The CEO's Accidental Bride (14 page)

Ginny stopped midstair and turned on her. “Oh, no. A Harper man would never be unfaithful.” She turned and began climbing again.

“Then why did Sadie worry?”

“She was the groundskeeper's daughter. Oh, she pretended all right. But at her heart, she was never the mistress of the castle. That's why she wouldn't make any changes.”

They came to the second floor, and Ginny led them down a wide hallway. Overhead skylights let in the sunshine, while art objects lined the shelves along the way.

“The castle is really beautiful,” said Kaitlin. She wasn't sure she'd have changed anything, either.

“So was Sadie,” said Ginny in a wistful voice. “Before Milton, we swam naked in the ocean and ran across the sand under the full moon.”

“Do you really think he broke her heart?” Kaitlin persisted. Like Emma, Kaitlin really wanted to believe Sadie had been happy here.

“No. Not really. But sometimes she felt trapped, and sometimes she worried.” Ginny swept open the double doors of a closet. She moved aside a fluffy quilt and extracted a battered shoebox, opening it to reveal a stack of photographs. “Ah, here we are. Come meet my lovers.”

Z
ach found Kaitlin in the portrait gallery, gazing at a painting of his grandmother when she had been in her twenties.

“Hey,” he said, coming up behind her. He didn't ask and didn't wait for permission before wrapping his arms around her waist, nestling her into the cradle of his body.

“Do you think she was happy?” Kaitlin asked.

“Yes.”

“Did she love your grandfather?”

“As far as I could tell.” He hadn't spent much time looking at the portraits over the past years, and his memory of his grandmother was that of an old woman. He'd forgotten how lovely she was. No wonder his grandfather had married her so young.

“Ginny says she felt trapped sometimes.”

“I love Ginny dearly,” Zach began, a warning in his tone.

There was a thread of laughter in Kaitlin's voice when she interrupted him. “She doesn't seem too crazy about you.”

“But you know she's not all there, right?”

“She's a blast,” Kaitlin responded. “And her memory seems very sharp.”

“Well, it had to be a pretty big cage. They went to Europe at least twice a year, and spent half their time in Manhattan. You should have seen the garden parties. The governor, theatre stars, foreign diplomats.”

“Okay, so it was a big cage,” Kaitlin conceded.

“Come here. Let me show you something.” Zach shifted his arm around her shoulders, guiding her down the gallery toward the staircase.

“Your room?” she asked.

“No. But I like the way you're thinking.” He steered her down to the first floor then back through the hallways to Sadie's parlor.

“What are we doing?”

“I want to show you that she was happy.”

He sat Kaitlin on the settee and retrieved an old photo album from Sadie's bookcase. Sitting next to her, he flipped through the pages until he came to one of the Harpers' famous garden parties. The pictures were black and white, slightly faded, but they showed the gardens in their glory, and the sharp-dressed upper crust of New York nibbling finger sandwiches and chatting away the afternoon.

“That's her.” Zach pointed to his grandmother in a flowing dress and a silk flower-brimmed hat. Her smile was bright, and Zach's grandfather Milton had a hand tucked against the small of her back.

“She does look happy,” Kaitlin was forced to admit.

“And that's a hedge, not prison bars,” said Zach.

Kaitlin elbowed him in the ribs. “The bars are metaphorical.”

“The hedge is real. So were the trips to Europe.”

Kaitlin flipped the page, coming to more party photos, people laughing, drinking punch, playing croquet and wandering through the rose garden. There was a band in the gazebo, and a few couples were dancing on the patio. Some of the pictures showed children playing.

“That's my father,” said Zack, smiling to himself as he pointed out the five-year-old boy in shorts, a white shirt and suspenders standing next to the duck pond. He had a rock in his hand, and one of his shoes was missing. He looked as if he was seconds away from wading after the ducks.

Kaitlin chuckled softly. “Were you anything like that as a child?”

Zach rose to retrieve another album.

“Here.” He let her open it and page her way through the pictures of him as a young child.

“You were adorable,” she cooed, moving from his toddler pictures to preschool to Zach at five years old, digging up flower bulbs, dirt smeared across his face and clothes.

“Yeah, let's go with adorable.”

“Did you get into trouble for that?”

“I would guess I did. Probably from Grandma Sadie. Those gardens were her pride and joy.”

“I never had a garden,” said Kaitlin, and Zach immediately felt guilty for showing her the album. He'd done it again, parading out his past and his relatives without giving a thought to the contrast with her life.

“I bet you stayed cleaner than I did,” he said, making a weak attempt at a joke.

“Once I realized—” She paused, gripping the edge of the album. “Hoo. I'm not going to do that.” She turned another page.

“Do what?”

“Nothing.” Her attention was focused on a series of shots of the beach and a picnic.

“Katie?”

“Nothing.”

He gently removed the album from her hands. “I upset you.”

“No, you didn't.”

“Liar.”

She straightened her shoulders. “It was hard, okay.”

“I know.”

“No, you don't.”

“You're right. I don't.” He folded the book closed and set it on the table beside him. “I'm sorry I showed you the photos. It was thoughtless.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“What were you going to say?”

She pasted him with a look of impatience.

“I've got all night to wait,” he warned her, sitting back and making a show of getting comfortable.

She clenched her jaw, looking mulish, and he prepared himself for a contest of wills.

But then her toughness disappeared, and she swallowed. Then she closed her eyes for a second. “I was going to say…”

Part of him wanted to retract the question. But another part of him wanted to know,
needed
to know what she'd gone through as a child.

“I was going to say,” she repeated, sounding small and fragile, “once I realized people could give me away.” Her voice cracked. “I tried to be very, very good.”

Zach honestly thought his heart was going to break.

He wrapped an arm around her and drew her close. She felt so tiny in his arms, so vulnerable. He hated that she'd been alone as a child.

“I'm sorry, Katie,” he whispered against her hair.

She shook her head back and forth. “It's not your fault.”

He drew a deep breath. “You've been alone for a very long time.”

“I'm used to it.”

But she wasn't. She couldn't be. Nobody should have to get used to not having a family. Zach had lost his parents when he was twenty, and that had been devastating enough. He'd still had his grandmother, and he'd always had the Gilbys. And he'd had Aunt Ginny, who usually liked him very much.

“Look,” said Kaitlin, pulling back and wiping a single tear from her cheek. “There's a full moon outside.”

He twisted his head to look out the window. “Yeah?”

“You want to go skinny-dipping?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.

 

The salt water was chilly against Kaitlin's skin, but Zach's body felt deliciously warm. He held her flush against himself, her feet dangling just above the sandy bottom. Over his left shoulder, she could see the distant lights of the Gilby house. And when she turned her head the other way, she could see the Harper castle in all its glory.

The gardens were smaller than they were in the pictures, but they were still lit up at night. And an illuminated path wound its way from the edge of the garden to the sandy beach, where she and Zach had stripped off their clothes before plunging into the surf.

“Lindsay is talking about staying a few more days,” Zach offered.

Kaitlin drew back to look at him. “With Dylan?” Lindsay hadn't said anything to her. Then again, she had spent most of her time at the Gilby house.

Zach's teeth flashed white under the moonlight. “I think they have worked out their differences.”

“You mean Lindsay won,” Kaitlin corrected. “Where's my ten dollars, by the way?”

“Dylan thinks he's the one who won.”

“He totally caved.”

“I don't think he cares.”

“By the way, if Ginny asks, they're not having sex.”

“Ohhh-kay,” Zach slowly agreed.

“She'll probably ask,” Kaitlin warned. “She's obsessed with Dylan's love life.”

“I won't answer,” Zach pledged.

“Good.”

Neither Kaitlin nor Zach spoke for a few minutes. The cool waves bobbed their bodies, while the sound of the surf rushed up on the sand, punctuating the breeze that whispered through the bushes along the shoreline.

“You want to stay, too?” Zach asked softly, rocking her back and forth in his arms.

Kaitlin stilled against him, not sure what he was asking.

“With Lindsay?” he elaborated. “For a few days? You could work right from here?”

“What about you?” she asked, still wondering what he meant by the invitation. Was he asking her to stay on the island, or to stay with him?

“If you're staying?” A slow, sultry smiled curved his mouth, darkening his eyes to slate. “I'm sure not leaving.”

Kaitlin's smile grew in return. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

He spun her in a circle, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, her hands gripping his shoulders for balance. His hold was tight under her bottom as she knifed through the water.

The moon glistened high in the sky, surrounded by layers of stars. They were the same stars that Lyndall had used to navigate his way to the island hundreds of years ago. The same stars that Sadie had gazed at as a girl and as a woman, a mother.

Zach slowed and stopped, the waves now the only motion around them. Kaitlin gazed at the lighted gardens that Sadie had so clearly loved. The woman had been the guardian of the castle, the keeper of the family's heritage. And because of her decisions, Kaitlin had been trusted with the Harper office building.

Zach nuzzled her neck.

The office building was much newer, of course. But Kaitlin couldn't help but believe the renovations would matter to Sadie. Maybe Zach was right. Maybe wholesale change wasn't such a great thing. Maybe Kaitlin had some kind of responsibility to his family.

Maybe she needed to rethink her approach.

“Zach?” she ventured.

“Hmm?” he asked, the vibration of his lips tickling the sensitized skin of her neck.

“Could you get me a copy of the Hugo Rosche plans?”

He drew back, brows going up. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Sure.” He nodded, the nod growing faster. “Of course I could.”

“I'm not making any promises,” she warned him.

“I understand.”

“I'm just going to look.” She had no idea what she was going to do now. She still needed her career, which meant she needed a fantastic project for the Harper building. But maybe there was a compromise of some kind. She just didn't know.

A smile curved Zach's mouth. “No problem.”

“I don't want you to get your hopes up.”

“Oh, Katie.” He planted a long, warm kiss on her damp mouth. He drew back, his grin wide as he smoothed her hair. “My hopes have been up for quite some time now.”

She gave in to her desire for him, tipping her head and giving her lashes a few flirtatious blinks. “And what exactly are you hoping for?”

“You. Naked.”

She made a show of glancing at their bodies. “I'm liking your chances.”

“In my pirate's lair.” He kissed her neck once more, then her jawline, her cheek, working his way to the corner of her mouth.

“Piece of advice, Zach?”

“Speed things up?” he asked hopefully, and she couldn't help but laugh.

“For future reference, that line will probably be a lot more successful if you refer to it as a castle instead of a lair.”

His hand closed over her breast, peaked and sensitized in the cool, damp air.

She gasped at the sensation.

“Lair,” he repeated on a growl.

“Fine. Yes. Whatever.”

 

Three days later, Dylan's parents arrived, back from their business meetings in Chicago. And, as usual, they brought company.

Zach was happy to see them. David and Darcie were two of his favorite people in the world. After his parents died, they'd become even more important in his life. David was a
brilliant businessman, while Darcie was the most loving and compassionate honorary aunt Zach could have wished for.

Still, he knew this meant the end of his interlude with Kaitlin. Dylan would never have a woman stay at the house with his parents there, and it was past time for Zach to get back to Manhattan.

“You weren't kidding about them having a few friends over,” Kaitlin observed as they drove the golf cart the last quarter mile to the Gilbys' house. Music wafted from the open windows, and it was easy to see groups of people circulating on the deck.

“What are the Gilbys like?”

“David's savvy, hardworking, a great guy to go to for advice. Darcie's friendly, gregarious. You'll like her.”

“What will she think of me…?” Kaitlin's voice trailed off on the half-finished question.

He put his hand over hers. “We can let her think whatever you like.” He paused, but Kaitlin didn't step in and offer a suggestion. “How about a business associate and a friend?” he asked.

Kaitlin accepted with a smile.

Zach fought a shot of disappointment, but he let it slide. He didn't want people to think Kaitlin was his business associate. He wanted them to think… He paused. What? That she was his lover? His girlfriend? His wife? His hands gripped tighter on the steering wheel. He was going to have to figure it out. Not right this minute, of course. But soon.

“Lindsay will probably stay at my place for the night,” he told Kaitlin. “When it's only Ginny, well, she'd never notice. But with his parents, Dylan doesn't…”

“I understand,” Kaitlin said, nodding easily.

Zach hoped Lindsay would react the same way.

Then again, that was Dylan's problem. Zach's problem was figuring out where things were left with him and Kaitlin.

Would they continue seeing each other in Manhattan? He had quickly grown used to waking up with her every morning. He liked having her around for breakfast, reconnecting over dinner. Hell, he wasn't even sure he wanted to sign the damn divorce papers anymore.