seemed to be having a good time, a good wine and a good laugh. But Kate had gone well past purgatory an hour ago and was now sure that this night, this endless night, was nothing other than hell.
With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she watched the striking couple across the glittering marble floor.
“Garrett,” the slight, sensual blonde gushed to the tall dark man, “you’re just like fine wine, better and better with age.”
Garrett Gage, the sexiest man on the planet, and the devil in Kate’s hell, ducked his head and whispered something into the woman’s ear with a wicked gleam in his dark eyes.
How many nights had she dreamed Garrett would look at her like that? Not like a little girl, but like a woman?
In a black suit and blood-red tie, with his dark hair slicked back to reveal his chiseled features, standing proud and imposing like the media baron he’d become, Garrett Gage could cause lightning to strike. He could make butterflies rise in your stomach. Make the earth stop. Make your heart thump. He could make you do anything just for a chance to be the one woman at his side.
For years, Kate had thought that feeding him, seeing him enjoy and praise her creations, was good enough. The next best thing to having sex with him, she supposed. But now it just pained her to cook and cater for a man who didn’t even notice that she, Kate Devaney, the woman who made the chocolate croissants he so loved, was on the menu, too.
If only one of her waiters hadn’t failed her at the party tonight, Kate might have showcased her new dress with just the right amount of hip sway to finally draw Garrett’s discerning eye. But with a tray fixed permanently to her shoulder, no one spared a glance at the glossy satin dress she wore; she was just passing the food.
“Darling, be a dear and bring over some of those cute little shrimp skewers with the pineapple tips,” a woman said as she swept up a crab-and-spinach roll and guided it to her lips.
“Orange-pineapple shrimp? It’ll be right over,” Kate said.
Grateful for the distraction, she swept back into the kitchen to load up a new tray. Usually the sight of her workers milling about the three-tiered cake and pulling out mouthwatering snacks and hors d’oeuvres from the oven would fill her with satisfaction. But even that didn’t lift her spirits tonight. Eight more weeks, Kate. Just two months. And then you never have to see him with another woman again.
As she carried a new tray into the busy living room, it struck her that she was going to leave behind this house with so many good memories, and this family who’d practically raised her as one of their own. She’d been so happy here; she’d honestly never imagined leaving until her feelings for Garrett had become so...painful. Moving to Florida was the best thing to do—the healthiest. For her. To be away from that hardheaded idiot!
“Mother tells me you’re leaving.” Julian John fell into step beside her as she navigated past a large group. Kate had been so deep in thought that she started at the low, sensual voice.
She glanced up and into the gold-green eyes of the youngest Gage brother, a beautiful man with a heartbreaking smile who was known to be guarded and quiet—except with Molly. He was only two months away from marrying Kate’s perky and passionate younger sister and officially becoming her brother-in-law. But if Julian already knew about her departure—who else did? Her stomach cramped in dread.
“I can’t believe she’s told you. I asked her not to tell.”
Julian plucked a shrimp skewer from the tray and popped it into his mouth. Like all Gage men, he had massively broad shoulders, and his symmetrical, masculine face looked as if it had been cast in bronze. “Knowing my mother, she probably thought you meant not to tell the press—and that would exclude its owners.”
Kate smiled. At seventy, still stout and active, the Gage matron was a force to be reckoned with. She was the proud mother of three strong, successful media magnates—not that Landon, Garrett and Julian John were powerful enough to keep the sassy woman from having her say.
She glittered tonight in a high-end ruby-colored dress, which was completely undermined by the plain black bed slippers she wore. Comfort, to her, was everything. She didn’t care what others thought and had enough money to ensure that everyone would at least pretend they thought the best of her.
She’d been the closest thing to a mother to Kate, who’d grown up without one. At the tender age of seven, she and her bodyguard dad had moved in to this very house where Garrett’s birthday celebration was being held. Her father had died shortly after, leaving Kate and Molly orphans, but this house had remained their home.
“Nothing Molly and I can do to change your mind?” Julian asked, gold-green eyes flicking across the room toward Molly.
Kate could melt when she saw the glimmer of pride and satisfaction in his eyes when he looked at her sister.
It only reminded her of what she herself wanted in her future.
A family of her own.
Which was why she had to leave and rebuild her life, find other interests, and find herself an actual love life with a man who wanted her.
“I really have to do this, Jules,” she told him as she shook her head and extended the tray to the people standing opposite him. Within seconds, the shrimp skewers started to disappear, one by one.
She had to get away, before she ended up watching the man she loved marry another, form a family. Before she became the dreaded “Aunt Kate” to children she’d always wished would be hers.
“But don’t tell Garrett yet, okay? I don’t want him on my back already.”
“Hell, nobody wants that man on their back. Of course I won’t tell him.”
Smiling at that, she stole a glance in his direction, and yes, he was still there, as gorgeous as he’d been a minute ago, the blonde looking completely absorbed in him.
The woman was some sort of business associate of his who clearly enjoyed raising men’s temperatures. Kate didn’t know her, but already she abhorred her.
Seeming distracted, Garrett glanced around the room, and his liquid coal eyes stopped on Kate. Her heart stuttered when his gaze seemed to trail down the length of her silky form-fitting dress—the first male eyes to take in her attire tonight—then came back up to meet her startled stare.
Suddenly the look in his eyes was so dark and unfathomable, she almost thought that he—
No.
Whatever emotion lurked in his eyes, it was swiftly concealed. He raised his wineglass in the air in a mock toast, and added a smile that, although brief and friendly, went straight to her toes.
But that smile had nothing on the one he gave his companion when he turned away from Kate. His lips curled wide, with a flash of white teeth, and Kate just knew the poor woman was done for.
So was Kate.
Damn it, why hadn’t she gotten one of those wolfish smiles?
Garrett had been there for her for as long as she could remember. A permanent fixture in her life. Steady and strong as a mountain. Her father had died for him. And Garrett had taken the promise he’d made to the dying man to heart.
Now
