Kate nodded agreement. By then, she would have nodded agreement if he’d suggested they jump off the balcony headfirst, but once they were in the suite, his tone and his words startled her out of her sensual haze.
“We need to talk, Kate; sit down.”
Surprised by his businesslike tone, Kate perched her hip on the arm of a sofa and watched curiously as he walked over to the windows, shoved his hands into his pockets, and looked down for several seconds as if composing his thoughts. When he turned, his expression was friendly but resolute. “Before you get into that bed with me, I want to be sure you don’t have any false illusions about what’s going on between us. I’m telling you this because I never want you to look back on our time together with any kind of regret.”
“Go on,” Kate urged when he paused to let his words sink in.
“By your own admission, you’re a ‘romantic,’ and last night, we were caught up in a situation that might have seemed more … meaningful … than it actually was. What I’m trying to say is that there’s an amazing amount of physical chemistry between us, but last night, on the beach in the moonlight, those few kisses of ours may have seemed … What’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Magical?” Kate suggested, using the word that best fit her own impression of last night. The instant she said it, she regretted betraying that much of her own feelings about the night before, but Mitchell seemed to agree with her assessment.
“‘Magical’ is close enough. You weren’t the only one who was influenced by the setting and the moment. I was influenced enough by it that I actually came back to you to answer your questions, which is something I never would have done under ordinary circumstances. However, that was last night and last night was an … aberration.”
Struggling desperately not to leap to any conclusions and to appear serene, Kate tipped her head to the side and asked with a slight smile, “Are you trying to warn me off?”
“Not at all. I’ve been dying to get you into bed since we sat down to dinner last night.”
“Are you trying to establish some sort of ground rules, then?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m having an attack of scruples,” he said with disgust, “and I’m trying to deal with it.”
“Is this an unfamiliar occurrence for you?”
“In these circumstances, it’s unprecedented,” he said bluntly.
“In that case, I’m flattered,” Kate replied, but she wasn’t flattered; she was confused and uneasy and becoming more so by the moment.
“I’m trying to explain that I need to be sure you’re here with me now for the right reasons, not the wrong ones. Until this morning, I didn’t know your father had just died. The two of you were obviously very close, and you’re feeling a little lost and alone. On top of that, you’re faced with the burden of trying to run his business. You’re worried and you’re scared. All those emotions may be clouding your judgment about what you and I are doing.” He paused for some response from her.
Wary of saying anything, Kate simply nodded that she understood, even though she didn’t. Not completely. Not yet.
“Until an hour ago,” he continued, “I thought your boyfriend in Chicago was some middle-aged jerk who likes showing you off and traveling with you. Are you following me so far?”
Kate nodded slowly.
“Good. Then here’s the reality: In Chicago, there’s an eligible man who wants to marry you. Here, in this room, there’s a man who wants to take you to bed and make love to you until neither of us has the strength to move anymore. But it can’t go any further than that. It would get much too complicated.”
“And you don’t like complications?”
“No,” Mitchell said. “Especially not the kind we’d have.”
“I appreciate the warning,” Kate said, struggling to view her predicament unemotionally, without feeling mortified that she’d let herself land in this predicament in the first place. Viewed from the right perspective, she knew she was better off finding out now, rather than later, that Mitchell’s only interest in her was as a brief, convenient partner for a little recreational sex. Now that she understood, she also knew she’d end up feeling guilty and disgusted with herself for betraying Evan for something as tawdry and meaningless as what Mitchell was blatantly suggesting.
Furthermore, Mitchell’s summation of her state of mind was probably right: she was an emotional mess over her father and she wasn’t thinking rationally. Thankfully, Mitchell was thinking very rationally and behaving very honorably by letting her know how he felt. And to give him even more credit, he wasn’t pressuring her to settle for what he was offering her, either. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Having arrived at these conclusions, Kate felt truly relieved and blessedly clearheaded—and, somewhere deep inside of her, painfully disappointed and thoroughly wretched. For the moment, however, there was nothing she could do except try to be philosophical and good-natured, and then deal with the mental turmoil later, when she was alone.
“You were undoubtedly right when you said I’m overly emotional these days because of my father’s death, and my judgment is probably impaired, as well.” Even as she said that, Kate’s instincts and her heart insisted that although she may have been wrong about everything else, there was something special about the “connection” she felt with him and that he damned well felt it, too! She decided to take a small risk and lay that all out for him. There was nothing he could do but make fun of her, and she didn’t think he would do that. Raising her eyes to his, she said softly, “I think fate may have intended for us to meet the way we did and to become friends—that it was predestined.”
The instant she said “predestined,” he gave her a skeptical look, leaned his shoulder against the window, and folded his arms over his chest.
His body language was an eloquent rejection of any supernatural influences being involved, but Kate refused to let him mock her theory before he understood it. “I like you very much,” she persevered quietly, “and I think you like me, too—”
“I do. Very much,” he admitted with a sudden smile that was warm and genuine.
“That’s what I meant when I referred to fate and Predestination. I’m usually slow and cautious about really liking someone, and I was totally predisposed to dislike you—”
“Why?”
She chuckled. “Have you ever taken a good look at your face?”
“I shave it every morning.”
“Well, it’s too good-looking to be owned by a man who also possesses kindness and character and—and a lot of layers.” Out of words and explanations, Kate gave him the only actual example she could think of. “The best way I can illustrate what I’ve been trying to say is this—” Holding her hands out palms up, she smiled wryly and said, “Look at us now. We’re in a hotel room, the topic is sex, and we’re discussing it as if we’ve been friends forever. Without any anger or pretense, we’ve been deciding we shouldn’t go to bed together.” Finished, Kate waited for him to agree.
With eyes narrowed in thought, he nodded slowly as if he was arriving at a conclusion that surprised and somewhat displeased him. “That’s what we’ve been deciding?”
Since he seemed to be asking himself that question, Kate saw no reason to answer it. Furthermore, it was an odd question under the circumstances, and she was running low on clever, rational answers. Instead of replying, she stood up and strolled over to the balcony doors. “Now, since I haven’t cheated on my boyfriend,” she said lightly, “and neither of us has done anything we’ll regret later, why don’t we do what two new friends should do on such a gorgeous island—let’s go sightseeing. When I’m back in Chicago and you’re—wherever you are—we can exchange postcards from other places we go, and write things like—’Remember that charming little café in St. Maarten?’ After we’re done sightseeing, you could drop me off at the vet’s office, if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll pick up Max and take him back
to Anguilla.”
When Mitchell didn’t reply after several moments, Kate glanced over her shoulder and saw that he hadn’t moved. He was still standing with his shoulder propped against the window and his arms folded over his chest, only now he was looking at her with his brows drawn together. She studied his handsome, inscrutable features and could not make out even a hint of what he was thinking. “Can I ask you something?” she said hesitantly.
He nodded.
Unable to meet his gaze while she asked her question, Kate turned back toward the balcony, absently rubbing her arms. “Are you disappointed that there was no real magic between us last night? That it was just the setting and the moment?”
When he didn’t immediately answer, she flicked a glance over her shoulder. No longer looking at her, he’d tipped his head slightly down and to his right, as if he were studying the carpet. “No,” he said curtly; then he lifted his head and looked straight at her. “No,” he repeated.
A realization hit Kate like a physical shock from an electrical outlet. As clearly as if he’d said it to her, she knew it was true, and surprise made her turn fully toward him. “You’re not disappointed that the magic is missing, because you didn’t want it to be there in the first place, did you?”
“You used the term ‘magic’ to describe last night, I didn’t,” he said as he straightened from his lounging position. Strolling toward her, he gave her an impatient lecture on his reality: “I do not believe in ‘magic’ or ‘magical’ events in the human experience. I also do not believe in fairy tales, miracles, spells, witchcraft, fairies, or leprechauns.”
“Watch your tongue,” Kate tried to joke.
Some of the tension went out of his face at her joke. “You don’t really believe in that garbage, do you?”
The disappointment Kate felt earlier was turning to hurt, because now she realized he was pleased with their situation today and even purposely causing it to some extent. Struggling to keep her tone neutral, she said, “At this point it no longer matters what I believe.”
“Pretend it does.”
“All right, I do not believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. But I know magic when I feel it, and I felt it last night. I’m willing to agree that you weren’t the cause of it, but—”
He cut her off with a mocking challenge: “I suppose you’re going to try to convince me you have ‘magic’ with your lawyer boyfriend?”
Kate sobered. “First of all, I’m not trying to convince you of anything. Second, if the answer to your question was yes, I wouldn’t have been with you last night and I wouldn’t be here now. Third, and most important of all, do not mention him again,” she warned implacably. “You have no right to discuss him, and neither do I.”
It was this first-time defense of the boyfriend that warned Mitchell he had now run out of rope with her and he was standing precariously close to the edge of a dangerous precipice. She had too much pride and self-respect to settle for what little he was willing to offer. She wanted magic, and without it, she was staying faithful to her boyfriend. In fact, her mind was already made up to stay with him.
“What matters,” she continued in a sweet, apologetic voice as she unknowingly shoved him clear off the precipice, “is that you refuse to believe in magic, and I refuse not to believe in it. And therein lies the gap we can’t bridge. Not in this room or anywhere else.”
Mitchell felt himself plunging through thin air, sent over the edge by a beautiful young redhead with the face of an angel and the stubborn pride of an Irish rebel. Even so, he made a manful attempt to gain a foothold and stop his fall by suggesting, “Why don’t we go to bed and see what happens there?”
She shook her head and smiled that Mona Lisa smile of hers. “Why? So I could try to make you feel magic while you try to prove there is none? One person can’t make that kind of magic. It takes two. It’s inevitable that you’d succeed and I’d end up being disappointed. If I’m going to be disappointed,” she admitted with gentle candor, “I don’t want it to happen with you. I don’t know why, but that’s very important to me.” She turned away and stepped through the balcony doorway, looking out at the water. “Let’s go sightseeing now and try to get to know each other a little bit before I pick up Max and take him back to Anguilla with me. I’ll wait out here if you’d like to change clothes.”
Mitchell experienced the full force of his renewed free fall, complete with sensations of his stomach twisting into knots and wind howling in his ears. Drawing a long, steadying breath, he gazed at the slender back of the woman he’d allowed to do this to him. His balance returned, he felt the floor beneath his feet. On the balcony was an exquisite Irish girl who touched his heart, overheated his blood, and made him laugh. She was passionate and sweet, honest and intelligent, proud and unpredictable. She sang in a choir, smiled like an angel, and adopted ugly, stray dogs with fleas. She was a fairy tale. And he was …
Completely enchanted.
Walking up behind her, he slid his arms around her and drew her back against his chest. “Let’s get complicated, Kate,” he said with a smile in his voice.
“Thank you for the offer,” she said politely, “but it’s better to leave things just as they are.”
Ignoring that, Mitchell pressed his lips to the top of her head and whispered, “Chant your incantations and get out your amulets, lovely witch. Weave your magic spell.”
“Please stop this, or we won’t end up being friends, after all,” she warned.
“We’re already friends,” he murmured, trailing his mouth to her ear. “We’re about to become lovers.”
She shivered at the touch of his breath on her ear, but refused to relent. “I told you, I don’t want to.”
“Yes, you do, and so do I,” he said, and kissed her temple. “Put your arms around me and wrap us up in magic. I can’t do it without you.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she burst out. “What do you think you’re—”
Mitchell switched from tender persuasion to assertive action and clamped his hand over her mouth before she could finish. “Kate,” he warned in a low, implacable voice, “for the next hour, the only sounds I want to hear from you are moans of delight and the words ‘yes,’ ‘more,’ and ‘please.’”
He lifted his hand a fraction of an inch, and she said, “Stop it!”
“Wrong words,” Mitchell said, and twisted her around. “Look at me, Kate.”
Green eyes, wary and annoyed, glared at him from beneath graceful russet brows drawn into a dark, warning frown.
Mitchell heeded her expression and carefully softened his tone. “I am trying to concede. The truth is that I felt all the same things you did last night, and you know I did.”
Looking into his cobalt eyes, listening to the slightly husky timbre of his baritone voice, Kate sensed that he was telling her the truth as well as allowing her a glimpse beneath another of his “layers,” and she felt a sharp tug on her heart. His next explanation was equally revealing:
“The discouraging things I said to you a few minutes ago were mostly the result of my halfhearted desire to protect you from me—” He stopped, cocked his head to the side, and after a moment’s thought, he admitted with amused irony, “Actually, it may have been the reverse.”
Trying desperately not to laugh, Kate bit down on her lip and swiftly shifted her gaze to his shoulder, but looking away didn’t help. She was so hopelessly drawn to him in every way that there was no refuge. Marveling at her own helplessness, she shook her head a little. Mitchell evidently mistook that shake of her head as an indication that she was about to reject what he’d said, and he gave her a stern warning: “‘No’ is not on the list I gave you of acceptable words.”
Caught between mirth and tenderness, Kate succumbed to defeat. Smiling into his eyes, she laid her palms on his chest and softly sighed a word that was not on his list. “Mitchell …”
She saw pleasure flicker in his eyes when she said his name that way. “You may add that word to your list.”<
br />
Leaning up on her toes, eyes shining with laughter, voice shaky with awakening desire, Kate twined her arms around his neck. “Please,” she whispered, her lips almost touching his.
“An excellent choice,” Mitchell decreed, and brushed his lips back and forth over hers in a light, teasing kiss.
“More,” Kate murmured when he lifted his mouth.
“An even better choice,” Mitchell said with a grin, and gathered her tightly into his arms, preparing to leisurely savor and explore that mouth of hers. She took him from relaxed humor to raw hunger in minutes.
He maneuvered her—without resistance—to the side of the bed, and let go of her while he pulled his shirt off. When he dropped it to the floor and reached out to help take her T-shirt off, she smiled up at him and shook her head slightly as if she wanted to do it herself for him. She tugged her T-shirt out of her waistband, caught it by the hem, and drew it up and over her head. When she finished, she stood in front of him in a white lacy bra, and Mitchell found himself smiling back at her—a warm, playful smile tinged with a challenge.
He dropped his gaze from her green eyes, and his hands went to his belt.
Kate had to take off her sandals before she could step out of her jeans, so she bent to deal with them. In front of her lowered eyes, his pants and briefs hit the floor. With shaky fingers, Kate concentrated on unfastening one sandal, then the other. She stepped out of them and started to straighten. Part way up, her gaze slid up a rigid male member, and she hastily jerked her eyes away. Looking at that magnificent chest of his was less nerve-racking than seeing him naked at the hips for the first time. His hands went to her shoulders, his thumbs pulling her bra straps down, leaving them loose on her arms, before he slid his hands around her back and unhooked her bra with the ease of man who had unhooked many.
Thinking that, she raised her gaze to his and saw a knowing expression sweep across his face, before he lowered his eyelids and pulled her bra away from her breasts and down her arms. Kate stepped out of her jeans, and his slow, languorous gaze drifted boldly over her, examining her breasts and waist and belly, then down to the curly hair at her thighs. In the way that she often sensed what he was thinking, she knew he expected her to put him through the same appraisal, but although she was ready to touch and be touched, she wasn’t quite ready to take a deliberate look at what she’d seen unintentionally moments before.