Page 6 of Worth the Vow

“No.” I know exactly who she’s referring to. Kate Reynolds, my almost-cousin. How can someone be an almost-cousin? Her half-brothers are my cousins, through our mothers, but she’s their half-sister on their dad’s side, thus no relation to me.

“Dominic.”

“No, Mother.”

“Oh, don’t you ‘Mother’ me, Dominic Andrea,” she snaps. Even in my thirties, I know I’m in big trouble when she middle-names me.

“I don’t like her, Mom.”

“You don’t even know her.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, whose fault is that? Whenever she’s around, you find a reason not to be. You’ve gone out of your way to be as unwelcoming as possible to her. She’s family, Dominic.” Mom watches me with her hands on her hips, clearly aggravated with my immediate refusal to hire Kate.

“No, she isn’t.” Because I sometimes like to antagonize her, I put my hands on my hips as well, mirroring her perfectly.

“She might as well be family. Everyone treats her as such. Everyone but you.” Mom’s eyes narrow as they drop to my hips. “And you better watch your attitude. I have no problem calling your father.”

Ignoring her threat, I soldier on. “Can’t she get more hours at the hotel?” I don’t know why I say this. I know how many employees we have, and how much overhead we can fiddle with. It was tight this past year because we had one of the snowiest winters on record, which led to the most cancellations on record for the hotel. Our cancellation policy is rather lax, unfortunately, but something we’ve never held is a steadfast non-refundable policy. And frankly, I hate driving on Colorado mountain roads in the snow, so I don’t judge out-of-towners who don’t want to do it either.

“You know we don’t have the money to give her more hours. I’d do it if I could,” Mom says quietly. Once I took on more managerial tasks, Mom stepped in as the concierge manager. She’s mostly in charge of training new employees, and only works a few hours per week. “Kate needs help, Dom. She’s struggling. There are hardly any jobs in town, and she’s thinking about moving out of state where it will be cheaper to live.”

Shit. I may not want to be around Kate, but I do have a conscience.

“Does she have any childcare experience?” I ask with an exaggerated sigh.

Mom smiles victoriously, knowing she’s reeled me in. “She babysat growing up, and she took a couple child development classes at the community college in Denver before she became her mom’s sole caregiver. When her mom died, she didn’t have the money, or time, to go back to school.”

And now I feel even worse.

I knew Kate’s mom passed away a few years ago, but I didn’t know Kate was her caregiver. I’ve managed to avoid learning anything about Kate for as long as possible. The less I knew, the better. I could pretend she didn’t exist that way.

The first time I saw Kate, she was standing at the entrance to the hotel, and I literally stopped dead in my tracks. Light brown hair down to her waist had streaks of blue in it, and a gust of wind blew it haphazardly around her face as she threw her head back and laughed loudly at something my cousin Matt said. I knew Matt had met someone, courtesy of my brother Luca, but I thought Matt’s woman was older than him. This vision in front of me was definitely younger. Quite a bit younger than me. A wave of jealousy overtook me, until someone else walked in with two little girls in tow, and slid her arm around Matt’s waist.

When Matt introduced me to Victoria, and her daughters, I couldn’t tear my eyes off of Kate. When he finally introduced her as his half-sister, I remember holding onto her hand and not wanting to let go. It was the oddest sensation, one that both intrigued and disgusted me simultaneously. I didn’t want to feel this pull toward Kate. I’d been burned, and I vowed never to let another woman anywhere close to my heart.

“So this is the elusive Dominic,” she had said, her eyes sparkling as she smiled warmly at me. “I’ve heard about you.”

I ripped my hand out of hers, clearly struggling to keep my composure. It freaked me out that she insinuated someone in my family told her about me, and I hated wondering what they’d said. Assuming the worst, I attempted to maintain a nonchalant attitude, as if nothing she’d heard would hurt me.

“I’m not elusive, just busy. I do run this hotel,” I snapped, then watched Kate’s eyes widen in surprise at the vitriol in my voice.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” she’d stammered. “Luca said —”

No fucking wonder. My youngest brother was one hell of a flirt, and it didn’t surprise me at all that he’d already established a connection to Kate. “It doesn’t matter. Pleasure to meet you, Kate.”

“What the hell was that?” I heard someone whisper as I turned around and stalked away, but stopped when I heard Matt call my name.

“Look, I’m not sure what that was,” Matt murmured as he reached me, “but Kate needs a job, and Aunt Sofia said you’d give her one.”

I looked over Matt’s shoulder to see Kate’s profile slumped, as if I’d taken the wind out of her sails. “It was nothing. I’m very busy today. If my mother wants to hire her, then she can handle it.”

“She specifically said you would handle it,” Matt explained.

In my periphery, I saw my mother watching me, and I got even more surly. “No.”

When I stalked away again, Matt shouted, “Nice talking to you, asshole.”

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