His Thirty-Day Fiancee (15 page)

Tony and Shannon’s early wedding hadn’t left him much time to expedite his plans to take Kate to the Chicago museum. But he’d pulled it together. A jet was waiting, fueled up and ready to wing them away from here.

All he needed was her okay on plans for Jennifer—he’d learned his lesson well on not usurping Kate when it came to her sister. Hopefully, after tonight he would have a larger role in her life, one where they shared responsibilities. He was determined to make his pitch in Chicago, to persuade her that they should extend their relationship beyond tonight, beyond the island.

Looking through the open doors, he saw her still sitting at the desk in her room in front of her computer, not in the tub but every bit as alluring to him even with her clothes on. So many times they’d gone over her pictures together before she had sent them. She’d been careful about giving him a chance to veto photographs even though more often than not she nixed a picture first. He didn’t even feel the need to look over her shoulder now.

He trusted her. What a novel feeling that almost had him reeling on his feet. He turned away to gather his thoughts, bracing a hand on his four-poster bed.

Fast on the heels of one thought came another. He more than trusted her. He’d been mesmerized by the woman who’d stood toe-to-toe with him from the start. Someone he could envision by his side for life.

He’d known he wanted her with him long-term, but how had he missed the final piece of the puzzle? That he loved her.

The sense of being watched crawled up his spine and he turned around to find Kate standing in his open doorway. And she didn’t look happy.

Pale, she stood barefoot, still wearing the midnight-blue dress with Medina sapphires and diamonds.

He straightened, alarms clanging in his brain. “What’s wrong?”

Blinking back the shine of tears and disbelief in her eyes, she braced herself against the door frame. “You sold me out. You released my photos of the wedding to the press.”

What the hell? He started toward her, then stopped short at the fury in her eyes. “Kate, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Is that how you want to play this? Fine, then.” She dropped her hands from the doorway, her fists shaking at her side. “I started to send the wedding photos, only to find they had already been released to every other media outlet. My big scoop stolen from me.” She snapped her fingers. “That fast. You’re the one who gave me that computer, totally secure you assured me. You were very specific about the fact that only you and I had access. What else am I supposed to think? If there’s another explanation, please tell me.”

Every word from her mouth pierced through him like bullets, riddling him with disillusionment, pain, and hell, yes, anger. He may have decided he trusted her, but clearly that feeling wasn’t returned.

“You seem to have everything figured out.”

“You’re not even going to deny it? You’ve had this planned from the start, your revenge on me for the story I broke exposing your family.” Her composure brittle, she still stood her ground. “I was such a fool to trust you, to let myself care—”

Her throat moved with a long swallow as his plans crumbled around him. She’d clearly made up her mind about him. It was one thing if she had concerns or reservations, but for her to blatantly question his honor. She could ask for explanations all night long. Pride kept his mouth sealed shut.

Face tipped, she met his gaze without flinching. “I knew you were ruthless, but I never even saw this coming.”

Was that a hint of hurt, a glint of regret in her watery blue eyes? If so, she had a damned strange way of showing it.

“You climbed onto my balcony to steal a picture.” He tapped one of her earrings quickly before she could back away. “Sounds like we’re a perfect, ruthless match.”

She pulled off both earrings and slapped them into his palm. Her chin quivered for the first time and fool that he was, he couldn’t bring himself to wound her further.

He pivoted away, hard and fast, earrings cutting into his fist. “There’s a plane fueled up and ready on the runway. I’ll send instructions to the pilot to take you and Jennifer back to Boston.”

Watching her reflection in the mirror, he caught his last glimpse of Kate as she slipped the ruby engagement ring from her finger, placed it on his dresser and walked out of his life as barefoot as she’d entered.

Within an hour of her fight with Duarte, she and Jennifer were airborne as he’d promised. How could she have been so completely duped by him? From the second she’d found the internet explosion, she’d hoped he would explain how wrong she’d been. Even with the evidence barking that he’d set her up from the start, Kate had hoped he would reassure her of his love and come up with an explanation for the mysteriously leaked photos…

She didn’t pretend to understand him. But then, he’d refused to explain himself, refused to give her even the satisfaction of knowing why he would choose this means for his revenge.

Jennifer sniffled beside her, a Kleenex wadded in her hand. “Why can’t we stay at the island?”

Most of all, she hated the hurt she’d brought to her sister. How could plans to provide a better life for Jennifer have gone so wrong? “I have to work, honey. How about you just try to get some sleep. It’s been an exhausting day.”

They’d come a long way from the excitement of preparing for the wedding. She’d had such high hopes a few short hours ago.

“Why did you break up? If you’re married to Duarte, you won’t have to work anymore.” She tore the wadded tissue then clumped it together again.

“It isn’t that simple.” Nothing about her time with Duarte had been simple.

“Then why did you get engaged?”

As hurt and angry as she felt, she couldn’t put the entire blame on Duarte. She’d played her own part, going in with eyes wide-open, deceiving her sister and so many other good people. She deserved all the guilt Jennifer threw her way. “People change their minds, and it’s good if that can happen before the couple walks down the aisle.”

“But you love him, right?”

Unshed tears burned her eyes, tears that had been building since she’d stared at that computer. She didn’t understand why he’d given her the Ansel Adams. Why he’d indulged her sister in a private moment with the key chain, never knowing Kate had been watching the whole time. Kate couldn’t explain any of the moments he’d been so thoughtful and warm, appearing to share a piece of himself with her. But she understood the missing photographs hadn’t sent themselves.

Her heart hurt so damn much.

Her sister thrust a fresh Kleenex into her hands. “Katie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” Jennifer hugged her hard. “You shouldn’t marry him for me. You should only marry him if he loves you, like in Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, except Duarte’s not a beast. He just scowls a lot. But I think it’s because he’s unhappy.”

“Jennifer.” Kate eased back, clasping her sister’s hand and searching for the right words to make her understand without hurting her more. “He doesn’t love me. Okay? It’s that simple, and I’m really sorry you got so attached to all the pampering and the people.”

Most of all, the people.

“You’re my family.” Jennifer squeezed their clasped hands. “We stick together. I don’t need any spa stuff. I can paint my own fingernails.”

The hovering tears welled over and down her cheeks. She didn’t deserve such a dear sister. “We’ll go shopping together for different colors.”

“Blue,” Jennifer said, her smile wide, her eyes concerned, “I want blue fingernails.”

“It’s a deal.”

Jennifer hugged her a fast final time and reclined back in her seat, asleep before the steward came through to close the window shades. With a simple request for blue nail polish, Jennifer had given Kate a refresher course on the important things in life. Like her values. If she expected to be a true role model for her sister, she needed to reorganize her priorities. Jennifer deserved a better sister than someone who crept around on ledges to steal a private moment from someone’s life.

Even if it meant hanging up her camera for good.

“You forgot to bring your fiancée.”

Was Enrique losing his memory? Duarte had already told him about the broken engagement when he’d asked for the tray in the first place. Concern for his dad’s health momentarily pushed Duarte’s mood aside. “She and I broke things off. I told you already. Don’t you remember?”

His father pointed a sterling silver coffee spoon at him. “I remember perfectly well the load of bull you fed me about going your separate ways. I think you screwed up, and you let her go.” He hadn’t
let
her go. Kate had walked out on him, more like
stormed
away, actually. And even though he had a pretty good idea who’d stolen her photos and sold them to other outlets, that didn’t change the way she’d believed the worst of him.

Not that he intended to let the individual who’d broken into her computer and taken her work get away with it. Since she had only used the computer for work while on the island, he would bet money her editor had had his IT department hack her account during communications about prior photos. Then Harold Hough had probably sold the pictures to other outlets for personal profit. The Medina computers had top-notch security, but no cyber system was completely immune to attack.

By the end of today, Javier and his team would hopefully have proof. Then Duarte would quietly make sure Harold Hough never took advantage of Kate again. While that wouldn’t heal the hole in his heart over losing her, he couldn’t ignore the need to protect her. More than his own hurt at losing her, he felt her losses so damn much. He hated the idea that she’d lost her big payday and was right back in a difficult situation with her sister’s care.

“Well?” his father pressed.

Duarte dropped into a chair beside his father’s bed with four posters as large as tree trunks. “Sorry to disappoint you.” Best to come clean with the whole mess so his father wouldn’t keep pestering him to chase after Kate. “We were never really engaged in the first place.”

“And you think I didn’t know that?” His father eyed him over the rim of his bone china coffee cup.

“Then why did you let me bring her here?” Maybe he could have been saved the stabbing pain over losing Kate.

Except that would have meant giving up these past weeks with her, and he couldn’t bring himself to wish away their time together.

Enrique replaced his cup on the carved teak tray. “I was curious about the woman who enticed you to play such an elaborate charade.”

“Has your curiosity been satisfied?”

“Does it matter?” His father broke a cakey churros stick in half and dipped it in his coffee. “You’ve disappointed me by letting her leave.”

“I’m not five years old. I do not need your approval.” And he did not have to sit here and take this off his dad just because Enrique was sick. Duarte gripped the arms of the chair and started to rise.

“Since you are grieving, I will forgive your rudeness. I understand the pain of losing a loved one.”

Duarte reeled from his father’s direct jab. He’d had enough of the old man’s games. If he wanted a reconciliation, this was a weird way to go about it. “Strange thing about
my
grief, I don’t feel the least bit compelled to jump in bed with another woman right now.”

Flinching, Enrique nodded curtly. “Fair enough. I will give you that shot.” Then his eyes narrowed with a sharpness that no illness could dull. “Interesting though that you do not deny loving Kate Harper.”

Denying it wouldn’t serve any purpose. “She has made her choice. She believes I betrayed her and there’s no convincing her otherwise.”

“It does not appear to me that you tried very hard to change her mind.” Enrique fished in the pocket of his robe and pulled out his watch, chain jingling. “Pride can cost a man too much. I did not believe my advisers who told me my government would be overthrown, that I should take my family and leave. I was too proud. I considered myself, my rule, invincible and I waited too long.”

Enrique’s thumb swept over the glass faceplate on the antique timepiece, his eyes taking on a faraway look the deeper he waded into the past. “Your mother paid the price for my hubris. I may not have grieved for her in a manner that meets your approval, but never doubt for a minute that I loved her deeply.”

His father’s gaze cleared and he looked at Duarte, giving his son a rare peek inside the man he’d been, how much he’d lost.

“
Mi hijo,
my son,” his father continued, “I have spent a lot of years replaying those days in my mind, thinking how I could have done things differently. It is easy to torment yourself with how life could be by changing just one moment.” Gold chain between two fingers, he dangled the pocket watch. “But over time, I’ve come to realize our lives cannot be condensed into a single second. Rather we are the sum of all the choices we make along the way.”

The Dali slippery-watch artwork spoke to him from the walls in a way he’d never imagined. Lost time had haunted his father more than Duarte had ever guessed. During all those art lessons his father had overseen, Enrique had been trying to share things about himself he’d been too wounded to put into words.

“Your Kate made a mistake in believing you would betray her. Are
you
going to let your whole life boil down to this moment where you make the mistake of letting your pride keep you from going after her?”

He’d always considered himself a man of action, yet he’d stumbled here when it counted most with Kate. Whether he’d held back out of pride or some holdover pain from losing his mother, he didn’t know. But as he stared at the second hand
tick, tick, ticking
away on his watch, he
did
know he couldn’t let Kate slip out of his life without a fight.

And now that he’d jump-started his mind out of limbo, he knew just the way to take care of Harold Hough and let Kate know how much faith he had in her. But first, he had barely enough time to extend his father an olive branch that was long overdue.

“Thank you,
mi padre.
” He clenched the old man’s hand, grateful for the gift of a second chance.