Chapter 28
Elijah stepped slightly in front of her, not rudely, but protectively.
“And you are?” he asked.
Nicholas ignored him.
“Katherine,” he said, voice trembling. “Come home with me. Please. I know I was wrong. I know it now. Come back with me.”
Katherine looked at him for a long, silent moment.
Then she said, “Mr. Padilla, you and I are already divorced. There is no home between us anymore.”
Her voice softened slightly when she turned toward Elijah.
“This is my fiancé, Elijah Grant.”
Fiancé.
The word landed like a knife between Nicholas’s ribs.
Elijah slid one arm around Katherine’s shoulders, possession and tenderness in the same motion.
“So you’re Nicholas Padilla,” he said mildly. “I’ve heard of you. The wedding is in three days. If you have time, you’re welcome to come have a drink.”
Nicholas’s vision darkened.
Before he could move, Grant family security appeared and blocked his path.
He could only stand there and watch Katherine walk away beside another man, never once looking back.
Elijah eventually had him brought inside—not out of kindness, but because he preferred this handled under his roof.
Over tea, he said flatly, “She’s my wife-to-be. Why are you chasing her?”
Nicholas looked like a ruined man.
“I love her,” he said. “I was blind. I was cruel. But I love her. Please. Give me one chance to explain.”
Elijah smiled faintly.
“Love? Is that what you call forcing her to lose her child? Abandoning her on a cliff? Offering her up for punishment in place of another woman?”
Nicholas went rigid.
“How do you know all that?”
Elijah’s gaze sharpened.
“Because I knew her long before you ever deserved her. I loved her before you knew what you held in your hands. I watched her wear herself thin for you. I watched you break her piece by piece. When I heard she had fallen from that cliff, I wanted to tear the world apart looking for her.”