“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 Garrett protected Kate from raindrops and hail, from snow and heat, from kittens with claws and barking dogs. He even protected her from bankruptcy by ensuring the family always had a catering “event” around the corner. But Kate did not want a father.
She’d had one, the best one, and he was gone.
Garrett couldn’t replace him; nobody could.
“He’s not going to be pleased when he learns, Kate,” Julian warned her.
Kate nodded in silence, watching Garrett’s mother walk up to him. The elderly woman said something he didn’t seem to find particularly pleasant to hear, and a frown settled on his handsome face as he listened.
If only she didn’t love that stubborn moron so very, very much...
“Lately he’s not pleased about anything,” Kate absently said. She remembered the times she’d caught him looking at her with a black scowl during the family events, and just couldn’t see why he seemed so bothered with her. “And I don’t want him to stop me.”
Her father’s job had been to protect the Gages. And he had. But somehow, with his death, the family had ended up feeling like they should protect Kate.
They’d made her feel welcome and appreciated for almost two decades. But after receiving so much for so long and giving back so little, Kate felt indebted to the family in a way that made her desperate to prove to them, to all of them, that she was an independent woman now. Especially to Garrett.
“Fair enough. Sunny Florida it is,” Julian agreed.
He had always been the easiest to talk to. There was a reason everyone, possibly every female at this party other than Kate, had a little crush on Julian John.
He seized her hand and kissed her knuckles, his eyes sparkling. “I guess this means we’ll be buying a beach house next door.”
She laughed at that, but then sobered. “Julian. You will take care of Molly for me, won’t you?”
His eyes warmed at the mention of his soon-to-be wife. “Ah, Kate, I’d die for my girl. You know that.”
Kate gave him a smile that told him silently but plainly how much she adored him for that. Witnessing their love for each other and how it had started out of friendship had been surprising and inspiring, and yet also heartbreaking for Kate. She loved seeing her sister so happy, but couldn’t help wish...
Wish Garrett would look at her in the way Julian looked at Molly.
Stupid, blind Garrett.
Blind to the fact that the little girl who’d grown up with him had become a woman.
Blind to the fact that she would gladly be his woman.
And even blinder to the fact that before he could say yay or nay, Kate Devaney was moving to Florida.
* * *
“What do you mean, Katie’s moving to Florida?”
Stunned, Garrett stared in disbelief at his mother, his date and business associate completely forgotten at his side.
“Only what I meant. Little Katie’s moving to Florida. And no, there’s nothing we can do about it. I already tried. And hi there,” she said to the blonde pouting at his side. “What did you say your name was?”
“Cassandra