Treading Water: Coming Home Part 7

"You're off the clock," she reminded herself, though one could stop being an attorney and manager, but one never stopped being a sister. "She said she's fine, and she's a grown adult. If she wasn't fine, she would've said so."

Despite Kate's a.s.surances Jill had no doubt that her sister must be devastated, which made Jill want to cancel her own plans and fly to St. Kitts to be with Kate. She was reaching for her phone to call Ashton when a black stretch limo came down the lane.

Jill's mouth fell open. "What the h.e.l.l?"

The car came to a stop outside her home, and the driver alighted. Jill knew this because she was staring out the window. Even so, when the driver knocked on the door, she startled.

As she pulled open the door, she said, "I think you have the wrong place."

"Are you Jill Harrington?"

Nodding, she stared at the car.

"Mr. Matthews sent me to pick you up."

"And bring me where?"

"I'm afraid I'm unable to disclose that information. I'm told it's a surprise."

Jill stewed that over for a moment, unsure how she felt about him managing her this way. She was used to doing the managing.

"He said you might protest, but he promises you'll enjoy his plans for the evening. Oh, and he said to bring a jacket. Just in case."

Jill eyed the driver warily, wanting to ask in case of what. "Anything else?"

"No, that was about it."

She thought about Kate alone in St. Kitts. She thought of the endless months on the road, day after day without so much as an hour to call her own. Kate had told her to relax, to take some time off, and as much as she might've hated herself, she was extremely curious to know what Ashton had planned.

"Ms. Harrington? Are you coming?"

"Yes." Jill grabbed a denim jacket and her purse on the way out the door. "I'm coming."

Reid's dinner with Mari was unusually quiet and awkward. He did his best to make conversation, but all he could think about was how surreal it had been to see Kate again. Over and over, he relived their brief encounter on the beach until he'd a.n.a.lyzed every word and every expression, trying to find the deeper meaning.

Did she say she wanted him back? And why did his heart skip a beat at the thought that maybe she did? What did it mean?

"Reid."

He snapped out of his ponderings to find Mari looking at him across the table, clearly annoyed by his inattention. "I'm sorry. What were you saying?"

"It doesn't matter." She signaled the waiter for their check.

"Don't you want dessert?" She always wanted dessert.

"Not tonight." Rather, it appeared she wanted out of there-and quickly. He always insisted on paying whenever they went out, but tonight she beat him to it, signing the credit card receipt before he was even aware that their check had arrived.

She put down the pen, took her card and was heading for the exit before he had the napkin off his lap.

Reid chased after her. "Mari, where're you going in such a rush?"

"Home."

If he wasn't mistaken, he heard tears in her voice, but he was afraid to look over at her as he drove the short distance to the house she'd recently moved into with him. Once there, she bolted from the car and went into the bedroom. He found her tossing clothes into a bag, her movements jerky and erratic-and reminiscent of the day Kate had left him. He didn't like to think about that day. It was still painful all these years later.

"What're you doing?"

"I'm going."

"Wait. Going where?"

"Anywhere but here."

"I don't understand. Something happened today that caught me by surprise. I don't even get one night to process it?"

She turned to him, and her tear-ravaged face tore at him. "If I gave you a month or a year to 'process' what happened today, would it change that fact that you're still in love with her?"

"What?" He stared at her, incredulous. "Where's that coming from? I haven't seen her in ten years!"

"And those ten years disappeared the minute she showed up here, didn't they?"

When she went into the bathroom that adjoined their bedroom, he went after her. "Mari, listen to me. Please."

She turned to him, seeming to summon an almost ethereal calm that was in sharp contrast to the emotional firestorm. "We always promised each other we'd stay together for as long as it worked for both of us, right?"

"Yes."

"I can't compete with the woman you never stopped loving, and I'm not about to try."

"How do you know I never stopped loving her? Even I don't know that."

"In all these months together, you've never once said you love me. I always suspected there was someone else, someone who had your heart. I was watching you today when you saw her for the first time, and I finally got some answers. I saw everything I've never seen directed my way."

"You're not being fair! I was surprised. I had no idea she was coming here. How would you have me react when someone I loved a decade ago appears out of the blue?"

"Look me in the eye, right here, right now, and tell me you don't love her anymore."

Reid intended to do exactly as she'd directed, because he didn't want to lose her. He liked what they had. It was easy and comfortable and peaceful. It was everything his relations.h.i.+p with Kate hadn't been, but he couldn't look at this beautiful, sweet woman who'd been so good to him and lie to her.

"I don't know how I feel. I wish I could tell you what you want to hear, but I'm all mixed up inside. Seeing her again has thrown me. I won't deny that. I need some time to figure out what it means."

"Take all the time you need." She picked up her bag and headed for the door. "I'll send for the rest of my stuff."

"Mari, please. You don't have to go. It doesn't have to be this way."

"Yes, it does, because I happen to love you, and I won't sit on the sidelines and watch you leave me."

"Leave you? You're the one who's leaving!"

"You left me the minute you saw her." This was said so quietly that Reid almost didn't hear her.

"Mari-"

"Please, don't do this. Don't deny what we both know is true. We had a lovely time together, and I don't want to watch it die a painful death while you pine for the one who got away. Don't do that to us, or to me."

Before Reid could piece together a coherent response to that, she was out the door and in her car. He slammed the door shut and pounded his fist on the wood. How had this day spun so far out of control from when he'd woken up in the morning to make lazy love with Mari to watching her storm out the door as their relations.h.i.+p came to a sudden, turbulent end?

"I'll tell you how it happened," he said, fuming as he grabbed his car keys. "Kate Harrington is how it happened. Once again she's turned my entire life upside down, and this time she's not getting away with it."

After dinner, Kate took what was left of her bottle of wine to the beach patio and stretched out on one of the wide lounge chairs. It wasn't lost on her that the chairs were made to accommodate two people, and as usual, she was alone. Normally, being by herself didn't bother her. But here, in paradise, she felt lonelier than she had in a long time.

Of course it was because nothing had gone as she'd hoped today. Now that she'd seen Reid again, Kate was able to admit that she'd expected to find him single and as lonely as she was for what they'd once had. But he seemed to be happily settled with the dark-haired beauty he lived with.

Thinking of her, the pet.i.te woman with the dark eyes and curvy body, Kate experienced an emotion that was all new to her-jealousy. Was he with her now, in bed, making love to her? Or were they looking at the same moon on their deck, talking about his long-lost girlfriend who'd come to visit today and laughing about how misguided she'd been to show up that way, expecting to pick right up where she'd left off with Reid so long ago?

"Ugh," she said to the moonlight, scrubbing a hand over her face as if to erase the memories of the other woman Reid loved now. It wouldn't do her any good to think about them and what they might be doing.

The house phone inside rang, jarring her out of her musings. Kate got up to answer it.

"Ms. Harrington," the operator said. "My apologies for disturbing you, but you have a visitor. A Mr. Matthews. He's quite insistent on seeing you."

Frozen with shock, Kate held the phone to her ear and stared at the wall, trying to formulate a coherent thought. Reid was here. And he wanted to see her.

"Ms. Harrington?"

"Please send him down."

"Very well."

Since she didn't have time to change before he got there, she retied her robe and ran her fingers through her hair. What was he doing here? She could barely think by the time he knocked-or rather pounded-on her door a minute later.

Before she could get to the door, he pounded again. "Open up, Kate!" What the heck had gotten into him?

She opened the door and started to ask him what was wrong when he pushed past her into the living room.

"I hope you're happy."

"What... I... What're you talking about?"

Watching him pace around the small room like a caged tiger, Kate was reminded of the long-ago night when he'd come to her place, intending to end their relations.h.i.+p. Rather, they'd gone to Memphis the next day and ended up in bed together.

"Mari has left me. Happy?"

"She... Why?"

"Because of you! Because you showed up and ruined everything, just like before!" The sleepy-looking brown eyes she'd adored from the start were shooting fire at her as he spoke. He wore a white s.h.i.+rt that offset his dark tan, and his hair was mussed, as if he'd been pulling at it. He was fifty-five now but didn't look a day over forty, and Kate still loved him as much as she ever had.

The realization sent her reeling, making her heart beat erratically and her mouth go dry. "I...I'm sorry. I never meant to ruin anything for you. I only wanted to see you, to tell you... I'm sorry."

His gaze moved over her slowly and intently, which put her already frazzled nerves on alert. "Are you?" he asked in that slow Tennessean drawl that got her every time.

"Am I... Am I what?" She hated that he turned her into a stuttering fool, but being this close to him when he was obviously enraged with her had fried her brain cells.

"Are you sorry she left me?" He stepped closer, forcing Kate to back up-right into a wall.

"I, um..." What was she supposed to say to that?

His face was now an inch from hers when he asked again, more slowly this time. "Are you sorry she left me?"

Since she didn't dare try to speak, Kate shook her head.

"Why?" He zeroed in on her lips, which made them go dry.

Kate licked them and watched his eyes darken with what looked like desire. His eyes had always gotten darker and s.e.xier when he was turned on.

His hands landed on her hips, fingertips digging into her skin through the silk and setting her on fire. "Why?"

"Because I want you." With him standing a mere inch from her, with him touching her for the first time in a very long decade, it suddenly wasn't difficult at all to tell him the truth. "I've always wanted you. Even when I wasn't supposed to want you."

And then he was devouring her. There was simply no other word to describe the way he kissed her, as if he'd been saving up for this moment for as long as they'd been apart. He consumed her with his lips, tongue and teeth.

Kate wound her arms around his neck and held on as tightly as she could, kissing him back with everything she had. She had no idea how long they stood there, pressed against the wall, kissing each other with years of pent-up pa.s.sion and desire fueling their embrace. It was unlike anything Kate had ever experienced, even with him. And still his hands never moved from her hips. He held on so tightly, as if he was afraid she might get away if he let go.

Wanting more of him, Kate arched into his embrace, encountering the hard press of his erection against her belly. When she gasped, he broke the kiss and turned his focus on her neck.

"This is crazy," he whispered between openmouthed kisses that made her melt in his arms. "What're you even doing here?"

"I came for you." She fisted a handful of his hair, remembering the way the dark silky strands had felt between her fingers the first time they were together. The feel of his hair on her skin was something she'd thought about long after they broke up. "I couldn't stop wanting you. I tried for so long to stop, but I couldn't. I never stopped."

His groan was nothing less than tortured. "I never stopped either. I thought of you every day. I listened to your music whenever I was in the car alone. It made me feel closer to you."

"I'm sorry," she said, a sob escaping from her lips almost against her will. "I was horrible to you, and you helped me so much."

He quieted her with another deep, searching kiss that made her want to beg for more of him. "I was wrong to go behind your back the way I did. You were exactly right when you said I'd disrespected you."

Kate shook her head. "Everything I have is because of what you did. I was an idiot to think the career would've happened without someone helping me."

"I have no doubt at all it would've happened with me or without me." As he said those words, his hands finally left their perch on her hips and moved up to cup her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "You're more beautiful than ever, if that's possible. When I saw you on my beach today..." He shook his head. "I thought I'd dreamt you."

"I didn't come here to mess things up for you. I didn't know you had someone else. I swear. I never would've come if I had known that."

"Mari is a lovely woman, and she was very good to me, but she isn't you. There's never been anyone else quite like you."

Kate ran her fingers over the prominent cheekbones she'd always been so captivated by. "For me either."

"Not even Clint What's-his-name?" he asked with a raised brow.

Kate laughed at the expression on his face. "More rumor than truth."