Bittersweet Love

by Cathy Williams

  ‘You haven’t disappointed me,’ he said tersely, ‘merely surprised me. But then you always have.’

  That made her look at him. What did he mean by that?

  ‘So tell me,’ he carried on relentlessly, ‘are the two of you serious?’

  When she shrugged, he stretched out one hand, curling his fingers in her hair so that she was forced to look at him. Panic was now making her breathing difficult and uneven.

  ‘Does he turn you on?’ He glanced quickly at the bathroom door, as if to reassure himself of something, then he said roughly, ‘Does he?’

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ she gasped.

  ‘You’re right, it isn’t.’ He half smiled at her, a charming, persuasive smile that should have made her fly out of the room and run as fast as her legs could take her, but which instead rooted her to the spot, mesmerised.

  ‘There’s always one way of finding out,’ he murmured, and Natalie had no need to ask what it was, be-cause it clicked the moment he leaned towards her, parting her lips with restless urgency. He sighed against her mouth and raised his hand to her head, cupping her neck. Natalie closed her eyes and gave in to the driving hunger that had been a part of her for so long. Her mouth moved feverishly against his, their tongues inter-mingling with electric intimacy. The sensations gripping her were quite different from anything she had ever experienced before.

  How could she have ever entertained the idea of becoming involved with Eric? Or with anyone else for that matter? She would never be able to escape Kane’s clutches. Without realising it, he had made her a prisoner of her own love.

  The force of his kiss had pushed her back against the pillow, dislodging the duvet cover to reveal the lacy femininity of her nightdress. With Eric, she had been quite unaware of its sensual allure. She might just as well have been wearing a pair of thick flannelette pyjamas.

  With Kane, though, it was different. He looked at her hungrily, and she could feel his eyes burning her, making her want to squirm with agonising excitement. And he was as excited as she was. She could see it in his quick breathing, and in the drowsy, feverish glow in his eyes.

  He bent over to kiss her neck, and as she arched back to accommodate him his hand found the full swell of her breast. He caressed it, his fingers playing with the hardened peaks of her nipples through the lace.

  ‘This is madness,’ Natalie groaned unevenly. ‘Eric…’

  ‘Is still lustily singing in the bathroom.’ His mouth closed over hers once again, as she made a small movement to push him away, and her hands curled helplessly around him. He moved lower to cover her breast with his mouth, dampening the lace so that it clung to her form, outlining her nipple, which was hard and aching and pushing through one of the gaps in the delicate material. He nibbled against it, then with a deft movement he dislodged the slender strap from her shoulder and scooped out her breast. Natalie watched his dark head lowered over it and yielded to his heated onslaught.

  It was only when he raised his head to look at her that the first drop of sanity began to return. She heard it as clearly as he did: the silence in the bathroom. Eric was no longer singing.

  With a desperate movement, she wriggled free into a less compromising situation, tugging back on her nightie, while Kane sat up on the bed and carelessly ran his fingers through his hair. He didn’t look as though he cared one way or the other whether Eric caught them at anything.

  He might not care, Natalie thought, but I certainly do.

  ‘A little late for pursed lips, don’t you think?’ Kane commented harshly, standing up but continuing to stare at her. ‘You weren’t exactly pushing me away a moment ago.’

  Natalie struggled to find some reasonable explanation for her behaviour, some excuse that she could hurl at him that might make it all forgivable, but she couldn’t think of a single thing. She could still feel her skin tingling from where he had touched it, and the one thought that kept revolving in her head was that she must have been insane.

  ‘You’d better go,’ she said stiffly, and Kane looked at her with freezing disdain.

  ‘Does Eric know exactly what sort of person you are?’ he asked with a cool, assessing smile.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do I have to spell it out in black and white?’ His voice was rapid and hard and every word was aimed to wound. ‘You’ve shared your bed with Eric, but you don’t exactly mind sharing it with me as well, do you?’

  “That’s not true!’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ He stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at her coldly. ‘Dear me, maybe I misread the obvious. Did you share your bed with Eric?’

  ‘That’s none of your business…!’

  ‘I rest my case.’

  They stared at each other in thick silence, then Natalie felt the stirrings of anger. Just who did Kane Marshall think he was? The patron saint of good behaviour? Oh, he didn’t mind standing there and making his insinuations, but he wasn’t exactly making them from a position of moral superiority, was he?

  ‘You would rest your case,’ she said bitterly. ‘You’ve reached your conclusions and that’s the end of the story as far as you’re concerned. Not,’ she added forcefully, ‘that I have any intention of defending myself anyway——’

  ‘Very wise, considering you would find that a little on the difficult side…’

  She ignored his interruption. ‘I would just like to ask just who the hell you think you are, anyway! You with your women. So what if I choose to sleep with one man, or a thousand men for that matter? It would only be on a par with you!’

  His face reddened but he didn’t take his eyes off her. ‘Don’t you dare lecture to me on my love life,’ he grated.

  ‘Then don’t lecture to me on mine!’ She was clinging to her duvet cover and her knuckles were white. Her body was burning all over, with rage and that dreadful, impotent feeling of having been unjustly condemned—and with the awful knowledge that she had allowed herself to be humiliated for the stupidest of reasons—she had wanted to taste him, to feel him after waiting for so many years.

  ‘You’d better leave,’ she told him.

  ‘Gladly,’ he murmured, turning and walking out without a backward glance.

  As the door shut quietly behind him, the one leading to the bathroom opened and Eric emerged, pink and washed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he frowned. ‘I thought I heard voices.’

  ‘You did.’ Natalie smiled at him brightly. ‘It was just Kane. He wanted to tell me what time to start this morning.’

  Eric looked dubiously at her. ‘Are you sure that was all?’

  ‘Of course!’ She laughed airily even though her throat felt dry and painful. ‘What else? You seem to forget, I’m not Anna. I’m his secretary.’

  Please, she thought desperately, never let me forget that again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  KANE kept Natalie busy for the remainder of the week. As fast as one pile of work was reduced, another one swelled to take its place, and on top of that she had to find the time to keep on top of her newly appointed accounts.

  For the first time since she had been working there she felt an absurd urge to be reassured that she could handle everything, that her promotion had not been a huge mistake, but asking Kane for that kind of assurance was out of the question. Self-doubt was some-thing he had not been afflicted with. She knew that he would treat it in other people with that barely concealed impatience that was more effective than outright irritation.

  Besides, she didn’t want to broach anything remotely personal with him. She just wanted to put her head down and get on with her work, and if she cracked under the strain of it, then she would simply glue the pieces back together in the privacy of her flat, and carry on.

  Eric was slightly put out that he could not see her. He had quite quickly, too quickly, grown accustomed to her compliance in falling in with his plans. She patiently explained that she was working twelve-hour days, but he still grumbled.

  ‘He ca
n’t work you like that. You shouldn’t put up with it! The man’s a slave-driver.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’ Natalie had asked, smiling down the telephone receiver. ‘A sit-down strike? Work to rule?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because chances are he would decide that I wasn’t worth the bother. I’d find myself conducting my sit-down strike in one corner of the room while he introduced my replacement in the other.’

  What she couldn’t explain was that she enjoyed working late. When Kane was focused on work to the exclusion of everything else, there was a powerful camaraderie between them. They could communicate almost without talking. It was dangerous from her point of view, but it still gave her a high, made her feel vibrantly alive and tuned in to him.

  On the Friday, she was almost tempted to give in to Eric’s invitation to dinner. Kane was in Paris for a series of meetings and was not going to be back. In the end, a dogged determination to clear her desk made her refuse, and she remained in the office until after seven o’clock, wearily struggling back to her flat for a light supper of salad and cheese. She felt physically exhausted, but pleasantly so. She had not had much time to think during the week. Now, she sat in front of the television, with her plate on her lap, and all those thoughts which had taken a back seat rose from the shadows and started to nibble away at her consciousness.

  What had happened in the bedroom five days ago still made her body burn. She could remember in vivid and agonising detail every touch of his hand, the feel of his lips exploring her mouth and breasts, the heat from his body making hers tremble with desire.

  Of course she had known that she was in love with him. She had known that for a long time. She was no fool, and she had never tried to hide that inescapable fact from herself. But what she had not known was the depth of reaction that physical contact with him would stir in her. Because she had controlled her love for years, living with it but never letting it escape from the narrow confines in which she nurtured it, she had always assumed that everything was under control.

  Nothing could have prepared her for what she had felt when Kane had kissed her, when he had touched her in places that had never been touched before. Was it all the harder to bear because she was so inexperienced? Would she have been able to cope if she had had a fraction of the worldliness that most girls her age possessed?

  She stared vacantly at the television and the image of Kane in her mind was so powerful that he could just as well have been standing in front of her. What a big joke it must have been for him, proving that he could stoke the fires burning underneath that cool, controlled face of hers.

  Was that why he had come into the bedroom? Hoping that Eric would not be around? Or was it just an opportunity which he had seized, a spot of early morning amusement?

  Whatever, the consequences remained the same. She had reacted to him like a gauche schoolgirl and he had laughingly played on her response as skilfully as a musician playing his instrument. The fact that Eric’s presence in the bathroom had not deterred him only showed the contempt in which he held all her declarations about caring about Eric, about being passionate about him.

  She picked at her salad and tried to focus on the television screen, but it was difficult. In the end she dumped her plate in the kitchen and retrieved her book from where it was lying on the table next to her bed.

  She was re-reading chapter three for the fourth time when the doorbell rang. One short, sharp buzz and she rose to her feet crossly. She was not in the mood for company this evening. It was late, she looked a mess in her faded jeans and faded T-shirt, and, besides, she knew the identity of her caller. Eric. Who else could it be?

  Well, she would have to have a strong chat to him if he thought that he could turn up at her flat any old time. She didn’t want that kind of relationship with him. Not now. Maybe not ever. Friends or no friends. She pulled open the door with a sigh and her eyes widened at the figure standing in front of her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ In all these years, Kane had never before come to see her at her flat. She had been adamant about that one thing—there was no way that she would ever let him intrude into her private territory, even if it was only for the purposes of work. She didn’t object to working at his place, if absolutely necessary, but that was it.

  Now she stared at him, aghast Had he come here straight from the airport? It looked like it. He was still in his suit, although the jacket had been discarded as had the tie, and the sleeves of the white shirt had been carelessly rolled to the elbow, exposing the firm brown flesh of his arms, with their sprinkling of dark hair.

  ‘ Aren’t you going to let me in?’ Kane asked drily.

  Natalie reluctantly stepped aside and watched while he walked into her flat, his tall, powerful body filling it with his charisma. She stayed by the door, one hand still on the doorknob, praying that what he had come for would only take five minutes.

  There was no point in trying to hustle him out because that would only encourage him to stay longer. All the same, she couldn’t resist repeating her question of what he was doing in her flat. At this hour. Without an invitation. She phrased her question as tactfully as she could, but his eyebrows shot up in feigned surprise and she met his eyes evenly.

  ‘Do I take it that you’d rather I was not here at all?’

  Natalie didn’t say anything and he read her silence for agreement.

  ‘You weren’t expecting any other company, were you?’ They both knew who he meant by company and she shook her head.

  ‘I only just got back here about an hour ago myself,’ she confessed after a while. ‘I decided to work late to-night and clear the backlog.’

  ‘What a dedicated little thing you are.’ He prowled around the room, and then sat down on the sofa, picking up her book and twirling it around in his hand, as if trying to discover something about her from her taste in literature.

  Reluctantly Natalie shut the door and moved into the room. She didn’t want this at all, but he could be totally insensitive if it suited him, and clearly he had no intention of leaving just yet, however pointedly she stood by the door tapping her foot and glaring at her watch.

  ‘Aren’t you going to offer me anything to eat or drink?’ He smiled at her persuasively, his green eyes warm and teasing.

  ‘There’s nothing in the fridge to eat,’ Natalie in-formed him. ‘I can make you a cup of coffee if you like.’

  ‘Please don’t put yourself out. I wouldn’t want you to collapse from the effort,’ Kane drawled, but his eyes were sharp with amusement. He cocked his head to one side, waiting for her retort, and Natalie walked off into the kitchen, thankful for the privacy to get her thoughts together.

  What was he doing here? He was here for a reason, and since his arms were not burdened under the weight of files she could only assume that it wasn’t to do with work.

  The haziness of the alternative made her tremble with apprehension. She returned to the lounge and handed him his cup of coffee, then retired to the furthest chair away from him, and surveyed him from under her lashes, troubled.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked finally.

  ‘I merely came to say thank you for all the long hours you put in this past week.’ He looked at her, offended, but she knew better than to think that he really cared one way or another what she thought of him.

  “That’s quite all right,’ she said with an optimistic glance at the door. ‘Although there was no need to come over here,’ she consulted her watch, ‘at nine-thirty to tell me.’

  ‘I was tired and hungry and I wanted someone to chat to,’ Kane said with a hint of irritation in his voice.

  The implication was there that any other woman would have been flattered at his sudden appearance on her doorstep, tired and hungry and in need of a chat.

  ‘How did the meetings go?’ she asked, seeing with a frown that switching the conversation on to work had not met with his approval. But what did he expect? Did he subconsciously think, from her reacti
on to him, that she was amenable to him whenever he chose?

  He clicked his tongue impatiently and briefly told her what had been decided at the meetings. Natalie listened with interest. This aggressive, manipulative skill in dealing with other people on a work level never failed to intrigue her. She had never known anyone who could handle himself with such self-assured ease, and looking at him in action was always a treat.

  ‘I didn’t come here to talk about work,’ he said, rubbing his eyes and relaxing back on the sofa. Natalie studied his reclining figure with a sense of fascinated alarm, as if any minute now he would spring into action and she would have to run for her life.

  ‘What did you come to talk about?’

  He shrugged and looked at her from under his lashes. ‘Anything you’d like to, provided it has nothing to do with work.’

  Natalie’s heart skipped a beat and then went into overdrive. Something in that dark, intimate gaze made the blood rush to her head, made her all too aware that they were alone together. This time there was no Eric singing in the bathroom to remind them that reality was only a hair’s breadth away.

  Then she laughed at herself. Where was she letting her imagination lead her?

  ‘Don’t you have a girlfriend to fulfil those needs?’

  He shot her a lazy smile. ‘What needs in particular are you referring to?’

  The sudden silence was deafening.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Natalie said on an angry note. He was playing games with her. Maybe the delightful Anna wasn’t around. Whatever the reason, she didn’t see why she had to put up with him in her flat, confusing her for his own benefit.

  ‘Anna doesn’t listen the way that you do. Besides, she’s—what shall I say?—getting a little demanding.’

  ‘I see.’ So she was on her way out. After all that possessiveness, those threats, she was on her way out whether she liked it or not. Kane could be quite ruthless in his personal life.