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Of course he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. Of course he didn’t hang around to dissect it. Those dominoes had been set up long before that final showdown. Maybe even as far back as childhood, when he’d watched his mother come home with Bergdorf bags three times a week and trade in her Bentley once a year.
It didn’t make him feel any better about what he’d done. “I’m... I... You didn’t deserve that.”
There was more he should say, but it stalled in his throat. For once in his life, he had no idea how to handle a situation. No idea what to do with the clawing, suffocating guilt lodged in his windpipe.
Keith Mitchell was never caught off guard. Never at a loss for words.
“No, I didn’t deserve any of it. But I’m glad it went down like it did. Otherwise we’d be divorced by now.”
“That’s low. I would have stayed with you for the sake of the baby.”
Just as he’d intended to marry her for the sake of the baby. He’d hoped he and Cara might eventually become friendly, like his parents, and have an amicable marriage. She had connections and would be good for his public image, a tradeoff for giving her his name. It was an uneven compromise but one he’d been willing to make.
The baby part of the equation, he did not want to think about. He wasn’t cut out to be a father. Despite all the pain, it had worked out for the best.
“I wouldn’t have stayed with you. That’s not the marriage I wanted.” She sighed. “I’ll probably shoot myself later, but I’m about to agree with you. We wouldn’t have worked out. You’re a crap-head of the first order, but you did me a favor by leaving. Meredith was right. I needed closure and now I’ve got it.”
The knot in his larynx cinched a notch. Where had this woman come from? The Cara of two years ago was a completely different person than the one slouched against the elevator sidewall.
Before, she’d been flirty and fun, someone to spend time with until things ran their course or he moved on to the next job in the next city. He’d never seen their relationship as progressing toward anything serious. When she’d announced the pregnancy, the decision to marry her had come about slowly and painfully. But it took two to tango and Keith never reneged on his responsibilities.
This present-day Cara had an enigmatic blend of strength, wit, drive and determination.
And it was stunning on her.
He cleared his throat. “You said you were in love with me. Is that true?”
She’d never said that before, not even in the weeks before the wedding.
“I thought I was. Now I’m not so sure.” She shook her head. “All this time you thought I wasn’t actually pregnant? Lord, the names I called you for walking away from a woman who’d just had a miscarriage. Mama would have made me wash my mouth out with soap if she’d heard me.”
He cleared his throat. It didn’t help shake free the phrase he couldn’t withhold any longer. “Cara, I... I’m...sorry. What can I do?”
“You made a mistake and you apologized. It’s enough.”
“Not for me.”
“Sorry, Keith. You don’t get to decide. I’ve already forgiven you.”
Her casually tossed-out sentiment blazed past the knot and spread warmth through his frozen chest. Forgiveness. Freely offered. It was a gift he’d never been given, never solicited. Never wanted. Now that he had something so significant...what did he do with it?
She rolled her shoulders. “Now maybe this week won’t be as gruesome as I’ve envisioned.”
The overhead lights flickered, then shone steadily, and the elevator lurched. The doors slid open on the ground floor and Cara slipped on her shoe, then climbed to her feet, flinching as her left foot hit the marble in the lobby.
Keith snagged her hand before she could bolt. “Are you going to be able to walk on that ankle?”
Lean on me. I won’t let you down this time.
“It’s still attached, isn’t it? Nothing a good bottle of wine won’t cure.”
“Let me bring you one. Later tonight.”
More questions about the past rose up, struggling to be voiced, such as how it had happened, when she’d gone to the doctor. He wasn’t ready to let her go, but neither could he stutter through such an emotional maze. Not now. Later, after he’d processed, his coherency would surely return.
Those espresso-colored eyes danced down to their linked hands and back up again, skewering him. Her intense gaze was full of that mystique he’d begun to suspect had far more depth than anyone realized. Least of all him.
“I’m about Keith Mitchell-ed out for the day. When I said this week won’t be as gruesome as I thought, I meant I could dismiss you from my mind without a scrap of remorse.”
She slid from his grasp and hobbled across the lobby in pursuit of a goal that had nothing to do with Keith. And shouldn’t.
But he’d never been very tolerant of being dismissed, especially not when in the company of a completely different Cara than he remembered. Her business, as best he could tell, was legitimate and indeed the product of a strong work ethic, which he thoroughly respected. Was it possible she wasn’t just after a husband any longer? What could have prompted such a big turnaround?
This week had just gotten a whole lot more interesting.
* * *
Keith didn’t see Cara again until after lunch, when Marla Collins, the expo event coordinator, called a meeting with all the participants. He leaned against a lone table along the back wall of the resort conference room and listened to the spiel from a distance. Alice sat in the first row typing up the highlights, which she would email to him afterward, but he preferred to hear the details firsthand.
His gaze strayed through the seated crowd to Cara’s streaked brown hair as she leaned to whisper something in Meredith’s ear. Telling her sister about Keith’s evils, no doubt. Though she’d probably been doing that for two long years. Cara ran a business now. They likely had more pressing matters to discuss besides the callous ass in the back of the room.
Could she really have forgiven him so easily, in a scant few minutes?
He most assuredly had a hundred more pressing matters to occupy him, and yet the conversation in the elevator this morning never fully left his thoughts. How could it? For two years, he’d been convinced Cara had tried to trap him into a marriage he didn’t want.
He’d moved on and had never lost sleep over it. Cara’s expo invite was strictly intended to secure the best wedding industry professionals, not expose him to a newly altered reality. And in that mirror, he did not like his reflection. He’d hurt her. Keith Mitchell did not make mistakes.
Marla wrapped up the status meeting and the participants gathered their handouts and electronic devices, chattering to each other as they swarmed from the room. Keith waited for Cara to pass him and invented an excuse to speak to her, but no less than four people lined up to ask him questions or report a problem. He watched her leave with Meredith, never once glancing in his direction. Clearly, she meant to do exactly as she said—dismiss him from her mind. He wished he could do the same so easily.
This brand-new Cara intrigued the hell out of him. He couldn’t let things lie between them, not with all her revelations. Not with those bare feet still lingering in his mind’s eye. If nothing else, the ledger in his head needed reconciling. While she’d gotten her closure, he hadn’t.
“Excuse me,” he said to Elisabeth DeBolt, the manager of spa services, who had been midsentence in detailing the color of tile she’d selected for the massage rooms. Details he normally encouraged. But not right now.
He left Elisabeth and the others where they stood and followed Cara out the door.
Cara and Meredith hadn’t gone far. They were near the pool, embroiled in what looked to be a fascinating conversation with a maintenance worker’s pecs, which the two women’s eyes never left. The shirtless pool boy blathered on to the sisters as if he didn’t notice, likely used to being ogled by the ladies.
Keith made a mental note to have a word with the recreation manager. This resort would cater to couples, not singles. Shirtless pool boys with the ability to bench-press the equivalent of twice their own weight had their place but not at this property.
As Keith could also bench-press the equivalent of twice his own weight and topped the kid by five inches, Shirtless Pool Boy wisely took off when Keith joined their party.
“Thanks a whole heap, Mitchell. I was enjoying the view,” Meredith grumbled. “No matter how good you look in a suit, I can’t fantasize about you.”
He grinned, his mood considerably lightened. He’d smiled more in the past two days than he had in the past two months. “Why not? Sister code?”
“No, because you’re a cretin.” She tossed her hair. “Unlike some other people I could mention, I don’t forgive so easily. Keep that in mind next time you find yourself in a dark alley.”
Cara’s cheeks went pink. “I’m standing right here.”
“Did I seem confused about that? I wasn’t.” Meredith crossed her arms and glared at Keith. “Watch yourself. I see that look in your eye. I’m the one who held her while she cried over your worthless hide. Don’t you dare break her heart again or the sharks out there will be mysteriously well fed.”
“Still here.” Cara smacked Meredith but she didn’t budge.
They were the same height in their sky-high heels, with the same nose and long, sooty eyelashes, but the similarity ended there. Meredith was a traffic-stopper with her obvious, in-your-face assets, where Cara had a refined beauty that had snared Keith’s attention the moment he’d locked gazes with her across the bar, back in Houston. He hadn’t even noticed Meredith sitting on the next stool when he’d beelined it over to introduce himself and buy Cara a drink.
Keith saluted Meredith. “Yes, ma’am. No dark alleys. No broken hearts.”
“I’m serious, Mitchell.” She stuck V-ed fingers near her eyeballs and flipped them around to stab at Keith. “I’m watching you.”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about Cara. I’m here to do a job and that’s my sole focus.”
“Uh-huh. And I’m just here for the pool boys.”
With that, she flounced off, leaving him alone with Cara. She wore the same thing she’d had on earlier, which he’d had difficulty fully appreciating in a dark elevator. The lightweight summer skirt and tailored blouse accentuated her curves just as well as the jogging outfit from their pre-dawn run and the outfit’s deep shade of peach naturally led to a desire to take a bite out of the creamy swell of her cleavage.
The outside temperature heated, though he’d have sworn it was a balmy eighty degrees five seconds ago. Learning she wasn’t a liar and manipulator stirred things below the belt in different, unanticipated ways. Coupled with a brand-new entrepreneur’s skin, Cara was suddenly a full package he wanted to rip open with enthusiasm.
She rolled her eyes with amusement. “Meredith has Mama’s flair for melodrama. Among other things.”
“I’ve always liked your sister. You like her, too.”
“I couldn’t do this design business without her.” She glanced at him with a slow sweep that dialed up his awareness of how very much he liked dressed-to-the-nines Cara. “Did you want something?”
Yes, he did. It just wasn’t the same thing he’d wanted when he left the meeting. “How is your ankle?”
“That’s what you chased me down to ask?”
The breeze picked up and flung strands of hair into her face, which he did not hesitate to smooth back. She froze under his fingers. What was he doing? “I’m concerned about you. You’re an integral part of the expo.”
“I’m fine. I doubt I’ll be jogging in the morning. But I’m okay.”
“Now that’s a crying shame.” He’d been looking forward to running side by side with natural Cara, oddly enough. Jogging was supposed to be a solitary sport. That’s why he liked it.
His phone vibrated and as he was still on the job, he pulled it out. And swore.
“Problem?” she asked.
“Potentially. I’ve had my eye on a depression in the Atlantic for a week or so. NOAA just upgraded it to Tropical Storm Mark.” He flashed his phone toward her, showing her the map sent by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “NOAA app.”
“Who has an NOAA app?”
“A consultant hired to turn around a resort located on the leading edge of the Caribbean during hurricane season. I’m good at what I do.”
Cara’s gaze skittered across his mouth, lingering. “I’m pretty aware of the breadth of your skill set.”
Her voice had dropped, turning sultry, and his body hardened in an instant. Yeah, he remembered how hot their kisses had always been. If he could find a way to make up for his mistake, maybe she’d be interested in a repeat of the fun, expectation-free part of their past.
“Are you flirting with me, Cara?”
She smiled and Meredith’s shark threat seemed less treacherous in comparison. “Not in the slightest. Your best skill is walking away and I took copious notes. Allow me to demonstrate what I learned.”
She pivoted on one sexy stiletto and hobbled after Meredith, leaving Keith standing alone by the pool.
With a tropical storm on the horizon and a grand reopening combined with a bridal expo in two days, Cara was a distraction he could ill afford to indulge. Their history was painful and irreconcilable. Probably too difficult to overcome, regardless of whether she’d actually forgiven him.
Nonetheless, her pointed refusal to engage fanned the flames of his competitive streak into a full-fledged blaze. Once, he’d been eager to disentangle himself from a wannabe trophy wife with zero ambition, and now he could think of nothing else but exploring the new, uncharted Cara.
Keith Mitchell did not back down from a challenge.
Three
“What do you mean the flight was canceled?” Cara dropped to the bed and flung both shoes at the wall. Since she was a lover not a pitcher, her Louboutins clunked to the carpet well short of the intended target. Just as everything else she’d attempted to do since landing on this island impersonating paradise.
Meredith pushed a couple of buttons on the coffee brewer—her second pot of the day. “C-A-N-C—”
“I know how to spell canceled, smart aleck. Why is the flight canceled?”
Her sister shrugged. “Mechanical failure. Pilot’s strike. Lost in the Bermuda Triangle. Take your pick. Does it matter? You can wear the dress in the show and I’ll run things backstage. People will love the designer taking the runway. Stop freaking out.”
“I have to freak out. It’s what I do.” Cara had already sent Jackie home and the replacement model should have landed at Providenciales Airport an hour ago. Except her flight out of JFK was canceled.
“Let Keith bring you that bottle of wine he offered. You need to relax.”
“One day, I’ll learn to stop repeating my conversations to you verbatim.” Cara scowled and rubbed her ankle, which was not fine despite all her insistence to that man. Mentally, she scrolled through her shoe inventory and gave up. Except for her jogging shoes, she’d brought nothing less than three-and-a-half-inch heels. She might not even own anything less than three. “I have no interest in being anywhere near Keith.”
“I’ll drink it then. The bottle he sent last night was not bad.”
Cara wouldn’t know. She’d refused to let one drop grace her lips. “You can fantasize about him, too, if you want. Or sleep with him. I don’t care.”
Meredith jerked to a halt, halfway across the room. “Oh, honey. I had no idea you still had feelings for him. Don’t clue him in just yet, okay? Make him work for it.”
“I don’t still have feelings for him!” Cara fell face-first into the raw-silk comforter. Such a vehement denial probably didn’t help her case any. Rolling, she stared at the ceiling.
Mad, she had plenty of. Summoning it up took no effort at all.
She frowned when it didn’t happen. Well, hell. She might not be as pissed as she used to be, not anymore. He’d been so weird in the elevator after she’d laid into him about being such a sleaze. Weird and speechless, and Keith didn’t usually do speechless. He always had words at the tip of his tongue.
That’s how she knew he’d told the truth about why he left. And she should have told him about the miscarriage right then and there in her dressing room, regardless of how upset and disoriented she’d been. They’d both made mistakes—his obviously being a lot more flagrant and inexcusable—but it was over with and she had a job to do.
Cara sat up. “I have alterations and so do you. Thanks for being a pit bull earlier and I really appreciated the shark warning, but nothing is going to happen with Keith. In fact, the name Keith Mitchell is henceforth banned from being said. Keith Mitchell is like Voldemort to you.”
“Creepy on the outside but looks like Ralph Fiennes underneath and has a delish accent?” Meredith waggled her brows.
“Shut up. I’m doing my alterations on the beach. The waves are relaxing, aren’t they?” Cara gathered her sewing kit and folded the dress into a bag while Meredith snickered through dumping half a sugar refinery into her coffee.
“Then I’m doing my alterations at the pool. Maybe Paolo will be back, now that your boyfriend’s not there to scare him off. Don’t wait up,” Meredith called after Cara as she exited their hotel room.
The beach was deserted. Everyone currently staying at the resort had a behind-the-scenes role in the bridal expo. The real guests were the wedding professionals who would arrive for the grand opening at the end of the week and then attend the expo featuring the latest wedding trends.
Cara had her pick of beach loungers and arranged a plastic tarp over several to lay out the dress, careful to keep it away from the sand, though the entire expo would take place on the beach. Sand was inevitable. The alterations weren’t extensive but she’d handmade all her dresses and every stitch had to be redone carefully. No sewing machine quick fixes for Cara Chandler-Harris Designs.
If the bridal expo worked to increase business as she planned, sewing machines would be a necessary part of her future. Standing orders meant she couldn’t take a month to make one dress any longer. Cara threaded a needle and reminded herself she welcomed the influx of business and the opportunity, though Meredith had to convince her of it daily.
This was Cara’s life now. She stabbed the needle through the silk spread out over her lap. Weddings were for other women, not her, regardless of how much she wished otherwise. Cara couldn’t imagine trusting a man enough to fall in love, let alone marry him. Every day, she expected to wake up and realize she’d gotten over her caution.
Hadn’t happened yet. Until then, she’d sew. The surf crashed a few feet away and the cry of gulls floated on a light afternoon breeze. Her life did not suck. She’d found a way to be content instead of deliriously happy, and it was enough.
Sometime later, a shadow fell over the tiny new stitches. Cara glanced up and cursed her stupid quivery heart for lurching even a little bit over the sight of Keith. But sweet Jesus did that man fill out a suit, and he had charm and wit to spare. Once upon a time, she’d thoroughly enjoyed his company.
“Busy?” he asked.
“Nah. I’m working on my tan.”
“Sorry, that was a stupid question.” He sat without invitation on the next lounger, their knees nearly touching, and his eyes trained on her bare feet. “Is your ankle still bothering you?”
“Geez. That was a lame excuse to talk to me the first twelve times. What’s really going on in that pretty little head of yours?”
He grinned and her polarized sunglasses did nothing to protect her from the dazzle. “Do I need an excuse to talk to you?”
“No, you need to take a number. Can’t you see how popular I am?” She waved at the empty beach. “Sandals and sand don’t mix, ironically enough. That’s why I’m barefoot. Stop asking me about my ankle.”
Weakness in any form bothered her, especially around Keith, who could scent weakness with the precision of a homing device. Meredith’s shark scenario was sweet, but ineffective. Sharks never ate their own kind.
She sighed. Keith wasn’t quite the heartless bastard she’d been telling herself for two years. She’d have to stop thinking of him as one.
“Then I’ll go with a different excuse. Have dinner with me.”
She couldn’t help it. Laughter bubbled out before she could choke it back. “No, really. What do you want?”
“That is what I want. But in lieu of that, I’ll settle for your advice. The resort wedding coordinator quit with no notice. Her first task was to organize a mock wedding for the expo, and it’s in shambles. Is there any way you could walk through the plans with one of the management staff?”
She stared at Keith’s inscrutable expression. “You want my help?”
“Desperately and I’m not afraid to beg. I’d compensate you for your time.”
Her soul thrilled a little at the thought of a big bucket of masculinity like Keith on his knees, begging. She was five-eight, but even in heels, she never got to be taller than him.
“Money’s not the object of my hesitation. It’s more that you’re asking me for a favor.” That brought her up short. He’d owe her. Big-time. And she’d already started thinking of ways to collect, starting with a brand-new fantasy involving Keith and his knees. “Why would you ask me, out of all the people here?”
“Because you’ve planned a wedding.”
“That’s rich, Mitchell. How convenient.”
“It’s not a matter of convenience. I’ve seen what you can do, and no one else could possibly hope to meet my standards. Except you.” Those caramel eyes were on hers, all melty and scrumptious and saying far more than his mouth did.
“So now my ability to plan a wedding is a hot commodity. As I recall, you weren’t so keen on it before.” She waited for the sting of anger, but it had really and truly fled, dang it. When she’d told him she’d forgiven him in the elevator, it had mostly been because she couldn’t resist being contrary, but it seemed to have stuck.
And he wanted her help with wedding planning. Nothing got her more excited. Well, almost nothing.
“I can’t redo the past. But I can make it up to you now. Name it. Your wish is my command.” His scalding gaze rested on her feet again and her toes tingled. She dug them down into the sand where he couldn’t see them.
“Don’t worry about it.” She had absolutely zero desire to find out how he intended to make it up to her. Okay, maybe ten percent desire, but strictly out of curiosity. “I’ll help you, but I’ll be very demanding and difficult to work with.”
His knee swung closer to hers, grazing it as he leaned forward. “Which is no less than I expect. Thanks.”
Her breath caught. Of all things, Keith’s knee was turning her insides flippy, way down low where all the really neglected parts had throbbed to life. “When do you need me?”
“Right now.” That caramel gaze boiled over with searing intensity, holding her captive.
Heat blazed, nearly singeing her uncovered skin. The covered places were pretty hot too and straining to be free of their confines. “You can have me for an hour. Is that long enough?”
“I can accomplish plenty with you in an hour.”
Her tongue came out to wet parched lips, and every nerve was screaming to feel his mouth against them instead. “We’re still talking about the same thing, right?”
He held out a hand and God above, she was afraid to take it. But she did. He drew her forward, oh so slowly, into his space, where it smelled like ocean and Keith. “I sincerely hope so.”
“Great,” she croaked and jerked back out of the danger zone. “Let me put my dress in the room and grab my shoes. I’ll meet your staff member at the front desk.”
“I’ll tell her to expect you.” He let her pull away, never breaking eye contact as their flesh separated. “And Cara? You and I both know that’s not what we were talking about.”