Unbreak My Heart (Childhood Sweethearts Reunited)

by Helen Scott Taylor

  "My first concern is quality, Eric. The Caspian Manor is a top class establishment, and I'm a firm believer that you get what you pay for in life." Andre dropped a quick kiss on Kate's temple. "I want the best in all things. I don't tolerate cut-rate workmanship."

  "That's not what I meant. We do a good job." Eric held out his card again. "Just think about it."

  Without making a conscious decision to do so, Kate reached out. Andre's fingers tightened on her waist, and strength radiated through her from his touch. She met Eric's surprised look as she grasped the business card and pulled it from his hand. "If you think Andre or I would dream of employing your firm after the way you bullied me, you're mad." Kate crumpled the small white rectangle and flicked it back at him. He stared at her mutely as it bounced off his chest and landed in the pool.

  "I think that's a ‘no,’ Tierman," Andre said cheerfully. Eric narrowed his eyes and glared at them for a couple of beats, then shouldered past Andre and vanished into the crowd.

  Energy surged through Kate, leaving her lightheaded with a sense of power, as though a weight she'd been carrying for years had dissolved. She flashed Andre a smile. "I bet he regrets breaking your arm now."

  ***

  With a growing sense of admiration, Andre watched Kate perform with savoir-faire. Cool and confident, she talked and laughed with the other guests, fielding questions about their engagement, smiling up at him as she flashed the ring. Whatever impulse had spurred her to take Tierman's card had been an inspiration. It was as if she had also taken back the confidence the bully had stolen from her. Deep inside, Andre felt a sense of rightness, a sense that fate had pulled the threads of the past full circle and restored Kate to her rightful place—at his side.

  He needed to touch her, to be connected. He pressed his hand against her back, her skin warm beneath the green silk of her dress, and urged her off to the side of the gathering where they could talk privately. "How are you feeling?"

  She blinked at him, her gaze bright, her cheeks flushed. "Tired. The party isn't as bad as I expected, but I'd like to go now. I'll need to feed Keiko soon. You know, I feel guilty because I'm enjoying myself without her."

  "You're entitled to some time to yourself." Time with me, he added silently.

  "I guess." She stared, distractedly toward the house. Her lips parted and the tip of her tongue flicked across them. A flash of something hot and reckless clutched Andre's gut, closely followed by an image of her spread across his bed in the green underwear.

  He jammed the brakes on his feelings. His must take things slowly and remember the engagement ring on her finger was not for real. Yet. "I think we can go. We've achieved what we came for. Edmund has given us his blessing, so I don't have to worry about Liz any more. Now we can get on with work on the Caspian."

  They said their goodbyes and walked back toward the car. As they passed through the gate, Jerry Markham loomed out of the darkness. A shock of apprehension gripped Andre. If Jerry mentioned their conversation from earlier that day at the Court Royal, it would undermine the newfound trust Andre and Kate were forging. Worse still, it would hurt her. He circled his arm protectively around her shoulders and aimed a warning glare at the reporter. "You must be here for Edmund Delacroix's party. How did you wangle an invitation?"

  Jerry Markham tilted one corner of his mouth into a sardonic smile. "Now that's where we differ, Andre. I'm not burdened by social conventions like you."

  "I take that to mean you haven't been invited."

  Jerry flipped a cigarette out of a pack, put it in his mouth and lit up. "No one will notice now they're tanked up on Delacroix's booze. This sort of party is great to pick up juicy gossip." The man really was the lowest of the low. And to think the snake had pursued Kate since she had Keiko. Andre was glad Jerry would soon be gone. He wished he had the nerve to throw the offer of publicity for the Caspian back in Jerry's face, but Andre couldn't risk bad press.

  Andre turned away, exasperated with himself for being manipulated by Jerry and too concerned about his public image to tell Jerry what he thought of him. "Come on, Kat. Let's get you home."

  When they reached the car, Kate glanced over her shoulder. "He's still watching us. I can see his cigarette." Andre followed her gaze, irritation tightening his jaw. He should have known Jerry wouldn't keep his word and leave Kate alone. "My skin crawls when he looks at me," Kate whispered.

  A premonition of trouble settled like cold mist on Andre's skin. The longer he had to think about his chat with Jerry, the worse he felt. He wanted to tell Kate what he'd done and explain why. He'd feel better with it out in the open. But she would worry, and that was precisely what he hoped to avoid.

  Andre clicked the remote on his keychain. The car lights flashed as the doors unlocked. He reached for the handle and hesitated. "Is he still watching us?"

  Kate glanced toward the house again. "Yes, he hasn't moved from the gate."

  Andre didn't want Jerry speaking to Edmund or Liz and raising doubts about the validity of the engagement. His heart rate picked up as his thoughts raced ahead of his words. "I'm going to kiss you. That should help convince him we're genuine." It had nothing to do with the fact he'd been longing to kiss her all evening.

  He wondered if Kate would object, instead she turned to him and rested her palms on his lapels, her eyes wide in the moonlight. The lights from the house illuminated one side of her face, and he could see the pulse point at her throat. He brushed it with his fingertips, then slid his hand into her hair and cupped the back of her head. Kate drew in a shaky breath. "Andre," she whispered a question in her voice.

  He lowered his head, savoring her sweet floral fragrance. Her warm breath caressed his lips and just before their mouths touched he whispered, "Yes, love."

  Chapter Six

  Kate closed her eyes, grateful for the support of Andre's arms, and the darkness to hide her confusion. The cool night air on her skin warred with the warmth of Andre's breath against her face, making her quiver inside. Her lips softened as the smooth heat of his mouth caressed hers. He tasted of brandy, not her favorite spirit, but on his lips it was delicious. Something had changed between them tonight at the party. She'd sensed Andre's new awareness of her with every touch and gesture.

  Without planning to, she pressed closer to the hard masculine planes of his body. A sweet longing seeped through her as he bent his head and nibbled her neck. "Oh, Andre," she murmured.

  He stilled and, to her disappointment, stepped back. "That's enough with an audience." He slid his palms up and down her bare arms. "You're cold. You've got goose bumps."

  Kate trembled inside. The goose bumps had nothing to do with the temperature. Andre slipped off his jacket, draped it around her shoulders and held the car door for her. "You'll soon warm up." She climbed in and snuggled into the jacket's silky lining, still warm from his body. She turned her nose against the lapel. The fragrance was pure Andre, a lingering reminder of the kiss.

  As he drove home along the dark lanes, she sneaked glances at him. That kiss might have been for Jerry's benefit, but it hadn't been fake. Andre was a man now, not the boy she'd known, but she could still read his emotions. He had wanted to kiss her.

  Was he simply swept up in the mood of the evening, the supposed intimacy between them? Or did his feelings run deeper? Maybe he'd just been playing his role as fiancé. But his eyes had burned with intensity when he looked at her. Could he be a victim of his own ploy to change her? Had he fallen for her new image?

  ***

  Keiko got Kate up twice in the night, and it was nine thirty by the time she woke the following morning. A silent house greeted her. She guessed Andre was over at the hotel. So much for waking early to exercise with him! But maybe missing out was for the best; after the kiss she'd be crawling underneath him while he did his pushups if she wasn't careful.

  Later, with Keiko asleep in the stroller at her side, Kate sat in the cottage garden on a cushion. She had arranged some of Andre's dragons on a wall and p
ropped her canvas on a chair in front of her. The hours disappeared as she lost herself in her work. The sun hung directly overhead when she heard the latch on the gate.

  At the sight of Andre, Kate's senses sharpened—the sky was bluer, the flowers brighter, the bird song sweeter. She smiled as he strolled over to examine her painting. "Where did those mountains behind the dragons come from?"

  "My imagination, silly."

  "Talking about imagination, have you had any ideas for the Caspian yet?"

  "Some." Kate washed off her brush, turned her painting upside down, and studied it.

  "What are you doing?"

  "It's much easier to check the composition and tonal balance looking at the picture upside down. It stops my brain getting hung up on what it is."

  "Are you happy with it?"

  She huffed a breath. She was never completely happy with her work; she was too much of a perfectionist. "So so."

  "I like it." He glanced at Keiko who was asleep in her stroller in the shade and smiled to himself. "I've taken the rest of the day off. I thought we could go down to Batty Bay."

  Kate's heart gave a little jump. Andre wanted to take her to their favorite beach, the place where he had proposed to her when they were teenagers. Did it mean anything?

  She shaded her eyes and glanced up at him. "How often do you go to Batty Bay?"

  "I can't remember the last time."

  "We used to spend half our lives down there."

  "I'm too busy these days, Kat. When I do get time off, I have parties and other social functions to attend. I suggested the beach because I know you like it."

  Kate stood up and stretched, secretly pleased he didn't go to their special place with anyone else. "You've turned into a workaholic, Andre Le Court. It's a good thing Keiko and I are here to make you kick back and relax before you forget how to."

  He angled his head and stared at her thoughtfully. "You might be right."

  ***

  Kate had just finishing packing for the beach when Andre knocked and put his head around her bedroom door.

  "Ready?" He gazed at her new dress. "That suits you. Give me a twirl." She spun around, feeling like a child dressed for a party. The fullness of the brightly-colored sundress billowed around her legs. "That's almost too good for the beach."

  His words gave her a warm glow. Of all the things he'd bought her in the boutique, this was the only item she'd have chosen herself, the only one that was really her.

  She studied his white and navy polo shirt, and smart shorts. "You look as though you're about to perform at Wimbledon. Haven't you got anything casual?"

  He glanced down at himself. "If you mean the sort of shorts I used to wear, then no. I don't do scruffy anymore. I grew out of that years ago." A teasing smile pulled at his lips. "Unlike some people I could mention."

  "I'm not scruffy." Kate picked up a clean diaper and threw it at him as he ducked out the door. She kept her smile in place, but his comment stung. Was that what he thought of her?

  "Truce," he said, popping his head around the door with a hand raised to fend off flying diapers. "You finish getting ready. I'm nipping back to the hotel to collect a picnic I ordered. I'll only be a few minutes."

  Kate took her bag down to the sitting room and left it beside Keiko, who was in her stroller, transfixed by the green and red teddy bear dangling from the sunshade.

  Kate stared at Andre's immaculate designer label bag by the door and wrinkled her nose. Dressed in his preppy clothes, he wouldn't want to get dirty. And you couldn't have fun on the beach without getting wet and messy. The old Andre had known that; the new Andre had forgotten. She needed to remind him how to have fun. Her heart tripped with anticipation as she ran up the stairs. Outside his bedroom she hesitated, then steeled herself and pushed open the door.

  Walking into Andre's bedroom was like stepping back in time. Bookshelves lined the walls, the colored spines of thousands of books interspersed with pictures of Leonardo Da Vinci's mechanical inventions and the colorful shapes of mathematical fractals. A multitude of specimens Andre had collected over the years decorated shelves and windowsills. She recognized many of them as childhood treasures. Tears flooded her eyes, and she pressed a hand to her mouth to hold in a sob. The man who slept in this room was her Andre, the boy she had loved. He hid this side of himself, but thank God it still existed.

  She circled the room, touching the familiar ornaments and treasures: a green glass dragon, an Indian bone-china cup decorated with a serpent that Andre's grandfather had given him, its cracked saucer overflowing with shells they'd collected a decade ago, a small brass dog sitting up begging that she had given him for his tenth birthday. Her throat tight, she lifted a familiar book about dragonflies from a shelf and weighed it in her hands to make it real.

  Picture frames on the windowsills held family shots, old and new: Andre's sister and her two boys, an old photo of his mother before she left. Biting down on her lip, Kate cradled a small silver frame and examined the faded photograph of herself and Andre sitting on the edge of the fountain outside the Caspian. Andre's grandfather had taken the shot the day before Andre left for boarding school.

  She stared at her innocent teenaged face in the photo; her last day of happiness before her life fell apart. The familiar gamut of emotions raced through her: betrayal, hurt, confusion. In the years since, she had relived that day many times, wondered what she did wrong, wondered why Andre had abandoned her after he'd promised to love her forever.

  She hugged the photo to her chest, gazed out the window at the sunlight glinting through the forest and realized something she had not been certain of until this moment. She still loved Andre, loved the man he was now—not just the boy he had been. Her affection for Dan had never come close to the soul-deep connection she had with Andre. Her heart would always belong to him.

  She sucked in a breath thick with longing and regret. It was not possible to go back in time. Now that she had her darling daughter, she wouldn't want to. But it didn't stop her from dreaming of what might have been. She caught sight of the clock on Andre's nightstand and set down the photo. Enough reminiscing, it was time to do what she'd come for. From his drawers, she unearthed an old round-necked T-shirt and a pair of jeans and headed for the kitchen.

  Kate laid the jeans on the breakfast table, snagged some scissors and snipped the legs off at mid thigh. The scissors were blunt, and she had to saw with the blades to cut through the thick fabric, giving the edge a pleasingly ragged appearance.

  The front door banged. "Come on, Kat. You must be ready by now."

  Andre entered the kitchen, placed a cooler on the table next to the remnants of his jeans and lifted a severed denim leg. "I hate to ask."

  She held up his new shorts with a flourish. "Your beachwear, sir."

  "Kat, that was my only pair of jeans."

  "Now, they're your only pair of decent shorts. Go and put them on," she said, throwing them at his chest. He caught them one-handed and gave her a long-suffering look. "Oh, and this as well." She held up the T-shirt.

  He took the shirt and held it gingerly between finger and thumb as though it might bite. "This is my decorating shirt. I'm not wearing it outside the house."

  "The paint splashes give it character. Please, Andre."

  "What happens if I see someone I know?"

  "I doubt any of your friends will be at the far end of the bay. Nobody bothers to walk more than fifty yards from the car park. Go and change." She gave him a small shove toward the door. "I wore what you wanted me to at the party. Now it's your turn."

  A resigned sigh hissed between his lips. "I'll try them on, but I'm not promising anything."

  Kate suppressed a little stab of excitement. She followed him upstairs and waited outside his bedroom door, shuffling from foot to foot. "Ready yet?"

  "Give me a chance. I've only just started."

  When he came out, apart from the fact he was taller and his gangly youthful frame had filled out, he looked like
the old Andre. Kate reached up and mussed his hair with her fingers. "Much better. Now you can enjoy yourself because you won't worry about getting messy."

  He finger-combed his ruffled hair and patted it down. "I'm already messy. I have no intention of making it worse."

  Kate skipped down the stairs to the sitting room, took the brake off Keiko's stroller, and slanted him a sideways glance. "Trust me, Le Court. You'll get messy."

  ***

  They walked through woodland to the coast and cut down the steep path to Batty Bay, Andre taking the stroller so it didn't slip on the stones. When they reached the sand, Kate kicked off her sandals and walked barefoot. Each warm, gritty footstep took her back in time. The familiar dark shapes of the rocks loomed up out of the sea like old friends. Every buttress and cave in the cliff face hooked up precious memories like shiny fish lost in the dark waters of her life.

  Although the beach was busy by the car park, two hundred yards further on where they stopped, it was deserted. Andre parked Keiko's stroller in front of the small cave where he had been Batman and Kate, Cat Woman. She stared into the dark interior, the childish words of their games echoing in her mind. Andre touched her arm and time rushed past her with a whoosh.

  She bent and removed Keiko's dress so she lay naked except for her diaper, under the shield of the sunshade. There was little natural shade to be found at this time of day and Kate didn't want her baby to be uncomfortable in the heat. "We must remember to adjust the angle of the stroller as the sun moves around to keep Keiko in the shade and watch she doesn't get too hot."

  Andre looked over Kate's shoulder. "She's a very good girl."

  "I know. Considering what she's had to put up with since she was born, she's a little angel." Kate stroked her sleeping baby's cheek.

  "I'm famished." Andre pointed to the flat, rocky outcrop a few yards away that jutted into the water. "Let's eat up there like we used to."

  "What about Keiko?" Kate's ever-present fear of the photographers rushed back.