An Inconvenient Obsession (7 page)

“I know it’s uncomfortable. But I want you to know my reasons.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve missed your friendship. I’ve missed the honesty we used to share.” She felt herself flush, but continued. “I hated lying to you, and I’ve always felt guilty about the awful things I said.”

He stared at her for a long moment, then offered a faint, chilling smile. “Really.”

“Y
ES.
” Cate inhaled a bracing lungful of air, nervous now that the opportunity to unburden the lies of her past was here. “You can’t know how wretched I’ve felt, how many times I’ve wished there could have been another way.”

He simply looked at her, his expression impossible to read.

“When I told you I didn’t want you anymore, I lied. You were my best friend. Losing you was the hardest thing I’ve ever endured. You have to believe that.”

A slow blink revealed nothing of his thoughts. “Do I?”

Heat climbed her chest, but she barreled through the confession. “The only reason I did what I did was because I wanted you to reach your potential instead of languishing on the island, waiting for my next vacation. I wanted you to take your job offer, make connections and build a future for yourself. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d allowed you to sacrifice everything to stay with me.”

His expression didn’t change, though a small muscle ticked in his jaw. “So you weren’t just toying with an underling, slumming with the help until you found somebody better.”

Guilt twisted mercilessly in her belly and she dropped her gaze to her lap. “I only said that because I couldn’t think of another way to convince you to leave,” she mumbled.

“Because you thought I’d have languished, had I stayed.”

“Was I wrong?” She bit her lip and then lifted her gaze. “I knew you’d choose me over your ambition, given the choice.”

“Now who’s got the ego?”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She twisted her hands in her lap, willing him to understand. “But whether I was right or not, that’s what I believed at the time.” Closing her eyes, she inhaled once again for courage. “I lied based on that belief. I lied so you’d take the internship my father had arranged.”

“The internship?” His voice was low. Dangerous and very, very controlled.

A thread of nervousness snaked down Cate’s spine. “Yes. Your internship with Stevenson and Sons. Father arranged it on the condition that I break things off with you.”

His eyes narrowed the merest fraction of an inch. “He blackmailed you with a job for me?”

“No!” She grimaced. “Well, kind of. But not really. He just made it easier for me to make the right decision. We both knew you’d only have a future if you left the estate, and by your own admission, you wouldn’t have left without me forcing you to.”

“So I was your charity case.”

“Of course you weren’t! I just wanted you to be happy. Successful. And I knew if you stayed, you’d end up being neither.” She clamped her hands together and leaned toward him. “I only sent you away because I felt like I had no choice. I didn’t want you to look back on your life later and resent me.”

His eyes flashed blue fire. “Why thank you, Cate. Thank you for paving the way to my future with your rejection.”

Her stomach quailed at the coldness in his tone. “It hurt me, too.”

“I imagine it did.”

“You don’t sound like you believe me.”

His mouth smiled, though nothing else did. “Why wouldn’t I, when your sacrifice helped make me into such a raging success?”

“You look angry.”

His expression softened as if he’d flipped a switch, trading rage for sensuality within the blink of an eye. “I’m not angry, Cate. I’m grateful. Appreciative.” He reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Here all this time, I’ve thought you were just the reason for my childhood happiness, yet it turns out you’re the reason for everything.”

“I didn’t tell you because I wanted your gratitude.”

“Shh. Don’t be modest.” His voice caressed her as smoothly as that single finger drifting down the side of her neck. “You’ll spoil it.”

She shook her head, feeling inexplicably off kilter. “But—”

“I listened to your confession.” His eyes dared her to speak again. “Let that be enough.”

Twenty minutes of tension-filled silence later, Ethan’s driver pulled into her Cold Spring Harbor estate. The wheels of Ethan’s limousine crunched over autumn leaves and the eastern sky showed hints of dawn as the sun crept toward the horizon. Cate’s nerves jumped when the driver cut the engine, plunging them into an even heavier silence.

Without conversation to distract her, she’d had too much time to think about all the things she neglected to say, about the parts of the truth she’d kept from him. She closed her eyes, willing the memories away. Things were different now.
They
were different. The love she’d felt for him in the past did not have a place in her future.

“It looks smaller than I remember,” Ethan said, leaning forward to look at the muted landscape lighting and dual colonial columns of the Carrington mansion.

Grateful for the innocuous topic, Cate offered a nervous smile. “I’ve heard that happens.”

Ethan opened his door just as his chauffeur opened Cate’s. A brisk breeze from the shore lifted the ends of her hair and a small torrent of leaves spun into the car. She shivered, then turned to accept the chauffeur’s extended hand. “Thank you,” she told him, stretching to a stand on the cobbled brick driveway and then tightening her coat about her waist. “Would you like to come inside for some coffee?” she offered.

The chauffeur exchanged a glance with Ethan and shook his head. “No, thank you, ma’am. I’ll be fine out here.”

“It’s really no bother,” she insisted.

Ethan stepped close, leaning to speak softly against her hair. “Walter knows I’ve waited all night to be alone with you. He doesn’t wish to intrude.”

Shivers rippled out from the epicenter of his grazing touch, and suddenly, she didn’t know where to rest her gaze.

Mercifully, the uniformed driver avoided her eyes as he tipped his hat and then circled the car to resume his seat behind the wheel. Too soon, Cate and Ethan were left alone in the predawn dark, the muted garden lights and pale blue dash lights of the limousine their only illumination. Cate swallowed, nervousness bringing a tingle of dampness to her palms.

Ethan’s hand settled against her spine. “Can you see well enough to navigate in those shoes?”

“I’m fine,” she said, twisting away from him until a sliver of air separated them.

He followed her as she scurried toward the wide porch. The click of her heels against the pine steps sounded as panicked as she felt, and she wondered if he noticed her agitation.

Drawing up behind her, his broad chest skimming her shoulder blades, he leaned over her neck and asked in a deep voice, “You running from something, Catydid?”

“Of course not,” she lied. She fumbled with her clutch, and her keys clattered to the wooden planks beneath her feet.

“Allow me.” He squatted to retrieve her keys and then straightened by incremental degrees, his shadowed gaze tracking every trembling inch of her body. Brushing her nerveless hand aside, he fit the key in the lock and turned it with a soft click. They stood in breathless silence for several excruciating heartbeats before he pressed the wide door open in a noiseless arc. “After you,” he said, gesturing her forward with a palm.

She stepped over the threshold and into the dimly lit foyer. Checkered black-and-white marble, polished to a gleaming sheen, stretched before them. Dual staircases, curving in graceful arcs toward the second floor, spiraled around the giant chandelier the family had ordered from France a century ago. She saw the opulent display through Ethan’s eyes, seeing her home not as the employee he’d once been, but as a wildly successful man no longer impressed by the trappings of wealth.

“Father’s study and the papers are this way,” she said, striding down the north hall and flipping lights on in her wake. Maybe, if she maintained a businesslike professionalism, she could pretend the awful silence in the car had never happened. Maybe, with luck, he’d simply collect the island paperwork and she could survive the night unscathed.

Ethan followed at a more leisurely pace, his hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the crown molding and artwork decorating the silk-paneled walls.

Several feet before Cate reached her father’s study, the door at the far end of the hall opened. Mrs. Bartholomew bustled in from the servant wing, her graying braid draped over one shoulder and her pink housecoat wrapped around her ample girth. “Is that you, Cate?”

Cate rushed forward to clasp her aging nanny-turned-housekeeper’s arthritic hands and lowered her voice to an earnest scolding. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Oh, you know me,” she replied with a reassuring pat on Cate’s knuckles. “I can’t sleep properly when you’re off in the city.”

Cate’s smile felt more like an awkward grimace as she tried to usher Mrs. Bartholomew back toward her room. “Well, I’m home now, safe and sound. You can go back to bed.” She pressed against the housekeeper’s soft back and curved shoulder. “Go, before I feel any guiltier for ruining your night’s sleep.”

A sound stalled their footsteps and Mrs. Bartholomew turned to gaze down the hallway. Tipping sideways, her eyes narrowed as she squinted toward Ethan. “Who’s that with you, dear?”

Cate closed her eyes and exhaled through her nose, scrambling for a lie that would appease her self-appointed mother hen without making things worse. “Nobody. It’s just someone from the auction.”

“Oh, my heavenly stars, I don’t believe it,” the housekeeper breathed. Mrs. Bartholomew abandoned Cate and raced to intersect Ethan, her slippers slapping noisily against the marble. “Ethan Hardesty, is that you?”

“Mrs. Bartholomew?” The cynical mask he’d worn all night slipped to reveal unabashed pleasure as he opened his arms and hauled the housekeeper into a hug. She squealed like a girl when he lifted her from the floor and spun her in a joyous circle before returning her back to her feet. “I can’t believe you still work here!”

She gripped his hand with both of hers, her happiness at seeing him bowing her cheeks high. “Where else would I be, you big galoot?”

Cate sidled closer while they grinned at each other, hoping Mrs. Bartholomew didn’t say anything incriminating.

Ethan reached to cup Mrs. Bartholomew’s rounded jaw.
“You’re retiring from this job,” he told her. “Tonight. I won’t hear of you working another day.”

She tugged free of his touch, her booming laughter echoing in the cavernous hall. “You always were too bossy for your own good.”

“I’m serious.” He reached for her shoulders. “I just bought Cate’s island for Dad and I know he’d love to have you there with him. You and he could be a couple of retirees, soaking up the island sun just like old times.”

“Without you kids?” She slapped his hands aside. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m perfectly happy here and Cate still needs me.” Mrs. Bartholomew reached for Cate’s wrist and tugged. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

Ethan’s gaze narrowed on Cate as he waited for her reply, as if daring her to exploit his treasured childhood friend any more than she already had.

Cate weighed her words carefully. “You know I love having you here, but all I really need is for you to be happy,” she said. “I’m grown up now, so if you’re ready to retire, you’d have both my blessing and your well-deserved pension.”

“Nonsense. You won’t be grown up until you have a decent man in your life.” She turned to Ethan as if he were her confidante and a necessary companion in getting Cate raised right. “This girl needs someone who can take care of her, no matter what she says.”

“I do not!” she protested. Humiliation fired Cate’s skin when she caught sight of Ethan’s amused expression, and she wished the marble floor would simply open beneath her feet so she could sink out of view.

But it wasn’t to be.

Instead, things got immeasurably worse.

The housekeeper’s grip tightened about Cate’s wrist, betraying the flash of inspiration that led Mrs. Bartholomew to
snag Ethan’s hand, as well. “Ethan, Cate’s still as pretty as when you were a boy, isn’t she?” she asked.

“Mrs. Bartholomew!” gasped Cate.

“If you agree to consider taking care of Cate for me, then maybe I will retire.”

“Promise?” Ethan teased. His gaze slid to Cate’s. “Because nothing would please me more than taking care of Cate.”

Mrs. Bartholomew didn’t appear to notice the note of sarcasm beneath his words, because she drew both Cate and Ethan’s hands together before chirping, “I always knew you’d come back for her!” She patted their stacked hands and then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone as she leaned toward Ethan. “I’ll just leave you two to sort out the details, and if you’re still here at breakfast time, I’ll make those cranberry waffles you love so much.”

Cate yanked her hand from his the minute Mrs. Bartholomew turned. Anxious to escape her own reaction to his nearness and the horrible, awful way she wanted to crawl into a hole and die, Cate ducked around Ethan to stride back toward her father’s study. She pressed her hands against her stomach, trying to stem the tide of embarrassment cinching her belly tight. Her skin burned. Her head hurt. And she wanted the night to be over. Now.

She told herself it was because she was exhausted. The stress of preparing for the auction, skipping dinner, selling the island, resurrecting a past she’d hoped to keep buried, it had all taken its toll. It had nothing to do with the way her pathetic heart had responded to the prospect of Ethan taking care of her. To the prospect of Ethan caring
for
her.

She’d agreed to bring Ethan here for one purpose, and the sooner they finished their business, the sooner she could resume her life. She didn’t want Ethan to think she needed anything from him beyond the auction bid he’d promised. She was no longer an eighteen-year-old girl hopelessly in love with
the caretaker’s son. Craving more than he’d ever want to give just made her feel pathetic and desperate.