s duffel was a thick, square, robin’s-egg-blue Tiffany box tied with a cream ribbon. It was a ring box.

  Kate stared at it through a fresh haze of tears, and for the second time in less than an hour, she covered her face and wept.

  He hesitated, and then he lowered his arm around her shaking shoulders and curved his hand around her arm, drawing her close so she could weep against his chest. “I should be the one comforting you,” Kate whispered brokenly.

  “I’m beyond comforting,” he whispered.

  “I hate myself,” she said fiercely.

  He thought about that for a moment. “I hate you, too,” he said, but there was a smile in his voice.

  Kate closed her eyes. She couldn’t let herself think about Mitchell yet or she would shatter. Exhausted from the turmoil, and the struggle to keep thoughts of him at bay, she dozed as the old taxi jolted and bumped along the short distance to the airport.

  When she opened her eyes, she found that Evan had taken her hand in his and he was holding it. “Wake up, we’re here,” he said, and took his hand away. While she was sleeping, he’d slid the dazzling diamond solitaire from Tiffany’s onto her ring finger. Kate stared at it and started to shake her head. “I can’t—”

  “Here is what I’m ‘proposing.’” Evan clarified, “I need some time to get past what’s happened, and so do you. In the meantime, I suggest we announce our engagement in the newspaper.”

  “Why?”

  He leaned close and whispered, “Well, for one thing, that ring will look very nice with whatever gown you wear to the Children’s Hospital benefit Saturday night. We’re one of the sponsors.”

  Kate looked at him in stupefaction as he took his arm away and reached into his pocket to pay the cab fare. “What’s the other thing?”

  “The Wyatt family will be there. Now,” he continued conversationally as he counted out money, “I don’t know about you, but if I were in your place, I’d like it if Mitchell Wyatt was forced to realize that he’d been used—”

  “Used as what?” Kate asked bitterly.

  He slanted her a sideways smile tinged with just a little regret. “Your last fling.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  BY FIVE-THIRTY, THE TIDE OF TOURISTS ON THE STREETS around Captain Hodges Wharf was receding rapidly. Cruise ship passengers, carrying bags of duty-free bounty, were heading back to departing ships, and tourists staying on the island were returning to their hotels to nap before a long night of dining, gambling, and nightclubbing.

  In a parked car, MacNeil phoned Gray Elliott to report again on Wyatt’s whereabouts. “Wyatt’s still hanging around the wharf,” MacNeil said. “That’s the bad news. The good news is, I just checked with our contact at the airport. He said Wyatt’s plane is on the ramp at the hangar, fueled up and ready to fly. His pilots are waiting in the lounge, drinking coffee. So he’s planning to leave soon.”

  “All right, stay in touch,” Gray replied. “Interpol is on standby, prepared to conduct simultaneous searches of his apartments in Europe, but I can’t give them the go-ahead until Wyatt’s plane is in the air. Otherwise, I run the risk that some doorman or housekeeper will phone him, and he’ll figure out that he’s the subject of our investigation. He has a telephone in the plane, but I don’t think he’d give that number to underlings and domestics.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as he’s on the move,” MacNeil said.

  As MacNeil lowered his phone, Childress raised the camera and focused on Wyatt for another quick shot. “The guy is a chick magnet,” Childress remarked a little wistfully, watching through the camera’s eye as a pretty blonde strolled into the frame.

  “Excuse me,” a female voice said. “Could you tell me what time it is?”

  “It’s five-thirty,” Mitchell replied without looking at his watch or the woman. He’d just checked the time, and his attention was now fastened on a new boat appearing on the horizon.

  As the boat grew larger, it appeared to be about the right size and moving at about the right speed for a tourist boat. St. Maarten’s coastline was dotted with marinas and wharfs, however, and most boats coming over the horizon appeared to be headed in his general direction at first, so Mitchell kept a tight rein on his expectations. A few minutes later, the boat was still angled toward Captain Hodges Wharf, and Mitchell’s pulse began edging up, notch by notch, while his gaze fastened on the boat’s bow, willing it not to change direction.

  The boat came nearer, grew larger, and Mitchell began searching for a glimpse of shining red hair among the blur of passengers on deck. A few minutes later, the Island Sun had docked and the last passenger had filed past him. Mitchell returned to his vantage point on the other side of the wharf and scanned the horizon for signs of another inbound tourist boat. Obviously the boyfriend’s flight had been delayed, and he’d arrived an hour or two late, which was delaying Kate.

  Smiling a little, he marveled, yet again, that neither he nor Kate had thought to exchange cell phone numbers. In the hours before she left this morning, they’d shared a sunrise, laughter, several stories, long kisses, and the most exciting, profoundly satisfying lovemaking of his life. They had not, however, shared their phone numbers—which wasn’t all that surprising on his part, Mitchell thought wryly, because he’d lost the ability and the desire to concentrate on anything else when she was near.

  After twenty minutes and another boat arrival, Mitchell was no longer smiling. The sun was beginning to set, and as darkness loomed, his mind began conjuring unbearable images of Kate cowering in a corner from her enraged boyfriend or lying alone in the villa, injured or worse.


  Once those possibilities had occurred to him, he was powerless to ignore them. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and after being transferred to two operators, he was finally able to get through to the Island Club. At the last moment, he remembered Maurice was away, and he asked to speak to whoever was in charge instead. A male answered, identified himself as “Mr. Orly,” and asked how he could be of service.

  “This is Mitchell Wyatt,” Mitchell replied, trying to sound less frightened than he felt. “Miss Donovan, in villa six, was feeling ill earlier, and she isn’t answering her phone. Please send someone down to check on her while I hold on.”

  “Miss Donovan?” Mr. Orly repeated. “Villa six? Are you certain?”

  “Very certain,” Mitchell snapped. “Send someone down there immediately.”

  “I’m happy to be able to allay your fears, Mr. Wyatt,” Orly said cheerfully after a moment. “The phone in villa six isn’t being answered because the villa is unoccupied.”

  “What do you mean it’s unoccupied?”

  “I mean that the party occupying villa six checked out at three o’clock today. Is there anything—”

  Mitchell closed the cover on his cell phone, disconnecting Orly in midsentence, but his brain refused to process the obvious implications of what he’d heard. Paralyzed with disbelief, he stood where he was, gazing blindly at the horizon, his phone hanging loosely from his hand.

  Not once since Kate had waved good-bye to him this morning had he ever considered that she’d leave him standing there at the wharf. She was in love with him, and he was in love with her. Their feelings for each other were deepening with every hour they spent together. They were meant to be, and Kate had realized that even before he had. Kate wanted magic, and they had it in unbelievable abundance. She didn’t have that with her boyfriend. She would never have checked out of the Island Club and gone home with him.