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The realization hurt him so much, he could only watch her from the bed, wondering if he’d actually stayed away from her all these years out of duty, or because he was a coward and knew, deep down, that he just didn’t deserve her.
“Do you want some of the food I brought over, or should I just go home now?” she asked, and as if she’d already decided on the latter, she slipped back into her dress. Then she resumed searching on the floor for her panties.
He held them out to her with a scowl. “You were trembling in this bed with me, Kate. You. Begged. For me.”
“You’re right.” She covered her face with shaking hands, then plunged her legs into her panties. “I even started it.”
He was baffled. She looked very perturbed by the fact that she’d slept with him. He didn’t know what to make of it when he’d just felt her writhe beneath him, wet and wanton.
“No. I did, Kate. I started it,” he said, gentling his voice, standing up to embrace her. “Hell, I’ve been thinking about doing this with you since...”
Her eyes widened as though he’d just divulged something completely damning. “Since when? Since I said I was going to Florida? Ohmigod, are you trying to use sex to get me to bend to your will and stay here? Why else would you touch me when you haven’t your whole life!”
She suddenly looked enlightened, while he stared blankly at her, puzzled and confused. Her cheeks were reddening by the second, but Garrett was growing too angry at her accusation to care. “Kate, do you seriously believe I’m that cold and calculating?”
Did she think anything even remotely redeeming about him, and was there any chance in hell she could ever love him when she was holding their past against him?
“Of course I do! You’re a man who just confessed to be considering some sort of weird business marriage with some bimbo you barely even know!”
“She’s not a bimbo, Kate,” he said, just to be fair to Cassandra.
Kate’s cheeks went redder. “You still haven’t told me why you went behind your beloved’s back and slept with me.”
“Why don’t you first tell me why the hell you slept with me? Were you just horny or did you just pity me tonight, or were you apologizing for giving me strep?”
“Who do you think you are to judge? Garrett, you slept with me even while thinking of marrying some stranger in the name of...business. I swear that’s the most disgusting thing anyone’s ever done to me!”
“You’re just goddamned playing with me! You’ve teased me your whole life, parading around with other men! You just gave me a little taste of what I want, and once you got what you wanted, you’re ditching me!”
She glared and stomped to the door. “Go to hell!”
“I’m already there, Kate. It’s been my damned zip code since I was ten!”
As she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her, Garrett punched his fist into the pillow and yelled, “Goddammit!”
Six (#u25c01d60-acb3-526f-9b8b-57f7b6b9f078)
“We’re sitting at twenty-eight percent today...” Landon said. As usual, the man droned on and on about business.
Garrett made it a point to occasionally nod as if he were listening while he scrolled through his last text conversation with Kate. He’d texted her in the middle of the night after the debacle of their argument four nights ago. He’d been lying awake at midnight feeling medicated and as low as a dog. All he’d needed was for someone to put a bowl of Alpo out for him. Instead he’d found her food in the kitchen, cursed himself over and over again, heated up his soup and chowed down on several muffins, then grabbed his phone and texted her. Despite the fact that it had been past one in the morning, she’d replied. Which meant she’d been lying awake, too, as sleepless as he was.
Thanks for my food. When can I see you? I want to talk.
Everything is fine. I’ve already forgotten about it.
Garrett wasn’t so stupid as to believe this, but had answered.
K. So I hear you’re getting your dresses fitted Wednesday. I’ll drive you.
Won’t your girlfriend get jealous?
I’d like to explain to you about her.
It’s fine. The fitting is at five so I’ll see you before then.
“Are you even listening, Garrett?”
He lifted his head to Landon’s confused gray gaze.
“Hmm? What?”
Landon scowled and then continued, raising his voice as though to be clearer. “Clarks...new strategy...”
So, Kate thought Garrett had planned it all?
How could she believe that he’d planned to get sick, so that he could get her to bring over some food for him, get her into bed, seduce her like some out-of-control adolescent and conveniently forget a condom so she might have to stay? Well, hell, it sounded so brilliant, he felt like an idiot for not thinking of it before.
“Garrett, dammit, did you hear?”
“Yes. Clarks. A new strategy.” He set his phone aside, but putting thoughts about Kate aside wasn’t that easy.
“You’re the last single Gage. Will you or won’t you go through with this?” Landon asked.
With a major wrench of mental muscles, Garrett pulled his scrambled brain together and tried to focus on the topic today.
“All three of us know that I’m not really the last single Gage, Lan.” Garrett leaned back to survey both his brothers’ expressions across the conference table.
Landon’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t go there.”
“Why not?” He shrugged. “He’s still a Gage.”
“Mother wanted nothing to do with him. Hell, we paid him millions to get out of our lives for good, and you want to bring him back?”
“How badly do you want Clarks?” Garrett countered.
“As badly as you want it,” Landon returned.
Garrett scraped a hand along the tense muscles at the back of his neck. He wanted Clarks, but not as bad as he wanted something else.
“Plus who’s to say that selfish bastard will want to help us?” Landon rose to pace by the wall of windows. “He will want a big piece of the pie, and he’ll want even more than that. Do you remember Father refused to recognize him?“
“But we know he was Father’s son, no matter how many times he denied it to Mother,” Garrett countered. He’d been wracking his brain for other options and this was, fortunately or unfortunately, the only one he’d been able to come with.
To bring their illegitimate half brother, Emerson Wells, back into the fold.
Julian chewed on the back of a pen before he lowered it and spoke. “We could entice him with money. Stock. Something. Maybe we should call just him.”
“He’s trouble,” Landon said pointedly, his face furrowed in thought. “What does he do now anyway?”
“Last I heard he was in the personal security business here in San Antonio. Started as a bodyguard.”
“Seriously?”
“What can I say? He likes beating people up.”
“All right then.” Crossing the room, Landon clicked the phone intercom and rang his assistant. “If you’d please get me Emerson Wells on the line. You should be able to do a Google search and find his number. He owns some sort of personal security business here in town.”
Hanging up, Landon rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his gray eyes on Garrett. “If he denies us...would you still go through with it?”
Kate’s face and words surfaced in his mind with a vengeance, and his chest cramped. I would never marry for anything other than love!
For one painful moment, he wondered if she’d even care whether he married someone else, for whatever reason. But although her words had cut through him, her body had spoken another language. He’d lost control, and so had she. They’d both been so needy he hadn’t even been able to stop to put on a condom.
What had he done?
Perhaps Garrett hadn’t technically broken his promise to her father, but he felt like he had. There was probably no man more undeserving of Kate’s affection than he.
Clearly, you blew it, Gage.
But she had wanted him. Hell, she’d not only wanted him, she’d melted under his touch. Was he supposed to turn his mind blank and forget about a moment like that?
“Molls said they have a fitting this afternoon that you insisted on driving them to?”
He glanced up at Julian in confusion. “Molly? I told Kate I’d drive her. I didn’t know it included Molly.”
“And Beth,” Landon added with a grin. “They’re all going together.”
Garrett almost groaned. So much for talking to Kate one-on-one.
“Fine, then. I’ll drive the three of them,” Garrett reluctantly conceded. An infuriating hunch told him that Kate was doing this on purpose. Clearly, she had no desire to discuss anything with him.
Julian dropped his pencil on the table and angled his head, his eyes sparkling in amusement.
“You know, bro, I can’t help you here. Molls would strangle me if I see her in the dress.”
“That’s fine.” He plunged a hand through his hair. He’d wanted to spend some time with Kate and talk, but he would manage somehow. “I’ll drop Kate off last and see if she’ll do dinner with me.”
“So I take it this means whatever Emerson says, you’re not keen on the marriage of convenience?” Julian queried.
“Would you be?” Garrett countered. “Keen to marry a stranger? When your every thought is consumed by someone else?”
“Why don’t you just tell Kate how you feel and get it all out there?”
Garrett shook his head.
Because he didn’t deserve her.
Hell, the way things stood, even if he were to tell Kate how she made him feel, she’d probably tell him to stick his declaration where it hurts. She resented him for having taken her father from her, no matter how much she tried to pretend she didn’t. He still couldn’t forget those words she’d lashed out at him with when they were young: How dare you!
He’d never forget the hurt betrayal in her eyes when she’d found out her father had died because Garrett hadn’t run as he’d been told to. And now, to top it off, she believed he’d deliberately slept with her just to make sure she stayed in San Antonio. True, it might have been the catalyst, but that was so not the reason.
“You know, Garrett,” Landon said, coming over to pat his back, “we all get the love we think we deserve...and you deserve it, man. No matter what you think. You both do. So you better own it before she leaves for Florida, brother. Neither Julian nor I, nor for that matter, Mother, has any desire to watch what her departure does to you.”
Seven (#u25c01d60-acb3-526f-9b8b-57f7b6b9f078)
Kate checked herself in the mirror for the tenth time. She wore a plain khaki skirt and sleeveless halter top. She knew that it would be silly to try on another top, so she grabbed her purse and her phone, then glanced down on impulse at Garrett’s last texts.
He’d said he wanted to talk and tell her about the “bimbo,” but just thinking about the way he’d defended her made Kate’s blood boil. Worse was that every time she went back a little further, to his kisses, little bubbles of remembrance shot through her system. She didn’t want the bubbles. Or the tingles. Or any of the gut-churning jealousy she felt when she thought about him and Cassandra Clarks.
She hadn’t slept a wink last night; she could still feel his touch on her traitorously sensitive skin. Now, Beth and Molly were waiting in her living room for him to pick them up, and Kate was grateful for the buffer they would provide.
Coward. That’s why you asked them to come over.
Yes, yes, so fine, she was a coward. She just didn’t trust herself to be alone with him. She feared she’d either do something sexual, which she had to put a stop to, or say some other cruel things that she didn’t mean. She regretted getting so defensive when he’d started apologizing. Garrett was actually the most unselfish man she knew. He’d always thought ahead to how he would protect her if something unexpected happened. But the last thing Kate had wanted was to add to his burdens when it came to her. She hadn’t ever imagined they’d end up naked and entangled. But he’d been there. So available. So sexy, tan and bare-chested. How could she resist? And the bastard had broken remorselessly through her walls, all in his stupid attempt to bend her to his will and liking!
But then he’d pretended to be hurt by her accusation, and accused her of being a tease. The reminder made her frown. She’d never considered that she was. Did she tease him? She’d tried to make him jealous for years, but she’d never known it had even had an effect.
Maybe it had more than he’d let on.
“Landon thinks he’s going to do it,” Beth was telling Molly.
“Do what?” Kate asked as she came back into the living room.
Molly turned to her with a sad, moping face. “Marry Cassandra Clarks. Jules told me yesterday. I just didn’t know how to bring it up.”
Kate’s stomach clenched.
“It’s got something to do with acquiring Clarks Communications,” Beth said, shaking her head. “Kate, I’m sorry.”
Once again, Kate felt the painful stab of jealousy inside her. “All the more reason I should leave,” she whispered.
“You’d let the man you love marry another woman?” Beth asked uncertainly.
“If he wants her, yes. And I don’t love him. I might have had a crush, but I’m over that. I’m in love with the idea of Florida now.”
“Kate, I think it’s hard for him to let himself want something, with what happened to your father, but I’ve always seen that he’s got it bad for you,” Beth said.
“No. I had it bad for him. And now I’ve promised myself to forget him. I should find a man with no baggage who actually makes me feel loved, Beth.”
Both women quietly watched her pace to the window and then back.
“So there’s nothing going on between the two of you? The boys say he’s distracted. And so are you,” Beth insisted.
Her best friend’s eyes twinkled all of a sudden, and Kate wanted to groan when she saw Molly’s mischievous smile also appear. Did they suspect Kate had totally gone sex-crazed at Garrett’s place several days ago?
“There’s nothing going on. We’re...normal. Friends.” Who slipped up once, she mentally added. Through the window, she watched his silver Audi pull over to the curb. Little bugs tickled the insides of her stomach. “He’s here.”
“I guess I’ll just slide into the back with Molly,” Beth offered as they went outside, and Kate locked up behind her.
