Bittersweet Love

by Cathy Williams

  Still, when did love ever listen to logic? She, Natalie, of all people should know that no amount of careful reasoning could control that wild patter of her heart whenever he was around. Anna did not give the impression that serious thought and an ability to reason were strong points with her, but who could tell?

  They had a dessert of crème brûlée, and Natalie said without thinking, ‘I could go to bed right now.’

  Her eyes met his, recognised the unspoken speculative question in them, and looked away in confusion.

  ‘Shall we have coffee in the lounge?’ he asked, amused to have addled her. ‘Might as well cover the rest of the ground on these accounts, then you can take your sweet self off to bed.’ He shot her a half-wicked, half-innocent look which Natalie pretended not to notice.

  They had shared a bottle of wine over dinner, and what with the vodka and orange beforehand Natalie felt her eyelids drooping as she surveyed the files in the lounge. She was quite unused to alcohol. One glass of wine made her feel heady. Right now she could fall asleep without any problem whatsoever. She summoned up her energy and listened in frowning concentration while he pointed out the important facts in the files, but she couldn’t help a feeling of relief when he shut the last one and informed her that school was over.

  Instead of rushing to her feet, Natalie relaxed back in the chair, a smile of contentment playing on her lips, and sipped from the cup of coffee.

  ‘You never answered my question,’ Kane said, his green eyes flicking over her body and then resting on the soft, gentle lines of her face.

  ‘Question?’ Natalie laughed slightly and half closed her eyes. ‘What question?’ Her head felt pleasantly fuzzy. It was almost too much trouble to think and it was certainly too much trouble to be on her guard.

  ‘Why did you and your boyfriend have company on your romantic evening out? Whatever happened to young lovers whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears?’ He took a mouthful of coffee and looked at her over the rim of the cup.

  The distant clang of alarm bells rang in her head. The question was harmless enough, if a bit impertinent. It was the atmosphere which had become dangerous. Natalie recognised that somewhere in the muddled recesses of her brain, but somehow couldn’t seem to get up the energy to do anything about it.

  ‘Is that what you do with Anna?’ she heard herself asking and he shot her a lazy, charming smile.

  ‘I outgrew sweet nothings quite some time ago.’

  ‘What a shame,’ Natalie remarked.

  ‘Why?’

  I shouldn’t be encouraging this, Natalie thought. He can handle it, but I can’t. She blinked and sat up a bit straighter, but the suddenness of the movement didn’t seem to have the desired effect. She raised one eyebrow in irony. ‘If you don’t know, then I can’t help but feel a little sorry for you. After all, there’s a lot more to a relationship than sex.’

  The amusement left his face for an instant and he gave her a blank look. ‘Really?’ He appeared to give the matter some thought, then he said slowly, ‘Though now that you mention it I do recall a time when I would have agreed with you.’

  ‘When was that?’ she asked, with genuine curiosity.

  ‘When I was about fifteen. Her name was Laura and I thought that she had descended directly from the heavens. I think the word for it was infatuation.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘To Laura? She changed schools and vanished out of my life forever. Probably married now with a litter of children. And as for infatuation—it gave way to experience.’ His voice was bitter, though still light. He poured himself another cup of black coffee and proceeded to survey it contemplatively, his finger tracing the rim. ‘I found out that the more money one has, the more women’s attitudes undergo a change.’

  ‘I think that’s called human nature. Shame that you allowed it to jade you.’ Natalie couldn’t believe what she was saying. The words were corning out of her mouth and it was as if she, personally, had had no hand in forming them.

  ‘You make me feel about a hundred,’ he said, and the bitterness had left his voice. That teasing, amused tone was back, re-establishing the balance between them. ‘You always have. And what about you? One confidence de-serves another, don’t you think? I know so much about you, maybe more than I’ve ever known about any woman in my life, but there are all sorts of gaps. For instance, were you ever the victim of infatuation?’

  Natalie could feel the blood rush to her head. What would he say if she confessed to him where her own personal agonies lay? Would he laugh? Feel sorry for her? He said that he knew her, and he did, just as she knew him, with all his quirks and habits that had managed over the years to embed themselves in her, but that very special knowledge that sprang from true intimacy wasn’t there.

  ‘Of course I was,’ she murmured, looking away. ‘But it can be lonely when you’re not in the beauty-queen stakes.’ She challenged him with her eyes.

  ‘Beauty is a personal thing.’

  ‘Is that why your women are all physically perfect?’ she couldn’t resist saying, and he shot her a quizzical look from under his lashes.

  ‘Beauty and physical perfection are quite different, though,’ he said softly. ‘You have your own special beauty; you always have.’

  Natalie blushed and stood up, a little shakily. ‘I really must be going now.’ She wanted to inform him, quietly and calmly, that she wasn’t so stupid to be taken in by words like that, but she could barely muster a coherent sentence together.

  ‘Already?’ His eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘What about a nightcap? I was enjoying chatting to you. You relax me, believe it or not.’

  ‘No. No nightcap, thank you,’ she said too quickly. ‘Perhaps you could get O’Leary to call me a cab?’

  He did, and while they waited he pouted himself a glass of brandy, swallowing it back in one gulp. ‘Sure you won’t join me?’ he repeated his offer and she shook her head with a smile.

  ‘I want to make sure that I have a clear head for tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re putting on your secretarial clothes again,’ Kane remarked drily, moving over to where she was standing, looming over her until she felt as if she was going to suffocate under the weight of his masculinity. Natalie laughed awkwardly and their eyes met. Her breath caught in her throat. He was so tall, so over-powering, so devastatingly good-looking.

  Before she could look away, his head swooped down to hers and his mouth brushed over hers, finding it warm and soft and pliant. It was the first time he had ever kissed her. True, at Christmas-time, he would give her an impersonal, light-hearted embrace, as he did with other female members of his staff. But nothing like this. Even though he barely touched her mouth with his own there was nothing at all impersonal about his action. In fact, there was something strangely, deeply intimate about it.

  He drew back, looking down at her, and Natalie realised with a mixture of disgust and dismay that she was trembling. Like a gauche teenager being kissed for the first time. Which wasn’t that far off the truth. Her experience with men was limited, and for the past five years, ever since Kane had stepped into her life and taken over her emotions, not at all.

  She knew now with a sense of shock how deeply she had been holding herself for just this one kiss. A kiss that meant nothing to him at all.

  She couldn’t say a word. He bent over her again and this time his mouth met hers in a kiss that was more demanding, fiercer. He was gripping her by her shoulders, pulling her against him so that she could feel his hard arousal pressed against her. With a sigh of pleasure she felt his hand move to curl into her hair. There were no words she could find to describe the sensations coursing through her body. It was as if she had been starved for years, for a lifetime, and now she had been given a taste of food.

  Of course it was madness. The ring of the doorbell announcing her taxi brought her back to her senses and reality hit her like a bucket of cold water. She pulled herself out of his arms and took a few deep breaths, trying to st
abilise herself. She could feel tears of anger and humiliation pricking the back of her eyes and she had to blink very quickly to make sure that they did not fall. She had made enough of a fool of herself for one night already, without that.

  ‘My taxi’s here,’ she said huskily, not looking at him.

  ‘You could always send him away,’ Kane murmured softly, and this time she did look at him, stunned.

  ‘Are you mad?’

  She turned away and began hunting around the room for her handbag.

  ‘Are you looking for this?’ Kane asked from behind her, and she turned around to see him dangling the bag from his finger, a lazy smile on his lips.

  Very funny, she thought. What a jolly laugh you must be having at my expense. She snatched the bag from him and he laughed softly, his eyes alight with dry amusement

  ‘I’m glad you find this whole situation so entertaining,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  I’m sorry,’ he apologised, without a hint of sorrow in his voice. The smile died from his lips and he said more seriously, ‘Actually, entertaining isn’t quite the word I would use.’

  No, I’m sure it isn’t, she wanted to retort. Perhaps interesting would be a better word, an interesting little experiment in shocking the respectable little secretary.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s quite late now. Shall I carry the files home with me or will you take them in tomorrow morning?’

  ‘I’ll bring them in with me,’ be said, following her to the door.

  O’Leary was at the front door, and he glared at the both of them, as if blaming them for having to get out of bed.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Natalie said politely, in control now. She made to move away, but before she could Kane’s fingers curled around her elbow, and he said softly, his green eyes betraying no expression whatsoever,

  ‘I know you want to pretend that what happened just then didn’t, but I think you ought to consider your relationship with this Eric chap very carefully if I am capable of arousing you the way that I did.’ He paused and Natalie controlled the urge to commit first-degree murder. ‘Are you serious about him?’ he asked with a sudden flush.

  With an effort, her grey eyes met his steadily. ‘Yes,’ she said with a sudden spurt of inspiration. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I am. And, just to set the record straight, I may have felt something just then, in the heat of the moment, but I very much doubt it had a great deal to do with you.’ She stopped and thought briefly about what she was going to say next ‘I’m afraid I can’t take alcohol. It makes me muddle-headed; I tend to act out of character after a couple of glasses of wine.’ She gave a tinkling laugh as if to imply, Dear me, I hate to shatter your ego, but…and continued, ‘You could have been anyone.’

  That, she thought, had to be one of the biggest lies she had ever told, but the situation demanded it. She had every intention of walking out of this apartment with her dignity intact, at least in the eyes of Kane Marshall, and if that meant telling a few white lies, then so be it.

  ‘Could I?’ he said grimly. ‘Shall we put that to the test, my darling, dedicated little secretary?’

  Natalie felt a rush of hot colour flood her cheeks, but she stood her ground, and when she replied there was not so much as a quiver in her voice, even though her heart was thudding painfully in her chest.

  ‘I don’t think that that’s in my job description, do you?’

  There was no answer to that one. He stared down at her, and then moved on towards the front door, where he told the taxi driver, in curt tones, to charge the fare to the Marshall company account. The taxi driver grinned. He had done business with Kane Marshall before. He worked for the firm who dealt with all the Marshall Corporation travel. Now he surreptitiously scanned Natalie’s face with interest, and she looked away, quite aware of what was going through his head.

  How many other women had he picked up from this address? He assumed that she was one in the usual line.

  ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Mr Marshall,’ Natalie said, pointedly emphasising the Mr so that no one was in any doubt that her relationship with Kane Marshall was not a sexual one.

  He gave her a mocking smile and drawled, ‘Of course, Miss Robins,’ then he vanished into the interior of the house and she slipped into the taxi, glad for the opportunity to gather her thoughts together, even though she didn’t care for them at all.

  She was still shaking from what had happened inside there. It had been a disaster on an unthinkable scale, because there was so much more at stake then simply her pride. If it had just been her pride, she could have walked away and in due course slotted the whole incident to the back of her mind. A mistake. An unfortunate one, but nevertheless nothing that could not be relegated to that safe category of invaluable experience.

  But she was in love with Kane Marshall. Something that was unimportant to him now threatened to consume her. One thing for sure—she was not going to let him get any ideas into his head. She had told him that her response was due to the heady carelessness brought on by the alcohol and she was going to stick to that excuse as if her life depended on it. At least she had had the foresight to imply that her heart was tied up elsewhere, namely with Eric.

  She thought of solid, nice, amiable Eric and wondered whether his ears were burning right now. He would have an apoplectic fit over his calculator if he knew that he was now a major participant in an imaginary love-affair. The thought brought a watery smile to her lips.

  By the time she got into work the following morning, she had made up her mind that she would handle the situation if it killed her.

  It helped that Kane was nowhere around. He had left a scribbled note for her on her desk, informing her that he had been called to an urgent meeting at their Paris headquarters and would be back later on in the week.

  Natalie stared at the black writing with a feeling of relief. Coping was much easier without him around.

  She spent the rest of the day solidly working on her accounts, liaising with various managers, as well as fitting in the personnel officer, and was pleasantly exhausted by the time she returned to her flat.

  Eric phoned to make sure that she had not forgotten about their date later in the week, and remained on the telephone chatting for quite a while. Despite what she had said to him, was he already becoming more involved with her than either of them wanted? she wondered, as she thoughtfully replaced the receiver a while later. It was flattering to be pursued by someone, and especially by someone with whom she found it so easy to relate. Maybe, she thought, she should not try quite so hard to cut herself off from the opportunity for involvement.

  What, after all, was the point of never looking twice at another man? Of never giving anyone the chance to get close to her? Hadn’t that been one of the decisions which she had made in Kane’s absence? She resolved to let her relationship with Eric take its course.

  The thought clung to her at the back of her mind for the remainder of the week, and on the Friday, when she was due to be collected by him at the office, she spent longer than usual in the morning trying various outfits. She wanted something that was attractive without being pushy. She would also have to wear it to the office, so really a skin-tight scarlet catsuit was totally out of the question. Not that she possessed anything along those lines anyway, nor would she want to.

  In the end, she settled for a close-fitting cream silk skirt, which finished just above the knees, and a black and white checked sleeveless top, also in silk.

  It was a relief, she thought, as six o’clock rolled around, that Eric was picking her up at the office when he was. Silk was definitely not suited to extensive daytime wear, however comfortable the outfit was. She was just too conscious of being over-dressed to relax comfortably.

  She was absorbed transferring some information from one of the files on to her computer when the outer door opened and she looked up, a warm smile on her lips. Kane’s eyes surveyed her sardonically but before she could say anything Eric appeared behind him a
nd alongside him was Anna, her blonde hair tied up in a style that looked as though it had taken several days to accomplish.

  ‘Natalie,’ Eric said warmly, moving towards her and stretching out his hand. ‘I bumped into your boss and his girlfriend in the elevator.’ He went red. ‘Hence the mass arrival. Sorry I’m a bit late.’

  ‘Are you?’ Natalie glanced at her watch in surprise and realised that she had been so engrossed in what she had been doing that the time had slipped by. It was a little after six-fifteen. She stood up, her cheeks pink as Eric’s eyes gleamed with appreciation.

  ‘You look charming,’ he breathed, and from behind him Anna said in a brittle voice,

  ‘What a sweet little outfit. It suits you. Darling—’

  she turned towards Kane ‘—doesn’t she look sweet? I used to have an outfit similar to that when I was a bit younger but——’ she giggled a little ‘—it always made me feel as though I should be behind a typewriter.’

  Kane didn’t respond to that biting observation. He looked from Eric to Natalie, his eyes finally settling on Natalie’s face, and said casually, ‘And where are you two lovebirds off to tonight?’

  ‘Theatre and supper afterwards,’ Natalie said, moving to link her arm through Eric’s. ‘And what about you two?’ she added politely, fetching her black bag and tugging Eric gently towards the door.

  Anna answered with a smug smile, ‘Oh, nothing quite as adventurous as the theatre. I’m thinking of some-thing altogether more intimate.’ Laughter gurgled in her throat.

  ‘Well, have a good time,’ Natalie said, without flinching. She looked at Kane blandly. ‘I’ll see you on Monday. Have a nice weekend.’

  And that, she thought as she strolled out of the office with Eric, was handled very nicely indeed. No stupid blushing. She had been cool, confident and highly secretarial. If only she could control herself with such aplomb all of the time.

  She glanced across at Eric, suddenly grateful for his undemanding maleness. He met her eyes and smiled.

  ‘Do you know something, Natalie?’ he asked, and she shook her head, puzzled. ‘I think you and I are going to become very friendly indeed. I think that fate was definitely at work when I accepted my sister’s invitation to dinner with the two of you the other evening.’