by Ruthie Knox
“For what it’s worth, I’m not doing a very good job of keeping you at arm’s length,” she said at last. “After I left here on Saturday, I decided never to see you again.”
He was sliding the frittata under the broiler, so she could only see his profile, but damn if he didn’t appear to be smirking.
“I know that, darling. It wounds my pride you won’t go out with me, but I can console myself with the knowledge that when you do see me, you can’t keep your knickers on for ten minutes running.”
She threw her cookie at him, feigning indignation. “You bastard! Are you calling me easy?”
“I like you easy. Besides, you’re not to blame. Who’d want to wear wet knickers?”
She had another cookie locked and loaded, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her to her feet to kiss her. It was a long, slow, lazy kiss, as if he would have been happy to do it all night. Her lower belly got all warm and tingly, and she was about ready to drag him down on the kitchen table when he set her free to pull his magazine-spread-gorgeous frittata out of the oven and slide the tray of Parmesan bread under the broiler to toast.
“You are disgustingly perfect,” she said, happy.
“Let me take you to lunch tomorrow.”
She said no, but she knew her eyes were saying yes.
Chapter Ten
He spotted her as soon as he came through the gate of the park, but it took him at least half a mile to catch up to her. For such a short woman, she was quick, and he was fairly sure he only caught her because she’d decided to allow it.
It was a decent metaphor for their relationship, really. For two weeks, she’d been in his bed nearly every night. They’d done just about everything two people could do to each other, and still he wanted her, every day, all the time. And still she made him chase her down.
Cath called all the shots. She seemed more comfortable that way, so Nev had decided not to press. Much. Instead, he looked for the loopholes and exploited them.
He wasn’t to know what time she’d be on the train, but he could buy coffee and pastries for her on the days he happened to find her there. She wouldn’t tell him when or if she’d be running in the park, but she’d let him run with her if their paths crossed. She refused to say where she worked, though she’d tell him when he guessed wrong.
Nor would she give him her mobile number, even though she’d saved his in her phone. He’d told her where his office was, too, and had issued an open invitation to lunch. He reckoned that if he kept asking, sooner or later she’d break down and let him through her defenses. That, or he’d run out of patience and start begging.
“Morning, City,” she said when he finally drew even with her.
She’d never once called him Nev. The nickname was one more way for her to deny who he really was and what was developing between them. One more wall she’d put up. He gave it a kick. “What do you have against my name?”
“Nothing in particular. I just like City better. Besides, you always call me Mary Catherine, so you deserve payback.”
“But Mary Catherine is your name.”
“So, what, you want me to start calling you Neville?”
“Please don’t.”
“See?”
“But you like it when I call you Mary Catherine.”
“I don’t.”
She did. She loved it. “Every time I call you Mary Catherine, your mouth turns up at the corners just the tiniest bit, and you get this dreamy look in your eyes. Come to think of it, it’s the same look you get when I—”
“Knock it off, or I’ll make you run up the hill three times.”
The hill was long and steep. Nev was usually content to run up it once like everyone else, but Cath would run to the top, take the first right, fly down a steep staircase, turn again, and ascend a second time, just to be perverse. He joined in when they ran together, but twice was plenty for him. He opted not to finish the thought.
“Do you truly want me to stop calling you Mary Catherine?” he asked as they headed through the gate into the rose garden. He hoped not. The name suited her, and he liked using it. It made him feel as though he had access to her secret self. She hadn’t deliberately given it to him, but nor had she revoked it.
They passed an older man with a poodle who seemed perpetually to be in this part of the park. “Good morning, Arthur,” Nev said.
Arthur gave him a curt nod. “Morning.”
“You know that guy?” Cath asked as they left the garden and began to descend the park’s steepest hill.
“Not really. Only from here. I introduced myself once.”
“Why?” she asked, incredulous.
“I saw him all the time. Thought I’d like to be able to say hello.”
Cath usually kept her eyes on her battered trainers when she ran, but now she turned to look at him with a baffled, slightly indignant expression. “You saw me all the time and never introduced yourself.”
“True,” he said, amused and secretly pleased that she cared. “But you’re a great deal more intimidating than Arthur.”
“I am?”
He grinned. “I fancied you, darling, but I was fairly sure if I offered you my hand to shake, you’d bite it off.”
She turned her attention back to her feet, her smile contained to the periphery of her mouth. He saw it, though. He loved to make her smile.
She was silent as they passed along the front end of the park, but as they began to work their way up the slope of the hill, she said, “My dad called me Mary Catherine. He died when I was fourteen. After that, I couldn’t stand to hear it anymore.”
He let this information settle. They crested the hill, turned, and began to descend the stairs.
“Did you like it when he called you that?”
“I liked everything about my dad.”
Right turn. Back on asphalt. Uphill again.
“You can call me Mary Catherine if you want to,” she said when they were nearly at the top. “I don’t really mind it. From you.” And then the hill eased off and she put on a burst of speed, forcing him to work hard to keep up.
Progress followed by distance. It was the only way she could handle intimacy. Tell him something, then pull away. Let him close, then reinforce the boundaries. His job was to be patient. He could push, but not too hard.
“Would you like to see a film with me tonight?” he asked when he caught her again.
She didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
“Don’t you want to know which film before you decide?”
“No. When are you going to stop asking me out?”
“Never. Sooner or later, you’ll reward me by saying yes.”
“You’re a hopeless case, City.”
She had no idea.
Nev had managed to avoid his mother for several days by dodging her calls, but finally she’d phoned his PA and bullied her into scheduling a lunch. He could hear her now outside his office, subjecting poor Angela to a stream of not-so-veiled criticism of her hair, her weight, and her dress.
He sighed and rose from his desk. Better his mother aim her wicked tongue at him. He’d been listening to her recite his faults for as long as he could remember.
“Mother,” he said, emerging into the outer office where Angela worked. “Delightful to see you. You look lovely.”
Evita Chamberlain was in fact still beautiful at sixty-four, with strong features, piercing green eyes—the only thing she’d passed along to him—and straight, thick white hair cut in a severe bob. She wore an immaculate white linen suit with pearls and a black blouse. As usual, she looked sharp enough to draw blood.
“Hello, darling. Is that a new suit? I don’t recognize the designer.” This was Mother’s way of asking if the suit was off-the-rack. He ignored her, his usual response. “I thought we’d have lunch at the club. Winston will be joining us. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you boys. You never come to visit.”
“I’ll be up for the bank holiday.”
She arched one eyeb
row. They both knew Winston had spoken to him about the bank holiday. They both knew who was behind the scheme. Neither would speak of it. “Of course you will, but I wish you’d have come in July. We had the most lovely weekend with the Richardsons. You remember their daughter June, don’t you? Beautiful girl, very bright.”
She was already walking away as she said this last bit, expecting Nev to follow her. He did. She continued chattering about June Richardson, whom Nev couldn’t recall ever having met, all the way down to the lobby, where they encountered Grace Dawson.
“Grace, how lovely to see you again,” his mother said in a tone Nev recognized as completely contrived. Mother grabbed her by the elbows and kissed the air beside each of her cheeks.
“Mrs. Chamberlain, what a surprise,” Grace replied, submitting to the greeting with poise.
“Neville and I were just on our way to lunch with his brother. Would you like to join us? I’d love to have a chance to catch up with you about the campaign. Grace and I are on the NSPCC committee together,” she explained for Nev’s benefit.
“I’d be delighted,” Grace said, “so long as it’s not an imposition.” She was a better liar than Mother. Or perhaps it was simply that he had more experience with Mother’s lies. In any event, Nev wasn’t fooled. They’d set this up in advance. He wondered if they needed him here at all, or if they’d be as content to be escorted to lunch by a marionette with his face tacked on.
“No imposition,” Nev said, playing his part in the charade. He offered Grace his elbow. “It will be our pleasure.”
Winston and Mother spent the meal finding reasons to speak to each other, leaving Nev to attempt polite conversation with Grace. She was an attractive woman, with smooth sable hair and an elegant manner of dress. Intelligent enough. She was also insecure, needy, and frighteningly single-minded. Since he’d stopped seeing her, Nev had tried being polite, apologetic, and even cold, but nothing seemed to put her off him. If it weren’t so disconcerting, he would almost admire how skillful she was at finding opportunities to brush up against him in the corridor or lean in to whisper in his ear as if they were still lovers.
She didn’t care for him. Barely even knew him, really. But Grace had apparently fallen hard for his wardrobe and his family name. Mother was mutually infatuated with Grace’s pedigree and her designer shoes. They were a match made in heaven. If only they’d leave him out of it.
Nev tried to be pleasant, but he found it difficult to attend to the conversation. He couldn’t help but compare Grace to Cath. Though she wasn’t as conventionally pretty, Cath had more beautiful eyes. A more brilliant smile. A body that he couldn’t think of without getting hard. He liked her black wardrobe and colorful lingerie. He loved her flyaway hair, which made her despair, and the way she’d bite her lip with her slightly uneven teeth when overwhelmed or aroused.
“Neville?” His mother interrupted his reverie in a sharp tone. “Isn’t it interesting, what Grace was just saying about the holiday? You should bring her up to Leyton with you. I’m sure she’d enjoy seeing the house and grounds.”
Bugger. He’d let down his guard for a moment, and Mother had moved in for the kill. “I’d be delighted to see Grace at Leyton sometime,” he answered, hoping to convey that such an event would occur only at his mother’s initiative, “but I’m afraid I’m already engaged for the bank holiday.” He put a little extra emphasis on engaged for Mother and Winston’s benefit.
Mother pursed her lips in irritation, but she apparently couldn’t come up with a way to interrogate him that wouldn’t be blatantly rude, so she changed the subject.
When Grace excused herself to use the lavatory, Mother pounced. “You didn’t tell me you’d invited someone for the weekend, Neville. You ought to have mentioned it. Who is she?”
He shrugged. “No one you know.”
“And are you and this woman … serious?” Her eyes narrowed. They both knew what she was asking.
He ought to say no, but saying yes would prevent his having to endure another lunch like this one. Besides, he and Cath were serious. Even if Cath didn’t know it yet.
“Fairly, yes. I think you’ll like her, Mother. She has your joie de vivre.”
Grace returned, and his mother steered the conversation in a new direction. But he caught Winston looking at him several times before lunch finally came to an end. Nev had bought himself a brief reprieve, but at what cost? He could hardly take Cath home to Leyton. Mother would loathe her. Winston already did.
And Cath— She wouldn’t fit in there. She’d wear the wrong clothes and say the wrong things, and she’d see where he came from and like him less for it. She already teased him about his accent. His background made her uncomfortable—or his money did, at any rate. One time he’d caught her laying a neatly folded pile of her clothes on the floor of his room. He’d suggested she put them on the chair instead. She’d refused, telling him the chair was worth more than what she earned in three months. “It’s only a chair, love,” he’d told her. She’d given him an odd look. “No. It’s not,” she’d said. And then left her things on the floor.
Glancing at Grace, who’d thrown in the towel on their conversation and begun talking to his mother about charity work, Nev repressed a sigh. The idea of marrying a woman like her—of sharing the rest of his days with someone so obsessed with appearance, status, and money—made his skin crawl. But he had to admit, it would be simpler than falling for a woman so completely unsuited to his life—and so utterly uninterested in being a part of it.
Banking regulations. Capital reserves. Global interest rates. He’d been listening to the drone of the speakerphone for two hours running, and the notepad on his desk was covered with absentminded doodles. Mostly Biro sketches of various parts of Cath: the curve of her ear, her tattoo wrapping around her waist, her mouth. It was half-five, with no sign the board conference call would wrap up anytime soon. Perhaps he ought to have Angela send out for something to eat before she left for the day.
He made sure his speaker was muted and crossed toward the door of his office, which was slightly ajar. “… on a call right now, and I’m afraid I’m not to disturb him,” Angela said. “Is he expecting you?”
“No. Sorry. He said I could— You know, never mind. I don’t want to bother him.”
Cath’s voice. He yanked the door open, and there she was in his outer office. A tiny oasis in the desert of the bank. Quite possibly a mirage. Already turning to leave.
“Cath.”
Her mouth softened when she saw him, and she raised the plastic bag in her hand. “You said you might be working late. I, uh—” She glanced at Angela, then back at him. “I brought you dinner.”
The way she said it, you’d think she’d committed a felony. Nev couldn’t help it—he grinned. “Cath, this is Angela, my PA. Angela, meet Cath. She’s welcome to disturb me anytime.”
Angela smiled, apparently delighted by this glimpse into his private life. She was always after him to tell her about the women he dated. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Cath. May I get you something to drink?”
“No,” Nev answered, stepping close enough to steer Cath toward his office with one hand at the small of her back. If he let Angela get her a drink, she’d end up giving her the third degree. He wanted Cath to himself. “Please come in.”
He ushered her through the door and closed it behind them. She looked over toward his desk where the speakerphone blathered on. “I shouldn’t be bothering you at work. I’m sorry. This was a bad idea.”
Unable to resist, he put his arms around her and drew her close. “I’m pleased to see you. I’ve been listening to that rot for hours, and I was preparing to commit ritual suicide when you turned up.”
“So I’ve saved your life?”
“Exactly.” He kissed her, taking his time to savor her dark, sweet taste and the way she gradually relaxed and melted into him, her lips parting and her fingers winding into his hair. Her sweater was soft against his palms. He let his hands trail over
her arse, encased in a tight skirt, and his fingertips found something interesting to toy with.
“What are you wearing, love?” he whispered, moving to kiss her neck. He looked over her shoulder. The skirt was straight and snug everywhere, falling to the knee, but in the back there was a section of pleats that began just below her bum. She had on stockings with seams, and taller heels than usual. It was an outfit that begged him to bend her over the nearest surface, slide his hands up those seams, spread the pleats wide … His mouth went dry just thinking of the possibilities. He groaned and kissed her again, harder this time.
She pulled away to ask, “What happens if you’re not paying attention and they ask you a question?”
“It’s not likely. I’m only meant to be listening in.”
“Good.” She began toying with his tie. “Because I have this fantasy. Want to hear about it?”
He began to understand why she’d come. “I thought you were here to feed me.”
“Nah, that was just to get me in the door. I wanted to see what your office was like.” She looked around again. “It’s swanky. I didn’t realize you were such a big shot.”
Flattering, but his brain had slid south when he saw the stockings, and he was finding it hard to concentrate. “The fantasy, Cath?”
“Right. So it’s kind of a secretary thing, you know? I come in, you’re doing some important business at your desk, and I— Well, maybe we should just try it out. That is, unless you want me to go.”
“Don’t go.” He could be sacked for this. The thought didn’t faze him in the least.
Her mouth turned up in a saucy smile. “Have a seat then, sir, and listen to your phone call.”
Once he was sitting behind his desk, she returned to the door and slowly, quietly turned the lock. Then she looked up at him, suddenly brisk and efficient, her eyes blank, and crossed to his desk.
Fairly certain of his role, he frowned and indicated the phone, then turned slightly away in his chair as if he didn’t wish to be disturbed.