by Jessica Hart
He fiddled absently with his knife. 'Robard's been extraordinarily successful so far, but he needs to be careful not to lose quality control as he expands. He's a hotelier, not an engineer.'
`And that's where we come in?' Kate was concentrating fiercely on what he was saying to take her mind off its sudden obsession with his mouth.
`Exactly. I'm offering him a complete consultancy service on the construction front, leaving him free to concentrate on running the hotels. That's why it's so important that we give him the right impression tomorrow. He needs to feel that we embody the qualities he's looking for in his buildings: style, efficiency, quality.'
Kate hailed the arrival of the waiter with the first course with relief. Now she would be able to look at her plate. `He can get all that from a French firm, can't he?' she said vaguely, picking up her knife and fork.
`Yes, but remember he wants to get a foothold in the UK as much as I want to get one in France.' Luke seemed more interested in his business than in his food. `We've got a good international reputation outside Europe, and you, Kate, are going to give us our European flavour.'
`I see.' Kate's eyes were lowered to her plate, and a wing of hair shone in the reflected light. `What exactly do you want me to do?'
'You'll be there as my assistant, and, obviously, to help out with any language problems. I expect you to impress them with your efficiency and the charm which I know very well you possess, even if you don't waste any of it on me!'
Kate looked up in astonishment and her eyes, huge and dark, caught the gleam of gold from a candle near by. She put her knife and fork down slowly. `What on earth do you mean?'
It was Luke's turn to concentrate on his dinner. `I've seen the way you talk to people in the office. They all like you. I'm sick of my directors telling me how charming you are! All I ever get from you is disapproval or a lecture about my manners, or lack of them.'
There was a strange note in his voice, and Kate bit her lip. She could almost swear he was hurt!
`That's not fair,' she protested. `I'm perfectly nice to you sometimes.'
Luke leant over to refill her wine glass, and then his own. `Only sometimes!' he said, but she was relieved to see a glint of amusement in his eyes. `The trouble with you, Kate, is that you're very honest-sometimes uncomfortably so. I'm not used to that. I learnt early on not to expect too much honesty from women.'
Bitterness shadowed his voice and Kate wondered if he was remembering Helen. Was she being any more honest than Helen in not admitting that she had met Luke before? she wondered guiltily.
On an impulse she opened her mouth to tell him, but then the waiter was beside them, checking their glasses, offering them another roll, and by the time he had gone the moment had passed and Luke had changed the subject.
`I suppose going to Paris tomorrow will be like going home for you?'
'In a way,' she said, not sorry to let go of the opportunity to tell Luke the truth. It would only have embarrassed them both. `It's funny, all the time I was in France I thought about coming back to England, and now I'm here I think about France just as nostalgically. Having dual nationality makes you a little schizophrenic!'
`I never think of you as being French,' Luke said thoughtfully. `You always seem so cool and English.'
`I take after my father.'
`What was he like?'
Kate wondered what Luke would say if she told him that he knew perfectly well. He had always despised her father, she remembered, had thought of him as stuffy and snobbish. He hadn't known how kind and generous her father could be to those he loved.
`He was rather cool and English too,' she said lightly.
There was a lurking smile about Luke's mouth. `He sounds all right.'
For one dizzy moment time seemed to telescope, and Kate found herself wishing desperately that her father could have known this new Luke.
`So you don't regret coming back to England?'
'No.' Kate shook her head, feeling the shining softness bounce against her cheek. `I would have come back before, but my mother is…well, she's very gay and very charming, but hopelessly impractical! After my father died and we went to France it somehow seemed natural that I would look after things like money. Veronique, my halfsister, was married by then, but I was always more sensible than her anyway, even as a child.' She sighed.
`What's wrong with being sensible?' 'Nothing. It's just that sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd gone through a rebellious stage. I might have had more fun.' `Kicking the system? I did all that,' Luke said. `Oh, I-' Kate stopped. She had been about to say `I know'. `I can imagine,' she said after an infinitesimal pause.
Luke didn't seem to have noticed. `I thought I was having fun at the time, but, looking back, I think I was just unhappy.' He gave a careless shrug, but Kate felt suddenly ashamed.
It had never occurred to her before that the cold recklessness of Luke's youth had been due to unhappiness. It was well-known in the village that his mother had left years before, and since then he had lived alone with his father, an eccentric and rather reclusive man. No, his memories of Chittingdene would probably not be happy ones. She was glad she hadn't mentioned the past. Luke gave the impression of a man who had put it firmly behind him.
`How is your mother managing without you now?' he was asking.
`She got married again a few months ago.' Kate took a sip of wine. 'Thierry is far more capable than I am of looking after my mother, and he can afford to spoil her, but…'
`But you don't like him?'
`No. I've tried, but we just don't get on. Oh, it was all very polite, but somehow that made it even worse. When my sister sent Solange to school here it was an ideal excuse to leave without hurting my mother's feelings…' Kate trailed off. She hadn't meant to tell Luke all this, but somehow it had all come out. `They'll be far better off without me cramping their style,' she finished briskly. `My mother's a great party-goer, and always beautifully dressed. I'm afraid I didn't inherit any of her sense of style! She certainly looks far too young to have a daughter as old as me!'
'She sounds rather like someone I used to know, or at least know of. What was her name, now?' Luke's eyes narrowed in an effort of memory. `Well, it doesn't matter what her name was, but she was a Frenchwoman too-far too glamorous and racy for Chittingdene!'
Kate put her fork down on the plate rather unsteadily. 'Chittingdene?'
`The village where I grew up,' Luke explained. `It's a sleepy little place buried in Somerset. I haven't been there for years. Couldn't wait to leave.' He stared into his wine. `It's strange, I haven't thought of Chittingdene in years. I certainly haven't thought of Mrs… what was her name, now?'
`How did you get into project management?' Kate asked quickly, anxious to divert his mind from the past. She was surprised that he remembered her mother, who had always found village life much too staid and had spent as much time as possible in France.
Luke was talking, but her mind kept veering back to the past, comparing the rebellious youth she had known to the determined man who sat opposite her now, telling her about his struggle to succeed. They were so alike, and yet so different. Or was it just that she had been too young to see him properly before?
‘It must have been hard work,' she commented when he looked at her with raised brows, obviously wondering at her silence.
`It was,' Luke said. `But worth it in the end. I'm a rich man now.'
`I suppose you must be,' Kate said doubtfully, thinking of what a long, lonely slog it must have been.
`You don't sound very sure, Kate,' he said with some amusement. `No, don't tell me! Money isn't everything?'
`Well, it isn't, is it?'
'Kate, I'm disappointed in you! It's not like you to be trite. I suppose you think I should have acquired a wife and children and a dog to fetch my slippers along the way to make it all worthwhile?'
Kate met his eyes with her clear gaze. He was mocking, but there was an underlying edge of defensiveness in his voice. `I
don't think you should have married. I'm just surprised you haven't.'
`I never wanted to get married,' he said shortly.
`I like my women as cynical as I am. That way no one expects anything and no one gets hurt.'
Don't they? Kate thought. What about the boy abandoned by his mother, shrugged aside by
Helen Slayne? What about the years of cynicism hardening slowly into bitterness?
`What about you?' Luke asked. `Why aren't you married? Are you holding out for Mr. Right? Or pining for a long-lost love?'
Unbidden, a memory of that long-distant summer's day washed over Kate. The smell of the long grass, the touch of his hands, the taste of his kiss. But that wasn't love, she reminded herself fiercely. That was just an initiation, a glimpse of how things might be.
`I'm not married because nobody has ever asked me to marry him.'
`Nobody's seen the way you look tonight.'
`No,' Kate agreed, hating his casual, meaningless words, her smile brittle. `You're the first.'
Luke was turning a spoon between his fingers as he watched her, but now he stopped and replaced it deliberately back by his plate. `I suppose I am,' he said slowly.
An uncomfortable silence fell. Kate gulped at her wine and searched her mind feverishly for a way to steer the conversation back to less personal waters. They were supposed to be talking business. How had they got on to love and marriage?
`Is Monsieur Robard-?'
'Do you know-?'
They both spoke at once, and broke off awkwardly.
`Go on,' Kate said, embarrassed.
`I was just going to ask if you knew Paris well,' Luke said in a stilted tone.
Kate seized on the innocuous topic, and for the rest of the meal kept the conversation cool and impersonal with an effort. Plates appeared and disappeared, glasses were refilled. Kate ate and drank and didn't taste any of it. She talked and talked about business, while her eyes kept sliding away from Luke's. She was agonisingly aware of him. She wished he would stop their determinedly polite conversation. She wished he would be rude, or make her angry, do anything to take her mind off the overwhelming desire to reach over and touch him. She was terrified to look at his face in case she couldn't drag her eyes away from his mouth, so she watched the other diners, and the gleam of cutlery, and his fingers curled around the stem of his glass.
At last it was over. Luke helped Kate into her coat and she shivered at the brush of his fingers.
`I'll get you a taxi,' he said as he opened the door for her. `I can walk from here.'
`I can easily get a bus,' Kate protested, but Luke ignored her, and they walked down to the corner of the road, not touching.
It had been raining. The pavement gleamed under the street-lights and cars passed them slowly, their tyres swishing on the wet road.
Kate dug her hands firmly into her pockets and stared down the road, willing a familiar yellow light to appear. Luke seemed content to wait in silence, but he was watching her so closely that Kate began to get more and more unnerved.
`Is something the matter?' she asked crossly at last.
`I keep getting this feeling I've met you before,' Luke admitted, almost reluctantly. `I haven't, have I?'
Kate's pulse leapt and she looked quickly away. `I think I'd remember you if we had met,' she said, unwilling to tell an outright lie now, but unable to face all the explanations if she admitted the truth.
`I suppose it's because you look so different tonight.' Luke sounded dissatisfied. He stepped up beside her on the kerb, and Kate had to make an effort not to flinch at his nearness. He was looking up and down the road, as if as anxious as she for a taxi.
`I can't get used to you like this,' he went on, glancing down at her. `I keep noticing things I never noticed about you before…' He trailed off, and Kate had the strangest feeling that he had surprised himself as much as her. `It really is amazing what a difference a haircut makes.'
There was an odd expression in his eyes. Kate wanted to look away but couldn't. Her heart was lurching and bumping in her chest. `I hope you think you've got a good return on your investment,' she said bravely.
Unhurriedly Luke reached out and pushed the soft wing of hair away from her face. `I do,' he said. `I do indeed.'
Before she knew how it happened his hand had slid under her hair to hold her head still as he bent and kissed her.
Caught unawares, with her hands trapped in her pockets, Kate was helpless to resist. She toppled against his lean, hard strength, felt his arm pull her closer.
Past arrowed into present. Here on this damp winter street, with Luke's lips insistent on hers, Kate might -have been standing in that summer wood again. The deep ache of need was the same, the yearning, the heady sense of desire at the taste of his mouth and the firmness of his hand at the nape of her neck.
Kate's response was purely instinctive. Her lips parted and she relaxed into him, submerged by a jumbled tide of intense excitement, lurking guilt and recognition that no one else had ever been able to make her feel this way.
She wanted to free her hands from her pockets, to touch his face and feel his male-rough jaw beneath her fingers, but Luke was lifting his head, lifting a hand, and a black taxi squealed to a halt beside them.
The click of its meter seemed unnaturally loud. Dazed, Kate stared at it as if she had never seen a taxi before. 'Wh-what did you do that for?' she managed.
`Just a wise investor enjoying a little profit,' Luke said. She couldn't read his expression as he turned away to speak to the driver, but then he handed her into the taxi and shut the door on her as if nothing had happened.
`I'll see you at the airport at half-past ten,' was all he said through the window. `Don't be late.'
CHAPTER SIX
THE terminal was crowded, and Kate didn't see Luke until he appeared suddenly beside the check-in desk. He looked about him impatiently, glancing at his watch and obviously wondering where she was.
It gave Kate a moment to school her features to cool unconcern before she stepped forward to attract his notice.
She had spent a restless night, trying to get Luke's kiss out of her mind, but every time she closed her eyes the scene was replayed with the same vivid thrill of memory: his hands, his mouth, the hard, exciting strength of his body close to hers.
Alone in the darkness, she had found it easy to tell herself that she had merely been caught by surprise. Why else would she have leant into him like that? Why else would her lips have yielded to the warm persuasion of his mouth? Why else would she have kissed him back?
Luke should never have kissed her, Kate had decided, finding it easier to be angry with him than to remember her own abandoned response. The most charitable explanation was that it had been a whim on his part, quite meaningless. Kate was determined to treat it the same way. It would be far less embarrassing for them both if she just ignored the whole issue.
But now, with the stomach-clenching jolt of her heart at the sudden sight of him, with the fire leaping along her pulse, it didn't seem quite so easy.
No sign of her inner turmoil showed in Kate's face as she wished Luke a cool good morning.
Luke's eyes were shuttered as he returned her greeting curtly, and to Kate's relief he was disinclined for conversation as they checked in and went through Passport Control into the departure lounge. He looked grumpy, and Kate was glad to take refuge behind an air of brisk efficiency.
She was wearing one of the outfits Luke had picked out, a soft tan skirt with a loosely structured jacket and an ivory silk shirt. The casual elegance suited her understated looks, but Luke didn't comment. He had taken some papers out of his briefcase and was studying them with a grim face, effectively ignoring her.
Kate eyed him covertly. His brows were drawn together, his mouth set in an inflexible line. He looked so hard and forbidding that if it hadn't been for the way her pulse was beating it would have been hard to believe that this was the same man who had kissed her last night.
Did
he even remember? Kate wouldn't have put it past him to have put it completely out of his mind as soon as she'd been out of sight. Their first kiss hadn't meant anything to him; why should their second? Unconsciously wistful, Kate's eyes deepened to the colour of honey, and she glanced at him again. If Luke did remember kissing her he had obviously decided to ignore it now.
Well, that suited her!
`I suppose you're waiting for me to apologise for kissing you last night,' Luke said abruptly, without looking up from his notes.
Kate, just relaxing into the comfortable certainty that the whole embarrassing episode could safely be forgotten, looked at his bent head with resentment. She should have remembered that it wasn't possible to relax with Luke. He had an uncanny ability to catch her at a disadvantage.
`There's no need to apologise,' she said, proud of her cool manner, but unable to look at him directly. Instead she glanced with studied casualness over at the passengers milling around the duty-free shop. `I didn't take it seriously.'
He looked up at that. She didn't see him, but she could feel his sharp eyes upon her.
`Oh? And how did you take it?'
Why couldn't he just accept the let-out she had given him? Kate thought crossly. It was just like him to be difficult about the whole thing!
`You clearly weren't thinking about what you were doing.'
`How do you work that one out?'
There was the merest suspicion of amusement in his voice and Kate's eyes flickered back to him suspiciously, but he was looking down at his papers again. All she could see were the angular lines of nose and cheek as he scribbled notes.
Her pride rebelling at her being cross-examined by Luke in this embarrassing way while he had half a mind on a quite different subject, Kate spoke more waspishly than she had intended.
`I'd have thought it was obvious. In your book, girl plus dinner plus darkness equals kiss. Unfortunately, you left the fact that I'm your secretary out of the equation.'