“No, regrettably not, but you are the first in a while. The last woman, let’s just say she blew my world apart and I had to be certain I had moved on and wouldn’t bring her baggage into our relationship.”
“And you’re certain of that now?” Ben slid his hand underneath Catlin, intending to find her waist but allowing his fingers to work down to the curve of her bottom.
“More than certain,” and he kissed her again.
The illusion was shattered by the ringing of the phone and it all came flooding back, but neither of them wanted to get up and answer it. They remained where they were, watching, holding each other. It would have been impossible for Catlin to get up even if she had wanted to – her breath had been stolen away and she was not sure if it she would ever find it again. The phone persisted with its interruption.
“Do you think you’d better get that?” Ben said with a nod in the phone’s direction.
“Yes,” Catlin replied but neither she nor Ben made any attempt to pick up the receiver.
“It might be important, this late at night.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. Leave it. They’ll ring off soon enough.” But they didn’t and the noisy gadget continued to make its presence known.
“Damn it!” Catlin cursed, working her way out from under Ben, springing to her feet and ripping the handset out of its cradle.
“Hello?”
The phone, though it took the brunt of her temper, was not the cause for Catlin’s rage. Any interruption would have incurred a similar wrath had it popped up at that instant. The kiss had been unplanned though not unwelcome, but had it been a mistake, one Ben was already regretting? She listened with closed ears to her agent, taking in next to nothing of the conversation. She heard him mention something about a party where her presence was not so much required as demanded and to make sure she remembered her meeting the next day. The meeting was bad enough, but the party was a nightmare made real. She hated those sorts of gatherings - an evening surrounded by brilliant-white grins, fake tan, glitz and glamour. She fitted in at them about as much as a did turnip in a fruit salad.
Having her back to the room, Catlin did not see Ben get up and come up behind her or become aware of his joining her until his arms were wrapped around her and he nuzzled her neck. She allowed her head to tilt back and rest against him. She had her answer and whatever else in her life was make-believe, at least what they had was undeniably real.
Chapter Six
“But why?” Catlin whined, deliberately sounding as petulant was she could, twisting her chair from side to side. “Why do I have to be there? No-one will notice if I’m there, absent or somewhere in the middle of the two.” Guy Brisco, Catlin’s main contact in this new and crazy business, was busy flicking through the heap of manuscripts that where piled in front of him, discarding most without so much as a glance at the cover let alone the content.
“My sweet Catie,” (she hated that name!) “I can understand how difficult it must be to adapt to life here, coming from that sleepy town of yours, but if you want to make it in this trade, you have to start playing the game. There are certain niceties to be observed and obligations to fulfil and among them is attending functions designed to help you expand the range and number of people who can help further your career. You don’t want to be a one hit wonder do you?”
“And they’ll do that just because I attend one of their silly dos?”
Guy finally condescended to take look up from his work and give her his undivided attention, his immaculately pruned eyebrows raised in disbelief at what he was hearing.
“You’re not taking this seriously.” Catlin did not bother to try and hide her smirk.
“What gives you that idea?”
“Catie, it’s my job to do everything I can to forward your prospects, but my help is going to be of no use if you’re not going to co-operate.”
“All right, all right. I’ll go. When is it?” Guy was relieved more than pleased that his stubborn English Rose had seen sense. He had gone through a battle of wills with her in the past and had not relished the idea of having to do so again. She could be remarkably determined once she got the bit between her teeth.
“A week on Friday. I’ll email you the details later today and will make sure you’re on the list. Please, don’t disappoint me.”
“My powers of distraction must be failing,” she sighed later to Ben when they were sitting up on the roof terrace making the most of the glorious evening.
“From where I’m sitting they’re not,” he said kissing her neck.
“Give over. I’m trying to have a proper conversation with you. Usually I’m able to confuse Guy sufficiently to be able to leave his office without either accepting or rejecting the invites he wants to foist on me. Today, I gave up after five minutes. I must be slipping.”
“Maybe you’re being seduced by the lifestyle he’s dangling in front of you.”
“Heaven forbid! No, it wasn’t anything quite as sordid as that. I just couldn’t be bothered with the whole thing. My mind was wandering off elsewhere.”
“Is it capable of being out on its own? Ouch! Oh elbow me somewhere else next time. Did it wander in any particular direction?”
“Don’t flatter yourself sonny. It was the easier to just give in I suppose. Had I put him off today he’d have come back at me tomorrow. There was no point in dragging the palaver out. The sooner I get it over with and am able to say ‘I did that’, the quicker I can get back to side stepping them, for a few weeks at least and do stuff I enjoy.”
“Such as?” Catlin sucked air in through her teeth as she thought.
“Having my teeth pulled without an anaesthetic.” Ben chuckled.
“Look, it won’t be quite that traumatic. I’ve been to a few of these meets myself and they are always worse in thought than deed.”
“It’s not the party itself I’m keen to avoid, but being in a room full of people I don’t know and who have even less of an idea as to who I am, all of whom have a permanently etched smile on their faces whether they are making polite conversation with you or sticking the knife in your back the minute you turn it.”
“Sounds like you know what you’re walking into anyway!” Ben said sarcastically. “Not a tiny bit envious of your superiors are you? I’ve warned you about that elbow and, no, that was not a better place to dig it in. Why not pretend you’re back at high school? It’s basically the same rules of survival.”
“It wouldn’t be quite so bad if there was someone there whom I knew.”
“There’s bound to be a few people there from the studio who you’ll have met, not to mention that Guy chap. Didn’t you say he was going too?” Catlin pulled a face.
“Perhaps I should have added in ‘people I like’. No, I was thinking more of along the lines of you may be coming with me.”
Ben and Catlin had been curled up together on the bench, comfortable and unwilling to move the smallest of their muscles they were so happy to be there. So, it took Catlin back to find Ben unexpectedly get up and leave her. She remained stretched out, observing him curiously as he went over to the flower beds on the opposite side to where she was.
“See, that’s the reaction I’ve been looking for these past weeks,” Catlin said with a disappointed shake of her head. “Suggest a date and watch him run for the hills.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Then maybe you’d be good enough to tell me what is bugging you?”
“Who says there is something wrong?”
“I and your hasty retreat to a safe distance do. A tad extreme considering all I did was ask you out to a party. From the way you shot off you’d have thought I asked you to help me rob the nearest bank.” Ben pushed his hands into his pockets, his chosen stance at times of stress or when he wanted to skirt around an issue without getting into a fight.
“It’s not that I don’t want to go with you. It’s simply that I can’t. It’s just not my scene.”
“It’s hardly mi
ne either. That was why I thought it might be nice to be out of our depth together.”
Had they been deeper, Ben’s hands would have sunk further into his pockets.
“I take it your silence indicates a ‘no’?” The silence continued. “Yep, that’s a no.” Catlin got up too, and began to collect the drinks glasses from the table. “I’d better pray that I never have a major crisis with which I need your help,” she sniped storming by him. “I’d hate to be reliant on you in an emergency if you can’t even be called upon for one lousy party.”
“That’s not exactly fair,” Ben snapped back.
“You took the words right out of my mouth. For Pete’s sake Ben, in all these weeks I’ve not asked much of you, let alone demanded anything. So, I beg your pardon if requesting your presence at one function is too big a deal for you to handle.”
Ben looked more uncomfortable and as he said nothing whatsoever, Catlin was left to draw her own conclusions. Was it possible that it was not the party that was the issue here, but rather his having to go with her? During their time together they had only gone out to places where they were alone – the country, the hills, her apartment or far a late night stroll around the quiet streets surrounding it. Occasionally, Ben had met her in the car park where she left her vehicle over night, but with the unusual hours she kept they had yet to bump into anyone there. An old demon reared its head. Could he be embarrassed to be seen in public with her? It wasn’t unheard of for a man she had been dating to have felt that way and denied any connection with her once word got out amongst his friends. Worse still was the nagging idea that she might not be the only woman in his life and he might have a pretty, petite blonde somewhere who was better suited to where his ambitions were leading him.
It had to be said that Ben certainly turned up at her place at all kinds of weird hours, generally at night. If he had another girl, one who fitted the glamour of the city, on the go, he couldn’t afford to be seen out with her. Catlin’s brain told her not to voice these suggestions, but her mouth was already in gear and Ben was visibly hurt, not to mention outraged, that she should think him so shallow.
“God not you too! How can you think such a thing of me? I would never do that.”
“You’re not giving me much of an alternative,” Catlin shouted back, wondering what he meant by the cryptic statement at the start of his protest. “You won’t say why you won’t or can’t come with me. Why, you can’t even be bothered to make up some excuse, however flimsy.”
“Odd, I distinctly remember someone not a million miles away from here saying she wanted honesty.”
“I do.”
“Yet, you’d prefer it if I made up some fictional story for not going out with you than telling you the truth?”
“You’ve not told me anything, that’s the problem. You said you can’t and won’t go, but that’s it. If you explained it a bit better perhaps I’d understand.”
“I have told you. I don’t want to go. There is nothing more sinister behind it than that. I cannot put it into any plainer words than I have done – I don’t want to go.”
Catlin was gripping the glasses so tightly they were in danger of shattering.
“Well, thanks for the support! Let’s hope I get the chance to return the favour one day and cannot do something to help you out.” She did not wait for Ben to fire off a reply, and hurried onto the staircase back down into her apartment. Ben followed slowly and found her piling the washing up on the kitchen side. He went over to hug her and repair the damage, but Catlin was furious and pushed him away from her.
“Don’t try to get round me,” she said through gritted teeth. “It doesn’t appear to have registered in your brain that I’m a tiny bit pissed off with you at this minute in time and your attempts to charm your way back into my good books instead of discussing the problem is making the situation worse, not better.”
“I just think it’s silly to fall out over such a trivial matter.”
“That’s the whole point I’m trying to make. If you can’t make one little sacrifice for me for one night by coming with me to give me your support, I can’t help wondering if you’re going to be there for me should the day come when I really need you or if you’ll cut and run like everyone else. I have to have some sort of guarantee that you will be there for me.”
“I wish I could make you that promise, Cate, but we none of us know what the future will bring, but I can tell you this much – so long as I am around, you can depend me to always be here, by your side.”
If nothing else, that remark proved that Ben was still undecided as to how long he planned to stick around for.
“I’m not sure that’s enough,” Catlin whispered, frightened by her own words. “You’d better go. It looks like we’re going nowhere with this.”
“There is no need to be so dramatic. It’s one party I’ve said I’ll not go to.”
“I’m not talking about the party. I mean us. We’re not going anywhere. I’m asking for more than you’re able to give and you don’t appear to know where your future lies, so I think, for the time being at least, it’s best we don’t see each other. Not until we are both able to say for sure what it is we’re after.”
Ben went to speak, but Catlin turned her back and he saw any further words would serve only as a means to make a bad situation worse.
“Okay. If that is what you want. Goodbye Cate.” Catlin was not brave enough to look at Ben or trust her voice not to betray the tears that flowed silently down her cheeks. Neither did he hear him leave, but she was painfully aware of the exact moment he left her. She felt his presence melt away, his warmth fade and the apartment where they had created so many happy memories, had never been lonelier.
Chapter Seven
Determined not to make the situation more miserable than it was Catlin did whatever she could to keep busy and, therefore, stay away from her apartment. It was the best way of stopping herself from dwelling on Ben’s departure. It was fortuitous Guy had organised a place for her at a local book convention which took up most of the week. The added bonus with it was that he had reserved a room for her in the hotel where the convention was being held and with her own place being full of unfriendly ghosts of the happiness she had shared briefly but lost within its rooms, Catlin gladly made use of it. In those days she wrote with an almost obsessive passion. Any spare minute was taken up by her writing. She made great headway on the sequel she was working on, but also jotted down the plotlines to three other books and produced a series of poems with such ease it was as if she had become possessed by some entity which required no food, drink rest or sleep to survive – only words committed to paper.
Guy was amazed by the switch in Catlin’s attitude. Overnight she became the hardest working and most dedicated of his chosen band and seemed to be climbing on board and playing the game, as he called it. Catlin made some highly influential contacts too but, for the incessant whirl of activity she was forever at the centre of Ben was the unshakable and lingering thought that troubled her. She had wanted to call him up the morning after their quarrel and try to sort out the mess they were in, but it wasn’t until then she realised she had no number and no address to reach him at. She had whacked the ball well and truly into his court and was left with nothing to do but wait to see if he’d return it.
Then the night that had caused the problem arrived – the party was upon her and with the convention over, Catlin had to return to the apartment and the spectres waiting there to plague her. For a brief moment as she opened the door, it was as if that night had never been and her senses deceived her into thinking Ben was there to welcome her back. The apartment had regained the warmth which had deserted her once Ben walked away, the air clung to the faintest trace of his scent as if had walked there seconds before she came in, bringing back the excitement she had felt when she heard his knock on her door or saw him looking at her adoringly believing her to be unaware of it. But as she went to call out to him, the charm was broken and Catlin was alon
e once more.
She got showered, made up and arranged her hair then changed into the one decent evening dress she had and, satisfied that she at least looked presentable, Catlin carefully went down to the car Guy had sent for her, taking extra care for it had been months since she had gone out in such high heels as she was wearing that night. The driver was friendly and once he heard her accent, which he professed to love, began to ask question after question about where she came from and how she was getting on in her new home.
“It’s an eye opener, I’ll say that,” she admitted. Whether it was due to this informal chat or that with Ben gone nothing seemed worthwhile or important but as they pulled up outside the mansion sized house that was their destination, Catlin noticed she was not in the slightest bit nervous. A few months back she got tongue tied if she had to have a conversation with Guy but her butterflies were strikingly absent that evening. She made her way up the steps to the door feeling no better or worse than those who had arrived at the same time, bid them good evening and entered the house without one flutter of insecurity. She did need to take a deep breath to steel herself as she surveyed the array of rich and impossibly beautiful people she had to mingle with, but her courage did not waver and it did not take long for someone to notice her.
Guy, more than three quarters convinced that she find a sneaky way to worm her way out of coming (which was why he sent a car to collect her), was close to punching the air with rapture as he saw her enter the room and too make doubly sure she could not bolt back out the door, he hastened over to greet her.
“Catie! Hi. Glad to see you made it. Come on in. Let me introduce you to some friends of mine. You’ll love them.” He then steered her in and out of the crowd and over to the people he had been in conversation with at the time of her arrival. “Catie, this is Trent and Savannah Wentmann and here we have William and Maria Goldburgh. Folks, this is Catie Manners, an up and coming writer under my guidance and who has a fantastic future ahead of her.”
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