Every Breath You Take (35 page)

“I will not let him stand trial without the best defense we can provide.”

“I’m not asking you to forgo that. I’m asking you to let him face up to what he’s done, now, not two years from now.”

Cecil hesitated again, and then he finally nodded.

“One more thing,” Gray said as he stood up. “How did Edward die? He called you an hour before he went off the balcony. You said you talked about a meeting that you were both supposed to attend the next morning. But that’s not what happened, or you’d have wondered if Mitchell ‘helped’ him over the railing.”

Standing up, Cecil put an end to the unpleasant confrontation. “He was drunk, as usual, and he told me he wanted to say good-bye, that he couldn’t bear his life another day. I told him what I always said when he called me like that. I told him to get a grip on himself. I didn’t know he was serious this time. I’d been listening to his disgusting whining for so long I’d ceased paying attention to it.”

K
ATE PUT TWO MUGS OF STEAMING HOT CHOCOLATE ON
a tray beside a huge bowl of liberally buttered popcorn—the traditional fare for the winter movie nights she and Holly enjoyed a couple of times each month.

Carrying the tray, Kate sidled around Max, who was lying on the living room floor in front of the coffee table. Holly looked up from the cabinet next to the television, where she was flipping through the selection of chick flicks that were the staple of their movie nights. Holding up her favorite movie, she said brightly, “How about
An Affair to Remember?”

“No thanks. I just had one of those, and I’m trying to forget.”

Holly grinned at the quip and turned back to the movies in the cabinet. “I still can’t believe what a total bastard Wyatt was at that benefit.”

Kate couldn’t believe it either. That night it had been obvious that Mitchell thoroughly despised her, which could only mean he’d despised her all along, even when he was making love to her in St. Maarten.

“He’s sick,” Holly said, putting Kate’s thoughts into words.

“Either that,” Kate replied, trying to make light of it, “or he’s a little testy about being treated with amusement.” Changing the subject to the movie for the evening, she said, “How about
The Wedding Date?”

“Not unless you promise not to keep rewinding it
when we get to that dancing scene where Michael Bublé sings ‘Sway.’”

“Okay, that’s a deal.”

Holly started the movie and joined Kate on the sofa. They sat in silence for a minute, afghans over their legs, their feet clad in thick socks and propped side by side on the coffee table. “I’m going to miss our movie nights,” Holly said, helping herself to a handful of popcorn from the bowl between them.

“What do you mean?” Kate replied, reaching for the mug of hot chocolate on the lamp table beside her.

“I mean that I can’t picture myself sitting between you and Evan on movie night, holding the popcorn. Have you set a date yet?”

Kate shook her head. “We’re not even sleeping together yet.”

“Why not? You’ve been back for three weeks.”

“We both agreed it was going to take us some time to get over what I did in St. Maarten and make a fresh start.”

Holly looked at her in disbelief. “Are you telling me he hasn’t wanted to mark his territory since then?”

“You’re making me sound like a fire hydrant,” Kate said, rolling her eyes. She took a sip of hot chocolate, swallowed, and put the mug down.

“Are you sure he isn’t punishing you a little by staying away from you?”

“No, he isn’t. In fact, last night he took me out to dinner, and he told me he wanted to come back here afterward and spend the night with me. But—”

“But?”

“But partway through dinner, I started feeling really nauseated. In fact, I’m feeling sort of queasy now. I’ve been feeling that way for days, and I’m exhausted all the time. All I want to do is sleep.”

“Stress can really weaken your immune system and
screw up your body. By the way, how are things going at the restaurant?”

“The staff is patronizing me, which is not surprising, as the only one younger than me is a busboy. Other than that, it’s too soon to tell. Let’s watch our movie.”

“K
ATE, DR. COOPER HAS YOUR TEST RESULTS.”

Kate looked up and smiled at Bonnie Cooper’s receptionist. Bonnie was a friend of Holly’s and she’d been Kate’s gynecologist for years. After examining Kate, Bonnie had ordered a few tests to be done in the office, and she’d asked Kate to wait in the waiting room.

“That was quick,” Kate told Bonnie, sitting down on the opposite side of her desk.

Bonnie Cooper opened Kate’s file. “I don’t have the results of all your tests, but there’s no need to wait for them. This test tells me exactly why you’re feeling queasy and sleepy.”

“What’s the answer?”

“You’re pregnant.”

Kate half rose out of her chair; then she relaxed and smiled. “There’s a mistake, Bonnie. You must have mixed my tests up with another patient’s. I haven’t missed taking a single birth control pill in months.”

“The pill isn’t one hundred percent effective for everyone.”

“It’s been one hundred percent effective for me. Evan—my fiancé—and I have been together for almost four years, and I’ve never gotten pregnant.”

“Have you taken any antibiotics in the last two months? Some of them can interfere with the birth control pill’s effectiveness.”

“I know that, but I haven’t taken any antibiotics. I haven’t taken anything except some migraine medicine a doctor prescribed for me in St. Maarten.”

Bonnie reached for a book lying on the corner of her desk. “I don’t know of any migraine medicine that interferes with the pill. What was the name of it? I’ll look it up.”

“I can’t remember,” Kate said, frowning, “but it’s on the tip of my tongue …”

“While you’re trying to remember, tell me if you had sexual intercourse with anyone other than your fiancé in the last four years.”

Kate hesitated, resenting the fact that she had to acknowledge Mitchell Wyatt’s existence. “Yes, last month. But what difference does that make?”

“There’s always the possibility that you’re one of the tiny percentage of women the pill doesn’t protect, and the reason you haven’t gotten pregnant before last month is that your fiancé’s sperm isn’t viable.”

Kate suddenly remembered the first part of the migraine medicine’s name. “It was butal-something. That’s the name of the prescription the doctor in St. Maarten gave me.”

Bonnie frowned. “It wasn’t butalbital, was it?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Didn’t he ask you if you were taking birth control pills?”

“He asked me if I was trying to have children, and I said no. Actually, the doctor only spoke French, but the cabdriver spoke some English, so he translated for both of us. The doctor told the cabdriver to tell me I was probably having migraines.”

“Why didn’t you go to a hospital instead of to a local doctor?”

“And spend hours waiting for someone to see me? Bonnie, my head was exploding. I’d been throwing up
from the pain on the way down to St. Maarten. I just wanted someone to give me something to stop the pain. I didn’t
care
what language they spoke. Besides, he wasn’t a witch doctor. His office was in his home, but it was very nice and he had well-dressed patients waiting to see him.”

“Well, something got lost in the cabdriver’s translation, then. He must have asked the cabdriver to find out if you were trying
not
to have children.”

“What difference does all this make?” Kate said defensively, but she already knew. God help her, she already knew …

“Butalbital is very effective at treating, and preventing, severe headaches. However, it also interferes with the effectiveness of oral contraceptives. When a woman taking birth control pills uses butalbital, she needs to add another form of birth control to protect herself while she’s taking it.”

The room started to spin and Kate bent forward, her arms crossed over her stomach, trying to steady herself.

“Do you know for certain who the father is?”

Kate looked up at Bonnie. In the three weeks following her father’s death she hadn’t wanted to make love; that was part of the reason Evan had been so insistent about taking her away for a Caribbean holiday.

She was pregnant with Mitchell Wyatt’s baby.

A wave of hysteria welled up inside her, combining with dizziness and nausea, and Kate clutched the edge of Bonnie’s desk. “Oh, yes,” she said bitterly. “I know who the father is.”

“K
ATE, IT’S ME!”
H
OLLY CALLED, LETTING HERSELF IN THE
front door of Kate’s house with the key she’d used to look after the cats while Kate was in the islands. Max ran up to greet her, tail wagging.

“A fine watchdog you are,” she teased, absently patting his big head, but she was worried. Kate’s car was in the driveway, the windows covered in a half inch of snow, which meant she’d been home awhile that evening, but she wasn’t answering her phone and the house was dark. Yesterday, she’d found out she was pregnant, and she’d decided to tell Evan about it earlier today, rather than waiting a few days to think things through as Holly had advised. Kate had, however, planned to take Holly’s suggestion about going to Evan’s office and telling him there, where he couldn’t make a scene.

“Kate?”

“In the living room,” Kate called. She turned on a lamp and hastily shoved aside the pillow she’d been clutching to her while she stared numbly into the dark. “I fell asleep,” she lied. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Sure,” Holly said.

“What time is it?” Kate asked

“A little after six.”

Swinging her legs off the sofa, Kate got up and headed for the kitchen with Holly trailing behind. “I
have to change clothes and go to work. I should have been at the restaurant two hours ago.”

As she started spooning coffee into the coffeemaker, Holly walked over to the cupboard and took out two mugs. “Did it go okay with Evan today?”

In answer, Kate held out her left hand, which was now devoid of an engagement ring. “I didn’t really expect it to go well,” she said in a carefully expressionless voice as she filled the coffee carafe with water. “After all, I went there to tell him his fiancée was pregnant by another man who he happens to despise. But—”

“But what?” Holly persisted.

Bracing her hands on the sink, Kate let her head fall forward while she watched the water level rise in the carafe. “But I never imagined it could go as
badly
as it did. He turned pale when I first told him, but then he recovered and even put his arm around me and told me it wasn’t my fault, that Mitchell had made a victim out of both of us. He said we could undo the damage and go on with our lives like it never happened.”

“What went wrong?”

“I told him I wasn’t sure I could go through with an abortion.”

“Then what happened?”

“He completely lost it,” Kate said tonelessly. Belatedly realizing the carafe was overflowing, she turned the water tap off and filled the coffeemaker with fresh water; then she flipped the switch on. “Did you ever wonder how a calm, even-tempered man like Evan could possibly intimidate anyone in court?”

“I’ve wondered why everyone thinks he’s such a good attorney. Turn around and talk to me,” Holly said, putting her hands on Kate’s shoulders and forcing her to turn.

“Well, you don’t have to wonder anymore,” Kate said, swallowing audibly. “This afternoon, I got a dose
of what it must be like to be cross-examined by him. He started out making quick, deep cuts with a scalpel about little things I’ve done over the years that he put up with, and then he got out the hacksaw. By the time he was done, he was calling me names and shouting at me so loud that everyone on that floor must have heard him. Finally, he told me to get out and never come back.”

“That hypocrite! Don’t think for a minute he’s been faithful to you for the past four years. There have been plenty of rumors about him.”

Turning away, Kate reached for the sugar bowl and two spoons. “Those were just rumors. I’m the one who’s guilty and dirty, not him.”

“Am I right that he would have been willing to continue ‘putting up with you’ if you’d agreed to have an abortion?”

“Yep. Definitely,” Kate replied, trying to be flippant and sounding haunted instead. “In fact, at times I had the feeling he actually thought an abortion would be a suitable form of payback—Mitchell’s baby in return for the insult to Evan’s and my pride.”

“He doesn’t care about your pride. This is about the Bartlett pride. I’ll bet he’d have been a lot less affronted if you’d gotten knocked up by someone he regarded as his social equal.”

Kate almost, but not quite, smiled at that.

“I’ve told you for years that Evan has two sides—”

“Don’t,” Kate said, turning back to the counter. “I despise the way he treated me, and I wouldn’t go back to him after today if he begged me to, but he was crushed. I wounded him in Anguilla when I told him what I’d done, but today I devastated him.”

In silence, they sat at the kitchen table, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. Kate gave Holly a mug of it and handed her the sugar bowl; then she picked up
her own mug and started for the bedroom. “I hate to leave you here, but I have to get dressed and go to work.”

“No, you don’t. You’ve been working until midnight every night since you got back from Anguilla.”

“I was off two nights ago for our movie night.”

“That was Sunday, and the restaurant was closed. The restaurant can run itself for one night.”

Kate turned, looked at the coffee mug she was holding, then she looked at Holly and said in angry misery, “I’m so sleepy because I’m pregnant that I can hardly stand up, and I’m pregnant because I actually thought I was in love with a man who turned out to be a ruthless, depraved monster. If there is a God, I will miscarry!” Kate said, and then the dam broke, and she wept in Holly’s arms. “Even if I wanted to have a baby right now, I’d be terrified of the kind of genes this baby could have inherited from its father. He’s a m-monster!”