Читать книгу From Ex to Eternity - Kat Cantrell - Страница 7
ОглавлениеCara escaped before she actually sank down into the white sand for a good cry. She slammed the door to the room she shared with Meredith. Hard. Hopefully, her devious sister was still sound asleep. “How could you do this to me?”
The blanket on Meredith’s bed moved slightly and incoherent speech rumbled from beneath it.
“Was that English?” Cara ripped the blanket off the bed. “It’s like ninety degrees in here. How can you sleep under this?”
Meredith peered up at Cara through slitted eyes. “Which question do you want me to answer? Without a cup of coffee in my hand, you only get one.”
“Keith. You knew he was behind the invite.” Several people had casually dropped information about his new consulting gig into conversations, but she’d been too busy ignoring anyone who mentioned Keith’s name to realize Regent owned this resort.
“Sue me. You needed this expo deal to grow your business. Where’s the harm?” Flipping hair out of her face, Meredith sat up, looking as if she’d just rolled out of a lingerie fashion shoot instead of bed. If Cara didn’t love her sister so much, she’d hate her. “He’s just an ex-fiancé. A guy you are completely over. Right?”
“Totally.” Well, mostly.
Cara sank onto the bed and brooded. She needed a shower and a sturdy wooden stake to drive through the heart of the walking corpse masquerading as a man named Keith Mitchell.
“Don’t protest too hard or you’ll hurt yourself. If nothing else, it’s a chance for closure. Take it.” Meredith’s gaze grew keen. “You were fine with this yesterday. What happened?”
“Keith jogs now. Or did you already know that, too?”
Meredith stuck her tongue out. “You two are made for each other. Only insane people get up at the crack of dawn to run. Clearly he’s lost as many marbles as you have.”
“Oh, he’s still in possession of all his faculties. What he’s lost is his humanity.”
“Because he’s giving you exclusive worldwide exposure for your dresses? You’re right, that’s way over the line.”
Cara buried her face in her hands and dredged up some Magnolia Grit. She had it to spare or she’d never have made it out of her wedding-day dressing room after losing not one, but two of the most important things in her life. Now would be a great time for that grit to surface. “He only asked me to marry him because I told him I was pregnant. How did I not know that?”
“A lot of guys wouldn’t have. He did.” Meredith’s arms wrapped around Cara and the silent unconditional support nearly undid her. “Still, it’s a crappy thing to admit. Even if it’s true.”
With a sniffle, Cara nodded against Meredith’s shoulder. “I thought he loved me.”
“One is not mutually exclusive of the other. He probably did love you. Maybe he was going to ask you at some point in the future and you gave him an incentive to speed up the timing.”
“Yeah and that worked out.”
“Better you found out then that he’s a rolling stone. I was never fond of the name Cara Chandler-Harris Mitchell anyway. If you guys kiss and make up, consider keeping your maiden name this time.”
She scowled. “I’d rather kiss the hind end of a sweaty camel than Keith.”
The knowing smile Meredith shot over her shoulder on her way to hog the bathroom did not improve Cara’s mood. “I could’ve lit the candles on a ninety-year-old’s birthday cake from all the sparks shooting around the pavilion yesterday.”
“That was Keith’s robotic heart short-circuiting.”
“You might be over him, but that man is definitely not over you. People make mistakes. Maybe he wants another chance.”
“Another chance to crush me beneath him as he rolls away again? Ha.”
Lord Almighty. Now she was replaying their conversations through her head. This morning on the beach, he’d been genuinely curious about her life. And okay, he always radiated that carnal come-hither, but more of it had wafted in her direction than she’d been willing to acknowledge.
“Honey, you’re a smart girl. Do the math.” Meredith leaned on the bathroom door frame. “He didn’t invite you here solely for your fantastic wedding dresses. Hell, I can slap some lace on a piece of satin and stick it on some starry-eyed bride. He wants the designer. Not the designs.”
“He can want until all the gears in his robotic heart rust. I have a brand-new lease on life and no man, especially not Keith Mitchell, is a part of the plan.” Cara elbowed past Meredith into the bathroom. “And for the crack about slapping lace on satin, you forfeit first dibs on the shower.”
Grumbling, Meredith conceded and shut the door behind her. Cara fumed as she stood under the jets.
So. The invitation was a veiled attempt to reconcile, was it? Shattered pieces of her life and her heart had taken a supreme amount of will to recover. There was no way on God’s green earth she’d consider forgiving Keith for walking out on her when she’d needed him most.
He was not husband material. Period.
She dressed for the day in her best heels and a flattering outfit—the modern-day woman’s equivalent to a full suit of armor.
As the Good Lord clearly felt she deserved a break, the elevator button lit up when she pressed it. A working elevator. About time.
Then the doors slid open to reveal the very man she least wanted to see.
Keith smiled and sizzled her toes with a heated glance at her Louboutin sandals. “Going down?”
“You first.” She waltzed in to stand right next to him because she was a professional. An elevator full of testosterone didn’t scare her. The idea Meredith had planted—about how Mr. Runaway Groom might be angling for a do-over—that put a curl of panic in the pit of her stomach.
Why, she didn’t know. There wasn’t a combination of words in any language he could utter that would make her crazy enough to try again. And to the best of her knowledge, Keith was fluent in five languages and could order beer in twelve more.
She stared at the crack where the two door panels met and pretended the tension hadn’t raised the hair on her arms. Keith’s heat instantly spread through the small box and started seeping through her pores. And she’d already been plenty hot and bothered. He was just so solid and powerful and...arrogant.
“Do you run every day?” Keith asked politely.
“Usually. You?” Oh, her mama would be so proud. Twenty-eight years of lessons on how to smile through the Apocalypse were paying off.
“I try to. It’s great for clearing my head.”
Cara bit back her first response—Is that what happened to your brain when you cooked up the idea of a second chance? “Oh?”
“It’s an opportunity to hone my focus for the day ahead.”
“Sorry I intruded this morning.”
Keith glanced at her but she didn’t take her eyes off the crack. “You didn’t. I enjoyed it.”
All this civility slicked the back of her throat. Why was it taking so long to reach the ground floor? The building was only five stories.
The elevator screeched to a halt, throwing Cara to her knees. Before she hit the carpet, the interior went black.
Of course. It wasn’t enough to be on a small island with Keith. Now they were trapped in an elevator together. In the dark.
“Are you okay?” Keith’s voice split the darkness from above her. Obviously he had superior balance in his flat shoes.
She eased back against the wall, wincing as her ankle started to ache. Twisted, no doubt. “Fine.”
A glow emanated from Keith’s hand. “Flashlight app.”
“Do you have a call-the-elevator-repairman app? That would be handy.”
“I’m texting the hotel manager as we speak.” He sank to the floor and leaned against the back wall, crossing his mile of legs gracefully. “At least there’s no chance we’ll plunge to our deaths. I think we’re stuck between the second and first floors.”
“Can we climb out the hatch through the top?”
Keith set his phone on the floor and glanced at the ceiling. “Maybe. I’d have to boost you up. Could you pry the doors apart on the second floor?”
“On second thought, let’s see how long it’ll take the manager to get someone here to fix it. The temperature in here is cooler than my room. So there’s that.”
“What’s wrong with your room?”
“Air conditioner is flaky.”
In the low glow of the phone, Keith’s frown was slightly menacing. “Why didn’t you report it to the manager?”
“Oh, is that what you’re supposed to do?” She pulled the sandal off her foot and massaged the offending ankle. Still hurt as if she’d stabbed it with a pair of shears. Well, if nothing else, now she had a good excuse to avoid jogging on the beach with a man who moved so fluidly it made her salivate. “I assume the manager called the same guy to repair it as the one who fixed the elevator. You’d think the consultant responsible for the whole show might have a better handle on this sort of thing.”
“My shows always go off without a hitch. Did you hurt yourself?”
“I’m fine.”
His phone beeped and he picked it up to tap through the message. “It’ll be about twenty minutes. Can you live with that or shall we try the escape hatch?”
Twenty minutes in the close confines of an elevator with her ex-fiancé. If he tried anything, she’d stab him with her heel. There was wood in a stiletto, wasn’t there? “I’ll wait. I didn’t have anything to do today besides lounge around at the pool.”
“Me either.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know. You’re the big man on campus. How come you’re not CEO of something by now? Too permanent?”
His sculpted lips pursed, and dang it if it didn’t set off a flutter to recall how masterfully that mouth could pleasure her body. The curse of celibacy. Her neglected body needed to catch a clue about how totally unattractive Keith Mitchell was.
Well, not on the outside, but on the inside, where it counted.
“I have no desire to be the CEO of anything,” he said. “I’m my own boss. I can pick my challenges and move on, instead of being mired in entrenched bureaucracy at a company long-term.”
Yep. Meredith had called it. At least Cara had found out about his allergy to commitment before she’d married him. But now she had a ton of other questions.
She should shut up. Being stuck in an elevator didn’t mean she had to say everything on her mind. “Just for morbid grins, once we’d gotten married, how long would it have taken you to develop the seven-year itch—six months?”
So apparently she did have to hash it out right this minute.
His crisp suit rustled as he shifted into a different position. “I let it go earlier, but let’s clear this up now. I didn’t leave you at the altar. I’m sure it’s more fun to tell the story that way. Gets you a lot more sympathy.”
She laughed but it rang hollow. “Semantics, Mitchell.”
“It’s not. I wouldn’t have subjected you to the public humiliation of walking down the aisle to an empty spot where I was supposed to be.”
“Well, bless your heart. I really appreciate you sparing me the humiliation of having to call off my wedding minutes before it started. Oh, wait. That is what happened. Fill me in on the part where you were acting noble.”
If this was a reconciliation attempt, he should stick to his non-long-term day job.
“Cara.” He heaved a sigh. “Timing aside, we weren’t meant to be. Our marriage would have been a disaster. Surely you’ve come to accept that during the last two years.”
“That was a lame excuse then and time hasn’t improved it. I needed you and you left.”
“You needed a wedding and a husband. Anyone with the proper equipment would’ve done. It just took me a while longer to wise up than it should have.”
“I was in love with you!” She curled her hand into a fist and imagined planting it right in his arrogant jaw. A girl could dream. Probably it would break her hand before it rearranged his pretty face.
“Right.” He smirked. “Just like I was in love with you.”
He didn’t believe her.
All vestiges of Southern grace evaporated as a snarl escaped her clamped lips. “Unlike you, I wasn’t getting married because of the baby. I was deluded enough to believe we were going to be a happy family.”
“That mythical happy family would have been a little difficult considering you lied about being pregnant.”
“What?” She shook her head but the roaring in her ears just swelled. “I didn’t lie about being pregnant.”
“You flashed a fake smile and said, ‘Guess what? False alarm.’ Convenient how you discovered it moments before the ceremony. That’s the reason I spared you the walk down the aisle, because you told me before instead of after.”
“False al—” She recoiled so hard, the back of her head smacked the wall. “I had a miscarriage, you son of a bitch.”
* * *
“A miscarriage?” Keith’s pulse stumbled and his lungs contracted. “How is that possible?”
“You’ve heard of the internet? Do a search.” Cara crossed her arms and looked away, but not before he caught the tremble of her lower lip in the phone’s glow.
That punched him in the gut. “On what planet does ‘false alarm’ mean a miscarriage instead of ‘not really pregnant’?”
The harsh tone had come out automatically. If he couldn’t keep better control over himself, he might check out the escape hatch regardless, which would be very difficult to maneuver with his foot in his mouth. But if she’d really been pregnant, everything he’d assumed about her, about their relationship—hell, maybe even about himself—was wrong.
“Planet Bride-Dealing-With-Whacked-Out-Hormones. It’s in the I-Get-A-Pass Galaxy. I didn’t want to ruin our special day with something so awful.” She muttered “Jerk” under her breath, but she didn’t cry.
It was a far tamer slur than the one he was calling himself. Miscarriage. He still couldn’t wrap his head around it. “You were really pregnant?”
“Guess you get to keep your genius status one more day.”
He was so far from a genius, he couldn’t even see the “stupid” line he’d crossed. His temples throbbed with tension and unrestrained nerves.
Miscarriage was the false alarm.
From the moment Cara told him about the pregnancy, he’d been so furious, with himself for not being more diligent about birth control, with how difficult it had been to come to terms with what needed to happen next—regardless of his intense desire to avoid matrimony—and with Cara’s happiness over a marriage he didn’t want.
Meredith had found him nursing his wounds the morning of the wedding and announced, “Cara needs to talk to you,” with such gravity.
He’d fallen on the words “false alarm” like a starving dog on a steak, and as a bonus, he assumed Cara had created a manipulation scheme. Then he’d settled into his role of martyr with ease.
He rubbed his eyes but it only made the sting worse and didn’t change what his vision had already told him—she was telling the truth. “At what point were you going to clarify this?”
“After the ceremony, when we were alone. Figured we could cry about it together and drown our sorrows in expensive champagne I could actually drink.” She cocked her head and the heat of her anger zinged through the elevator. “You thought I’d lied about being pregnant? How in all that’s holy can you believe I would do something so reprehensible?”
Keith ran a hand across the back of his clammy neck. This conversation was veering into a realm he did not care for. “How could you believe I’d walk out on you if I’d really understood what you meant? Why didn’t you stop me?”
Smooth. If she’d just give him a minute to collect his scattered wits, he might formulate a response that didn’t make him sound like a callous ass.
I’m so, so sorry. I should have asked more questions. I screwed up.
As always, he could no sooner force such emotionally laden words out of his mouth than he could force a watermelon into it.
“Because I knew, Keith! I could see the relief dripping from your expression. You never invested an ounce of effort into the wedding plans and I blew it off as typical guy hatred of flowers and musical selections. But you stood there, all calm and cool, telling me how we wouldn’t have worked out anyway. Miscarriage or false positive, it’s the same end. You were looking for an out and I handed it to you.”
You’re right. I was.
The exit had been calling his name before she’d dropped the pregnancy bomb that then tightened the noose with alarming haste. His first love was a job well done, completed by the sweat of his brow. He’d been fortunate his hard work over the years had resulted in a healthy bank account. Women typically wanted a piece of it. Providing a lavish lifestyle for an unambitious wife who wanted nothing more than to spend his money put Keith off the idea of tying himself permanently to any of them. Only an unexpected pregnancy could have turned the tide.
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.
