Bad Engagement (Billionaire's Club #10) - Elise Faber Page 0,59

realized it wasn’t the case or the clinic, or the devastated owner.

This was about Kate.

She hadn’t texted back earlier.

And when he sent her a message, saying he was caught at the clinic, would still be several hours, she didn’t respond to that one either.

Nor did she pick up his call when he got out of surgery and washed up, having finished up with his other clients and sent his techs home.

It was just him and Roger, the lab mix, whose prognosis was good, but who was loopy and needed more fluids before his owner could come and take him home. Pushing the sinking feeling away, he called his client, told her the good news.

Then he called Kate again.

And again, she didn’t answer.

The knot in his stomach grew, and his fingers flew across the keyboard. He had the distinct notion that the woman he loved was slipping away, and he didn’t know why . . . or how to keep her.

Don’t close the door, Red.

No response.

“Fuck,” he muttered, closing his eyes, and sliding down the wall.

Roger’s tail thumped once on the floor.

“Good boy,” he said gently.

He sat and waited, and as each minute passed without a reply from Kate, his heart sank further.

He was losing her, and he had no clue how to stop it.

Twenty-Two

Kate

She hadn’t cried, knew that would come later.

For now, she wrapped Jaime’s presents and shoved them under the tree.

Maybe she’d burn them later.

All that lace would make for a nice flame.

For now, she was digging a giant hole in the back yard. The front was pretty much set, and it wasn’t like she could add any more bulbs than she already had. It was December and too cold to plant much else.

Maybe she’d buy a huge tree.

Then bury the ashes of her lingerie in it.

“Fucking asshole men,” she muttered, still digging. Her T-shirt soaked with sweat, though it was barely above forty—and that was cold for California, okay? She was in old, baggy jeans, had dirt covering her hands and arms, and she suspected, her cheeks. But she didn’t stop digging, not even when the sun went down and it got colder, the impact of the shovel stinging her palms. “Fucking. Asshole. Cheating. Asshole. Fucking. Asshole. Men,” she said, the metal blade reverberating through the ground with each grunted-out word.

“It might take you a while to dig that hole big enough if you’re trying to bury my body.”

Silken male words.

And she was pissed, but not pissed enough to miss the caution underlying the attempt at a joke.

Well, no. Charming wasn’t going to work with her. Nope. No fucking way.

She turned back to her hole and kept digging.

Soft footsteps. “Did you not see my call? My texts?”

Oh, she’d seen them. Meaningless words from a fucking cheating asshole. God, remembering how it felt to see him lie to her from fifty feet away, seeing him dismiss her so easily, it made her already broken heart hurt even more.

But she wasn’t a weakling.

She stabbed the shovel into the dirt and spun to face him.

“How was the mall?” she snapped, crossing her arms and glaring up at him.

Clarity on his face, silence falling. But he didn’t deny he’d been there, with that woman. “It’s not what you think.”

Damn. Dammit all to hell.

The idiotic part of her that had been holding on to some random slice of hope—that he had an identical twin who was dating a gorgeous brunette, or something equally ridiculous—shriveled up and died.

She turned, returned to digging her hole.

Maybe she would make it big enough to bury him.

“Go home, Jaime.”

“No.”

Fury tore through her, and she whipped around to face him. “You’re just like all the rest of them. I trusted you,” she shouted. “I let you in, let you see parts of me that no one else has ever been able to, and y-you—”

Eyes burning, she spun back to the hole.

“Kate.”

“No!” She scooped up a pile of dirt and threw it at him.

It landed with a soft smack against his chest, turning his white T-shirt black in the harsh glow of the floodlights she had shining.

“You’re a liar!” she screamed.

“Yes,” he said.

Fucking asshole. Fucking asshole. Kate shook her head and got back to her hole. But just when the tip of the shovel made contact with the dirt, it was pulled from her hand and tossed aside.

“I was at the mall,” he said, tugging her against his chest. The smell of the damp earth filled her nose.

“I know.” She shoved, tried to wriggle out of his hold.

He held fast.