From Ex to Eternity
The September weather was perfect, still cool in the morning, and later, Grace Bay would hit the mideighties. The first time Keith set foot on Regent’s Turks and Caicos resort, he’d immediately designated it the centerpiece of the corporate-wide luxury-wedding-destination renovation. No one would be disappointed with the choice.
After half a mile or so, he expected Cara to peel off or fall to the sand, gasping for air. She kept going, stretching it out to a mile. Impressive. She wasn’t even winded. The Cara he’d known had balked at anything more strenuous than painting her nails.
But then, he hadn’t really known her at all.
By mutual agreement, they turned around to head back to the resort. At the entrance marker to the private beach, they slowed and then stopped.
Cara walked in circles to cool down and Keith watched her on the sly as he peeled his damp shirt from his chest to wipe his forehead. Her skin had taken on a glow and she’d yet to slather her face with half a cosmetic store. Dressed-to-the-nines Cara he liked, especially when he took her to dinner and got to spend a whole meal fantasizing about stripping her out of all that finery.
This natural version of her hit him with a sledgehammer to the backs of his knees.
No distractions, Mitchell.
Yet, Cara had never stuck to the role he’d assigned her in his life. Why had he been daft enough to believe that might have changed?
She noticed him watching her and crossed her arms over a still-heaving chest. “Tell me one thing. Why me? Out of all the wedding dress designers out there.”
“Your name was on the short list. Much to my shock.”
“Is it that difficult to believe I can sew?” Her chin jutted out, daring him to say yes.
But it was inconceivable that she’d traded a burning desire to trap some clueless male into marrying her for a design business.
“You have a degree in marketing. Two years ago, you were a junior coffeemaker at an ad agency and then, bang. Now you’re Cara Chandler-Harris Designs, so pardon my mild cardiac arrest. Despite that, your name is highly respected in the industry and I need the best. That’s why you made the cut.”
Plus, he was curious to find out if she was merely the face of the company. Maybe she had someone else slaving away over the dresses while she took all the credit.
“For your information, bang took eighteen months of sleepless nights and several design classes to accomplish. I got an interest-bearing loan. No one handed me anything.”
Not even her father? Seemed unlikely that John Harris would have done nothing to help his daughter’s business.
“Doesn’t hurt to have Chandler-Harris on the label either.”
“It’s not a crime to have connections. If memory serves, the president of Regent Group’s board is married to a friend of my mom’s. Tell me it’s a coincidence you’re now working for Regent.”
Her gaze sliced into him and he didn’t dare grin. But he wanted to. She’d never had so much attitude. He liked it. “All successful people have connections.”
“Exactly. And I’m going to continue using mine.” The dawn light beamed across her face and caught a wicked glint in her espresso-colored eyes.
Keith filed that fact away—for later, when he might lean on their connection. Though he had no doubt she intended to use her connection to him in an entirely different way than he did. “But wedding dresses?”
“Funny story. I got left at the altar and had this useless dress I’d made myself.”
A flash of memory surfaced—Cara in a white dress with hundreds of beads sewn to the top and a stricken look on her face when she turned to see him at the door of her dressing room. He’d stayed long enough to discover the truth about his fiancée. And then left.
“You made that dress?”
With a withering glare, she plopped down in the sand and pulled on a flexed foot. “If you’d paid attention during the wedding plans, that wouldn’t be new information.”
“If you’d been reasonable about the plans, I might have paid more attention.” She’d been like bridezilla on steroids.
“It was my wedding, Keith.” She closed her eyes for a beat and muttered under her breath. All he caught was the word professional.
It had been his wedding, too, a fact she seemed to have forgotten, but in reality, he hadn’t cared about the centerpieces or the color of the cake. He’d given her free rein. Gladly, and then tuned it all out. A wedding was an event to be endured. Much like the marriage he didn’t ask for but agreed to because it was the right thing to do.
“So, you made the dress yourself. Then what happened?”
She glanced up at him, her expression composed. “Norah asked me if I could alter it to fit her. So I did and she wore it when she got married later that month. Then Lynn asked me if I could make one for her. I have yet to run out of unmarried sorority sisters and friends, so a design business was born.”
Norah and Lynn. Bridesmaids number three and four. He had a healthy bit of distance from Houston now, and perspective on his almost-marriage, but he’d been unprepared for it to feel like weakness to recall details with such clarity.
He should go back to his room and shower. Opening day loomed and nothing productive could come of continuing this conversation. “Do you like it?”
Surprise flitted across her face as she climbed to her feet, pointedly ignoring his outstretched hand. “I do. It wasn’t what I envisioned for myself, but I needed...” She took a breath and he had the impression she’d changed her mind about what she’d been about to say. “It was something to occupy my time.”
Finally, something that made sense. The design business was a time killer for an aspiring trophy wife obsessed with finding a husband she’d been unable to snag thus far. Every woman Keith had ever dated wanted nothing more than a free ride and the prestige of being Mrs. Mitchell. Cara was no different.
Except for the part where she started her own business. It was as perplexing as it was fascinating. And he had the feeling she’d been telling the truth when she claimed to have done it with no help from her rich daddy. Keith was thoroughly impressed, quite against his will.
“You come highly regarded for something you fell into accidentally.”
“I prefer to think of it as providence.”
“So you’d design one-use-only dresses no matter what? Why not something more practical?”
“Ever made a cake?”
“I’ve eaten cake. Does that count?”
Her eyes rolled. “Sometimes when you bake a cake, it doesn’t cook quite right. Maybe it’s lopsided or part of it sticks to the pan. Frosting covers a multitude of baking sins. A wedding dress is like frosting. My brides feel beautiful, even if they don’t feel that way wearing anything else. I’m responsible for that, and it’s amazing.”
Frosting was one-use-only, too. Had she chosen the analogy purposefully? “You are using your marketing degree, then. It’s all false advertising in the end.”
False advertising. Her best skill.
“Lord have mercy on your cynical soul.” She jumped up and brushed sand from the backside of her formfitting jogging pants. No one could fault a man’s eyes for straying to the nicely rounded area under her fingers. “One wonders why you asked me to marry you in the first place.”
He snapped his focus away from her curves. Her frosting hid a multitude of sins, as well. “Because you were pregnant.”
Or so she’d led him to believe.
Two
Cara escaped before she actually sank down into the white sand for a good cry. She slammed the door to the room she shared with Meredith. Hard. Hopefully, her devious sister was still sound asleep. “How could you do this to me?”
The blanket on Meredith’s bed moved slightly and incoherent speech rumbled from beneath it.
“Was that English?” Cara ripped the blanket off the bed. “It’s like ninety degrees in here. How can you sleep under this?”
Meredith peered up at Cara through slitted eyes. “Which question do you want me to answer? Without a cup of coffee in my hand, you only get one.”
“Keith. You knew he was behind the invite.” Several people had casually dropped information about his new consulting gig into conversations, but she’d been too busy ignoring anyone who mentioned Keith’s name to realize Regent owned this resort.
“Sue me. You needed this expo deal to grow your business. Where’s the harm?” Flipping hair out of her face, Meredith sat up, looking as if she’d just rolled out of a lingerie fashion shoot instead of bed. If Cara didn’t love her sister so much, she’d hate her. “He’s just an ex-fiancé. A guy you are completely over. Right?”
“Totally.” Well, mostly.
Cara sank onto the bed and brooded. She needed a shower and a sturdy wooden stake to drive through the heart of the walking corpse masquerading as a man named Keith Mitchell.
“Don’t protest too hard or you’ll hurt yourself. If nothing else, it’s a chance for closure. Take it.” Meredith’s gaze grew keen. “You were fine with this yesterday. What happened?”
“Keith jogs now. Or did you already know that, too?”
Meredith stuck her tongue out. “You two are made for each other. Only insane people get up at the crack of dawn to run. Clearly he’s lost as many marbles as you have.”
“Oh, he’s still in possession of all his faculties. What he’s lost is his humanity.”
“Because he’s giving you exclusive worldwide exposure for your dresses? You’re right, that’s way over the line.”
Cara buried her face in her hands and dredged up some Magnolia Grit. She had it to spare or she’d never have made it out of her wedding-day dressing room after losing not one, but two of the most important things in her life. Now would be a great time for that grit to surface. “He only asked me to marry him because I told him I was pregnant. How did I not know that?”
“A lot of guys wouldn’t have. He did.” Meredith’s arms wrapped around Cara and the silent unconditional support nearly undid her. “Still, it’s a crappy thing to admit. Even if it’s true.”
With a sniffle, Cara nodded against Meredith’s shoulder. “I thought he loved me.”
“One is not mutually exclusive of the other. He probably did love you. Maybe he was going to ask you at some point in the future and you gave him an incentive to speed up the timing.”
“Yeah and that worked out.”
“Better you found out then that he’s a rolling stone. I was never fond of the name Cara Chandler-Harris Mitchell anyway. If you guys kiss and make up, consider keeping your maiden name this time.”
She scowled. “I’d rather kiss the hind end of a sweaty camel than Keith.”
The knowing smile Meredith shot over her shoulder on her way to hog the bathroom did not improve Cara’s mood. “I could’ve lit the candles on a ninety-year-old’s birthday cake from all the sparks shooting around the pavilion yesterday.”
“That was Keith’s robotic heart short-circuiting.”
“You might be over him, but that man is definitely not over you. People make mistakes. Maybe he wants another chance.”
“Another chance to crush me beneath him as he rolls away again? Ha.”
Lord Almighty. Now she was replaying their conversations through her head. This morning on the beach, he’d been genuinely curious about her life. And okay, he always radiated that carnal come-hither, but more of it had wafted in her direction than she’d been willing to acknowledge.
“Honey, you’re a smart girl. Do the math.” Meredith leaned on the bathroom door frame. “He didn’t invite you here solely for your fantastic wedding dresses. Hell, I can slap some lace on a piece of satin and stick it on some starry-eyed bride. He wants the designer. Not the designs.”
“He can want until all the gears in his robotic heart rust. I have a brand-new lease on life and no man, especially not Keith Mitchell, is a part of the plan.” Cara elbowed past Meredith into the bathroom. “And for the crack about slapping lace on satin, you forfeit first dibs on the shower.”
Grumbling, Meredith conceded and shut the door behind her. Cara fumed as she stood under the jets.
So. The invitation was a veiled attempt to reconcile, was it? Shattered pieces of her life and her heart had taken a supreme amount of will to recover. There was no way on God’s green earth she’d consider forgiving Keith for walking out on her when she’d needed him most.
He was not husband material. Period.
She dressed for the day in her best heels and a flattering outfit—the modern-day woman’s equivalent to a full suit of armor.
As the Good Lord clearly felt she deserved a break, the elevator button lit up when she pressed it. A working elevator. About time.
Then the doors slid open to reveal the very man she least wanted to see.
Keith smiled and sizzled her toes with a heated glance at her Louboutin sandals. “Going down?”
“You first.” She waltzed in to stand right next to him because she was a professional. An elevator full of testosterone didn’t scare her. The idea Meredith had planted—about how Mr. Runaway Groom might be angling for a do-over—that put a curl of panic in the pit of her stomach.
Why, she didn’t know. There wasn’t a combination of words in any language he could utter that would make her crazy enough to try again. And to the best of her knowledge, Keith was fluent in five languages and could order beer in twelve more.
She stared at the crack where the two door panels met and pretended the tension hadn’t raised the hair on her arms. Keith’s heat instantly spread through the small box and started seeping through her pores. And she’d already been plenty hot and bothered. He was just so solid and powerful and...arrogant.
“Do you run every day?” Keith asked politely.
“Usually. You?” Oh, her mama would be so proud. Twenty-eight years of lessons on how to smile through the Apocalypse were paying off.
“I try to. It’s great for clearing my head.”
Cara bit back her first response—Is that what happened to your brain when you cooked up the idea of a second chance? “Oh?”
“It’s an opportunity to hone my focus for the day ahead.”
“Sorry I intruded this morning.”
Keith glanced at her but she didn’t take her eyes off the crack. “You didn’t. I enjoyed it.”
All this civility slicked the back of her throat. Why was it taking so long to reach the ground floor? The building was only five stories.
The elevator screeched to a halt, throwing Cara to her knees. Before she hit the carpet, the interior went black.
Of course. It wasn’t enough to be on a small island with Keith. Now they were trapped in an elevator together. In the dark.
“Are you okay?” Keith’s voice split the darkness from above her. Obviously he had superior balance in his flat shoes.
She eased back against the wall, wincing as her ankle started to ache. Twisted, no doubt. “Fine.”
A glow emanated from Keith’s hand. “Flashlight app.”
“Do you have a call-the-elevator-repairman app? That would be handy.”
“I’m texting the hotel manager as we speak.” He sank to the floor and leaned against the back wall, crossing his mile of legs gracefully. “At least there’s no chance we’ll plunge to our deaths. I think we’re stuck between the second and first floors.”
“Can we climb out the hatch through the top?”
Keith set his phone on the floor and glanced at the ceiling. “Maybe. I’d have to boost you up. Could you pry the doors apart on the second floor?”
“On second thought, let’s see how long it’ll take the manager to get someone here to fix it. The temperature in here is cooler than my room. So there’s that.”
“What’s wrong with your room?”
“Air conditioner is flaky.”
In the low glow of the phone, Keith’s frown was slightly menacing. “Why didn’t you report it to the manager?”
“Oh, is that what you’re supposed to do?” She pulled the sandal off her foot and massaged the offending ankle. Still hurt as if she’d stabbed it with a pair of shears. Well, if nothing else, now she had a good excuse to avoid jogging on the beach with a man who moved so fluidly it made her salivate. “I assume the manager called the same guy to repair it as the one who fixed the elevator. You’d think the consultant responsible for the whole show might have a better handle on this sort of thing.”
“My shows always go off without a hitch. Did you hurt yourself?”
“I’m fine.”
His phone beeped and he picked it up to tap through the message. “It’ll be about twenty minutes. Can you live with that or shall we try the escape hatch?”
Twenty minutes in the close confines of an elevator with her ex-fiancé. If he tried anything, she’d stab him with her heel. There was wood in a stiletto, wasn’t there? “I’ll wait. I didn’t have anything to do today besides lounge around at the pool.”
“Me either.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know. You’re the big man on campus. How come you’re not CEO of something by now? Too permanent?”
His sculpted lips pursed, and dang it if it didn’t set off a flutter to recall how masterfully that mouth could pleasure her body. The curse of celibacy. Her neglected body needed to catch a clue about how totally unattractive Keith Mitchell was.
Well, not on the outside, but on the inside, where it counted.
“I have no desire to be the CEO of anything,” he said. “I’m my own boss. I can pick my challenges and move on, instead of being mired in entrenched bureaucracy at a company long-term.”
Yep. Meredith had called it. At least Cara had found out about his allergy to commitment before she’d married him. But now she had a ton of other questions.
She should shut up. Being stuck in an elevator didn’t mean she had to say everything on her mind. “Just for morbid grins, once we’d gotten married, how long would it have taken you to develop the seven-year itch—six months?”
So apparently she did have to hash it out right this minute.
His crisp suit rustled as he shifted into a different position. “I let it go earlier, but let’s clear this up now. I didn’t leave you at the altar. I’m sure it’s more fun to tell the story that way. Gets you a lot more sympathy.”
She laughed but it rang hollow. “Semantics, Mitchell.”
“It’s not. I wouldn’t have subjected you to the public humiliation of walking down the aisle to an empty spot where I was supposed to be.”
“Well, bless your heart. I really appreciate you sparing me the humiliation of having to call off my wedding minutes before it started. Oh, wait. That is what happened. Fill me in on the part where you were acting noble.”
If this was a reconciliation attempt, he should stick to his non-long-term day job.
“Cara.” He heaved a sigh. “Timing aside, we weren’t meant to be. Our marriage would have been a disaster. Surely you’ve come to accept that during the last two years.”
“That was a lame excuse then and time hasn’t improved it. I needed you and you left.”
“You needed a wedding and a husband. Anyone with the proper equipment would’ve done. It just took me a while longer to wise up than it should have.”
“I was in love with you!” She curled her hand into a fist and imagined planting it right in his arrogant jaw. A girl could dream. Probably it would break her hand before it rearranged his pretty face.
“Right.” He smirked. “Just like I was in love with you.”
He didn’t believe her.
All vestiges of Southern grace evaporated as a snarl escaped her clamped lips. “Unlike you, I wasn’t getting married because of the baby. I was deluded enough to believe we were going to be a happy family.”
“That mythical happy family would have been a little difficult considering you lied about being pregnant.”
“What?” She shook her head but the roaring in her ears just swelled. “I didn’t lie about being pregnant.”
“You flashed a fake smile and said, ‘Guess what? False alarm.’ Convenient how you discovered it moments before the ceremony. That’s the reason I spared you the walk down the aisle, because you told me before instead of after.”
“False al—” She recoiled so hard, the back of her head smacked the wall. “I had a miscarriage, you son of a bitch.”
* * *
“A miscarriage?” Keith’s pulse stumbled and his lungs contracted. “How is that possible?”
“You’ve heard of the internet? Do a search.” Cara crossed her arms and looked away, but not before he caught the tremble of her lower lip in the phone’s glow.
That punched him in the gut. “On what planet does ‘false alarm’ mean a miscarriage instead of ‘not really pregnant’?”
The harsh tone had come out automatically. If he couldn’t keep better control over himself, he might check out the escape hatch regardless, which would be very difficult to maneuver with his foot in his mouth. But if she’d really been pregnant, everything he’d assumed about her, about their relationship—hell, maybe even about himself—was wrong.
“Planet Bride-Dealing-With-Whacked-Out-Hormones. It’s in the I-Get-A-Pass Galaxy. I didn’t want to ruin our special day with something so awful.” She muttered “Jerk” under her breath, but she didn’t cry.
It was a far tamer slur than the one he was calling himself. Miscarriage. He still couldn’t wrap his head around it. “You were really pregnant?”
“Guess you get to keep your genius status one more day.”
He was so far from a genius, he couldn’t even see the “stupid” line he’d crossed. His temples throbbed with tension and unrestrained nerves.
Miscarriage was the false alarm.
From the moment Cara told him about the pregnancy, he’d been so furious, with himself for not being more diligent about birth control, with how difficult it had been to come to terms with what needed to happen next—regardless of his intense desire to avoid matrimony—and with Cara’s happiness over a marriage he didn’t want.
Meredith had found him nursing his wounds the morning of the wedding and announced, “Cara needs to talk to you,” with such gravity.
He’d fallen on the words “false alarm” like a starving dog on a steak, and as a bonus, he assumed Cara had created a manipulation scheme. Then he’d settled into his role of martyr with ease.
He rubbed his eyes but it only made the sting worse and didn’t change what his vision had already told him—she was telling the truth. “At what point were you going to clarify this?”
“After the ceremony, when we were alone. Figured we could cry about it together and drown our sorrows in expensive champagne I could actually drink.” She cocked her head and the heat of her anger zinged through the elevator. “You thought I’d lied about being pregnant? How in all that’s holy can you believe I would do something so reprehensible?”
Keith ran a hand across the back of his clammy neck. This conversation was veering into a realm he did not care for. “How could you believe I’d walk out on you if I’d really understood what you meant? Why didn’t you stop me?”
Smooth. If she’d just give him a minute to collect his scattered wits, he might formulate a response that didn’t make him sound like a callous ass.
I’m so, so sorry. I should have asked more questions. I screwed up.
As always, he could no sooner force such emotionally laden words out of his mouth than he could force a watermelon into it.
“Because I knew, Keith! I could see the relief dripping from your expression. You never invested an ounce of effort into the wedding plans and I blew it off as typical guy hatred of flowers and musical selections. But you stood there, all calm and cool, telling me how we wouldn’t have worked out anyway. Miscarriage or false positive, it’s the same end. You were looking for an out and I handed it to you.”
You’re right. I was.
The exit had been calling his name before she’d dropped the pregnancy bomb that then tightened the noose with alarming haste. His first love was a job well done, completed by the sweat of his brow. He’d been fortunate his hard work over the years had resulted in a healthy bank account. Women typically wanted a piece of it. Providing a lavish lifestyle for an unambitious wife who wanted nothing more than to spend his money put Keith off the idea of tying himself permanently to any of them. Only an unexpected pregnancy could have turned the tide.