Every Breath You Take (Second Opportunities 4)

don’t we sit over there, Miss Donovan,” he said, coming around his desk and gesturing toward the sofa and chairs where she and Holly had sat before.

Kate gave him her best rueful smile and said, call me Kate.”

right—Kate,” he said, but his brows drew together in mild suspicion.

Since he was already suspicious, Kate decided to try to outflank him and catch him off guard by firing a round of honesty at him. ’m hoping that if we’re on a first-name basis,” she admitted with what she hoped was a charming smile, ’ll be more inclined to agree to the favor I’ve come to ask you for. It’s terribly important, Mr. Elliott.”

call me Gray,” he said courteously—and because he had little choice if she was going to allow him to call her Kate.

When they reached the coffee table, Kate deliberately sat down on a chair at the end of it rather than on the sofa in front of it, since the soft sofa cushions would have sunk beneath her weight and put her at a height disadvantage. Evidently, Gray Elliott was equally conscious of these subtleties, because instead of sitting on the sofa as she’d hoped he would, he walked around the coffee table and sat down in the opposite chair, facing her.

you like something to drink?” he offered.

, thank you,” Kate said, crossing her legs. Watching him from beneath her lashes, she leaned to the right to put her tote bag on the sofa. His gaze went briefly to her crossed legs and quickly withdrew. He hadn’t meant to look, but he was definitely a leg man, she thought wryly; then a sudden memory of Mitchell, standing on the balcony in St. Maarten, slashed across her heart and vanquished her brief spurt of confident optimism.

Are you smiling because I look surprisingly nice, or because there’s something wrong with my dress?she’d asked.

I’m smiling because I just realized you have gorgeous legs, and I never saw them before.

I was wearing both of them earlier. In fact, I distinctly remember that they were attached to me when we were in bed.

Unaware that her hand was still on her tote and her gaze was locked on the back of the sofa, she started when Gray Elliott said, ? Are you feeling all right?”

, yes, perfectly all right,” Kate lied hastily.

He nodded acceptance of her answer and got down to business. can I do for you?”

Wetting her lips, Kate drew a long breath and said, I was here the last time, you had a stack of files on one corner of your desk. The ones you took off the top had pictures in them of Mitchell Wyatt and me. Am I right that the files you left on your desk involved your actual investigation of him?”

He hesitated, mobile brows narrowing slightly over wary gray eyes. do you ask?”

you investigate him?” Kate said calmly but obstinately, then she answered for him. , of course, you must have. I mean, surely you didn’t waste a small fortune of taxpayers’ money sending detectives to the Caribbean just to take licentious photographs of him seducing me—and whoever else he seduced,” she added as an afterthought.

that’s what you’re trying to find out by coming here today, the answer is that you were the only woman he showed any interest in while he was down there.”

lucky for me,” Kate said, then she shook her head to stop herself from betraying, or feeling, any bitterness. , he wasn’t interested in me at all—” she said, starting to explain the truth, but Gray Elliott’s incredulous smile stopped her in midsentence.

certainly looks interested in those photographs. I would even have said absorbed,” Gray replied.

’s what he needed me to think. Never mind, that doesn’t matter. I’m getting sidetracked,” Kate said, and decided to abandon her carefully thought out plan and go straight to what did matter. “I need to ask you something, but before I do, is there the slightest chance you’d be willing to give me your word that what I say here won’t leave this room?”

depends on whether what you’re going to say involves the commission of a crime,” he said half-seriously.

That struck Kate as funny and almost endearing, and she smiled at him—a natural, warm smile this time. bad timing and gullibility are crimes, there’s no problem. If they are crimes, get out your handcuffs.”

He returned her smile and leaned back in his chair, ready to listen. have my word that our conversation won’t leave this room.”

you. What I need is information about Mitchell Wyatt from your files, but I’m not interested in him as your murder suspect.”

is it that you’re curious about?”

’m not curious,” Kate said simply. ’m pregnant.”

The words dropped like a bomb, sending shock waves rippling across the room. Finally, he said, could probably locate him yourself with some intense snooping on the Internet. However, I’ll give you his addresses.”

don’t want to locate him,” Kate said, and for the second time Gray Elliott was silent with shock.

not? He has a right to know about this baby, and he also has financial obligations to you and to it.”

me, he would not want to exercise his rights to this baby. He made his first wife divorce him when she wanted to have a child. And as far as I’m concerned, he has no obligations to this baby. I’m the one who inadvertently had unprotected sex with him, and I’m the one who chose not to terminate this pregnancy. The responsibilities for the baby are all mine, and that’s fine with me.”

He studied her closely for several moments, as if her thinking struck him as almost too unusual to believe. do you think you’ll discover in our files?”

told me a little bit about the way Mitchell grew up and what the Wyatts did to him. Do you know anything about that?”

, as a matter of fact, I know all about it.”

you also aware that Evan’s father orchestrated and supervised everything concerning it?”

To her surprise, Gray nodded.

you should be able to believe this: Mitchell staged that whole seduction effort to get himself a little revenge against the Bartletts. I was just a gullible tool. When I met him in Anguilla, I had no idea he’d ever been to Chicago, let alone that he knew Henry and Evan. He knew who I was from the very beginning, though, and when he realized Evan wasn’t with me, he pulled out all the stops to get me into bed.”

She waited for all that to sink in, then she said with a sad laugh, got much more revenge than he hoped for: Evan and I aren’t together anymore, and I’m pregnant with Mitchell’s child.”

will looking through our files help you?”