Bittersweet Love

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Are you the same girl who worked for Kane?’ she asked, without the slightest hint of embarrassment. ‘Robin something? Or was it something Robin?’ She laughed but her eyes remained hard and assessing.

  Natalie looked at her calmly. ‘Yes, I am.’

  Anna threw her a look of stunned disbelief, and then issued a sharp smile to Claire, who was surveying the interchange with interest, and to Eric who was rather more embarrassed than interested.

  ‘Hasn’t she changed?’

  ‘Hasn’t she,’ Natalie replied drily, sparing her friends the necessity of trying to find a response to that one.

  ‘Natalie’s been on some kind of health kick in my absence,’ Kane interjected, his eyes resting on her face with the merest shadow of accusation. He looked across to Eric and raised one eyebrow imperceptibly, just enough for Natalie to realise what he was thinking. She ignored the questioning gleam in his eyes and plastered a blank smile on her face.

  ‘Has she?’ Anna exclaimed. She nestled against Kane possessively.

  What does he see in them? Natalie asked herself with a sharp pang of jealousy. Stupid question. Their bodies of course. Kane had all the mental stimulation he could handle at work. Every woman he had ever been out with, and there had been no shortage of them over the years, had been a physical work of art. Leggy, seductive. Everything I’m not, Natalie admitted with honesty. Even with my new improved shape and daring hairstyle I’ll never have that sort of feline, vampish grace that attracts him.

  She gave Eric a warm smile, a subconscious desire to remind Kane and herself that he wasn’t the only man in the world, and he looked momentarily dazzled.

  ‘I’ve often wanted to go on a health kick,’ Anna was saying with a flirtatious smile that expertly managed to include both men and neither of the women. ‘Of course, I haven’t got the incentive that you had.’ She addressed her observation to Natalie. ‘ When you’re overweight it’ s so much more motivating to do that sort of thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Natalie agreed politely. She gave Kane a look that said, Is this the best you could come up with for a date? and his lips thinned.

  ‘Shall we go to our table, darling?’ he murmured to Anna, and she gave a throaty laugh of assent.

  Natalie watched as they walked across to a table in the far corner of the room. The best table, naturally. Kane had only to show himself at a restaurant and the waiters would appear from nowhere, madly dashing around him, as if sensing his unspoken authority and responding to it.

  When she had first joined the company, Natalie had been impressed by this reaction. Now it irritated her. He was just a man, after all. Couldn’t they see that? If the rest of the world treated Kane like a normal human being, instead of a demigod, then he might just get it into that head of his that he wasn’t a cut above everyone else. Not that he ever intimated as much, but that easy self-confidence and lazy assurance spoke volumes.

  Across the room she could see him looking absolutely absorbed in whatever Anna was saying. Maybe they were planning what they would get up to after their three-course meal was out of the way. After all, Natalie thought acidly, they had some catching up to do, and she doubted very much of it involved conversation.

  For the remainder of the evening, she found her attention drifting off towards Kane and Anna, speculating on all sorts of things, compulsively reading Anna’s body language as she leaned towards Kane, giving him a bird’s-eye view of the shadowy valley between her breasts, and twirling the long stem of her wine glass.

  It was a relief when they rose to leave, Kane nodding briefly in her direction as he ushered Anna towards the door, with the usual subservient head waiter in attendance, like a fussy mother hen.

  ‘Good-looking man, your boss,’ Claire said, following Natalie’s eyes.

  ‘I suppose so.’ She shrugged and concentrated on her cup of coffee and the tempting little dish of petits fours which she was having trouble resisting.

  ‘Was that his wife?’

  ‘Wife?’ Natalie snorted expressively. ‘I think he considers marriage as one of those odd things that other people get up to in their spare time.’

  ‘And you don’t?’ Eric asked softly, his pale blue eyes looking at her curiously.

  Natalie flushed and didn’t say anything.

  ‘I think marriage is terribly important,’ he continued in the same speculative voice, ‘but without the emotion involved. A business agreement, so to speak.’

  Natalie looked at him, surprised, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Claire shake her head, warning her off the inevitable response.

  Later, as she was about to step into the taxi to go home, Eric pulled her to one side and asked in an undertone how she felt about seeing him again.

  ‘It seems a shame to vanish out of each other’s lives for another six years,’ he said with a little laugh, and she agreed.

  ‘I’d love to see you again,’ she responded warmly, ‘just so long as we get one thing straight. No emotional ties, no involvement.’

  Eric nodded. ‘Same here,’ he muttered with heartfelt intensity.

  She gave him her phone number, rattling it off in a rush as the taxi driver eyed her with ill-concealed impatience, barely concerned whether he got in touch with her again or not. People, she noticed, had a habit of making showy gestures which rarely got followed up. Anyway, however nice Eric was, he could only end up being a complication in her life, and the less of those she had, the better.

  She promptly relegated the entire incident to the back of her mind and forgot about it. That was the one thing to be said for working for Kane Marshall. It was impossible to concentrate on anything else when he was around. He was a sure-fire cure for most problems, be-cause the minute she stepped foot into the office she immediately forgot about them all.

  He was already there when she arrived there the following morning. He had loosened his tie and the sleeves of his white silk shirt were rolled to the elbows. He looked as though he had been hard at it for hours, even though it was still only eight-thirty in the morning.

  ‘Good morning,’ Natalie said, hanging up her light-weight jacket and automatically pouring them both a cup of coffee. Her huge grey eyes were level and serene, but inside her head a thousand thoughts were seething. Where had he and Anna gone after the restaurant? Had they made love? The thought pierced through her and she firmly pursed her lips together just in case some unwary moan escaped.

  All these years, watching him from the sidelines, knowing that he slept with those women he dated, hating the thought of it. Was this her destiny? To live in his shadow, in the constant grip of jealous passion? She hated the thought of it and she hated herself for being caught in that trap like a fish in a net—seeing the freedom of open water, but powerless to reach it. She knew that it was this that made her terse with him, despite the fact that she wanted to at least appear nonchalant and relaxed.

  She handed him his cup and he absent-mindedly grunted, not looking up at her.

  ‘What the hell has been going on with this contract for Tony Harding?’ he shot out, as she was preparing to leave the room and head for the quiet sanctuary of her own office. He looked at her, his eyes flicking over her quickly, then returning back to her face. Natalie suffered the casual appraisal as equably as she could. Kane Marshall appraised all women. It was part of his nature. It did not signify any personal appreciation. Still, there was something fleeting but worrying in those eyes as they ran over body, something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She lowered her eyes, confused, not prepared to dwell on it.

  ‘He’s halted it until some contractual queries are sorted out,’ Natalie replied smoothly, knowing immediately what he was talking about. ‘He’s been asking for copies of some minor variations to be made, but we have been a bit long in getting back to him.’

  ‘Why?’

  Natalie shrugged. ‘You’ll have to speak to Roseanne and Mr Douglas; they’ve been handling it in your absence.’

  ‘Or
not, as the case may be.’ He sat back and looked at her rather longer this time, his eyes narrowed and calculating. ‘Why didn’t you take over?’

  ‘I would have needed your say-so,’ Natalie said promptly.

  He loosened his tie a notch further and she found her eyes helplessly drifting towards the dark hairs just discernible on his chest. She impatiently pulled herself together and produced a businesslike expression on her face.

  ‘How would you like to handle some of the smaller accounts? From beginning to end? See them all the way through? The more sensitive ones, like Tony Harding.’ He threw her a wry smile. ‘I haven’t got time for them all.’

  ‘Haven’t you?’ Natalie remarked innocently. ‘You do surprise me.’

  ‘Sarcasm, Natalie?’ He raised one eyebrow. ‘Some bosses wouldn’t stand for that, you know.’

  Something in his voice suddenly confused her. Was he flirting? No. Her imagination. She relaxed and re-turned his teasing smile with a mocking one of her own.

  ‘How lucky I am to have you for a boss, then,’ she gushed, enjoying their rapport. ‘Perhaps I ought to be paying you for the privilege instead of the other way around.’

  ‘Seriously, Natalie. What do you think? Do you like the sound of my idea? It would be a promotion, and of course there would be a pay rise. I might even see my way to throwing in a company car as well.’

  The offer had caught her by surprise. She looked at him levelly and saw that he was waiting for her response.

  ‘Can I let you have my answer tomorrow?’ she asked. Instead of the ready assent which she had expected, he frowned heavily and began fiddling with the fountain pen on his desk, tapping it on one of the files; then he gave an impatient sigh.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ he snapped. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that you would have needed time to consider my proposition. In fact, most people would have jumped at it.’

  Natalie stared at him, surprised. Was she being dense here? Was she missing something? She had thought her request the most natural thing in the world, but from his reaction anyone would have thought that she had asked for the impossible. What was going on here?

  He stood up and prowled across to the large window behind his desk and stared down at the street below, his back to her, then he swung back around to face her, half perched on the window-sill, his arms folded across his chest.

  ‘I’m only asking for one night to think it over,’ Natalie informed him, still bemused.

  ‘Why? Do you need to consult someone? Can’t you make your mind up on your own?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You heard me. I’m offering you the chance of a lifetime, with a pay rise to match—’ he threw her a figure that made her inwardly gasp, then continued in the same flat, hard voice ‘—and you’re not sure whether you want to accept it or not? Don’t you think Eric will approve?’

  Natalie’s eyes widened. What was he on about now? Then the realisation dawned. Of course. He had seen them together, albeit in the company of someone else, someone who didn’t count since she was Eric’s sister and had been introduced to him as such, and had jumped to the wrong conclusion. He still thought that she had done something with herself because of a man. He couldn’t understand the concept of a woman making the most of herself for herself.

  Workwise he depended on her. This was his attempt to redefine his authority over her. Give her a promotion, make sure that she’s not going anywhere, and life can carry on as normal.

  Natalie stared at him with frozen politeness. It was on the tip of her tongue to inform him that Eric had nothing whatsoever to do with her request, then she thought, Why should I?

  ‘Why should he disapprove?’ she asked blandly.

  He didn’t care for that response. He preferred her to be uninvolved with a man. That was how she had been for the past five years and he had grown accustomed to it. She had always been able to fall in with his hours, his breakfast meetings, his weekend work at short notice.

  He frowned but didn’t reply and she said on a sigh, ‘Look, if it means that much to you to have my answer now, then I accept.’

  He relaxed visibly. ‘Personnel will fix up the new contract.’

  ‘I’ll pop along there this afternoon,’ Natalie promised. Sometimes there was something boyishly transparent about him. He moved back to his desk, but instead of resuming work he continued to stare at her until Natalie flushed awkwardly.

  ‘Shall I get along to my desk?’ she volunteered. ‘I might as well start sorting out my workload.’

  He ignored her remark completely. ‘So I was right after all. Eric is the man in your life.’

  Natalie shot him an impatient look and wondered whether she could get away with telling him that she had better things to do than stay in his office and discuss some non-existent boyfriend. Then she decided that her promotion really was too good to toss out of the-window in a fit of bravado. He might have given her the job for all the wrong reasons, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a damn good job and she had no intention of jeopardising it.

  ‘If you say so,’ she said, glancing at her watch.

  ‘What do you mean “If I say so”? Is he or isn’t he?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought that that was any of your business,’ she said, restraining the urge to snap. Her feet were beginning to ache from standing up. She wanted to get back to her desk, but she knew well enough that that was impossible. Nothing incurred Kane’s wrath more easily than leaving before he was ready for you to leave.

  ‘He looks as dull as dishwater,’ he said with an oblique glance in her direction, and Natalie bristled.

  ‘Does he now?’ she queried softly, angry on Eric’s behalf even though she was not involved with him at all. What gave Kane Marshall the right to make snap judge-ments on anyone’s personality anyway? It was hardly as though he was as unblemished as the driven snow.

  ‘No need to get into a flap about it,’ Kane said with infuriating calm. ‘It was merely an observation.’

  ‘I am not in a flap,’ Natalie said stiffly, feeling very much like someone in a flap and wondering why. ‘And since it’s a free country you can make any number of observations that you like.’

  He grinned at her and she glared back at him. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that he was your type at all, though,’ he murmured, pursuing his line of thought with utter disregard for her tightened lips and glacial expression. ‘Mind you, he does have a certain secure look, and women seem to yearn after security, for some peculiar reason.’

  He lowered his eyes, the long, dark lashes drooping against his cheek and Natalie stared at him in frustration. He was deliberately provoking her and, like it or not, here she was, responding. Couldn’t she do better than this, for heaven’s sake?

  ‘I don’t yearn for security,’ Natalie informed him. ‘So much for your generalisations.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ There was a mixture of curiosity and interest in his eyes when he looked up at her. ‘You must be the exception to the rule in that case.’

  ‘Or else you’re completely off course in your sweeping comments about the female sex.’ She smiled sweetly, feeling her composure return with reassuring speed, ‘But no. I don’t suppose you could be wrong. That would be unthinkable.’

  He laughed at that, his eyes warm with appreciation for her verbal barb, and she had to force herself not to respond to him. And he talked about women wanting security? she thought. She certainly hadn’t been lying when she told him that that was the furthest thing from her mind. Oh, no. Nothing as simple as a desire for security for her. Why settle for the easy course when she could waste her life secretly craving this sexy, arrogant, brilliant man sitting in front of her?

  He glanced down at the file open in front of him, his hand on the telephone, and she knew that already his mind was back on work, after its short interlude wreaking havoc with her thoughts.

  ‘Do you need any help with the transferral of ac-counts to you?’ he asked, confirming her thought
s.

  Natalie frowned. ‘If you give me a list of the ones you want me to take over, I’ll have a look at them this afternoon. I should be all right, but you might need to fill me in on any peculiarities with any of them.’

  He nodded briefly. ‘Tonight,’ he said bluntly, already dialling his number. ‘I take it you’re no longer averse to overtime?’

  ‘I never was,’ Natalie said ambiguously.

  ‘Fine.’ He gave her a curt nod, his hand over the receiver. ‘My place. Seven sharp. I’ll get O’Leary to do something to eat.’

  Natalie’s mouth dropped open in dismay. This was not her idea of agreeable overtime one little bit. True, she had been to his flat before to work, usually in the presence of other people when she was used mainly to take the minutes and attend to practicalities. But it had always made her feel uneasy.

  Poring over files with no one else around, apart from O’Leary, his manservant-cum-general housekeeper, who was as deaf as post and generally retired to his quarters to watch television as soon as he feasibly could anyway, was not her idea of a fun night out

  ‘But…’ Natalie began in protestation, but he was already talking down the line, waving her away.

  It wasn’t until she was almost ready to leave for home that she next got the opportunity to try and wheedle out of the nightmarish scenario, but Kane was having none of it.

  ‘Three of the files are at my place. The most complicated three, in fact.’ His eyes narrowed suspiciously on her. ‘Not trying to tell me that you can’t work a bit of overtime, are you? Because I needn’t tell you that this promotion will entail a fair amount of it. I won’t allow clock-watching.’

  ‘Of course I understand,’ Natalie said hastily, following him with her eyes as he prepared to leave for yet another meeting, this time with one of his financial directors.

  ‘Good,’ he said smoothly. ‘In that case, there’s no problem, is there?’

  ‘No problem,’ she agreed with vast understatement.

  She got home with barely enough time to have a bath before she rushed back out. The phone was ringing as she stepped out of the bath, and for one fleeting moment of heady optimism she thought that it might be Kane cancelling his engagement.