by Penny Jordan
It was plain from his expression that he had recognised her, too, but before Katie could challenge him over his behaviour the estate agent was hurrying to join them, announcing, ‘I do hope that neither of you mind but since you both want to view the properties at virtually the same time I thought we could combine the appointments.’
‘You’re buying one of the apartments?’
The words came out before Katie could silence them and she knew that her expression and tone of voice betrayed exactly what her feelings were.
The cold look she was thrown in disdainful response informed her that her dismay was more than matched by his reaction to the thought of having her as a neighbour, but since his daughter was flinging herself into his arms and hugging him lovingly and claiming his attention, Katie was relieved to recognise that he wasn’t going to be able to respond verbally to her impetuous and betraying comment.
‘Very well, if you’d like to come this way,’ the estate agent suggested.
‘You are interested in and are planning to purchase flat nine, Miss Crighton,’ he checked as he activated the main alarm system and lock to the entrance lobby to the apartments and waited to usher them inside before continuing, ‘And you are purchasing flat number ten, Mr Cooke, is that correct?’
Cooke...this man who looked nowhere near old enough to be the father of a teenage daughter was a Cooke, Katie reflected. Curiously she flicked a discreet look in his direction and then wished she hadn’t as she realised that he’d caught her studying him.
She looked away as quickly as she could, but not before she had recognised that he did indeed bear the very distinctive dark and sensual Cooke good looks—the rakish and very disturbing aura of maleness and danger they all seemed to have inherited in some measure or other from their long-ago gypsy ancestor.
‘In fact,’ the agent continued, as he led the way to the discreetly concealed lifts that serviced the house’s upper floors, ‘seeing as you are going to be close neighbours—yours are the only two apartments on the top floor—perhaps I should introduce you to one another.’
Turning to Katie and before either of them could stop him he announced, ‘Miss Katie Crighton... Mr Seb Cooke...’
She was a Crighton, so where exactly did she fit into the extensive family tree? Seb wondered curiously as he gave Katie a narrow-eyed contemplative look. He could see at close quarters she was far prettier than he had realised that day in the street.
Her eyes were veiled now as they mirrored her body
language’s mute dislike of both the situation and him. Her hair, smoothly brushed instead of tousled by the breeze, hung in a thick soft wave down past her shoulders. The black dress she was wearing hinted at rather than revealed the femininity of her body.
It might not be revealing the lushly full curves of her breasts but he had a vivid memory of just how she and they had looked with the wind pressing the fabric of the top she had been wearing against their softness. In fact, unless his memory was playing tricks on him, she possessed a surprisingly voluptuous body for someone so slim.
Without realising how stern or disapproving it made him look Seb frowned. What on earth was he doing even registering the voluptuousness of an unknown young woman’s body, never mind remembering it? He may not have lived totally like a monk in the years since his divorce but the demands of his work coupled with his awareness of just what an appalling husband and father he had been ensured that he kept whatever relationships he had had to discreet liaisons with women who shared his beliefs that he was simply not good marriage material.
As she saw him frown, Katie immediately felt a return of her earlier dislike of him. Heightened by her lack of self-esteem, this fuelled her inner conviction that such a sensual, rawly male man must surely find her lacking in the kind of feminine attributes that would appeal to him. Not that she would want to appeal to him. Not under any circumstances.
One look at him at close quarters had confirmed that he was most definitely not her type. Too aggressive, too arrogant and far, far too sexy. Oh, yes, far, far too sexy, because, hidden away among all the other emotional burdens she was compelling herself to carry, Katie had what she considered to be a most uncool and unappealing secret and that was...
‘If you’re a Crighton, can I ask... Are you one of the twin Crightons?’
As Charlotte’s semi-shy but wholly warm voice broke into her thoughts, Katie focused bemusedly on her. Charlotte, too, like her father, had heard all about the Crightons from Guy and Chrissie, but unlike her father she felt no self-consciousness about wanting to satisfy her curiosity about just where Katie fitted into the family jigsaw. For Charlotte, the most fascinating and interesting part of the Crighton family saga was the fact that they so regularly produced sets of twins.
‘Charlotte...’ Seb began warningly, but Katie shook her head. Unlike her father Charlotte was someone she had immediately felt at home with. She knew instinctively that the younger girl’s question was simply a natural expression of her justifiable curiosity and so it was easy for her to smile and nod her head, explaining easily, ‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact I am.’
‘Does your twin live in Haslewich, too? Are you and she going to share the apartment?’ Charlotte pressed her.
Katie shook her head. ‘No.’ A small shadow crossed her face, dulling her expression, a fact which Seb noticed but which Charlotte, too engrossed in waiting for her to answer and too youthfully immature to be aware of, did not.
‘No, Louise, my twin, is married and is presently living in Brussels with...Gareth, her husband...’
Now why had she hesitated and then stumbled so awkwardly over saying her brother-in-law’s name? Seb wondered thoughtfully as he caught the note of desolation in Katie’s voice. Had the two women fallen out perhaps...had a rift developed between them due to the fact that their closeness had been breached because one of them had married?
Frowning, he stood back to allow Katie and Charlotte to step into the lift ahead of him. Why on earth was he wasting time wondering about a young woman whose acquaintance he had neither the time nor the desire to pursue? Without realising what he was doing Seb let his gaze drift down to Katie’s mouth. It was soft and full and oh, so infinitely kissable. He could just imagine how it would feel under his...how she would feel...how she would look, her eyes blind with a vulnerable haunted look of longing and desire that would make him want...
‘Here we are... This lift is, of course, exclusively for your use and both of you will have your own passkey.’
With a start Seb dragged his thoughts back to reality.
As Katie preceded Seb into the private hallway into which both their apartments opened she was aware of feeling distinctly wobbly. What on earth was happening to her? Why had she experienced that extraordinary sensation just now, as though...as though...
Instinctively she lifted her fingers to her lips. The only man she had ever fantasised about having kissed her, the only man she wanted to have kiss her with the kind of intimacy and passion she had just been imagining was Gareth. Gareth and not... As her thoughts skittered to a frantic halt, refusing to allow her to question just why she had experienced that extraordinary sensation of having her mouth so expertly and intimately kissed, and by a man she neither knew nor even wanted to know, she told herself that Gareth was just about as far removed from Seb Cooke as it was possible for two men to be. Gareth was gentle, kind, reassuringly safe in his manner, while Seb Cooke was aggressive and possessed the kind of sexual aura that... Katie shuddered. What on earth would she want with such a raw, dangerous outright hunk of male sexuality...?
‘This is your apartment,’ the agent was saying chirpily to her, unlocking the door for her. ‘As you know, you have the benefit of your own private balcony while your flat...’ he turned to Seb, ‘has the addition of an extra room which could be used as a third bedroom or a study.’ Still smiling he crossed the ha
llway and unlocked the other door.
Taking advantage of Seb’s preoccupation with the agent, Katie slipped inside her own apartment.
Five minutes later, having completed a closer inspection of all the rooms, she was forced to admit that she was unlikely to find anything that would suit her better. All the rooms were a good size, all the period decorative details had been retained, giving the apartment a feeling of elegance and even grandeur, and the views from the windows, which she had not really taken full account of on her previous visit, extended not just over the grounds of the house itself, all of which were there for the residents to enjoy and which were tended by a firm of gardeners, but over the surrounding countryside.
Left alone in his own apartment with Charlotte while the estate agent went to check to see if Katie had any questions she wanted to ask him, Seb turned to his daughter, lifting one querying eyebrow as he asked her, ‘Well...’
‘It’s cool,’ Charlotte responded with a wide grin. ‘Love the bathrooms... Yours is even big enough to have a Jacuzzi fitted if you want one.’
‘If I want one,’ Seb agreed, adding firmly, ‘which I don’t...’
‘Dad, why haven’t you ever re-married?’ Charlotte asked him seriously now.
While Seb was frowningly wondering how best to answer her, she continued a little uncertainly.
‘It isn’t because of me is it... I mean I know that...well, Mum never really said much about...about things, but I did once overhear her talking to George about it and she said that having me had been the final straw for you...’
Seb studied her downcast head wondering what on earth he could say. As close as they had grown the subject of his marriage to her mother and their subsequent divorce was not one they had ever discussed, and man-like he had always been reluctant to raise a subject which, he was forced to admit, did not reflect well on himself.
‘I rather think what your mother was trying to say was that my adolescent and totally selfish reaction to the demands a baby made on her time and our marriage were the last straw for her,’ Seb corrected Charlotte gently.
‘The reason our marriage didn’t survive was wholly and totally down to me, Charlotte... I was a selfish wretch, and far too immature when we got married to think about anyone other than myself. Your mother and I met at university, fell into what we believed was love but what, with a bit of perspective, I think we both soon realised was really only lust, married...and...and then you came along and you have no idea how much I regret the years I’ve lost with you and my own unforgivable selfishness...’
‘M-Mum did say once that had the pair of you been older or a bit more worldly-wise, you’d both have known that what you had together was wonderful for an intense and passionate affair, but not for marriage. She said, too, that while she was the one who initiated things between the two of you, you were the one with the old-fashioned moral principles who insisted that you should get married—if you were going to have sex.’
Seb grimaced. What Charlotte had just said was quite true. Eighteen months his senior, Sandra had had other boyfriends, other relationships, before she had met him—neither of them had come to their own affair as novice lovers. But with his own upbringing, his knowledge of what could happen in the aftermath of a passionate relationship for the woman who was left on her own, seen first-hand through the history of his own family—Cooke men had a certain notorious reputation for their alleged propensity to father children outside wedlock—he had felt it necessary to prove that he was different, above the kind of much criticised behaviour his name had branded him with. Perhaps his insistence on marrying Sandra had been a righteous and ridiculous piece of over-reaction, but if he was honest with himself Seb knew that, given the same situation again, he would probably have reacted in exactly the same way.
His father had always been a stern critic of the haphazard morals of some members of the Cooke clan. As a boy growing up, Seb could remember that there had been tight-lipped conversations between his parents about the sudden arrival of a new and unexpected member of the family who did not always carry his or her father’s name. Both of his parents had been insistent that that was a family inheritance of which they most certainly did not approve. And nor, no more so, did Seb.
Seb was brought back to the present as Charlotte squeezed his arm lovingly and kissed his cheek.
‘I’m glad we’ve had this little talk,’ she told him almost maternally. ‘And I wish that you could find someone nice to marry Dad... I liked Katie Crighton, didn’t you?’
Seb frowned as she looked at him, but Charlotte only returned his look with one of filial innocence and before Seb could warn her that even if he had been looking for someone, Katie Crighton was most definitely not his type, the estate agent had returned.
* * *
TEN MINUTES LATER as Seb drove out of the house’s grounds behind Katie and the estate agent, he made a mental note to get in touch with Jon Crighton and set the wheels in motion for the purchase of the apartment. Now that he had decided to buy and had had his offer accepted, he wanted to get the formalities over and done with as soon as possible so that he could move in.
* * *
AS SHE DROVE out of the house’s grounds ahead of Seb Cooke, Katie was wishing that she might have had someone else, anyone else, but him for her new and nearest neighbour. Not that she was likely to see much of him, she acknowledged, on two counts. According to what Charlotte had told her she could guess that his job would be very demanding and from the way he had looked at her she had seen that he was as pleased about having her for a neighbour as she was him. What was his wife like? she wondered. Very glamorous and sexy no doubt. He was that kind of man—you could see at a glance. He just exuded sexuality... Not like Gareth. Gareth was a man for snuggling up to in front of a lovely log fire... Gareth was a comfort and reassurance, safe and...
And there was no way that anyone, any woman, would ever describe Seb Cooke as any of those things, but most especially safe. Why, you only had to think about his family’s reputation. There was a smouldering sexual energy about him that rubbed her up the wrong way and brought all of her own antagonism towards him out, making her feel prickly and on her guard, wary and filled with unfamiliarly strong emotions.
Even the way he had looked at her. Katie tensed as she tried to banish the unwanted memory of that startling reaction she had experienced when she had almost felt as though she could sense the heat of his breath, his mouth on hers. It had been a mistake, an accident, a ridiculous fluke caused by heaven alone knew what mix up of signals inside her body. No doubt Seb himself would have an explanation for such awareness. He, after all, was the research scientist and no doubt fully au fait with the confusing mixture of chemicals and in-built programming which were responsible for what less rational people called ‘emotions.’
To her relief as she looked in her driving mirror she saw that they were going in opposite directions to their different destinations as she indicated to turn left to drive home to her parents’ house.
CHAPTER THREE
‘MMM... WHAT A wonderful smell,’ Katie enthused as she walked into the kitchen where her mother was busy cooking. Originally a farmer’s daughter from Cheshire, Jenny Crighton had the kind of homemaking skills that at one stage of her young married life had made her feel very dull and old-fashioned. Who wanted a wife who could grow, preserve and cook her own fruit and vegetables in an era which had fallen in love with Twiggy look-alikes; fragile, big-eyed dolly birds? Who wanted a wife with a healthy build, thick curly hair and freckles when the fashion was for chalk-white pallor and long straight locks?
It had taken a long time for her to learn that Jon Crighton, her husband, loved her very deeply, but these last few years since the birthday party thrown to celebrate her husband’s and his twin brother’s half century had seen a renaissance in their marriage and had brought her more joy and happiness than sh
e had once believed she could ever have—and it showed. She still had the trim feminine figure of her youth, but as a young girl she had been self-effacing, a little awkward and shy, now she had a mature self-confidence that came not just from knowing how much her husband loved her nor even from being the pivot of her busy family household, but from feeling at ease with herself.
‘It’s for supper tonight. You haven’t forgotten that we’re having an informal party, have you?’
Katie gave her an apologetic look.
‘Oh heavens, yes I had,’ she admitted, adding by way of explanation, ‘It’s been such a frantic week, what with my own conveyance and then Olivia having to take extra time off.’
‘Mmm... Well, at least the doctor has confirmed the fever and temperature is only a childhood upset and not meningitis as Olivia first feared. You will be joining us this evening though, won’t you?’
‘Mmm... What time are you expecting people?’
‘In about an hour,’ her mother told her.
‘Right, I’ll go up and have a shower and get changed and then I’ll come down and give you a hand. Is Dad back?’ she asked as she helped herself to one of the too-tempting and still-warm fruit buns her mother had just put onto a wire rack to cool.
‘Yes...just... That will give you indigestion,’ she warned Katie with a mock-serious look as she tapped her hand.
‘Oh, and by the way, I rang Louise this morning...’
Katie, who had been about to go upstairs, tensed, her heart starting to thud unevenly. Every mention of her twin reminded her of Gareth and brought home to her the emptiness of her own life in contrast to the love that filled Louise’s.
‘You know we’re having a special party for your grandfather soon,’ her mother was continuing. ‘Well, both Maddy and I think that we ought to have as many from the family there as possible. Having the family around him means so much to Ben and he’s getting so frail...’