Too Wise To Wed?

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Tell me about her,’ Kelly tried to coax him, but Kyle shook his head again. He knew his half-sister meant well but there were some things that were too private...too potentially painful to discuss with anyone.

  His body, his brain, his mind might be here in North America, he acknowledged, but his heart, his emotions, his real, true essence were all in England with Star, and that was something that was too intimate, too personal to tell anyone. That could only be shared with one other person. Only she didn’t want to hear... She was too afraid to let herself hear, he corrected himself tiredly.

  ‘Hey, come back; you were miles away,’ Sally accused Star. They were having lunch together in their favourite Italian restaurant and Sally had been regaling Star with the latest gossip when she had suddenly realised that Star was staring absently into space.

  ‘Anyone would think you were in love,’ Sally teased her.

  ‘In love? Me? Don’t be ridiculous.’ Star retorted witheringly. But, curiously for Star, her face had suddenly become slightly flushed, Sally noted, and she couldn’t quite look her in the eye.

  Coincidentally Sally and Poppy had been discussing Star only the previous evening, Poppy laughing about the vow she and Claire and Star had made never get married.

  ‘You’ve had two successes,’ she had reminded Sally, ‘but I doubt that you’re going to get a third. Not with Star.’

  Sally wasn’t so sure, but she had kept her thoughts to herself.

  ‘Have you heard anything from Kyle?’ she asked Star conversationally now. ‘I know he had to extend his stay in North America because Claire mentioned it the last time she rang.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Why should I?’ Star responded tersely. ‘There’s no reason why he should get in touch with me.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Sally agreed soothingly. ‘I just thought he might have rung to...to ask you to keep an eye on his flat...’

  Star looked suspiciously into her friend’s too innocent face but decided not to pursue the subject—not to think about the empty flat and the oddly painful feeling she had experienced the morning she had woken up and discovered that Kyle had not, as she had expected, returned. And she certainly didn’t want to think about the betraying phone call she had made to Mrs Hawkins later on that same morning.

  But why should she feel uncomfortable about making a phone call—an enquiry about the whereabouts of someone whom she was, after all, involved with in a business capacity? It was a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do. Naturally, she needed to know when Kyle was likely to return since he was the person she had to channel her work through.

  She didn’t tell Sally any of this, though, and neither did she tell her about the shaming way she had been rushing straight to her answering machine to check her messages every time she had been out, just in case Kyle had rung.

  In love. Her! The very idea was ridiculous, derisible... laughable...So why wasn’t she laughing?

  Star could see the light flashing on her answering machine unit as she opened her workroom door, but she deliberately refused to go and check it until she had removed her coat and made herself a cup of coffee—like a child forcing herself to wait and not open the most special and exciting birthday present until last.

  Coffee-mug in one hand, she sat down and ran the tape. Her heart jolted against her ribs, coffee spilling down onto the desk as her hand started to tremble, but when she replayed the answering machine tape it was Brad’s voice she heard and not Kyle’s.

  Brad wanted her to call back so that they could discuss her campaign.

  Star put down her coffee mug and walked over to the window. Her throat ached and for some reason she found it difficult to swallow. The familiar view outside had become oddly hazy and misty, but it wasn’t until she blinked that she realised that her eyes had filled with tears.

  Tears. Her! And for a man? Why? What was so special about this man that he could have this effect on her, that he could make her feel...want... need him in all the ways she had promised herself she would never allow herself to want or need any member of his sex?

  She gave a small shiver. Had she been a different kind of woman she might almost have been tempted to believe that there was, after all, something in that old superstition about catching the bride’s bouquet. But it was all total rubbish, of course, and the kind of outdated mythology that had no place in a modern woman’s thinking or her life.

  She went back to her desk and picked up the telephone receiver and quickly dialled Brad’s number.

  Twenty minutes later, their conversation over, she let out a shaky breath of relief before punching the air in excited triumph. Brad had not only endorsed her proposals for the campaign, he had actually also allocated a more than generous budget to cover the cost of running her ads on TV.

  There was still an enormous amount of work to be done, of course, and Brad had stressed that the timing of the TV campaign was vitally important and that it must coincide with the completion of Kyle’s revamping of the technical side of things.

  ‘To offer a service we can’t follow up on would be counter-productive, to say the least,’ Brad had told her.

  ‘Suicidal,’ Star had agreed.

  ‘Kyle’s due to fly back to Britain tomorrow,’ Brad had informed her. ‘He’ll fix up a meeting with you to go over everything we’ve discussed and I guess he’ll have his own input to make. It will make sense to have any actors who feature in your ads as service engineers dressed in whatever uniform Kyle decides his contract people will wear...’

  ‘Mmm...’ Star had agreed with him. ‘And, of course, so far as the visual impact of a TV campaign is concerned, the colour of the technicians’ uniforms or whatever could be very important. It has been proved scientifically that different colours cause different emotional reactions in people.’

  Whilst they had talked she had made notes of the points that Brad had raised and now, as her initial euphoria subsided, she studied them.

  This contract, this campaign, was the high spot of her career, a triumphant breakthrough, rewarding not just her persistence, her hard work and her single-minded concentration but also her gift for innovation and creativity—so why had Brad’s confirmation that he fully endorsed her campaign left her feeling somehow empty and unsatisfied? Why was the once familiar thrill of succeeding somehow just not there?

  Why, instead of feeling good about herself and what she had achieved, did she feel much the same as she had done as a child of ten years old when she had won an important scholarship, only to have her mother protest that it didn’t do for girls to be too clever—boys didn’t like it—and for her father to be too wrapped up in his new wife and family even to remember what she had achieved by the time he eventually got around to seeing her?

  What was wrong with her? she asked herself hardly. She was an adult now, not a child. She had no need of anyone to praise and compliment her. She didn’t need the approval and congratulations of others to make her feel good about herself... It was enough for her to know what she had done. She looked at the phone. Perhaps she could ring Lindsay and they could go out for dinner together, only no doubt Lindsay would be too busy now that she and Miles were reconciled.

  What was the matter with her? she wondered irritably as she found her throat closing up on a lump of self-pitying emotion for the second time in twenty-four hours.

  Perhaps she was suffering from some stress-related illness and that was what was making her feel so unfamiliarly weak and vulnerable. Yes, that was probably it, she decided quickly. What she needed was an early night and some decent sleep.

  Star had just curled up in bed when the phone rang. Sleepily, she reached for the receiver, her whole body going into shock as she heard Kyle’s voice.

  ‘Star, are you OK?’ she heard him ask intuitively as she drew in her breath and tried to clamp down on the tell-tale sensations swamping her. ‘Have I rung at a bad time?’

  ‘I was trying to get an early night,’ she told him coolly, once she had got her breat
h back. ‘What do you want...?’

  ‘Do you mean you’re in bed?’ he asked her, ignoring the second part of her conversation.

  ‘That is normally where I go when I want to sleep,’ Star confirmed sardonically, and asked again, ‘Why are you ringing, Kyle? What do you want?’

  There was a brief pause and then Star nearly dropped the receiver when he told her huskily, ‘If I told you you’d probably hang up on me...’

  Kyle, flirting with her. Kyle, coming on to her. Star couldn’t believe her ears.

  The words ‘try me’ rose to her lips but she quenched them firmly and said crisply instead, ‘Brad rang me earlier to confirm that he’s happy with the campaign.’

  In his office Kyle smiled ruefully to himself. Was Star backing off from a sexual challenge? Either he had made a lot more progress than he had dared hope—or a hell of a lot less.

  ‘Yes. He’s approved everything you want to do,’ he said, without telling her how much time and effort he had put into persuading and convincing Brad that the expense of running a TV advertising campaign could be justified.

  That was the main reason why he had stayed over longer than he had originally planned. It had taken all the will-power he possessed and more not to telephone Star before now, and right now just hearing her voice was enough to make his body ache so much that he had to grit his teeth against his need.

  ‘Look, it’s going to be late tomorrow when my flight gets in and I was wondering if you could possibly do a little grocery shopping for me?’

  Star was tempted to refuse but instead she heard herself asking, ‘What exactly is it you want me to get?’

  ‘Oh, just the basics,’ Kyle responded vaguely. ‘You know—milk, bread, that kind of stuff. It’s going to be going on for midnight before I get in. My sister gave me enough home baked stuff to dangerously overload my luggage before she left. Not that I’m complaining; it was good to have her staying; it gave us an opportunity to catch up on one another’s news.’

  Star expelled a ragged breath. It had been his sister who had been staying with him and not another woman, a potential lover!

  ‘If you want to leave it in my flat, Amy has a key.’

  He held his breath, hoping she would say that she’d wait up for him, and then released it when she made no response.

  Star didn’t make any response because she was wondering why he had seen fit to leave Amy a key and not her, and wondering as well why she should feel so uptight about it.

  ‘Well, I guess I’d better go and let you get back to sleep,’ she heard Kyle telling her. ‘Congratulations, by the way. Brad was very impressed by your campaign, and with good reason,’ he told her generously. ‘I know you thought I was being deliberately obstructive over your original idea, but I’m behind you all the way on this one. You’ve got a very creative mind, Star, a very special talent, and I predict it won’t be long before you’re making the big agencies very edgy and nervous.’

  Star gripped the telephone receiver tightly and stared at her bedroom wall.

  Why? Why did it have to be Kyle who acknowledged her success and paid tribute to her skills, and why on earth did she have to feel even more desolate and forlorn because he had?

  Quietly and without saying another word she replaced the telephone receiver.

  Kyle sighed as he followed suit. No doubt she had thought that he was being both patronising and sexist in congratulating her, but he hadn’t meant it that way. He had no hang ups about a woman being professional and successful—in fact he applauded it.

  Star frowned as she placed her bag of groceries on Kyle’s worktop and opened his fridge door.

  Inside were two cartons of long-life milk plus all of the other basic items she had assumed he wanted her to get.

  Out of curiosity she checked the freezer, her mouth compressing as she saw loaves of bread.

  Why had he made an expensive transatlantic call to ask her to shop for items he already had?

  Perhaps he had forgotten he had them, she decided as she unpacked and put away her shopping.

  The flat had been refurbished now but the plants in the kitchen and sitting room looked desperately thirsty.

  Automatically she watered them, making soothing, clucking noises as she saw how rapidly they absorbed the moisture. Plants were, after all, living organisms that needed care and nurturing...just like human beings... She frowned again as her brain assimilated that thought. What was she trying to tell herself—that she needed care and nurturing...? Since when?

  Quickly she finished what she was doing, but on her way out of the flat some impulse she couldn’t resist took her not to the front door but to the bedroom. The bed was neatly made, with no sign, no imprint of Kyle’s body on either the bed or his pillow, and yet she still went up to it, smoothing the fabric of the pillowcase with her fingertips, bending her head towards it and then picking it up.

  She was still standing with it clasped in her arms when she heard the front door open. For a second she simply stood where she was, completely frozen, and then, in a panic, she dropped the pillow back onto the bed and hurried out into the hall to come face to face with Kyle.

  ‘You’re early,’ she told him accusingly. ‘You said you wouldn’t be back until midnight...’

  ‘I caught an earlier flight,’ he told her cheerfully, looking over her head towards the open bedroom door.

  ‘I...I was just checking to make sure everything was all right before I locked up,’ Star told him quickly. ‘I...I’ve put your shopping away.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Uncertainly Star looked up at him, her mouth parting in a soft O of surprise as he bent his head and kissed her.

  She heard the thud of his case as he dropped it and wrapped both his arms around her, and knew weakly that she really should protest, that such a lingering and almost lover-like kiss was scarcely necessary in acknowledgement of the simple, neighbourly task of getting his shopping. But instead she just stood where she was, letting the tender, persuasive warmth of his mouth dissolve the iciness which seemed to have lodged around her heart.

  When Kyle finally removed his mouth from hers she opened her eyes and looked dizzily into his.

  ‘I...I have to go,’ she told him unsteadily.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed gravely, reaching out and tucking an errant lock of her hair behind her ear. ‘I think you do.’ Wordlessly Star watched as he opened the door for her and he waited whilst she walked across the landing to her own flat.

  Once inside it, she closed the door and then leaned against it, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. How could a single, simple kiss affect her like that. She felt...she felt...She didn’t want to acknowledge or examine how she felt, she admitted shakily. She was too afraid of what she might learn.

  Once Star had gone, Kyle walked into his bedroom. The pillow she had been holding lay in the middle of the bed where she had dropped it. Smiling, he picked it up and restored it to its rightful position.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘RIGHT, everyone... Last one now, everyone smile.’

  Star could feel the tension in her jaw as her mouth widened in obedience to the photographer’s request. What with the video and the formal photographs as well as the various family members wanting to capture their memories of the ceremony on film, it was a wonder that there had been any time for the actual formalities of the marriage itself, she reflected ironically as the photographer signalled that he was finished with them and the assembled family group started to break up.

  Kyle, who had been standing beside her, laughed as one after another of the triplets ran towards him, demanding to be picked up.

  ‘He’s certainly got a way with children,’ her most recent stepmother commented tiredly as she watched her offspring clamouring for Kyle’s attention. ‘Of course,’ she added, ‘they do really miss the input they would get from a younger and more physically energetic father. Has Kyle any children?’ she asked Star inquisitively.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Star returne
d shortly, before turning her back on her. She had already seen the assessing and unmistakably feline look of interest that Lucinda had given Kyle. Perhaps it wasn’t just the triplets who were missing out on input from a younger and more physically energetic man, she reflected, watching Lucinda’s unsubtle attempts to get Kyle’s attention.

  Oh, yes, Kyle was certainly a hit with her family, she admitted, even her father was impressed. Wearily she massaged her temples; the tension headache that she had woken up with this morning had gradually become more unbearable as the day progressed.

  Kyle had suggested that they travel down to the wedding the day before and stay over an extra night, but Star had rejected that idea, claiming that she was too busy to take the extra time off work. Now, though, she was paying the price for her stubbornness with an aching head and a fraying temper.

  It had shocked her to discover how much her father seemed to have aged and actually physically shrunk since she had last seen him. Standing next to Kyle, he seemed so much shorter than the younger man and yet her childhood memories of her father were of an impressively tall, powerful-looking man.

  He still retained his vanity and egotism, though, Star had decided cynically when he had insisted on being photographed surrounded by his progeny and his wives, both past and present, only her own mother missing from the line-up. Star realised now that he had not asked after her mother, and made a point of going over to him to inform him that she was to marry Brian. His reaction was brusquely dismissive.

  ‘He just doesn’t care,’ she fumed after he had walked away and she had gone back to Kyle, who had witnessed the exchange from a short distance away. ‘He never cared about either of us.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Kyle corrected her decisively. ‘I’d say he’s actually rather jealous...’

  ‘Jealous? No way. He was the one who wanted the divorce.’