Bittersweet Love

by Cathy Williams

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it.’

  As soon as the door was shut behind him, she wriggled against his grip, finally giving up, and said in a high voice, ‘You can’t do this.’

  ‘No?’ Kane said softly. ‘And who exactly is going to stop me?’

  ‘I’ll scream,’ she threatened, and he raised his eyebrows.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ he said calmly, leading her out into the sunshine. ‘You’re far too curious to find out what all that was about.’

  Natalie hated to admit it, but he was right She had no intention of screaming. She allowed herself to be led to where his car had been parked on double yellow lines, and she sat in silence as he pulled away from the kerb, away from the centre of the city.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked, and before he could answer she added sarcastically, ‘I don’t suppose it would do any good telling you that I just want to get back to work.’

  ‘You suppose right.’ His hands were resting loosely on the steering-wheel, and even though his voice was composed enough there was an element there that she couldn’t quite recognise and had never heard before. Or maybe it was just her imagination playing tricks on her.

  ‘How many more times do I have to tell you to leave me alone?’ she asked, and he didn’t answer. There was an air of tension about him, even though he seemed relaxed enough.

  The car cruised out of London, on to the M4, where it picked up speed on the motorway. Natalie looked at the vanishing and comforting crowds of the city with dismay. Where on earth were they heading?

  ‘Windsor,’ he said, reading her mind and glancing across to her. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Why did you barge into the register office?’

  ‘That’s one of the things we need to talk about.’ His profile was hard and clean, and she couldn’t glean a thing from it. He only ever revealed what he wanted to be seen, and right now it was very little.

  She turned to stare out of the window. Outside the scenery, not particularly charming, flashed past her, and she was only aware that they had reached Windsor when the car turned off the motorway and skilfully manoeuvred the small, picturesque streets, dominated by the castle looming over the town like a benevolent patriarch.

  He was, she realised, as involved with his thoughts as she was, and she didn’t know whether that made her feel any better or not.

  The car pulled up outside a restaurant on the outskirts of the city centre—one of those old-fashioned places which had probably achieved its look through a clever combination of skill and attention to the right sort of detail. It was crowded with a clientele of businessmen, but Kane was recognised instantly. Instead of being shown into the main restaurant, they were taken up the stairs to a sitting-room.

  ‘I know the owner personally. This is his retreat from the madhouse downstairs.’

  Natalie didn’t reply. She didn’t want to start on a long, polite conversation. There were too many questions screaming for answers in her head. She sat down on one of the comfortable flowered sofas and tucked her legs underneath her. Kane’s green eyes flicked over her, making her uncomfortable, and she thought that he was going to say something but he didn’t He stood up and prowled around the sitting-room, inspecting the pictures on the walls as though they were masterpieces instead of pleasant enough prints, moving to stare out of the window.

  At last, he said heavily, not looking at her, ‘I suppose you think my behaviour was laughable?’

  Did he really expect an answer to that one? Natalie wondered. But she couldn’t summon up any antagonism towards him, though she knew that that was her best defence. His defensive, aggressive tone somehow made him achingly vulnerable.

  ‘We were all surprised,’ she said neutrally.

  ‘And you don’t think that I was as well?’

  Natalie could feel her heart hammering away inside of her, and her thoughts were sluggish. Explain yourself! she wanted to shout. Don’t play games with me.

  He moved around to where she was sitting and her body tensed. If he lays a finger on me, she promised herself, I’ll fly out of here before he can so much as move a muscle. She eyed the door, assessing the distance, and he followed the line of her stare.

  ‘Forget it,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You seem to have been running away from me forever, but now it’ s time to stop.’ Natalie sprang up, alarmed and frightened by something on his face, and he pushed her back down on to the sofa.

  ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she bit out, ‘and you can keep me prisoner here till the cows come home, but it won’t get you anywhere. I’m not going to sleep with you.’

  ‘Whatever gave you the idea that that was what I brought you here for?’

  Her temple began to throb and she couldn’t prevent the little flutter of hope that sprang up inside of her. One tiny drop of water, she thought bitterly, and the seed will grow, but let’s not forget that that drop of water won’t keep it alive for very long.

  He sat on the edge of the coffee-table in front of her, barring her exit, and Natalie stared at him with defiance.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, woman,’ he muttered, ‘I’m not going to devour you.’

  “This is all a waste of time,’ she whispered, looking down at her hands.

  He reached out and lifted her chin with one finger, and she felt as though she was drowning in the green pools of his eyes.

  ‘You let me think that you and Eric were an ongoing thing,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘What difference did it make?’ Her voice sounded cracked and strained, but still proud.

  ‘Dammit, Natalie, can’t you see what you’re doing to me?’ He raked one restless hand through his thick black hair and she followed the gesture with compelling absorption. ‘Do you want me to beg?’ he asked, looking away.

  ‘No. I would hate that.’

  ‘I’ll beg if it means the difference between you going or staying,’ he said in such a low voice that she found it difficult to understand the words.

  ‘I can’t stay as your mistress,’ Natalie said, but she was confused. She wanted him so badly, loved him so badly, that next to that everything else seemed to fade into insignificance.

  Oh, God, she thought suddenly, how could I have forgotten the baby?

  ‘Marry me,’ he whispered, his voice uneven. ‘I’ve asked you to before. Marry me, please. I’m begging.’

  Tell me that you love me, she willed him to say, and their eyes met.

  ‘You know I do, don’t you?’ The smile he gave her was crooked. She could hardly believe her ears. She seemed to have spent a lifetime waiting for these words, but now that they were spoken she wondered whether she had heard correctly. Maybe she had misinterpreted him.

  ‘I love you, Natalie,’ he said with a wrenched sigh, and her body began to tremble uncontrollably. ‘I never thought that I’d hear myself say those words. I always imagined that love was something I could control, that I’d be able to beckon it when I wanted it, when it suited me, but life has a funny way of kicking your best laid plans on the head, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’

  He reached out and stroked the sensitive skin on her wrist with his thumb and the rhythmic warmth made her groan slightly.

  ‘You excite me,’ he said softly. ‘You’re exciting me now, and I don’t think that this is quite the place, do you? At least, not with the door unlocked.’ He stood up and walked across to the door, clicking the lock into place, then he returned to sit next to her.

  ‘I went crazy when I thought that you were getting married to that man,’ Kane told her, his hand cupping the side of her face, then moving down to caress her neck and shoulders. ‘What did you tell Tony, for God’s sake?’

  Natalie smiled. ‘I told him that I was going to the register office. He must have misinterpreted what I meant.’

  ‘His mistake put me through hell.’ He leant forward and brushed his lips against hers, then his kiss deepened into one of fierce hunger. Natalie fell back under his onslaught. She
was breathing quickly, feeling that rushing, heady excitement that only he could arouse in her. ‘I love you, darling,’ he moaned, and when he lifted his head to look at her his eyes were feverish and sensual. ‘Tell me that you love me.’

  ‘You know I do,’ she said softly, tracing her finger along his jaw. ‘I’ve loved you for years. I can’t imagine how you could ever have thought that there was anything between Eric and me. It would have been convenient—after all, I never imagined that you could be interested in me—but love doesn’t listen to reason, does it?’ She paused and looked at him anxiously. ‘There’s something else,’ she said hesitantly.

  ‘Mmm?’ Kane murmured, one hand reaching out to cup her breast while his finger found her nipple and teased it into sweet arousal.

  ‘You’re making it very hard for me to concentrate,’ she said shakily. Her body was aching for him. She could hardly think straight.

  ‘Good,’ he said, undoing the buttons of her blouse and staring with concentrated hunger at her exposed breast. ‘Now you know how I’ve been feeling recently. All those years, you worked your way under my skin. Do you know, I thought about you all the time when I was in the Far East? I told myself that I was only drawing comparisons between you and the secretary that I had out there, but deep down I knew that I was missing you for completely different reasons.’

  His hand stroked her thighs under the fine linen of her skirt, hitching it up so that he could find the tender moistness waiting for his touch.

  ‘But I was fat then,’ Natalie said, momentarily distracted, and he laughed softly.

  ‘You don’t believe that love has anything to do with looks, do you? What a chauvinistic remark from a woman.’

  ‘The women you dated were always so beautiful,’ Natalie protested, blushing. His words pierced her with a sweet sense of satisfaction. Had he really noticed her? She thought back to the odd times she had caught him looking at her from under his lashes, holding her stare for just a fraction more than was necessary. She had never paid the slightest bit of attention to it. She had never felt that she possessed what it took for a man like Kane Marshall to find her attractive. Her own insecurity had blinded her.

  ‘I didn’t fall in love with any of them,’ he pointed out, and she smiled, then she shot him a quick, uncertain look.

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ she said hesitantly, ‘one very big thing.’

  ‘What?’ His tone was dry. ‘You’ve made me admit that I’m head over heels in love with you, I actually made a complete fool of myself at that damned register office just to prove it. I’ve begged you for your hand in marriage. What else? Do I have to have it written in the sky?’

  ‘That sounds a novel idea.’ But her eyes when she looked at him were still serious.

  ‘We love each other, my darling. What more could there possibly be?’

  Natalie thought about what she was going to say. A man who happily contemplated marriage didn’t automatically contemplate fatherhood with the same enthusiasm. What if he was not ready for that final step?

  She tried to think back to everything he had ever said about family life, about wanting a family, but her mind went blank, and all she could think of was the fact that he loved her.

  ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen,’ she said huskily, and he frowned, looking at her as if trying to fathom out what she was telling him, and already suspecting the worst.

  ‘Mean for what to happen?’ he said slowly.

  Natalie rested her hand on her stomach and he followed her movement. She could see recognition dawning in his eyes, though when he raised his head to stare at her there was enough of a question there to make her nod her head in confirmation.

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell me?’ he said roughly, but his eyes were hot and possessive, making her skin burn.

  ‘I didn’t want to…to make you feel that you had any responsibilities towards me. As far as I was concerned, you didn’t love me, and I thought that my pregnancy would only force you into a corner.’ She laughed drily. ‘In all the time I’ve known you, the one thing you’ve always made clear is the fact that you hate a woman who tries to force you into a corner.’

  ‘You little fool,’ he broke out, but he was trembling slightly as his mouth covered hers in a tender kiss. He stroked her breasts, then her stomach, and she could feel the wonder in his touch.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ she asked stupidly and he raised dazed eyes to hers.

  ‘Mind? I would have killed you if you had run away from me with my baby inside you. I should be as angry as hell, but I can understand how you must have felt.’ Under her skirt, his hand found the bare flesh of her stomach, and he caressed her gently. ‘Fatherhood and marriage. If anyone had told me a year ago that that would have been my destiny, and that I would have wanted it more than I’ve wanted anything in my life, I would have laughed in their face. No, I would have run to the opposite end of the earth.’ His fingers found the swell of her breast and he caressed it with soft movements that made her want to cry out in desire.

  ‘I’ll never stop you if that’s want you want to do.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mean that, because I would damn well lock you up if you ever tried to get away from me.’ He laughed, and buried his face in her neck.

  Natalie sighed and lay back on the sofa, her fingers curling in his hair.

  ‘Can we do this?’ he asked uncertainly.

  ‘Do what?’ she asked innocently. ‘I didn’t realise that we were doing anything.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ he growled, possessing her mouth fiercely. ‘You little witch.’

  She laughed contentedly. ‘I may be pregnant, but I’m not a piece of china. And I want you, Kane Marshall. I’ll never stop wanting you.’

  ‘Good,’ he murmured with satisfaction. ‘Because now that you’ve got me you’ll never be able to let me go.’

  eISBN 978-14592-6266-9

  BITTERSWEET LOVE

  First North American Publication 1998.

  Copyright © 1993 by Cathy Williams.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills. Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  Printed in U.S.A.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Epigraph

  Dear Reader

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  Copyright