“All right,” she repeated, but they both knew she would follow up on it. She had to. He would understand that... eventually.
“What do you need me to do?” she asked.
“What you are doing. Keep Wesson out of our way and off our tracks.”
As if getting Colt to do anything was that easy. “I’ll do my best. But with the rear admiral not a suspect anymore, I don’t know how long I can keep him from getting on a plane to Russia.”
“Well, then, let’s hope this fishing expedition Donovan is on catches something big.”
Kate stayed for a little while longer, but eventually she had to say good-bye. Scott was getting things lined up for tomorrow, and Percy was waiting. They had some talking to do. Some talking that she might have put off for too long but that she couldn’t put off anymore.
•••
The shock was like a punch to the gut. A sucker punch, hitting Colt when he wasn’t expecting it.
Though why the hell he hadn’t expected it, he didn’t know. She’d done it to him, hadn’t she? Lord Percy wasn’t even married to her yet and she was already cheating on him.
Called back into work, my ass. Colt had seen her face after that phone call. He’d seen the elation. The eagerness. He’d known she was lying.
She was meeting someone.
So he’d followed her. She’d dropped him off, and he’dhopped in a cab and followed her. Even when she’d handed her keys to the valet and practically ran into the lobby to the elevator, he hadn’t wanted to believe it.
He’d nearly missed the little lovers’ reunion. He’d had to wait to see what floor she stopped on, and then, at the last second, some asshole jumped in the elevator he was holding open, causing the closing doors to reopen. Colt had stopped him before he pushed a button on four—two floors lower than the sixth, where she’d gotten off.
Colt walked out of the elevator just in time to look down the hall and see her launch herself into the arms of a man who’d obviously been waiting for her. Colt didn’t get a good look at him; he’d closed the door behind them too quickly, as if he couldn’t wait to...
Anger seethed through Colt’s veins. Why the hell was he so upset? This had nothing to do with him. He knew she was a liar. Nothing new there.
Almost five months old.
She’d probably been lying about that, too. Hadn’t she?
But what if she hadn’t? What if the baby she’d lost had been his, just as he’d thought that entire, hideous plane ride across the country after he’d learned that she’d been in a car accident. When he’d stupidly vowed to do anything to repair the wreck that their marriage had become. When he’d told himself he would give her the benefit of the doubt and ignore what every sign—the secret e-mails and meetings, the whispered calls, the unexplained absences, the flushed cheeks and heartfelt stares she thought he didn’t see, and then the final blow, discovering they’d both been in DC together—pointed to: that she was having an affair with Taylor.
But all those signs were corroborated when he’d arrived at the hospital and was told that her husband, the father of her child, was already with her and talking to the doctor. Colt still wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen with his own two eyes the way Taylor was holdingher in his arms. Lying next to her in that hospital bed as if he belonged there.
Comforting her.
Loving her.
Would it make a difference if the baby had been Colt’s? Would it change anything?
When she’d told him earlier, it had felt as if the rug had been pulled out from under his feet and he was looking around for something to stand on.
He’d found it when the door opened to the hotel room.
Whether the baby was his didn’t change the fact that she’d cheated on him. And now, apparently, on the ambassador.
Colt shouldn’t have stayed. He should have gone back to his own hotel and drunk himself into oblivion there. Not sat there hunched over on a barstool in the lobby bar, drinking whiskey and waiting for the elevator door to open two hours later. Even then he could have let her go. Let her walk away oblivious to what he’d learned.
But he’d never been very good at doing what he should where Kate was concerned.
She’d taken only a few steps out of the elevator before he was in front of her.
She gasped. “Colt!”
Taking advantage of her surprise—and the fact that she was trying to back away from him—he maneuvered her back into the elevator.
