Duarte reeled from his father’s direct jab. He’d had enough of the old man’s games. If he wanted a reconciliation, this was a weird way to go about it. “Strange thing about my grief, I don’t feel the least bit compelled to jump in bed with another woman right now.”
Flinching, Enrique nodded curtly. “Fair enough. I will give you that shot.” Then his eyes narrowed with a sharpness that no illness could dull. “Interesting though that you do not deny loving Kate Harper.”
Denying it wouldn’t serve any purpose. “She has made her choice. She believes I betrayed her and there’s no convincing her otherwise.”
“It does not appear to me that you tried very hard to change her mind.” Enrique fished in the pocket of his robe and pulled out his watch, chain jingling. “Pride can cost a man too much. I did not believe my advisers who told me my government would be overthrown, that I should take my family and leave. I was too proud. I considered myself, my rule, invincible and I waited too long.”
Enrique’s thumb swept over the glass faceplate on the antique timepiece, his eyes taking on a faraway look the deeper he waded into the past. “Your mother paid the price for my hubris. I may not have grieved for her in a manner that meets your approval, but never doubt for a minute that I loved her deeply.”
His father’s gaze cleared and he looked at Duarte, giving his son a rare peek inside the man he’d been, how much he’d lost.
“Mi hijo, my son,” his father continued, “I have spent a lot of years replaying those days in my mind, thinking how I could have done things differently. It is easy to torment yourself with how life could be by changing just one moment.” Gold chain between two fingers, he dangled the pocket watch. “But over time, I’ve come to realize our lives cannot be condensed into a single second. Rather we are the sum of all the choices we make along the way.”
The Dali slippery-watch artwork spoke to him from the walls in a way he’d never imagined. Lost time had haunted his father more than Duarte had ever guessed. During all those art lessons his father had overseen, Enrique had been trying to share things about himself he’d been too wounded to put into words.
“Your Kate made a mistake in believing you would betray her. Are you going to let your whole life boil down to this moment where you make the mistake of letting your pride keep you from going after her?”
He’d always considered himself a man of action, yet he’d stumbled here when it counted most with Kate. Whether he’d held back out of pride or some holdover pain from losing his mother, he didn’t know. But as he stared at the second hand tick, tick, ticking away on his watch, he did know he couldn’t let Kate slip out of his life without a fight.
And now that he’d jump-started his mind out of limbo, he knew just the way to take care of Harold Hough and let Kate know how much faith he had in her. But first, he had barely enough time to extend his father an olive branch that was long overdue.
“Thank you, mi padre.” He clenched the old man’s hand, grateful for the gift of a second chance.
January winds bitterly cold in Boston, Kate anchored her scarf, picking her way down the snowy sidewalk—toward the redbrick building that housed the Global Intruder. Not an overly large place, the Intruder head-quarters conducted most of its business online. She’d dreamed of a more auspicious retirement when the time came to hang up her media credentials.
But she didn’t doubt her decision for a minute.
If she spent the rest of her life taking family portraits for tourists, then so be it. She had found a day facility for Jennifer, but her sister would be living with her. Hesitating at the front steps, Kate rubbed the braided charm that now hung on her camera case, the anklet she’d worn for luck not so long ago.
At least she would have her integrity, if not Duarte. She squeezed her eyes closed against the dull throbbing pain that hadn’t eased one bit in spite of two nights spent soaking her pillow with tears.
A well-tuned car hummed in the distance, louder as it neared. She hopped farther onto the sidewalk to avoid a possible wave of sludge. How long had she stood on the curb of the one-way street?
She glanced over her shoulder just as a vintage Jaguar with tinted windows pulled alongside her. Her heart kicked up a notch as she wondered could it possibly be… A red vintage Jaguar, like the one Duarte had told her that he owned when they planned out their faux first date.
The driver’s side door swept open and Duarte stepped out into the swirl of snowflakes. Long-legged, lean and every bit as darkly handsome as she remembered, he studied her over the roof of the car. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but his shoulders were braced with a determination she recognized well.
While she didn’t know how to reconcile her heart to what he’d done with the photos, she couldn’t stifle the joy she felt over seeing him here. Without question, he’d come for her. She hoped her weak knees would man-up before she did something crazy like walk right back into his arms.
Securing her camera bag on her shoulder, she walked closer to the car, appreciating the barrier between them. “Why are you here?”
“Because this is where you are. Jennifer told me.”
“Not for much longer.” She clutched her bag, too weary to give him a hard time for calling her sister. Jennifer missed “Artie” no matter what a brave face she put on. “I’m quitting my job at the Intruder.”
“Why don’t you hold off on that for a few minutes and take a ride with me first?” He peered over his sunglasses. “You may not have noticed, but we’re starting to attract a crowd.”
Jolting, she looked around. Cars were slowing with rubberneckers, pedestrians who would normally hurry to get in out of the cold were staring curiously at the man who looked just like…
Heaven help her, they were celebrities.
Kate yanked open the passenger-side door. “Let’s go.”
Leaping into the low-slung vehicle, she clicked the seat belt into place, securing her into the pristinely restored Jag just as he slid the car into drive.
And didn’t Duarte have a way of dragging her into his world when she least expected it? Sweeping snow from her coat, she cursed her weak knees, but she couldn’t regret ditching the gathering throng. Funny how a red Jag drew attention. A Medina man beside it didn’t hurt, either.
He dropped a large envelope onto her lap.
“What’s this?” She thumbed the edge of what appeared to be a stack of papers.
“Documents transferring ownership of the Global Intruder to you.”
Shock sparked through her, as blinding as the morning sun through the windshield.
“I don’t understand.” And she couldn’t accept it if he offered it out of some sense of guilt over what he’d done to her. She thrust the papers back toward him. “No, thank you. I can’t be bought.”
Not anymore.
“That’s not my intent at all.” He guided the sports car effortlessly over the ice along narrow historic roads. “You lost out on the payment for your end of the bargain for the wedding photos. You even left behind the other pictures you took that the public hasn’t seen. Why did you do that?”
“Why did you buy the Intruder for me?”
“You have a voice and honor I respect,” he answered without hesitation. “I know you’ll bring humanity to the stories you cover.”
“You want me to work for you?”
“You’re not listening.” Pausing at a stoplight, he turned to face her and pulled off his sunglasses. Dark shadows of sleeplessness marked beneath his eyes much like the weariness on her face. “The Intruder is yours regardless. But it is my hope that you’ll accept my apology for not clearing the air the minute you came into my room after the wedding.”
The magnetism of his deep onyx eyes drew her even when she guarded her heart. Much longer alone with him and she would cave to the wary hope spiraling through her like smoke from the chimneys.
“All right.” She hugged the papers to her chest like a protective shield, wondering how Duarte had managed this all so fast. But then he was a man of decisive action when he chose to be. “I accept the apology and the Intruder. You’re off the hook. You can leave with a clear conscience.”
He parked on the roadside within sight of Long Wharf and the Aquarium, the tinted windows shielding them from view.
Turning toward her, he pulled off his gloves and cupped her shoulders in a gentle grip. “I don’t want to leave. I want you. And not just today, but forever if you’ll have me.”
Just like that, he thought he could drive up and buy her off with a big—albeit amazing—gift? She looked away from his magnetic eyes. Think, she needed to think.
She stared at his key chain swaying in the ignition. She struggled to be reasonable, for Jennifer’s sake. Her sister had been so crushed over the breakup, Kate needed to be completely certain before she invited Duarte back into her life. Jennifer had braided that key chain for Duarte with such hope and love…
She tapped the swaying braid attached to Duarte’s keys. “You kept Jennifer’s present.”
Frowning, he hooked his arm on the steering wheel. “Of course I did. What of it?”