Part 33 (1/2)
The two exchanged glances, then nodded and stepped back to the door.
Kat turned wide, confused eyes up to his. ”What's going on?” she asked with a hint of panic in her voice. ”Pete, what questioning are they talking about?”
He took both of her hands in his and squeezed them, feeling the warmth of her skin against his own. ”I want you to do me a favor.”
”Anything.”
”When you leave here, I want you to go see my friend Rafe Sullivan. Hailey knows how to get in touch with him. He's got something for you. In Florida. Trust him like you trust me, and don't give him a hard time about this.”
”What do you mean by 'this,' Pete?” She tightened her grip on his hands and searched his face for answers to questions he guessed she was already figuring out. The blanket around her shoulders fell to the floor. ”Tell me what's happening.”
”Maria can't find your necklace, Kat.”
”But-”
”I've done a lot of stupid things in my life. I stayed ahead of most of it, covered up my tracks, didn't care who was hurt as long as I got ahead. I was careful, and I was smart. And I made sure it wouldn't ever come back to bite me in the a.s.s. There's never been anything in my life I've believed in enough to make me change my thinking. Not until you.”
She darted a look at Slade near the door, then back at Pete's face. ”What did you do?” she whispered.
He lifted his hand and rubbed his thumb over her soft cheek. ”I did exactly what you would have done. What you did. And I don't regret it. Not even for a moment.”
”No, no, no,” she whispered. ”Pete.” She didn't try to hide the tears. They just spilled over her sooty lashes and slid down her cheeks. ”Tell them you changed your mind. Tell them-”
”It's already done, Kat.”
Her words fell silent at that revelation, but her tears continued to fall, and her hands tightened on his as if she didn't want to ever let him go.
In the silence between them he fingered the medal at her chest. ”You were wrong, you know. About this. You're not a lost cause. You never were. And you were wrong about what happened. You didn't ruin my life, Kat. You saved it. In the best possible way.”
He let go of her hands, cradled her face in his palms and kissed her ever so gently.
”Please don't do this,” she whispered, grasping his forearms. ”I can't live without you.”
He rested his forehead against hers and drew in a long breath, her words warming the coldest corner of his heart. ”Yes, you can. G.o.d, Kit-Kat, you can do so much better than me. I want that for you. I want you to have everything.”
”Pete, please.”
Letting go of her then was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Harder than hearing of her accident, harder than going to her memorial service, harder still than living with the belief she'd been dead. But he forced himself to do it. As he reached the door where Slade stood waiting to take him into custody and turned to look back at her, he knew her grief-stricken face was going to stay with him forever.
Just the way it should.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.
Florida.
Three weeks later...
Kat sank down to the end of the bed and stared in stunned disbelief at the thank-you card in her hand. She'd picked it up when she'd been downstairs getting coffee this morning and had brought it and a few other pieces of mail back up with her while she got ready for the day.
She thought she'd cried herself dry weeks ago when Pete had made his deal with the government and been taken into custody. Obviously, she'd been wrong.
She reached up to rub fingers over her medal and read the last line of the letter one more time.
...We cannot begin to tell you what your donation means to us here at St. Thomas's Orphanage. You truly are a gift from G.o.d. May the Lord watch over you always.Sister Mary Francis Gilbert Six million dollars. Every last proceed from Pete's auction in New York City had been donated to St. Thomas's Orphanage outside Seattle. Her Her orphanage. After reading the letter, Kat had called Pete's lawyer and discovered the arrangement had been made two weeks before the auction. Two orphanage. After reading the letter, Kat had called Pete's lawyer and discovered the arrangement had been made two weeks before the auction. Two full full weeks before he'd even known she was still alive. weeks before he'd even known she was still alive.
A tear slipped down her cheek and landed against the paper in her hands. In a blur she looked up and scanned the bedroom of the house she'd been staying in since coming to Miami.
Pete's bedroom in Pete's big house in Miami Beach, with its leather and mahogany headboard, dark woods, sleek lines and masculine colors. She hadn't heard from him since that morning at Maria's apartment, and no one was giving her answers. And she was dying inside not knowing what was happening.
She'd been heartbroken when she'd met his friend Rafe and he'd told her of the deal Pete had made with the government. Then shocked speechless when Rafe and Pete's lawyer had shown her the papers transferring his a.s.sets into accounts with her name on them. But the clincher, the one that had her picking her jaw off the floor and wiping the gush from her eyes whenever she thought of it, was when she'd realized he'd turned Odyssey over to her.
In that one act she knew he didn't think he was coming back. Not anytime soon. He'd made that deal and given up everything. For her.
That pressure returned, right beneath her breastbone. Every time she thought she was doing better, that breathing wasn't such a monumental feat after all, something happened-like getting this thank-you card-that brought her world spinning back down again.
She closed her eyes tight, unsure how she was ever going to be able to go into Odyssey today and pretend to run a gallery she had no clue how to operate. Even with his sister Lauren volunteering to help, it was more than she could handle. The thank-you card slipped from her grasp and floated to the ground.
Being here was tearing her up. Seeing everything he'd built and envisioning him in this house surrounded by all his things was slowly eating away at her insides. Imagining where he was now while she sat on the end of his bed, wearing one of his Turnbull & a.s.ser designer dress s.h.i.+rts like she'd done every night since she'd been here, was slowly killing her.
”I can't do this much longer,” she whispered into the stillness of the morning.
”Do what?” a voice asked from the bedroom doorway.
Pete dropped his duffel at his feet and tried to steady his racing heart as he watched Kat lift her head and turn his way. Those molten chocolate eyes of hers, damp as if she'd been crying, focused, then widened in shock.
”Pete!”
She launched herself at him and took him down to the floor before he even realized he was off his feet. He landed half in the hall, half in the bedroom. But that wasn't what got his attention. It was her mouth closing over his in a hot, greedy kiss that tore a groan from his chest and sent blood pounding right to his groin.
Her hands were everywhere, her mouth wet and demanding against his own. She took exactly what she wanted and didn't give him a chance to say yes or no or anything in between. And thank the stars above for that. In seconds she had his pants undone and pushed down to his thighs as she continued to kiss him, and then all rational thought slipped from his brain when she hiked up the dress s.h.i.+rt she wore, straddled his hips and took him deep inside her steaming wetness.
”Kit-Kat.” He groaned and thrust up to meet her, as frantic as she was to get to him. And when they both reached the peak together moments later, he was gasping for breath like he'd just run the Chicago marathon.
She dropped her face against his neck. Pressed one hand to his shoulder. Her medal fell against his s.h.i.+rt, and her heart raced in time to his as he blinked up at the hall ceiling.
Now that was a homecoming.
She fisted his s.h.i.+rt into her hand and breathed deeply. ”I'm so mad at you, Pete.”
He drew in two slow breaths and tried to regulate his heart rate. ”If this is you being p.i.s.sed at me, then I'm thinking we definitely need to fight more often.”
”That's not funny,” she said against his neck.
”I don't hear anyone laughing.”
She pushed up on the hand she had braced against the floor and looked down at him. ”Oh, Pete. Please tell me this is real.”