“What did you say to him?”
“It’s difficult to translate it accurately.”
“Give it a try.”
“Loosely translated, I told him that he’s an old letch, and what he said was a total crock.”
Kate laughed, but she wasn’t buying it. “That’s not what you said.”
Mitchell bent his head and whispered against her cheek, “I told him to get his own girl because I wasn’t going to share mine with him;” then he straightened, and continued walking as if having his lips on her cheek had been the farthest thing from his mind.
Kate’s heart did a somersault at hearing Mitchell refer to her as his “girl,” but she knew it was just a figure of speech, and she tried not to think it meant anything else. She had a wonderful time for the rest of the evening, even though she lost half her winnings.
Mitchell gambled with the same effortless competence with which he did everything else, but what particularly fascinated Kate was his reaction to several women who made frank visual overtures to him during the evening: He had no reaction; he simply acted as if the women were invisible. Either he was so accustomed to it that he didn’t notice, or else he didn’t enjoy being looked at like a delicious sexual feast. Kate preferred to think the latter was true.
Shortly after midnight, when they’d finished gambling, they stopped in an intimate little lounge on the first floor of the casino, where a small band was accompanying a male singer. They found an empty table, and while the singer launched into the familiar lyrics of “The Way You Look Tonight,” Kate watched Mitchell sit down, unbutton his jacket, lean back in his chair, and casually stretch his long legs out. That picture of him—relaxed, handsome, and utterly at ease in an exclusive private casino—imprinted itself on Kate’s heart while the words to the song entwined around his image, framing it. Trying to hide her admiring smile, she put her elbows on the table and leaned her chin downward on her folded hands, watching him from beneath her lashes.
A moment later, he evidently felt that a waiter should have already arrived, so he lifted his head an inch and glanced to his right with the merest trace of a frown. Two waiters materialized from opposite directions, almost colliding with each other in their haste to answer his summons, and Kate swallowed a laugh. In her father’s restaurant she’d observed all the known signals used by male customers to attract the attention of waiters—from the most boorish signals to the most timid—and she silently gave Mitchell the highest score possible, both for “style employed” and “effectiveness of style.”
“How does cognac sound?” he asked while the waiter stood beside him.
“Fine, thank you,” Kate said, knowing she’d have only a sip. Still amused by her observations, she turned her head, watching the singer, a smile hovering at her lips.
Mitchell ordered their drinks and then mistook the reason for her smile. “Are you especially fond of that song?”
Kate nodded.
“Any particular reason?”
Since she couldn’t explain her current reason, Kate lowered her eyes and gave him a different one that was equally true. “When I was thirteen, Michael Bublé and his grandfather were visiting Chicago and, purely by chance, they had dinner in our restaurant. Michael’s grandfather happened to mention to my father—very proudly—that Michael was about to launch his singing career in Canada, so my father offered to let Michael make his ‘United States debut’ in our bar. Michael was only sixteen at the time, but he was so amazing that my father brought me downstairs from the apartment to listen to him.”
“And?” Mitchell prompted when she looked slightly embarrassed.
“And Michael sang the song we’re listening to now. Actually, he sang it to me.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“Of course,” Kate joked with a winsome smile. “I fell madly in love with him right then and there. The next time I saw him sing,” Kate finished, “he was at Carnegie Hall.”
Feeling a little foolish because she’d told him yet another story about her life when she still knew virtually nothing about his, Kate glanced down at the table and realized Mitchell’s hand was resting beside hers, less than an inch away. The sight of his long fingers lying so close to hers enthralled her. Telling herself that she was being naïve and foolish, she finally pulled her gaze away.
Mitchell’s head was bent, his gaze fixed intently on their hands, just as hers had been. Slowly, he lifted his hand, and then he laid it over hers.
Kate felt a thrill run through her entire body. Swallowing, she watched to see if he had any noticeable reaction at all. He tightened his grip on her hand.
Chapter Twenty-one
SCANNING THE SURFACE OF THE WATER FOR A SIGN OF Mitchell, Kate absently brushed sand off her legs and reached for one of the robes they’d brought from their room. The night was balmy, but she was beginning to shiver in her wet bathing suit, more from alarm than cold.
When they left the casino, Mitchell had offered to take her to Maho Bay so she could spend her winnings in one of the high-fashion boutiques that stayed open to cater to the nightclub and casino crowd. Kate had suggested they go back to the hotel and go swimming instead. In her mind she’d envisioned lazily floating in four feet of buoyant salt water for a half hour. They’d done that, but when Kate was ready to get out, Mitchell said he was going to swim a little longer for some exercise.
As she discovered as soon as he kicked off, when Mitchell swam for exercise he did it with ferocious force, driving his body through the water at maximum speed, as if demons were closing in on him. At first, Kate watched him in admiration, but a few minutes after she lost sight of him completely, she began to worry about his safety.
Trying not to let her concern escalate to panic, Kate continued to search the moonlit water as she shoved her arms into the sleeves of her robe and tied the belt. Finally, she made out a speck on the surface and sank onto a lounge chair, weak with relief.
Freed at last of her worry about Mitchell, she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Tipping her head back, she gazed at a black satin sky encrusted with shimmering stars while a profound sense of her father’s presence slowly swept over her. It wrapped around her, warm and strong, enfolding her in sweetness, as if it were a hug—a fierce celestial hug. Kate reveled in the sensation, clinging to it while tears stung her eyes and slid down her cheeks.
Finally she reached up to brush them away and glanced at the water to check on Mitchell. He was swimming in a straight line directly toward her, his shoulders and arms visible above the surface.
And in that moment, she suddenly understood. She understood it all, just as surely as if her father were sitting next to her on the chaise longue watching Mitchell, too, and smiling.
This was meant to be; they were meant to be. That’s why she’d felt such an inexplicable sense of magical closeness with him from the very first. Mitchell’s poignant admission came back to her: I felt all the same things you did last night. They had been destined to meet and fall in love, but capricious fate wasn’t pulling the strings.
Wiping away another tear, Kate looked up at the sky and whispered, “Thank you, Daddy. I miss you.”
The sensation of his nearness had lessened but was still there a few minutes later when Mitchell stood up in the water. Raking his hands through the sides of his hair, he waded out of the sea with water streaming from his powerful shoulders and long legs, his dark swimming trunks clinging to his muscular thighs. He was so outrageously beautiful that Kate shook her head. Smiling, she glanced back up at the stars and silently said, What on earth were you thinking when you decided I deserve someone this good-looking?
Mitchell reached for the towel she held out to him and suppressed the urge to rumple the springy wet curls framing her face and tumbling over her shoulders. With her hair like that, she looked delectable; in fact, she looked exactly the way she had when he first met her in the restaurant. “Hi,” he said with a smile.
She smiled back at him.
“How was Jamaica? Did you pass any sharks on the way?”
Grinning at her quip, Mitchell started toweling off his chest and arms. “I’ve been lying around down here for a week,” he explained. “I needed the exercise.”
“Do you normally swim for exercise?”
He shook his head. “A man who works for me is a martial arts specialist. I get most of my exercise working out with him.”
“What sort of work does he do for you?”
“He’s my driver.”
“Your driver,” Kate repeated, thinking that over. “As well as your bodyguard?”
“He thinks he is,” Mitchell replied, bending over to dry his legs.
Kate waited until he tossed his towel aside and picked up a robe before she asked the question that was bothering her a little: “What sort of business are you in that you need a bodyguard?”
“In Europe, it’s fairly common for drivers to be bodyguards.”
Either by accident or intent, he hadn’t told her what sort of business he was in, Kate realized, and he hadn’t mentioned a word on that subject last night either. They were sleeping together and she was falling more in love with him every passing minute. She was dying to know more about him and to understand him better. As they strolled down the beach toward the terraced steps leading up to the hotel, she repeated, “What sort of business are you in?”
“I’m in the business of making money,” Mitchell replied, automatically giving her the same pat answer he gave to most people who asked him that question; then he felt bad for treating her as if she were a prying stranger.
“I don’t run a business,” he clarified. “Even if I had the inclination to run one, I doubt I’d have any talent for it. I invest money in the ideas and genius of other people who do have a talent for running businesses.”
Kate shoved her hands into the pockets of her robe and considered her next question.
“How do you decide which ideas and people you should invest in?”
“I rely partly on information and partly on instinct, which amounts to making an educated guess.”
He intended that to end the conversation, Kate realized from his tone. Careful to sound as if she was making a wry observation, rather than trying to keep him talking, she said, “When someone has an instinctive knack for doing something, I think it’s called talent.”
“In my case, it’s more of an acquired skill than an actual talent.”
“How did you acquire your skill?”
He stopped walking, turned, and studied her with a mildly impatient frown. “I had a mentor—Stavros Konstantatos.”
Kate’s eyes widened at the mention of the reclusive, self-made Greek tycoon who was reportedly one of the richest men in the world. “Are we talking about the man who lives on an island with armed guards posted everywhere and who had his yacht equipped with torpedoes?”
Mitchell’s resistance dissolved into amusement. “Not torpedoes, antiaircraft guns,” he said, lacing his fingers through hers and holding her hand as they started walking again. “His son, Alex, was my roommate at boarding school. One year, Alex begged me to spend the winter holiday with him on their island so that he wouldn’t ‘die of boredom alone’ while he listened to Stavros talk about business at every meal. Like most wealthy kids, Alex wasn’t interested in making money, he was interested in spending it.”
Kate noticed that Mitchell seemed to have excluded himself from the category of “wealthy kid,” but she didn’t attempt to pursue that observation. Instead she said conversationally, “Did Alex’s father really talk about business at every meal?”
“Stavros talked about business incessantly,” Mitchell said with a chuckle, “but I wasn’t bored, I was mesmerized. He realized it, of course, and I think he hoped my attitude would rub off on Alex. The next holiday, he insisted that Alex bring me back to the island. I saw a lot of Stavros after that. Over the years, he took me under his wing and coached and prodded me until I grasped his concepts. When I finished college, he gave me a job working directly under him, so that he could ‘complete my education.’ Eventually he started letting me make my own deals and share in the profits—or losses.”
“What a wonderful man and what a lucky experience for you.”
Mitchell nodded in agreement. He didn’t mention that Stavros’s wife had repeatedly tried to seduce him from the time he was seventeen. Nor did he mention any of his earlier, less “wonderful” experiences with some of his classmates’ wealthy families—the pleasant, well-bred parents he met when their sons invited Mitchell home to spend a holiday with them. They asked him the same dreaded questions parents always asked—questions about where he was from and who his relatives were. Once they realized he was a total outsider without family or connections, they frequently treated him like an opportunist who was trying to insinuate himself into their sons’ lives for reasons they regarded as highly suspicious and undesirable.
Some of them went so far as to call the administrators of the boarding schools and complain about the questionable caliber of the boy their sons were associating with. In reply they were told that Mitchell was a “scholarship student” and a “gifted athlete” who was of special interest to a very influential American foundation. Mitchell learned about that from the sons of the complaining parents.
Walking beside Kate, he tried to recall how many times during his boarding school years he’d been asked by a classmate’s family if he was any relation to the “Chicago Wyatts.” How ironic that he’d answered no all those times. Which suddenly explained why he could barely force himself now to acknowledge that the answer was actually yes.
Chapter Twenty-two
PROPPED UP IN BED WITH MITCHELL’S ARM AROUND HER, Kate watched the night sky giving way to dawn. When they’d returned from swimming, they’d showered and then discovered they were famished. The remnants of their shared feast of strawberry crepes and eggs Benedict were on the coffee table.
Afterward, they went to bed, but sleep was not what Mitchell had in mind. The fierce, demanding urgency and relaxed playfulness of his earlier lovemaking were gone. This time, he made love to her with slow, torrid sensuality, driving her steadily toward a final climactic destination, while detouring on previously unexplored erotic routes to get her there, whispering directions and encouragements that were as arousing to Kate as the things he was doing with her. By the time he finally let her finish, Kate was writhing wildly in his arms, frantically whispering “Please,” over and over and over.
When the last spasm had shaken her, he changed the tempo of his strokes and Kate’s limp body suddenly arched up like a tightly strung bow, straining toward him of its own volition while he poured himself into her. Kate heard herself moan, and she clung to him, caught up in a moment that was not only tumultuously sexual but almost fiercely spiritual.
Later on, when she looked back on it all, she might have seen herself as a naïve student who’d just been tutored by a consummate, perhaps less-involved master— except that afterward, he’d gathered her against his full length and kept their bodies clamped tightly together with his face buried in the curve of her neck for a very long time, as if he’d been profoundly affected by their lovemaking, too.
Even now, as they watched the sunrise, his hand was curved around her arm, his thumb caressing her skin. They were both drowsy, the periods of silence between them growing longer, but as the sky continued to lighten, the dawn of a new day was banishing Kate’s quiet euphoria and filling her with worry and fresh guilt about Evan.
She’d waited to return his phone call yesterday until she was getting dressed for the casino, because she knew Evan would be playing tennis at his club by then. She’d left him a voice mail message assuring him that she wasn’t at all angry with him, that she was having a lovely time visiting neighboring islands, and that there was absolutely no need for him to worry or feel guilty about anything. Everything she told him was true, but the things she did not tell him made her message a tawdry, unforgivable deception. On the oth
er hand, she couldn’t possibly break up with him by phone, not after the years they’d been together, and especially not after he’d just brought up marriage. There were only four days left of their planned ten-day trip. If his case dragged on another day or two, he’d surely decide there was no point in flying back down to Anguilla.
Sensing her change in mood, Mitchell glanced at the woman who was responsible for the most exhilarating, fulfilling sexual experience of his life. Her red curls were in wild disarray, tumbling over her shoulders and the tops of her breasts, and her porcelain cheeks were still slightly flushed from their lovemaking, but her expression had turned very pensive. Mitchell assumed she was probably thinking about her boyfriend and wondering whether he was going to arrive that day. He’d been thinking about the same thing.
“Troubling thoughts?”
She turned her head on the pillow. “Not really. Not about you, anyway,” she amended. After a moment, she smiled and said, “Have you ever been married?”
Ordinarily, that question in this particular location would have evoked a wary reaction in Mitchell, but they’d been lying there asking each other desultory questions off and on since they finished making love. They were, after all, two people who had intimate carnal knowledge of each other, and they had feelings for each other, but they had no facts. And since they’d already traded information about favorite pastimes, favorite foods, least favorite politicians, and so forth, her question seemed perfectly reasonable to Mitchell. “Yes, have you?”
“No,” she said.
This, unlike all their previous questions and answers, she clearly thought required some amplification, because she lifted her brows and looked at him expectantly.
“I was married to Stavros’s daughter, Anastasia, for three years,” Mitchell added to satisfy her. It didn’t satisfy her. Rolling onto her side facing him, she reached up and pressed her finger across his sealed lips. “If I die of curiosity in this bed,” she warned, “you will have a lot of explaining to do to the hotel management.”
Every Breath You Take Page 18
