Carol beamed as she grabbed the newly minted key card from the register. “Beautiful inside and out. She really is a sweetheart. Honestly.”
Here’s someone else who thinks she’s nice. Tack had interviewed every person he could find who knew Cate, down to her high school algebra teacher. They all said the same thing—about how sweet she was. Still, people could be fooled. Besides, what sweet person would take a son away from his father? It didn’t make sense.
“Are you single?” Carol asked, glancing at Tack’s empty ring finger.
“You running a matchmaking service?” Tack joked, and Carol grinned.
“Maybe.” Carol sighed. “I just want Cate to be happy. She’s been very—” she hesitated “—unlucky.”
“Her husband dying.”
Carol hesitated a beat too long.
“Right.” Carol nodded. She kept her eyes fixed on the computer screen in front of her.
“Sometimes feeling normal again takes a while,” he added. “My dad died when I was twelve, and it took me years to get over it.”
Instant pity registered on Carol’s face, and her mothering instincts seemed to take over. “Oh, you poor thing.”
“Bad things happen sometimes.” He shrugged. “If I did want to get to know her better...” Tack let the insinuation linger. “What would you suggest?”
Carol’s eyes brightened. “Well, dinner for guests starts at seven, but Cate...she always eats in the dining room around six.” Carol lowered her voice and leaned over the counter. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Hear what? You told me what time dinner was, but darned if I just couldn’t remember.” They both shared a little laugh. “I’ll just be early to be on the safe side,” Tack said, exchanging a conspiratorial grin with Carol.
“I like you already,” Carol said, and handed him his room key.
HE’S GONE. MAYBE I can avoid him for the coming week he’s here, Cate thought as she watched Tack’s tall, lean form leave the lobby and felt a little breath of relief escape her. Something about him... And it wasn’t just his intelligent eyes and capable hands, either. Something about him just screamed trouble. Just because she went all gooey in his arms didn’t mean she ought to ignore her instincts. They’ve got me this far. I’ll need to keep my guard up. Cate almost laughed to herself. When did she ever let her guard down? She’d chosen a life where she now had to look over her shoulder every day. But it was better than the life she had with Rick. There was no doubt in her mind about that.
“Did you hear me?” Mark asked her as he drew her attention back to him. “We’re in the red, Cate. Big time. I’m not sure how we’re going to keep the lights on next month if we don’t get more guests here.”
Cate sighed. This was becoming nearly a daily conversation with Mark. “I know.”
“We need to do more marketing,” Mark insisted, tapping his open palm. “More Yelp. More social media.”
“No.” It came out harsher sounding than she intended. “And you know why.”
And he did. Mark had been there almost from the beginning of her escape. He was the one who got her a fake passport, who snuck her out of the country.
Cate had met Mark by chance at one of the big charity galas Rick so liked to attend. Her ex always wanted everyone to think he was so generous, so magnanimous. Cate remembered watching Rick from the corner of the elegantly appointed hotel ballroom, sipping a glass of expensive champagne, thinking about how she felt like she was suffocating.
“You’re mine,” he’d said in the limo ride over. He’d clutched at her arm in the back seat, his hand a metal cuff, his fingers digging into her flesh like teeth. “You and my son. Don’t you ever forget it.”
How could she ever? He treated his wife and son like possessions, toys that belonged to him, to do with as he pleased. To the outside world, he was the reclusive billionaire, the mysterious genius who’d turned over one amazing land deal after another but never granted an interview. But no one knew the dark, brooding, insecure man like Cate did. No one knew how much he secretly drank, how hard he worked to make the small, elite circle who did know him think he was charming, how desperate he was to keep things in his control. The lengths he’d go to make sure they stayed that way.
When she’d first met him, she thought he’d just loved her more than anyone else had loved her. He was dogged in his pursuit, determined to have her, and she’d been flattered. That was the truth of it. At first, she thought his intense interest was a compliment, a testament to his love. She never dreamed it would become so twisted.
Then, inexplicably, there at the ball, watching him surrounded by a small circle of admirers and sycophants, watching him pretend to be the man he wasn’t, she felt sick to her stomach. She’d glanced at herself in a mirrored column and saw to her dismay a bruise blooming on her upper arm. She realized she’d sweated off some of her concealer, and it was the middle of the summer so she wore no wrap for her sleeveless gown. How could she be so stupid? She felt exposed and desperate to cover it up.
“Are you all right?” Carol had asked, a woman she didn’t even know, with her husband by her side, a sympathetic look on his face.
It was that small act of kindness that underlined just how long it had been since someone was kind and considerate, that broke her. She started to lose it. Her hands shook. Tears sprung to her eyes, and tears would only wash away the caked concealer she’d used to cover the fading bruise on her cheek. Cate remembered Carol had somehow steered her to the bathroom. How she’d remarked on the bruise on her arm. “I don’t think you’re all right at all,” she’d said. “How can I help?”
She’d graciously accepted Carol’s tissues but told her she’d be fine.
“Here,” Carol had said, handing her a business card with their Caribbean address. The two had been in town only for the charity event, one they attended every year. “My husband used to be a lawyer. We can help you. When...it’s the right time.”
It was only a few months later, when everything went so terribly wrong, so out of control, that she reached out to them for help. She’d be eternally grateful they answered the call. She felt someone up there was looking out for her that night. A chance encounter with kind strangers would save her life. Yet even now, three years later, she was still scared, still worried that it wasn’t over.
“I know this doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I know we should do more advertising...but...”
“You’re scared.” Mark always seemed to know what she was thinking. “There’s no link to your old life. I made sure of that,” Mark said. She knew he was right. Before he retired early and moved his family to the Caribbean, Mark had spent his career helping clients set up shell companies so they could hide things they didn’t want found. But Rick Allen was never one to take no for an answer. He always used to say you don’t build a billion-dollar empire by giving up. How many different ways had he told her the Allen family didn’t have quit in their blood?
After what she’d done to him... After how she’d left him...
She shuddered. No, he’d never give up. Not now.
“We don’t have to use pictures of you. We could find a way to advertise this without...putting you out there. We have to do something.”
“I know. I know we do.” Cate felt the sudden weight on her shoulders. If they didn’t make this resort work, then what? Cate had pawned the jewelry she felt couldn’t be traced back to her. But she still had the quarter-million-dollar