by Penny Jordan
She could plead with her own family for silence and, yes, even with Guy and Chrissie, but they were in almost daily contact with Guy’s family. Guy’s family, like Seb’s, were Cookes.
Katie could almost see news of their supposed relationship spreading and gathering momentum as it did so, so that she could easily envisage some distant Cooke connection working at the airport who might greet Seb with the news of his impending marriage to her on his arrival back in the country.
She was beginning, Katie decided, to feel extremely ill, and she could well understand what had prompted Victorian women to go into a decline. If only there had been some convenient convent, preferably one belonging to a silent order, for her to disappear into.
‘Heavens, is that the time? I must go,’ her mother was saying. ‘Your father will be wondering where on earth I am.’
Weakly Katie got up and accompanied her mother to the door. Once she had gone, Katie walked into her immaculate, hand-painted, newly finished kitchen. She had never been much of a drinker but right now she was badly in need of something restorative and courage-boosting. The only alcohol she had though was the moving-in gift of half a dozen bottles of good wine from her father.
This was all the fault of that woman. If she hadn’t made that prediction... Reluctantly Katie forced herself to acknowledge that she was being unfair. The blame lay fairly and squarely on her own shoulders, firstly for having involved Seb and secondly for not correcting Louise. Now her own weaknesses were being held over her head like a veritable sword of Damocles, waiting, not so much to fall but to be brought down on her unprotected neck by the full weight of Seb’s fury.
In the meantime she might as well occupy herself unpacking and putting away her possessions.
Several hours later she was just closing the last of the drawers in her bedroom, the scent of the lavender bags she had placed among her things making her smile ruefully.
The lavender was from her mother’s garden and just to smell it evoked memories of hers and Louise’s childhood.
If there could be a silver lining to the leaden weight of the cloud threatening her then it had to be the closing of the rift which had sprung up between her and Louise.
Seeing Gareth had hurt as it always did, but oddly this time, the hurt had been less intense, more a soft ache rather than a sharp agony, her daydreams of him as her lover somehow dulled and put out of focus by the far stronger acid-sharp bite of the sensual passion she had felt for Seb.
But that had just been sex and she loved Gareth... Loved...past tense... Katie started to frown.
* * *
THE CONFERENCE HAD been very demanding, they always were, but normally Seb found such concentration challenging and adrenalin-releasing, a recharge. This time, concentrating on the speeches had been hard work and yet, conversely, he somehow hadn’t been able to give them his full attention, his thoughts constantly performing clever tricks to take him where he didn’t want to go.
Katie Crighton!
By now she would no doubt have moved into her apartment where she would be his closet neighbour, where they would be living as intimately as though...
Abruptly Seb put a clamp on his thoughts. His mood, already affected detrimentally by what he considered to be his own weakness, hadn’t been improved by the long flight nor the delay waiting for his luggage at Manchester.
Guy, who had offered to pick him up from the airport, saw him coming out of the Arrivals hall. He went to meet him, exclaiming, ‘Cheer up. Mind you, I suppose you’d much rather have had Katie picking you up than me.’
Stopping abruptly—so abruptly that the man behind him almost walked into him—Seb demanded sharply, ‘Katie! What?’
‘Mmm... The pair of you have created quite a stir I can tell you. A Cooke marrying a Crighton... Chrissie’s got Crighton blood, too, of course, but she isn’t a “Crighton Crighton”. I’d have loved to have seen old Ben’s face when they gave him the news. Jenny says he’s demanding that the pair of you put in an appearance at his party.’
Quickly Seb assimilated what Guy was saying and then demanded ominously, ‘Are you telling me that the whole town...?’
‘...knows that you and Katie are an item? Yes, I’m afraid so,’ Guy agreed ruefully. ‘That’s what comes of being a member of such a large extended family. I wouldn’t even think of trying to deny it if I were you,’ Guy counselled him with a grin. ‘The females of the family are already planning a mass exodus to Chester to hunt for wedding outfits.
‘Pity the pair of you had agreed to buy your apartments before you declared your feelings for one another. It could be hard work for Katie with a baby carriage up and down those stairs, especially if our gypsy relative has got it wrong and her “one” turns out to be “two”,’ Guy told him with a wicked grin, adding mock-sagely, ‘After all someone has to be the first to provide the Crightons with the next generation’s pair of twins.’
‘Twins.’ Seb frowned.
‘Yes, twins, you know, two babies who are identical to one another,’ Guy told him helpfully, tongue in cheek. ‘Twins like your Katie and Louise. According to Jenny it was Louise who wheedled it out of Katie about the two of you.
‘Mind you, I can’t say too much,’ Guy confessed. ‘Chrissie and I fell in love virtually at first glance. Have you told Charlotte yet?’
‘Er...no...she’s away on a field trip at the moment,’ Seb told him. Just what was going on...what the hell was Katie playing at? Was this some sort of crazy scheme she had dreamed up to punish him for kissing her, touching her...making it public that they were supposed to be a couple and then equally publicly dropping him? She was a Crighton after all, a member of a family who, historically, considered themselves to be a cut above everyone else, and he was a Cooke, a member of a family who equally historically had been considered to be the lowest of the low.
An hour later, when Guy dropped him off outside the house he was renting, it was late evening. Unlocking the door Seb picked up the pile of mail off the mat.
He felt tired and irritated and in need of a shower, but more than any of that...
Taking the stairs two at a time he opened his bedroom door and quickly stripped off his clothes.
Florida had been hot and humid and he’d remained pretty much in the air-conditioned hotels, but the colour of his skin had still darkened slightly. He was naturally olive-skinned like Guy, and as he stood under the shower and soaped his body, the muscles in his arms and back stood out beneath his flesh.
While he towelled himself dry he replayed the messages on his answer machine. There was one from the interior designer telling him that the apartment was finished and ready for him to move into, as they had agreed.
Seb frowned as he reached out and switched off the machine. By rights what he ought to do if he had any sense was make himself a light supper and then go straight to bed. He was jet-lagged and in no mood to behave calmly or logically, so why, he asked himself sardonically half an hour later, if he knew that, why was he right now in his car heading for the apartment, knowing that Katie had moved into hers?
He had every right to demand an explanation, he justified to himself, and he fully intended to do so.
* * *
KATIE HAD HAD a very difficult day. One of her clients had been so late for his appointment with her she had had to go without any lunch break or even a cup of coffee in order to catch up, and then in the afternoon when she arrived in court, she had discovered that some of the papers she needed were missing and consequently she had been faced with the embarrassment of asking the judge for a postponement and that had not gone down well.
Add to that the fact that her car exhaust had disintegrated on the drive home from Chester and Katie felt it was no wonder that all she wanted was some peace and quiet and an early night.
She was soaking in the bath trying to relax the tension out
of her shoulders when she heard the faint shrill of her intercom.
Cursing under her breath she climbed out of the bath, grabbing a towel on her way as she padded damply towards the intercom, flicking the switch and saying tiredly, ‘Yes. Who is it?’
‘Seb Cooke.’
Seb! Seb was back. Panic squeezed the breath out of her lungs, rendering her incapable of making any kind of verbal response.
‘Katie.’ Seb’s voice was ominously charged with quiet fury.
‘I was just on my way to bed,’ she told him, not untruthfully, even while her conscience warned her that she was being a coward and that by far the most sensible and responsible thing to do was to see him and explain what had happened... Explain...! If only it was that easy.
She closed her eyes and then opened them again as she heard Seb saying softly, ‘On your way to bed. Well, how very appropriate...in view of our...relationship...’
So he had heard. Not that she had doubted it, the very tone of his voice had told her that he knew.
Katie took a deep breath. There was nothing else for it. She was going to have to face him.
‘I... I can explain,’ she whispered into the intercom. ‘But not now...tomorrow...’
‘Now!’ Seb returned implacably. ‘Unless of course you want me to telephone your parents and inform them that their daughter is a...’
‘No... No...now, then...’ Katie agreed, momentarily forgetting that all she was wearing was a damp towel as she hurriedly activated the button to unlock the front door.
She froze as Seb walked in. There was a faint dark shadow along his jaw and he looked every bit as angry as he had sounded, but when he saw her, instead of unleashing the torrent of angry questions she had expected, he checked and looked at her very deliberately and lengthily.
Her face burned as Katie suddenly realised how he must be seeing her, her hair bunched up on top of her head, her body still damp from her bath, her only covering her soft cream towel.
‘I... I’ll just go and get dressed,’ she heard herself stammering as her body reacted instantly and uncontrollably to the way he was looking at her, as instantly and uncontrollably as it had done when he had kissed her, touched her. Not that the heat burning her skin now had anything to do with her earlier apprehension or self-consciousness.
Mesmerised Katie stared right back into his eyes, her breathing suddenly laboured and shallow. A shocking surge of sexual heat shot through her veins. It must be the anxiety of the last few days that was having such a dangerous effect on her, she told herself weakly. It must be because of that that she was experiencing this extraordinary reaction to Seb... that she was...
Dizzily she blinked but without being able to break the intensity of his burning stare. What was happening to her? Why was she feeling her whole body trembling, aching with a need that seemed to have been conjured up out of nowhere, like a whirlwind, a tornado, ready to wreak total destruction on her?
‘I... I can explain,’ she told him huskily, and she didn’t know herself whether she meant she could explain why everyone thought they were a couple or that she could explain why she was feeling the way she was, but instead of agreeing Seb simply walked towards her, telling her softly,
‘Don’t bother. I’ve changed my mind. It isn’t an explanation I want...’
‘It...it isn’t...?’
Wide-eyed, Katie watched him, knowing instinctively what was going to happen but totally unable to respond in the way she knew she ought to be doing to her own danger. Instead of shock or fear or anger, what she was actually feeling was a roller-coaster surge of frantic excitement, of having stepped outside her normal cautious carefulness.
‘No, it isn’t...’ Seb confirmed.
He was a hand span away from her now and as she walked back from him, her eyes never leaving his face, he followed her until she was backed up against the wall.
‘Seb,’ she protested shakily.
He had placed his palms flat against the wall either side of her, effectively imprisoning her.
‘Apparently, it’s common knowledge in Haslewich that you and I are...together,’ he told her softly and quietly, spacing out every word so that she could feel the warmth of his breath against her skin. ‘...that we are...lovers...’
‘No!’ Katie protested. ‘No...!’
‘Yes,’ Seb insisted. ‘And since that’s what supposedly we are—’
And then he lowered his head and kissed her with a mixture of passion and desire and infused anger that left her mute and helpless, his mouth burning hers as he refused to end the kiss, punishing her, savaging her with its angry heat.
And yet, beneath that anger, some age-old female wisdom told Katie that there was something else, relaying the information to her along all the most sensitive pathways of her body, tiny trickles of knowledge, awareness and emotion that together became a swift unstoppable flood of powerfully female response, as though independently of her brain, her senses knew exactly what to do, how to use Seb’s passion to burn away his anger, leaving in its place a pure and almost unbearably intense fiery passion.
She had, Katie recognised dizzily, as her lips parted beneath the thrust of Seb’s tongue, aroused him to the point where his need was a white-hot driven urgency blinding him to reality and tempting her, tormenting her, to give in to her own body’s wild inner clamouring to respond to him with an equal lack of inhibition. After all, she was as human as any other woman, wasn’t she? She was just as capable of experiencing sensual desire and longing, just as capable of needing to satisfy the ache deep down inside her own body, which was rapidly becoming an overriding, overwhelming, out of control force; a tumultuous flood of fiery, bitter-sweet urgency sweeping aside all obstacles in its path, all logic and reason, all thoughts that warned her that what was happening, that what she was contemplating, must not be allowed to happen.
What, after all, was she holding back for? Why was she denying herself the sexual fulfilment that other women of her age took for granted? Why was she marooning herself on an isolated island of inexperience and self-conscious ignorance? Because she loved Gareth? Was she then to remain as she was all her life? Was she to remain untouched, unfulfilled...unknown by any man and unknowing of her own sexuality? Tonight, with Seb, she could experience all that she had previously denied herself. Tonight, with Seb, she could become fully a woman and fulfil her destiny. With Seb she could...
As her mind registered the dangers of her thoughts it rejected them instantly and totally, but her body seemed to have divorced itself completely from her brain, following a path of its own choosing, recklessly taking control. Her tongue touched Seb’s, delicately sparring with it, a sharp shudder of reaction galvanising her body as Seb instantly responded to her silent encouragement. His hands left the wall and cupped her shoulders, his body hard against the softness of her own and so intimately close to it that she could feel, not just the fierce pounding of his heart but the far more intimate beat of his body pulse as well.
As though someone else had directed their movements, her arms reached out towards him, wrapping themselves around him while his hands moved urgently down over her body coming to rest against the round curves of her buttocks as he pulled her off the wall and even tighter into his intimate embrace.
Neither of them spoke. There was no need. Both of them knew what was happening, what was going to happen, and where the passage of arms between them to which Seb’s passionate kiss was merely a prelude was leading.
When Seb shifted her body slightly in his arms, dragging his mouth from hers so that he could caress the soft flesh of her throat and then the curve of her naked shoulder, Katie made no move to stop him, and no move either to do anything to conceal from him the openly visible shudders of reaction coursing through her body. Her eyes open, silently she witnessed every touch of his hands, his mouth on her body, her expression registering every n
uance of reaction and response she was feeling.
The heat of what was happening made her feel as though it was burning her up; as though she was being consumed, broken down, into the basic components of her essential self. And while a part of her was shocked by what was happening and by what she was doing, another recklessly urged her on.
There was a moment when, looking deep into her eyes, Seb slowly stood back from her, before reaching out to remove the towel from her body. She knew she should stop him, when she was helplessly and painfully aware of how very different this, her own first experience of male desire, would be from the tenderness and gentle joy her twin must have known with Gareth, a moment when she shivered and hesitated, but then some deep fierce inner force urged her on, drove her past that barrier. She was not Louise, and Gareth would never love her. She would never experience the gentle, tender warmth of his possession and so, instead, she must take this darker, deeper and far more dangerous pathway to sexual fulfilment.
Seb was still watching her as though waiting for her to do or say something. Katie looked at him. She had crossed her Rubicon and made up her mind. Very calmly she unfastened the towel herself and let it drop to the floor, her gaze on Seb’s.
For a second she thought he wasn’t going to move. His eyes met and held hers without the involuntary betraying drop to her naked body she had expected, and then she saw the muscle twitch spasmodically in his jaw and that gave her the courage to let her gaze move very deliberately from his face to his body and to the tell-tale straining of the fabric of his trousers across his groin.
As though that one tiny glance had electrified him, Seb moved, closing the distance between them and sweeping her up in his arms.
The light from the two bedside lamps Katie had switched on before having her bath bathed the bedroom in a soft warm glow. The antique quilt Olivia had given her as a moving-in present lay across the foot of the bed, the heavy ivory damask curtains which had come from home covered the windows, enclosing the room and making it feel almost cocoon-like.