ATE ZIPPED HER suitcase closed, carried it into the living room, and put it down next to her garment bag. She’d gone over what she wanted to say to Evan so many times that she was afraid it was going to sound like a well-rehearsed speech, even though she felt anything but unemotional about the hurt she was about to cause him.

With nothing else left to do, she stepped outside onto the patio, and a sense of nostalgia and well-being began to bloom inside her. Only three days ago she’d stood in this spot, talking to Holly on the phone and feeding Max strips of bacon. The future had seemed so bleak that morning, and now it was dazzlingly bright and filled with poignant promise. Everything had changed in three short days. She’d fallen in love.

Smiling, she walked forward and ran her hand along the patio’s stone balustrade while sweet memories drifted through her mind. At the edge of the garden near the beach was the clump of palms she’d been standing under when Mitchell relented and came back to answer some of her questions...My brother’s name was William.

On the patio, exactly where she was standing right now, they’d danced together for the first time. She’d mistakenly thought he intended to kiss her and ended up laughing and chiding him: “You might have mentioned you intended to dance with me, not try to ravish me.”

“But I do intend to ravish you,” he’d whispered.

He’d really been outrageously frank about his intentions that night, but he’d wanted her badly enough to change his mind and come back to her in the garden. He’d been just as frank the next day in the suite at the Enclave, Kate remembered with a smile...

In Chicago, there’s an eligible man who wants to marry you. Here, in this room, there’s a man who wants to take you to bed and make love to you until neither of us has the strength to move anymore. But it can’t go any further than that. It would get much too complicated.

A few moments later—a compromise. And when Mitchell compromised, he was utterly irresistible.

“Let’s get complicated, Kate... The truth is that I felt all the same things you did last night, and you know I did.”

“Kate?” Evan’s voice made her whirl around in time to see him closing the door—a tall, fit, attractive man with brown hair and gray eyes who’d been part of her life for four years. A good man she was going to hurt. “I didn’t think you’d have a key to get in,” she said, as another surge of nostalgia, this one painful, hit her.

“Since you’re never here,” he said, striding toward her, “I stopped at the front desk and—” His gaze riveted on her suitcases and ricocheted back to her face. “What’s going on?”

Nervously rubbing her hands on the sides of her pants, Kate tried to smile as she nodded toward the sofa and said, “Come over here, and let’s sit down. We need to talk.”

“Let’s go straight to the summation instead,” he said coolly. “You’re angry because I left you down here, and I’m just as angry because you paid me back by ignoring my calls and putting me through long periods of daily hell, worrying that your headaches were incapacitating you and thinking about things like brain tumors. Does that about sum it up?” he demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he turned on his heel and walked over to the bar.

And in that bizarre moment, when Kate knew it was over between them, she watched him and understood the reasons he’d appealed to her from the beginning—his intelligence and self-assurance, his ability to go right to the heart of the matter and see it from both sides, and his ability to keep his head when everyone else was losing theirs. These talents made him a superb lawyer and a terrific companion.

She watched him take a swallow of his drink, and when he lowered the glass and scowled at her, she smiled a little and made a fervent wish that he’d find someone wonderful right away.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I’m hoping you get exactly the woman you deserve.”

“You don’t do sarcasm well,” he observed flatly. “It comes off as sincerity and loses its edge.”

Torn between laughter and tears, Kate bit her lip and looked down. He’d been more than her lover; he’d been her friend. She was losing a friend and about to hurt him, too. Lifting her head, she drew a long breath and said softly, “I wasn’t being sarcastic, Evan. I meant that with all my heart.”

His hand stilled in the act of raising the glass to his mouth. With his gaze riveted on her, he reached out and put the glass back on the bar. “What are you talking about?”

“I met someone here, and there’s something special between us. I have to give it a chance.”

He was so still it was unnerving. “When did all this happen?”

“Two days ago. Two and a half days ago,” Kate corrected, trying to make what she was doing seem less insanely impulsive.

“Who is he?”

“No one you know. He lives in Europe and New York.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“Evan, please—”

“Help me understand how a man you’ve known for two days can make you throw away a four-year relationship. Give me some details!”

“I met him in a restaurant here.”

“What does he do?”

“I—I don’t know exactly.”

“What’s his name?”

“It doesn’t matter what his name is.”

“It damn well matters to me. I want a name to curse in private. That’s what men do, Kate. We pretend we’re taking things very well, and that our hearts aren’t being broken, and then we get roaring drunk and we curse the bastard who stole the woman we loved.”

Tears stung Kate’s eyes.

“You’ve already slept with him, haven’t you,” he concluded bitterly. “It took me two months to get you into bed, and he accomplished it in two days.”

“I’d better leave,” Kate said, and reached down for her suitcase.

“Let’s have a name before you go.”

“Mitchell Wyatt.”

An expression of utter disbelief froze his face. “Mitchell Wyatt?” he repeated. “You’ve gotten involved with Mitchell Wyatt down here?”

“You know him?”

“I know him,” he clipped. “He’s Cecil Wyatt’s bastard grandson.”

Other than being taken aback that Evan had apparently met Mitchell at some social function somewhere, Kate attached no particular significance to Evan’s statement. As she knew from boring experience, people in Evan’s lofty social class had widespread connections in many cities, they all kept close tabs on each other, and they gossiped incessantly about all that. Long ago, she’d stopped accompanying Evan to nearly all their gatherings. She was just a social worker and a restaurant owner’s daughter, and since her relationship with Evan remained undefined, they didn’t know what to do with her, other than to treat her courteously for Evan’s sake. Kate did the same thing for the same reason. Occasionally, Evan tried to relate a tale from one of these functions, but as soon as he started talking about who was there and how they were related to so-and-so, Kate’s brain automatically changed to another channel before he ever got to the point. She wasn’t completely sure who Cecil Wyatt was, so the revelation that Mitchell could be his “bastard grandson” had no effect.

“This is one hell of a big coincidence,” he said, sounding as if it might not be a coincidence at all.

“What is?” Kate asked, relieved that something was distracting him from his hurt feelings.

“When I met him at Cecil Wyatt’s birthday party, I specifically told him that you and I were going to be down here now, staying at the Island Club. He said he was going to be down here at the same time, staying on a friend’s boat. Forgive me for sounding paranoid, but I find it just a little strange that he supposedly ignored all the women at that party who were flinging themselves at him... and he hasn’t been able to find a single woman to suit him anywhere on any of these islands... until he ‘happened’ to bump into you—in a hotel that he isn’t staying at—and while I’m away. This whole thing doesn’t look like coincidence to me; it looks like payback.”

“He has no idea I know you,” Kate interjected. “I’ve never told him your name.”

“The villa you’re staying in is in my name,” Evan retorted.

Kate saw no reason to argue that inconsequential point, but she was stunned that her desertion was driving him to such incomprehensible leaps of fanciful logic. “Payback for what?” she said calmly.

“Did Wyatt tell you anything about his background?”

“I’m not interested in his pedigree or his legitimacy.”

“Then get interested in it, Kate,” he ordered sharply. “It’s an ugly little story, and it involves my father as well as me.”

“Okay,” she sighed, “I’m listening.”

“Until a few months ago Mitchell Wyatt believed he’d been abandoned at birth and that his name had been picked out of a phone book by someone. He attended the best boarding schools in Europe with some of the richest kids in the world, but he was led to believe he was a charity case.”

Inwardly Kate was appalled, but anxious to get this over with. “What does that have to do with you?”

“My father created and maintained the entire deception, and Wyatt discovered the truth eight months ago. Now Cecil has suddenly brought him out of obscurity to Chicago, and he’s parading him around like the heir apparent. My father and I are the only ones who know the truth about his pathetic past, and he’s bitter as hell that we do, as well as about the fact that my father actually orchestrated it for Cecil. At Cecil’s party, Wyatt came up to us and you could have cut through the hostility with a knife. I stepped in and tried to smooth things over with a discussion about our vacation in Anguilla. I told him about you and that your father had just died and that I was on my way to his wake.”

“Are you saying you told him my name?” Kate said uneasily.

“Yes. At the time I did it, I was completely clueless about what was eating him. I had no idea until the next morning what Cecil and my father had done to Wyatt as a kid.

“Now,” he said with a solemn smile, “before you go, will you answer a question for me?”

Kate realized he was bringing the ordeal to an end without forcing her to acknowledge that he could be right about Mitchell, and she loved him for that. He believed he was right, she knew, but he didn’t know Mitchell the way she did. Furthermore, no matter how straightforward he was trying to be, he was being jilted for another man, and that was understandably coloring his view of his adversary. She didn’t want to hurt him by siding with Mitchell, singing his praises, or playing devil’s advocate on his behalf. She wanted to get through this as soon as possible, doing as little damage to Evan’s pride as she could, and then she wanted to go to Mitchell and never let on that she knew the heartbreaking story of his childhood. He’d confide in her in his own time. He already had, a little bit. In answer to Evan’s question, Kate nodded and smiled. “What question is that?”

“I’ve known you for a long time, and you’re not easy to dazzle, Kate. Or maybe I just didn’t try the right methods. You never seemed to give a damn about social status, or money, or anything else like that, that I had to offer. So my question is this: How in the hell did he accomplish in two days what I couldn’t accomplish in four years?”

“Evan, please don’t do this—” Kate said, her eyes filling with sudden tears because she’d never imagined he loved her so much that he would humble himself this way.

“Tell me. I need to know. Wyatt’s aunt, Olivia Hebert, told people at the party that he’s building a house here on Anguilla. Have you secretly dreamed of a house on an island? Did he show you around it and make you envision yourself living in it?”

Kate managed to keep her expression noncommittal. It didn’t matter that Mitchell hadn’t mentioned building a house here. They’d been too busy making love and getting to know each other. “No,” she said calmly.

“On the ferry coming over here, I heard that Zack Benedict’s yacht is down here, and according to what I read on the Internet, Wyatt is a bosom buddy of Benedict’s—and a big investor in his films. Benedict’s yacht is undoubtedly the friend’s boat that Wyatt said he was going to stay on down here. Did he take you for a cruise and promise you a life of leisurely cruising with movie stars? Is that what you’ve always wanted?”

“No,” Kate said, trying to sound offhand. But the realization that Mitchell had let her go on and on about Zack Benedict after their boat captain pointed out the Julie made Kate feel a little ill. Still, he hadn’t really lied when he said he wasn’t “a fan” of Benedict’s. Mitchell was apparently Zack Benedict’s friend. And to give Mitchell credit, he was certainly no braggart, either.

Evan wasn’t fooled by her replies. Her complexion was too fair and her eyes too expressive to hide shock or dismay. “You didn’t know about the house or the yacht, did you?”

“I think this conversation is pointless and needs to end,” Kate said firmly.

“Right after you answer one more little question for yourself, not for me: How in the hell does it happen that you know Wyatt lives in Europe and New York, but you don’t know that he also has a Chicago address?”

“He doesn’t know anything about Chicago,” Kate said before she could stop herself. “I talked a lot about Chicago—he would have told me if he knew anyone there. In fact, he had to ask me how long it takes to get down here from there! Evan, we aren’t talking about the same man.”

“I hope you’re right, honey, because the man I’m talking about has been living in Chicago with Caroline Wyatt.”

“Who?” Kate said in frustration.

“Caroline Wyatt. Late last year, a man named William Wyatt disappeared. Remember?”

“Vaguely.”

“The beautiful Caroline was, and still is, William’s wife. Your Mitchell is shacked up with his half brother’s wife, and he moved in just as soon as her husband disappeared!”

“He told me about his brother,” Kate said quickly, glad for once that she knew something. “He liked William very much, and if Caroline’s home is typical of most of your friends’ and relatives’ houses, then it’s the size of a hotel.”

Lifting his hand, Evan smoothed her hair back off her forehead, then he dropped his arm. “Don’t let that son of a bitch hurt you too badly. And when he does,” Evan added tenderly, “you remember that it was me, not you, he wanted to hurt. Maybe that will make it easier.” He picked up his drink and glanced at her luggage. “I should carry those for you, but I can’t make myself help you go to him. I’m sorry, Kate.” It was a gruff apology, not a parting taunt.

Shaking inside, Kate watched him walk out onto the patio and into the garden.

Questions and doubts were raging through her as she walked into the bathroom to get her purse and make sure she wasn’t leaving anything behind. Instead of doing that, she stood in front of the sink, trying to rid herself of Evan’s slant on everything Mitchell did, and to think things through for herself. In her mind, she heard Mitchell whispering, I felt all the same things you did last night, and you know I did, and her spirits lifted. That was real. That was the real Mitchell, not Evan’s version of him.

Evan’s description of Mitchell’s childhood explained exactly why he’d evaded Kate’s questions that first night. The story of his life wasn’t the sort of story a man would want to share with a stranger. Furthermore, the fact that Mitchell hadn’t simply invented a more impressive past for himself, one that he could dispense freely and impress strangers with, was even more to his credit. It showed tremendous strength of character.

As far as everything else Evan had brought up, Kate could think of valid reasons and explanations for all of it, including gossip. There was just one thing she couldn’t justify, no matter how hard she tried: If Evan was right about Mitchell living, even temporarily, in Chicago, there was only one possible reason for Mitchell’s having concealed that from her—he had no intention of seeing her after they left St. Maarten.

She needed an answer to that right now, not later when they were face-to-face and he could disarm her or distract her. A simple, straightforward answer. After all, Mitchell had sent her here expecting her to break up with Evan “in the shortest possible time,” and then to “hurry back.” She had every right to expect a straightforward answer to her question.

Closing the bathroom door, she dug in her purse for her cell phone and the brochure from the Enclave. Her fingers trembled as she pressed the buttons on her cell phone, and her pulse edged up with each ring. By the time the Enclave’s operator answered the phone, Kate was leaning back against the vanity for support, and her voice actually wavered with nervousness when she asked to be connected to Mr. Wyatt in the Presidential Suite.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the operator said a moment later, “Mr. Wyatt has checked out.”

“Checked out? Did—did he leave a message for me, for Kate Donovan, I mean?”

“One moment please.” Kate’s knees began to knock while she waited. “No, ma’am. No message,” the operator stated with certainty.

Kate twisted around and made a grab for the vanity, trying to hold her quaking body upright while Mitchell’s mocking voice whispered in her ringing ears. “I want to be sure you don’t have any false illusions about what’s going on between us.... It can’t go any further than that. It would get much too complicated.... But I do intend to ravish you.”

The sound of her own sobbing drowned out his voice, and Kate groped blindly for a towel, holding it tightly to her face, trying to muffle her cries before Evan heard them. Desperate to get herself under control and to get out of there before Evan walked in from the garden, she threw the towel down and splashed cold water onto her face; then she opened the door a crack and saw that the living room was empty. With tears pouring from her eyes and blurring her vision, she grabbed her suitcase and garment bag, made an awkward dash for the door, and struggled with the knob.

Her shoulders shaking with silent sobs, she nudged the door open with her knee and was halfway outside when Evan walked in from the patio. “Kate, wait, let me help you with—”

“I’m fine, stay there,” she called, keeping her face averted, but she couldn’t stop her shoulders from jerking.

“What the hell—?” His hands locked on her arms, turning her around. He took one look at her tormented face and pulled her against his chest. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“Please d-don’t be n-nice to me; I was l-leaving you for him, and he’s gone.”

“Don’t worry,” he said drily. “I don’t feel like being very nice to you right now. Why don’t I take you home?”

Kate nodded, too choked up to speak. “I have to pick up Max.”

MAX BOUNDED ONTO the floor of the taxi’s backseat and Kate scooted over into the center. Evan went around to the passenger side and opened the back door. “This is going to be a tight fit,” he said, wedging himself in beside her. Once he was inside, his left thigh and leg were pressed against hers, and there was no room for his left arm, so he put it across the back of the seat behind her.

They’d sat this way hundreds of times before, but now their proximity felt awkward, and having his arm casually resting there seemed all wrong. He felt it, too; Kate could sense his tension. He was wounded and angry at her betrayal. She didn’t deserve his kindness or his compassion, and the fact that he was offering both right now, when she needed them most and deserved them least, made her feel so ashamed that she bent her head and tears gathered in her eyes. Max laid his big head on her knee, his unblinking, adoring gaze on her face, and she reached out to scratch his head while two tears ran down her cheeks. It belatedly dawned on Kate that she hadn’t even given Evan the courtesy of an apology, and she swallowed twice, trying to drag her voice through the knot of emotion in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I know you are.”

Wishing desperately she had a tissue, Kate felt in her purse, but there were none in there. His duffel was on the seat beside her, and she reached for the zipper on it while tears began streaking in earnest from her eyes. “Do you have tissues or a handkerchief or something I could use in here?”

“I think so,” Evan replied. “Pass it over to me and I’ll look.”

“Don’t bother,” she said, already tugging on the zipper. “I’ll do it—”

“Don’t open—” Evan said, but it was too late.

Lying atop all the neatly packed masculine apparel in Evan’s duffel was a thick, square, robin’s egg blue Tiffany box tied with a cream ribbon. It was a ring box.

Kate stared at it through a fresh haze of tears, and for the second time in less than an hour, she covered her face and wept.

He hesitated, and then he lowered his arm around her shaking shoulders and curved his hand around her arm, drawing her close so she could weep against his chest. “I should be the one comforting you,” Kate whispered brokenly.

“I’m beyond comforting,” he whispered.

“I hate myself,” she said fiercely.

He thought about that for a moment. “I hate you, too,” he said, but there was a smile in his voice.

Kate closed her eyes. She couldn’t let herself think about Mitchell yet or she would shatter. Exhausted from the turmoil, and the struggle to keep thoughts of him at bay, she dozed as the old taxi jolted and bumped along the short distance to the airport.

When she opened her eyes, she found that Evan had taken her hand in his and he was holding it. “Wake up, we’re here,” he said, and took his hand away. While she was sleeping, he’d slid the dazzling diamond solitaire from Tiffany’s on her ring finger. Kate stared at it and started to shake her head. “I can’t—”

“Here is what I’m ‘proposing.’ ” Evan clarified, “I need some time to get past what’s happened, and so do you. In the meantime, I suggest we announce our engagement in the newspaper.”

“Why?”

He leaned close and whispered, “Well, for one thing, that ring will look very nice with whatever gown you wear to the Children’s Hospital benefit Saturday night. We’re one of the sponsors.”

Kate looked at him in stupefaction as he took his arm away and reached into his pocket to pay the cab fare. “What’s the other thing?”

“The Wyatt family will be there. Now,” he continued conversationally as he counted out money, “I don’t know about you, but if I were in your place, I’d like it if Mitchell Wyatt was forced to realize thathe’d been used—”

“Used as what?” Kate asked bitterly.

He slanted her a sideways smile tinged with just a little regret. “Your last fling.”