by Penny Jordan
And then abruptly she released Charlotte’s hand and was gone, disappearing into the swirling crowd, leaving the three of them to stand in silence while they digested her predictions.
‘Well...’ Charlotte gasped. ‘Wasn’t that extraordinary... Did you notice her eyes? I felt almost as though she was hypnotising me.’
‘She probably was, or at least attempting to do so,’ her father told her curtly, adding grimly, ‘It’s all rubbish, of course.’
‘I really must go,’ Katie told them both. There was absolutely no way she could bring herself to look at Seb, not after what the girl had said. Seb was right, it had all been rubbish, a piece of ineffective guesswork on the other woman’s part based on the fact that they were together. She had probably assumed that they were already a couple and that Katie, who quite obviously couldn’t be Charlotte’s mother, must want to have Seb’s child herself. It was silly for her to feel so hyper-sensitively aware of that mental image she had had of that small dark-haired boy so very, very like Seb. That had simply been a coincidence, that was all.
‘She obviously thought that the two of you were a couple,’ Charlotte commented with a wide smile.
‘No.’
‘No way...’
Charlotte looked from her father to Katie and then back again as they both uttered their denials at the same time.
‘Oh, but you heard what she said,’ she teased. ‘It’s inevitable...fate...’
‘I’d say the explanation is much closer to hand and owes far more to a vivid imagination than any supernatural influence,’ Seb announced dryly.
‘Katie—there you are. Ma has sent us to look for you so that we can eat lunch.’
With the sudden appearance of Louise, with Gareth at her side and their son in his arms, it was tempting to tell Seb that he was wrong and that a certain mischievous and even malign unseen force appeared to enjoy wreaking havoc with her composure, but of course Katie knew she would do—could do—no such thing, not without revealing just why the arrival of her twin sister with her husband and baby should be so uncomfortable for her.
It was normal custom in the Crighton family and most especially her own generation of it for both its female and male members to embrace, hug and kiss one another in greeting, but after the first time, she had frozen back in anguish when Gareth had attempted to hug her when he and Louise had become a couple. Gareth had always kept his distance from her and Katie had been profoundly grateful to him for doing so. But contradictorily on this occasion, all too aware of Seb’s keen eyes and Charlotte’s curious ones on them, she almost wished that he would step forward and give her a brotherly hug.
Of course introductions had to be made and while Charlotte cooed enthusiastically over Nick, Gareth and Seb exchanged male pleasantries, each patently calmly assessing the other.
‘You’ll never guess what’s just happened,’ Charlotte started to tell Louise excitedly, while Katie’s heart sank. Only let her twin get wind of what the girl had predicted... But to her relief, instead of immediately teasing them both over the girl’s prediction, Louise was uncharacteristically tactful and silent on the subject, simply reiterating their parents were waiting to begin lunch.
‘Mmm...lunch, that sounds like a good idea, Dad,’ Charlotte told her father enthusiastically. ‘I’m starving...’
As she saw the rather rueful look Seb was giving the fast-food outlets close by, Louise suggested promptly, ‘Look, why don’t you join us. Knowing Ma there’ll be more than enough...’
‘Oh, no...’
‘Thank you, but no...’
As both Seb and Katie spoke together, Louise raised her eyebrows a little, her attention focusing rather too keenly for Katie’s liking on what she knew to be her give-away flushed face.
But before she or Seb could reiterate their rejections of Louise’s suggestion, Guy and Chrissie were coming towards them.
‘I was just inviting Sebastian and Charlotte to join us for lunch,’ Louise explained immediately to her mother’s ex-business partner.
‘You were...that’s good because I’ve just seen Jenny myself and accepted her invitation that the five of us should join you...’
Her heart sinking, Katie automatically turned to go to her sister’s side but as she did so, Guy asked her apologetically, ‘Katie, would you mind taking your father’s keys and going to the car to get the cutlery your mother asked me to collect. Anthony needs changing before lunch and our car is parked on the other side of the field, so...’
Only too glad to have an opportunity to get away from Sebastian Cooke, Katie immediately nodded her head and took her father’s car keys from Guy.
‘We’re in our usual picnic spot,’ Louise told her sister cheerfully as she fell into step beside Chrissie to exchange mother and baby stories.
Katie had gone less than a few dozen yards when she suddenly heard Seb calling her name.
Turning round she watched warily as he hurried to catch up with her.
‘I just wanted to have a few words with you before we join the rest of your family for lunch,’ he told her curtly. ‘All that rubbish that fake “fortune-teller” was spouting had absolutely nothing to do with me,’ he informed her unnecessarily.
Immediately Katie could feel her temper starting to burn.
‘Well, I certainly didn’t have anything to do with her predictions,’ she snapped back immediately. ‘The very idea is ridiculous. For a start we’d have to...’
She stopped, her face going scarlet as the unexpectedly explicit mental images of just what they would have to do to make the woman’s predictions come true filled her mind.
‘We’d have to what?’ Seb picked up softly for her. ‘Go to bed together. Is that what you were going to say?’
Primly Katie looked away from him before answering in a very stifled voice, ‘Actually no. What I was going to say is that we would have to...to have a very different relationship from the one we do have...’
‘Like I said, we’d have to go to bed together,’ Seb told her succinctly. ‘And there’s no way that’s going to happen.’
Katie couldn’t help it, she gave a small gasp of chagrined pride as he delivered his immediate and unequivocal rejection of her.
‘You’re right,’ she agreed quickly and decisively. ‘It isn’t. The kind of man I would want...the kind of man I find attractive,’ she hastily amended, ‘is...would be...’
‘Would be what?’ Seb challenged her sharply.
Katie was too caught up in her feelings to be either cautious or tactful.
‘He wouldn’t be anything like you,’ she told him pointedly. ‘He’d be kind...gentle... caring...’ Her voice softened betrayingly, her eyes suddenly remote and dreamy as she continued a little huskily, ‘He’d be wise and...and understanding and he’d...he’d never...’ She stopped and then told him fiercely, ‘He would never ever be anything, anyone...like you...’
‘No, he wouldn’t,’ Seb agreed grittily. ‘Not me, nor any other red-blooded male. He sounds more like some mythical sexless cardboard cut-out of a man than the real thing,’ he told her scathingly. ‘A fictional hero who bears as much resemblance to a real man as...’
‘You’re just saying that because you’re not like that,’ Katie interrupted him defiantly. ‘There are men like that...men who...’
‘Men who what?’ Seb immediately challenged her, falling into step beside her as Katie, fearing that she was losing ground in their argument, turned on her heel and started to hurry towards the field in which her parents’ car was parked.
‘Let go of me,’ she protested as Seb reached for her arm when she continued to ignore him.
‘Not until you’ve answered my question,’ he told her grimly. ‘Men who what? Tell me exactly what it is about this mythical mate you deem so desirable—because it certainly can’t be his sexuality.’
‘Seb!’ Katie flashed back at him immediately. ‘There’s more to a relationship...to love...than that...’
‘Indeed there is, but I think you’ll find most men—and women—want the pleasure of enjoying and arousing their chosen partner’s sexual desires. You must have experienced that for yourself,’ he continued curtly when Katie made no response other than tensing in his grasp as they both came to a halt opposite one another. His expression changed subtly as he looked down into her wary eyes.
‘You have experienced it, haven’t you, Katie?’ he asked her softly.
‘What I have or have not experienced is no concern of yours.’ Katie defended herself valiantly.
‘Perhaps not,’ Seb agreed, but instead of releasing her and turning away as she had expected, he suddenly moved closer to her, causing her stomach to turn in anxious protest. ‘Or perhaps our fortune-teller does know something that you and I do not... Shall we find out...?’
‘No...’ Katie started to protest, but it was too late. Cloaked as they were by the shadows cast by the trees at the edge of the field it was dangerously easy for Seb to draw her fully into his arms, imprisoning her there as he bent his head and his mouth came down expertly and inescapably over hers.
It was a kiss more of anger and retribution than anything else; Katie was not so naive that she didn’t recognise that fact.
He had resented the fortune-teller’s prediction and he was angry with her because he didn’t like her and this was his way of punishing her.
‘No...’ she managed to protest sharply against his mouth as she struggled to break free of him, her teeth accidentally grazing his bottom lip as she did so.
‘What the...’
As she heard him curse Katie froze. She could taste the slight saltiness of his blood on her own tongue and was horrified by what she had done, even if he had provoked it.
‘...and what you want is a gentle passive lover,’ she heard him demanding savagely. ‘You’re a liar, Katie. You want a man whose passion matches your own, a man who...’
‘What I don’t want is you,’ Katie told him frantically.
‘And I don’t want you,’ Seb assured her sharply, his expression changing and, holding her in paralysing thrall, he added rawly, ‘but I want this...’
Katie whimpered in protest as his mouth possessed hers, possessed it, seduced it...ravished it...the pressure of his mouth on hers making her own lips feel so sensitive that her whole body shook with the tiny quivers of sensation she was feeling.
Through the dapple of the leaves on the trees she could feel the warmth of the sun on her face, but its heat was nothing to the heat Seb was generating inside her.
She tried to break free of him. She knew she had to. Why were her arms entwined around him, why was her body pressed so close to him, why was her mouth parting beneath the pressure of his...why...?
‘See, I told you you were passionate,’ she could hear Seb telling her huskily. ‘The only reason you’d ever want a meek and mild apology for a mate is so that you could destroy and devour him like a praying mantis...’
‘Oh...’
As the cruelty of his words jerked her back to reality, Katie pulled away from him.
‘You were the one who... I did nothing,’ she amended quickly, unable to look at him.
‘Nothing...’
As she attempted to move away from him Seb reached out, cupping her jaw in his hand and turning her face up so that he could look down at her.
‘Then, what’s this,’ he demanded, lifting her hand to his mouth and pressing her fingers against the bruised rawness of his bottom lip.
Giving a small, choked protest Katie pulled away. Her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. She was dizzy and lightheaded and somewhere deep inside her there was a small insidious ache that frightened and shocked her.
But before she could say or do anything she heard Guy’s familiar voice calling out semi-scoldingly, ‘There you are, you two, Jenny thought you must have got lost...’
* * *
LATER KATIE ASSUMED that she must have said and done everything that was expected and required of her during lunch. Certainly no one seemed to find her behaviour odd or out of character, but she herself was intensely, uncomfortably aware of Sebastian Cooke’s presence all through the light-hearted alfresco family meal. While the others were chatting and exchanging pleasantries and banter, she was finding it hard to force down so much as a mouthful of her mother’s delicious cold spread.
In fact, she noticed a little bitterly at one point, Seb seemed more at ease and relaxed than she did and as for Charlotte...it was plain that she was enjoying herself hugely. Katie could hear her telling Jenny enthusiastically how much she was enjoying life at her sixth-form college.
‘Being a boarder there makes it even better,’ she gushed. ‘The other girls are great and I’ve made so many new friends.’
‘It must have been quite a difficult decision for you to make,’ Jenny remarked to Seb.
‘It was,’ he agreed. ‘Sandra, George and I all sat down with Charlotte to discuss it. I know she believes at sixteen that she’s an adult, but while we accept that she is mature enough to make most of her own decisions about her education, it is an unfortunate fact that this modern world we live in is not always a very safe place for a young woman.
‘However, the school has an excellent policy which allows the girls some freedom while at the same time ensuring their safety.’
‘Yes, we’re allowed evening exeats and we can even go clubbing, just so long as there’s a group of eight or more of us and we all come back together in the school minibus.
‘Mum and George and Dad did take a bit of persuading to allow me to go, but it’s the best “A” level college in the country for my subjects and since I’m hoping to get a place at Manchester University it made sense to move here.’
With her own cousin and younger brother at a very similar stage in their education Katie was not surprised that her mother should be so interested in Charlotte’s ‘A’ level studies, but she wished her mother would not be quite so warm and welcoming towards Sebastian Cooke.
She was uncomfortably aware that by some fluke of circumstance, the group of adults around the picnic had separated themselves out so that she was actually now sitting closer to Seb than she was to anyone else. Unfortunately, the nearest other person to her was Gareth and she had determined to remove any remaining longings for him from her life by keeping as much distance—in every sense of the word—between herself and her brother-in-law as she could.
Still, at least she could comfort herself that Louise had not told the rest of the family about the fortune-teller’s prediction and Louise, Katie fervently hoped, would never refer to it again.
* * *
HOWEVER, LATER IN the day Katie discovered that her relief had been premature.
At Louise’s insistence she had driven her over to see her new apartment while Gareth had been left behind to bathe and feed Nick.
‘It’s fabulous,’ Louise pronounced once the short tour was over and they were standing in the apartment’s living room. ‘When do you expect to move in?’
‘Well, hopefully by the end of the week. The carpets should be down by then, although I’m not sure whether or not all the curtains will be finished, but Mum has offered to lend me some in the interim if they aren’t.’
‘Mmm... It’s a very sophisticated bachelor-girl place,’ Louise approved. ‘Although...’ with a twinkle in her eye she told Katie, ‘Although, if what your gypsy friend predicted is true...’
‘Seb and I...’ Katie interrupted her quickly. ‘We...’
But before she could finish her denial Louise was reaching out to touch her, asking her seriously and quietly, ‘Can we talk? Properly, I mean...’
Katie’s heart sank. This was the mom
ent she had been dreading ever since Gareth and Louise had announced their love for one another.
‘Of course...’ she responded with what she knew was a forced note of jollity in her voice. ‘What do you want to talk about? We...’
‘Katie, come on...this is us...you and me... Look, I know...’
Katie froze. Louise knew what? That she, Katie, loved her husband...?
But, instead of continuing Louise shook her head and said huskily, ‘We used to be so close, you and I. We told one another everything...but since Gareth and I married... You’re my twin... I still need you... I always will and I hate feeling that there’s this distance, this barrier, between us. If I’ve said or done something to hurt you...’
‘No. No, of course you haven’t,’ Katie denied quickly, terrified in case Louise continued to question her and somehow discovered the truth. It wasn’t her fault that she, Katie, loved Gareth. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, except her own, and the last thing she wanted to do was to widen the rift which Louise had so correctly pinpointed by admitting how she really felt. All that admitting her feelings could do would be to embarrass Louise and Gareth and to humiliate herself.
‘It’s just...’ She stopped, frantically hunting for a satisfactory explanation to silence her sister’s questions. ‘Well, obviously things are different now that you and Gareth are married and that you have Nick.’
‘Well, yes, of course,’ Louise agreed, her mouth curling into a wide smile as she laughed. ‘Still, by the sound of it, it won’t be long before you and Seb have a child of your own... He’s gorgeously sexy, Katie. Seriously sexy,’ she underlined, rolling her eyes appreciatively. ‘And if I weren’t so very much in love with Gareth...’
‘Louise, Seb and I...’ Katie began frantically, appalled by the direction the conversation was taking and the assumptions Louise had so mistakenly leapt to.
‘It’s a pity the two of you didn’t discover you were in love before you bought this place though. Still it’s obvious that you’ll make a good profit on it when you sell it. Have you made any plans yet, or...’
‘Louise, we barely know one another,’ Katie protested. ‘I don’t even...’ Like him, never mind love him, she had been about to say, but typically Louise wasn’t giving her time to finish her conversation before continuing enthusiastically,