Three hours and fifteen minutes later, Miguel was slumped morosely in his chair, his tie loose, his jacket open. Ramon glanced up from the papers he was signing and said, "I know you did not stop to have lunch. Now it is dinnertime. Call downstairs and order some food to be sent up from the restau­rant. If we are going to work late, you should have something to eat."

Miguel paused with his hand on the phone. "Don't you want anything, Ramon?"

The question brought an image of Katie, and Ramon closed his eyes against the wrenching pain. "No."

Miguel called down to the restaurant and ordered sandwiches. When he hung up the phone, it rang again.

"Elise has gone home for the day," Ramon said, answering it himself. For a moment he was very still, then he reached out and pressed the speaker button.

Sidney Green's strangled voice filled the elegant office. ".. .need to know which bank."

"No bank," Ramon said curtly. "Deliver it to my St. Louis attorneys." He gave the name and address of the firm, then added, "Have them call me at this number when the check is in their hands."

Thirty minutes later, Ramon's attorney called. When Ramon replaced the phone he looked at Miguel whose eyes were feverish with excitement. "How can you just sit there like that, Ramon? You've just made twelve million dollars."

Ramon's smile was ironic. "Actually, I have just made forty million. I will use the twelve million to buy stock in Green Paint and Chemical. Within two weeks I will be able to sell it for twenty million. I will take that twenty million and use it to finish the building in St. Louis. When I sell the building in six months, I will get back the twenty million I origi­nally invested, plus this twenty million."

"Plus whatever profit you make on the building.''

"Plus that," Ramon agreed flatly.

Miguel was eagerly pulling on his suit coat. "Let's go out and celebrate," he said, straightening his tie.

"We'll call it a combination bachelor and success party."

Ramon's eyes turned enigmatic. "There is no need for a 'bachelor' party. I forgot to mention that I am not getting married on Sunday. Katie... changed her mind." Ramon pulled open the large file drawer on his right, carefully avoiding the astonished regret he knew he would see on his friend's face. "Go out and celebrate my 'success' for both of us. I want to look over the file on that building."

A short time later, Ramon glanced up to see a boy standing in front of his desk, holding two white paper sacks. "Someone phoned downstairs and ordered sandwiches, sir," he said, looking around in awe at the palatial office.

"Just leave them there," Ramon nodded toward the coffee table across the room and absently reach­ed into the inside pocket of his suit coat. He took out his wallet and rifled through it looking for some one-dollar bills to give the boy as a tip.

The smallest he had was a five-dollar bill—Katie's five-dollar bill. He had never intended to part with it, and had folded it in half, then half again, to distinguish it from other money he would ever carry; a memento he'd treasured from a red-haired angel with laughing blue eyes.

Ramon felt as if he was shattering into a thousand pieces as he slowly pulled Katie's money out of his wallet. His fingers tightened convulsively around it, and then he forced himself to let it go. Just as he had forced himself to let Katie go. He opened his hand and gave the crumpled bill to the eager boy.

When the boy left, Ramon looked down at his wallet. Katie's money was gone. Katie was gone. He was an extremely wealthy man again. Bitter rage boiled up inside of him, and his hand clenched into a fist with the savage urge to smash something.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Eduardo ran his hand through his rumpled dark hair and glanced at Katie whose pale face was reflec­ting her mounting tension. "The security guard said he left the building three hours ago, at nine o'clock. Garcia picked him up in the Rolls, but neither Gar­cia nor Ramon returned to the villa in Mayaguez, nor is Ramon at his house in Old San Juan."

Katie bit her lip apprehensively. "Do you think Garcia might have told Ramon that I didn't leave, and Ramon is just refusing to answer the phone?"

Eduardo's look was filled with derisive scorn. "If Ramon knew you were still here, he would not be hiding from you—he would have descended on this house like forty devils, believe me."

"Eduardo," Gabriella said with an exasperated sigh, "you are petrifying Katie, and she is nervous enough without that."

Jamming his hands into his back pockets, Eduar­do stopped pacing and stood looking down at Katie. "Katie, I do not know where he could be. He is not at either of his houses, nor is he staying with Rafael's family. I cannot think where else he would choose to spend the night."

Katie tried to ignore the painful stab of jealousy she felt at the possibility that Ramon might well have decided to spend the night in the arms of the beautiful woman he was often pictured with in the local magazine clippings. "I was so certain he would go to the cottage," she said. "You're positive he wasn't there?"

Eduardo was emphatic. "I told you, I went there. It was only ten-thirty, too early for him to go to sleep, but there were no lights on inside."

Katie bent her head abjectly, twisting her fingers in her lap. "If things had been reversed, I would have gone there—where I could feel closest to him."

"Katie," Gabriella said with sympathetic deter­mination. "I know where you are thinking he is, but you are wrong. He would not turn to another woman tonight."

Katie was too preoccupied to see the dubious look Eduardo tossed at his wife. "You knocked when you went to the cottage, didn't you?" Katie said.

Eduardo's head swung to her. "Why should I knock on the door of a dark, empty house? Besides, Ramon would have seen the car lights coming up the driveway. He would have come out to see who was there."

Katie's smooth brow furrowed. "I think you should have knocked." She stood up more out of restlessness than anything else, and then said, "I think I'll go up to the cottage."

"Katie, he is not there, but if you insist on going, I will go with you."

"I'll be fine," Katie reassured.

"I do not want you to confront Ramon alone," Eduardo persisted. "I saw how furious he was yesterday, I was with him, and—"

"I was with him, too," Katie reminded him gent­ly. "And I'm positive I'll be fine. He can't be much angrier than he was yesterday.''

Eduardo dug in his pocket and pulled out the car keys, handing them to her. "If I believed for a minute he is there now, I would come with you, but he is not. You are going to have to wait until tomor­row to talk to him."

"My parents are arriving tomorrow," Katie said desperately. She looked at the clock ticking ominously on the wall. "It's after midnight—tech­nically this is Saturday morning. I'm getting married on Sunday—that's tomorrow."

Remembering what Eduardo had said about Ra­mon seeing the car lights coming up the driveway, Katie drove the last hundred yards without them. If Ramon was there, she thought it

would be best to have the element of surprise on her side. Particularly because she didn't relish the idea of confronting a furious Ramon on the doorstep.

Up ahead a faint light was visible through the swaying branches of the trees and Katie's heart gave a wild leap of joy as she stopped the car. She walked up the moonlit brick path, her knees shaking harder with each step. The bedroom lamp was on!

She reached for the door handle, mumbling a dis­jointed prayer that it wouldn't be locked because she had no key, and breathed a sigh of relief when it opened easily. She closed it cautiously, then turned around. The living room was in shadow, but there was the mellow glow of lamplight streaming into it through the open doorway from the bedroom.

This was it. She pulled the sweater off her shoul­ders and dropped it on the floor. She ran shaky hands over the clingy cinnamon dress she had de­liberately chosen hours ago with the specific inten­tion of tantalizing Ramon and hopefully weakening his resistance. It scooped very low in the front, ex­posing a glimpse of deep cleavage, had narrow shoulder straps, no sleeves and virtually no back. She combed her fingers through her long hair, then started walking very quietly.

In the bedroom doorway, Katie stopped to steady her rioting nerves—Ramon was lying on the bed, his hands clasped behind his head, staring at the ceiling. His white shirt was unbuttoned nearly to his waist, and he hadn't bothered to take off his shoes. His profile was so bitter and desolate that Katie's chest filled with remorse. She gazed at the dark, austere beauty of his face, the power and virility stamped in every line of his long body, and her pulse raced with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Even lying down, Ramon seemed like a very formidable oppo­nent.

She took one step into the room, throwing a shadow on the ceiling across his line of vision.

Ramon's head twisted toward her, and Katie froze.

He stared at her, his stark black eyes piercing through her as though he wasn't really seeing her at all.

"I didn't leave," Katie whispered inanely. At the sound of her voice, Ramon shot up and off the bed in one lithe, terrifying lunge.

Tags: Judith McNaught Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net