Kat’s bedside phone rang at 10:27 Monday morning while she lay there contemplating the ornate crown molding around the ceiling and thinking about the fact that it was the day before Christmas and she didn’t care. She let the machine pick up.
“Hi, you’ve reached Katherine Peale’s answering machine. Sorry I’m not in to take your call right now, but if you’d like to leave a message, just wait for the beep.”
Beep.
“Kat, it’s me again.”
Jack. Kat closed her eyes.
“You’re probably getting sick of me leaving these messages,” he said. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, you don’t want my explanations or apologies. You’ve written me off, and I guess I can’t blame you, but I need you to know that I . . .”
He sighed. “Look, it’s hard to say these things to a machine, and your doorman won’t let me up. I was hoping I’d see you at Augusta House yesterday. Nobody could believe you didn’t want to help decorate. Chantal and Pia wanted to know what was wrong, if something had happened between you and me. I said they’d have to ask you.”
They had. Other than confirming that she and Jack had parted ways, she’d basically stonewalled them.
“I don’t want you to have to miss the party tomorrow just ’cause you’re afraid I’ll be there,” he said, “so I’ve decided not to go. But Kat, please meet with me. Or at least return my calls. I’m dying here.”
Why was he doing this? Why go to this trouble to prolong their acquaintance? He’d done what he’d been hired to do; he’d broken up her relationship with Preston. His “generous reward” was in the bag. Why should it matter what she thought of him?
“Kat, I do care for you,” he said with such fulsome sincerity that she was almost tempted to believe him. “What happened between us, it wasn’t about the money. I mean, in the beginning it was, but you’ve got to believe me when I say it became . . . more than that. A lot more. Celeste . . . she did call yesterday, and I told her she can keep her fifty grand. I don’t want it.”
He didn’t want the fifty grand. Why wouldn’t he want . . .?
“Of course,” Kat whispered when it dawned on her. Why should Jack settle for a mere fifty thousand dollars when Katherine Peale was presumably worth millions? She’d already proven herself to be pathetically susceptible to the Jack O’Leary brand of charisma. If he were to con her into forgiving him, he might be able to wheedle himself back into her life, her bed . . . maybe even marriage. Marriage to an heiress, pre-nup or no pre-nup, would trump fifty grand any day.
“Kat . . . honey.” He sounded convincingly anguished. “Look into your heart. What happened between us Saturday night . . . you know it was real.”
She reached for the phone, propped it against her ear.
He was saying, “How could I have just been pretending—”
“Save your breath, Jack.”
“Kat? Kat! Honey, listen to—”
“I’m not rich, Jack.”
“What? Kat—”
“I used to be, and most people assume I still am. But I burned out my trust fund and inheritance on Augusta House, which is why I’m having to go hat in hand to people like the Livermores in order to get Caring for Families off the ground.”
“I don’t—”
“I live on rental income from this place, which might sound like a lot on paper, but it’s an expensive building to maintain. I mean, I do okay. I’m comfortable. I’ve got this great apartment, and some old jewelry of my grandmother’s, but that’s about it. So you might rethink giving back that fifty grand, ’cause if you think you’re going to strike gold with me, think again. That vein played out a while ago.”
“Kat—”
“Goodbye, Jack. And please stop calling.”
“Kat, don’t hang—”
She hung up. And waited for the phone to ring again.
It didn’t. He must have stopped to consider what she’d told him, which was no more or less than the truth—or had been for the past year or two, at any rate. For the most part, Kat let people assume she was still loaded for the sake of Augusta House and CFF. Money attracts money, as Grandma Augusta used to say. The illusion of vast wealth made her a much more effective fund-raiser. But it also tended to make her a magnet to the wrong kind of man. Was the trade-off worth it? Usually.
It was almost noon by the time she dragged her sorry butt out of bed. Jack’s yellow oxford shirt, which she’d had on for some thirty-eight hours, was creased and rumpled. And it still smelled like him. She should take it off.
She didn’t. She pulled on the sweatpants she’d tossed on the floor last night and finger-scraped her lank hair back in a rubber band. Her reflection in the mirror was pretty scary. “It’s the hap-hap-happiest time of the year,” she informed it.
She should really shower. She should probably eat something, too. Instead, she went downstairs to the den, lay down on the couch and grabbed the remote. It was one of those shrill courtroom shows, but she watched it anyway, and then the noontime news and a battery of soaps. The boy-loses-girl storylines kept reminding her of her own romantic melodrama.
Look into your heart . . . You know it was real.
When the news came on again at five, Kat turned off the TV, went to the closet by the front door, and searched the pockets of her trench coat until she unearthed the crumpled-up printout for the Inn at Aspen’s Web site. Flopping back down on the couch, she lifted the phone from the end table, dialed the hotel and asked for the Worths’ room. As it was ringing, it occurred to her that Preston might answer. If so, she’d hang up and try again later.
Luckily, it was his wife who picked up. “Hello.”
“Mrs. Worth? This is Katherine Peale. There’s something I’d like to ask you.”