Bittersweet Love

‘That’s not fair! I’ve never shirked my responsibilities, you know that!’

‘I never suggested that you had.’

‘Then why are you implying that I’m suddenly going to start now?’

He looked down at her, a small smile twisting his lips although his green eyes were hard and calculating.

‘For reasons that I can’t begin to fathom, you’ve decided to change your image. And very successful you’ve been too. But I think it’ s only fair to warn you that I won’t be lenient when it comes to making allowances for your suddenly booming social life.’ He shot her a calculating look. ‘And love life, for that matter. Burning the candle at both ends isn’t going to win any Brownie points with me.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Natalie said stiffly. And thanks so much for the warm welcome, she thought to herself. ‘I’ll see you after lunch,’ she repeated, ‘and you needn’t worry that I won’t be back on time.’

He had the grace to flush slightly at her tone of voice but Natalie was in no mood to relent. Kane Marshall was a trying man to work for at the best of times. He was demanding, rarely voluble in his gratitude when she had worked longer and harder than was usual, and she had never once abused his silent assumption that her dedication to his company was paramount.

How dare he stand there and inform her that he would now be keeping an eye on her to make sure that she kept to his rigidly imposed schedule?

She turned away and walked quickly in the direction of the gym. It was a couple of stops on the Underground from the office, but by foot it was no distance at all and she had become accustomed to grabbing as much exercise as she could.

As she walked quickly along, she was aware of the odd appreciative glance in her direction and she couldn’t prevent a grin from forming. Poor Kane. What a shock. There was a certain delicious enjoyment to be had from the thought that, amused as he was by her change of appearance, there was just the tiniest element of pique that she had had the temerity to do it all without first consulting him.

The smile stayed on her face all through her lunch-hour and she was still wearing it when she returned to the office just before one-thirty.

Kane was at his desk, poring over a pile of reports, a half-finished sandwich next to him, and she was moving towards her own desk, a grin on her face, when he said through the opened door, ‘I see you enjoyed yourself.’

Natalie stopped in her tracks and looked at him, her grin still lingering on her face.

‘Yes, thank you.’ She went to stick her bag under the desk and he called out to her,

‘Good for you. I wouldn’t want to impose on your post-work-out euphoria, but could you see your way to fetching me a cup of coffee? And there are a few questions I’d like to ask on that Wilkes project.’

The grin faded and she glared at the wall between them. He was spoiling for a fight. She could hear it in his tone of voice and she could see it in that lazy pose he adopted when she walked into his office a few minutes later with a mug of coffee. Hands clasped behind his head, eyes narrowed on her. Only a complete idiot would be fooled into thinking that he was relaxed.

She carefully placed the coffee in front of him and sat down.

‘The Wilkes project?’ she reminded him, fixing him with a glassy, encouraging smile.

Funny to think that she had missed all this restless aggression. How could she have forgotten exactly how uncomfortable he was capable of making her feel?

‘Ah, yes,’ he said smoothly, ‘the Wilkes project. It needed a few bits and pieces tying up when I left the country six months ago. I see from the file that the bits and pieces are still waiting to be tied up. Problems there or just lack of interest?’ Natalie gave a barely audible sigh and he said in a very soft, very cutting voice, ‘Dear me. I do hope I’m not boring you.’

Count to ten, she thought. Remember that old saying about patience being a virtue, because right now she needed a huge supply of it to cope with Kane in one of these determined-to-needle moods. His nose had tem-porarily been thrown out of joint and he wasn’t about to let her forget that in a hurry.

‘Not at all,’ Natalie replied calmly. I was going to explain what’s happened on that to you anyway.’

‘Were you? Then explain on.’

‘We delivered a shipment of sub-standard goods to them and they’ve been waiting for a rather large credit for the past two months.’

His black brows flew upwards. ‘Two months? And who the hell is handling that account?’

Natalie told him and then watched as he roared his anger down the line. Two months’ problems cleared up in a two-minute phone call. No humming and hedging with Kane Marshall. She sat in silence as he got Ben Wilkes on the line, turned on the charm that had helped to make him the powerful businessman that he was, and listened as he not only wrapped up their deal but managed to persuade them to buy far more than they had originally intended to.

When he replaced the receiver he shot her a smile of genuine amusement. The sort of smile that reminded her with sickening force precisely why she had learned to cultivate her implacable exterior—because smiles like that were made to kill.

‘Business,’ he said lazily, ‘can be so easy, if you know how.’

‘Those credits were taking rather a long time to be resolved,’ she admitted.

‘People should realise that timidity and short-sighted penny-pinching doesn’t go a long way to making money.’

‘Not everyone puts making money at the top of their list of priorities, though,’ Natalie said under her breath, and he leant towards her, his black brows meeting in a frown.

‘Where the hell are you getting these ideas from? Of course making money is important. Ambition is the fuel that drives us on.’

Natalie hesitated, wondering whether she should take the side of discretion, and then on impulse she threw caution to the winds and said with heartfelt sincerity, ‘You mean ambition is the fuel that drives you on. Some people might find it just a little bit too tiring.’

‘Some people?’ He stared at her shrewdly. ‘Some people or one in particular?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Natalie asked, confused.

‘Oh, come on, Natalie,’ he drawled, ‘don’t play the innocent with me. We know each other too well for that. All these sudden observations on life? This sexy little body when before you never seemed to care one way or another what you looked like? There’s a man in your life, isn’t there?’ He leaned closer towards her, his sharp brown features drawn in lines of interested amusement. ‘Don’t try and tell me there isn’t. My sweet assistant, the one woman in life I always felt I could trust, has found herself a lover. I can almost smell it on you.’

Anger drained her face of colour then sent it flooding back into her cheeks. She stood up and without thinking slapped him across the face. Hard. She could feel her hand stinging from the impact and watched in horror as his face reddened from the force of her slap.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said weakly, her eyes wide. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

His eyes were not so amused now. In fact, they were glinting with fury. He leaned over, one hand on his desk, and with the other he pulled her towards him, dislodging the clips in her hair so that it spilled over her face and shoulders.

‘Don’t you ever do that again; is that clear?’

Their eyes met and for the briefest of moments she felt as though she would swoon from the sheer, over-powering nearness of him, then she tightened her mouth in a firm line.

‘You provoked me,’ she said, knowing that she would be far wiser not to prolong the situation, but unable to relinquish the bit from between her teeth.

‘I pay you to work for me. I don’t need to cope with your temper tantrums.’

Natalie’s mouth dropped open in amazement. Her temper tantrums? How dared he stand there and act as though she had manoeuvred the whole thing? As though she were some bubble-headed female throwing a fit for no reason?

She bit back the torrent of heated arguments on the tip of her tongue, and said tightly, ‘Of course. Sir. I’ll try not to forget it.’

It didn’t seem such a good idea to add another sarcastic ‘Sir’ at the end of her reply, much as she would have liked to.

‘Good.’ His face was still only inches away from hers, his hand in her hair, half hidden under the jumbled mass. ‘I have a meeting to go to now. It should last the remainder of the day. I hope that tomorrow you will be back to your normal self.’

He released her abruptly and turned away and Natalie glared at his back.

‘I take it,’ she said as he strode out of the office, her composure once more firmly back in place, ‘that you don’t need me to work overtime this evening?’

He turned to face her with an unreadable expression.

‘No,’ he said abruptly, ‘not this evening. As a matter of fact, I have made some arrangements that are rather more stimulating than work.’

As he left the room, Natalie wandered to her desk and sat down heavily. She felt as though she had been through a wringer, and his parting words left her cold with dismay and a certain impotent anger that was directed against herself.

Because she knew where he was going. Maison Française. Chic, expensive, fine food and wine. His favourite haunt when it came to entertaining members of the opposite sex.

The only thing she didn’t know was whom he would be going with. It certainly wouldn’t be his dear old grandma.

But most of all she didn’t want to care and she did.

Well, she was going to let that ruin her life, was she? Let him begin his round of seductions with that endless queue of women patiently waiting to get their hands on him.

Just so long as he never realised that she was in that queue as well.

CHAPTER TWO

LATER that evening, as Natalie dressed for her evening out, she couldn’t help thinking with bewildered frustration that the cycle of emotions which she had sworn would be harnessed had managed quite successfully to survive Kane’s six-month absence, and was now rearing its ugly head once again. Like a beast that had tempor-arily hibernated, but was already wakening, slowly stretching and testing the water.

She carefully applied her eye-shadow and glared at the reflection staring back at her. What was the good of even thinking about the wretched man? It had seemed so easy, when he wasn’t around, to let thoughts of him slide to the background. He had been a constant back-ground presence which she could handle without too much difficulty.

Now, in the space of just one day, he had filled the office with his overpowering personality and all her well-controlled thoughts had been shot to hell.

Great company I’m going to be tonight, she thought with a grimace. A regular barrel of laughs.

She had arranged to meet her friend Claire and Claire’s brother at a restaurant near Covent Garden, a new place which specialised in Swiss food. Personally, she couldn’t think what food the Swiss had to call their own, but she was game.

She had known Claire since she was a teenager and the company would be good. Eric, from what she vaguely remembered when she had last met him years ago, was good fun, and after the tension of today it would probably be just what the doctor ordered.

They were waiting for her when she arrived at the restaurant one hour later.

Natalie looked around her briefly, scanning the place with interest. It was small, tastefully decorated in cool creams and pinks, and had the eager atmosphere of somewhere very new and still keen to impress. Not that she could see much need for that, since the place was already quite busy, most of the tables taken with a se-lection of well-dressed women and their similiarly well-dressed counterparts. It was all very muted and in terribly good taste, but pleasing nevertheless. Natalie looked across to her friend and waved, hurrying across to their table.

Claire was a petite redhead, bubbly and vivacious, and her brother, whom Natalie recalled as work-shy and good-natured, had, she discovered with wry amusement, become a qualified accountant and was now deeply conservative.

‘I never thought I’d see you in a navy blue suit, Eric,’ she said with a smile, when Claire had excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. ‘In fact, I never thought I’d see you in a suit at all. What’s the world coming to when you can’t rely on people not to remain the same?’

They laughed and he parried with a few remarks of his own on how much she had changed, his eyes in-forming her that he appreciated the changes. He was comfortable company. Amusing, intelligent and undemanding. Natalie was in exactly the right mood for un-demanding company. It relaxed her and she felt as though she needed relaxing.

She was leaning forward, laughing at something he had said, when a familiar deep voice spoke from behind her.

‘What a surprise. I had no idea this sort of place was your cup of tea.’

Natalie swivelled around and watched in alarm as Kane moved around to face her. What on earth was he doing here? He wasn’t going to stay and chat, was he? She sincerely hoped not.

Her eyes slid across to his companion, a tall blonde with an amazing figure. Natalie recognised her instantly. She had been seeing Kane before he left for the Far East. From the way she was clinging to his arm, it was obvious that his six-month absence had done nothing to staunch her ardour. Her name was Anna, and in the past she had barely managed to mutter a few words to Natalie, never mind glance in her direction. Now, however, her emerald-green eyes were narrowed into slits.

‘Are you the same girl who worked for Kane?’ she asked, without the slightest hint of embarrassment. ‘Robin something? Or was it something Robin?’ She laughed but her eyes remained hard and assessing.

Natalie looked at her calmly. ‘Yes, I am.’

Anna threw her a look of stunned disbelief, and then issued a sharp smile to Claire, who was surveying the interchange with interest, and to Eric who was rather more embarrassed than interested.

‘Hasn’t she changed?’

‘Hasn’t she,’ Natalie replied drily, sparing her friends the necessity of trying to find a response to that one.

‘Natalie’s been on some kind of health kick in my absence,’ Kane interjected, his eyes resting on her face with the merest shadow of accusation. He looked across to Eric and raised one eyebrow imperceptibly, just enough for Natalie to realise what he was thinking. She ignored the questioning gleam in his eyes and plastered a blank smile on her face.

‘Has she?’ Anna exclaimed. She nestled against Kane possessively.

What does he see in them? Natalie asked herself with a sharp pang of jealousy. Stupid question. Their bodies of course. Kane had all the mental stimulation he could handle at work. Every woman he had ever been out with, and there had been no shortage of them over the years, had been a physical work of art. Leggy, seductive. Everything I’m not, Natalie admitted with honesty. Even with my new improved shape and daring hairstyle I’ll never have that sort of feline, vampish grace that attracts him.

She gave Eric a warm smile, a subconscious desire to remind Kane and herself that he wasn’t the only man in the world, and he looked momentarily dazzled.

‘I’ve often wanted to go on a health kick,’ Anna was saying with a flirtatious smile that expertly managed to include both men and neither of the women. ‘Of course, I haven’t got the incentive that you had.’ She addressed her observation to Natalie. ‘ When you’re overweight it’ s so much more motivating to do that sort of thing, isn’t it?’

‘Isn’t it?’ Natalie agreed politely. She gave Kane a look that said, Is this the best you could come up with for a date? and his lips thinned.

‘Shall we go to our table, darling?’ he murmured to Anna, and she gave a throaty laugh of assent.

Natalie watched as they walked across to a table in the far corner of the room. The best table, naturally. Kane had only to show himself at a restaurant and the waiters would appear from nowhere, madly dashing around him, as if sensing his unspoken authority and responding to it.

When she had first joined the company, Natalie had been impressed by this reaction. Now it irritated her. He was just a man, after all. Couldn’t they see that? If the rest of the world treated Kane like a normal human being, instead of a demigod, then he might just get it into that head of his that he wasn’t a cut above everyone else. Not that he ever intimated as much, but that easy self-confidence and lazy assurance spoke volumes.

Across the room she could see him looking absolutely absorbed in whatever Anna was saying. Maybe they were planning what they would get up to after their three-course meal was out of the way. After all, Natalie thought acidly, they had some catching up to do, and she doubted very much of it involved conversation.

For the remainder of the evening, she found her attention drifting off towards Kane and Anna, speculating on all sorts of things, compulsively reading Anna’s body language as she leaned towards Kane, giving him a bird’s-eye view of the shadowy valley between her breasts, and twirling the long stem of her wine glass.

It was a relief when they rose to leave, Kane nodding briefly in her direction as he ushered Anna towards the door, with the usual subservient head waiter in attendance, like a fussy mother hen.

‘Good-looking man, your boss,’ Claire said, following Natalie’s eyes.

‘I suppose so.’ She shrugged and concentrated on her cup of coffee and the tempting little dish of petits fours which she was having trouble resisting.

‘Was that his wife?’

‘Wife?’ Natalie snorted expressively. ‘I think he considers marriage as one of those odd things that other people get up to in their spare time.’

‘And you don’t?’ Eric asked softly, his pale blue eyes looking at her curiously.

Natalie flushed and didn’t say anything.

‘I think marriage is terribly important,’ he continued in the same speculative voice, ‘but without the emotion involved. A business agreement, so to speak.’

Natalie looked at him, surprised, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Claire shake her head, warning her off the inevitable response.

Later, as she was about to step into the taxi to go home, Eric pulled her to one side and asked in an undertone how she felt about seeing him again.

‘It seems a shame to vanish out of each other’s lives for another six years,’ he said with a little laugh, and she agreed.

‘I’d love to see you again,’ she responded warmly, ‘just so long as we get one thing straight. No emotional ties, no involvement.’

Eric nodded. ‘Same here,’ he muttered with heartfelt intensity.

She gave him her phone number, rattling it off in a rush as the taxi driver eyed her with ill-concealed impatience, barely concerned whether he got in touch with her again or not. People, she noticed, had a habit of making showy gestures which rarely got followed up. Anyway, however nice Eric was, he could only end up being a complication in her life, and the less of those she had, the better.

She promptly relegated the entire incident to the back of her mind and forgot about it. That was the one thing to be said for working for Kane Marshall. It was impossible to concentrate on anything else when he was around. He was a sure-fire cure for most problems, be-cause the minute she stepped foot into the office she immediately forgot about them all.

He was already there when she arrived there the following morning. He had loosened his tie and the sleeves of his white silk shirt were rolled to the elbows. He looked as though he had been hard at it for hours, even though it was still only eight-thirty in the morning.

‘Good morning,’ Natalie said, hanging up her light-weight jacket and automatically pouring them both a cup of coffee. Her huge grey eyes were level and serene, but inside her head a thousand thoughts were seething. Where had he and Anna gone after the restaurant? Had they made love? The thought pierced through her and she firmly pursed her lips together just in case some unwary moan escaped.

All these years, watching him from the sidelines, knowing that he slept with those women he dated, hating the thought of it. Was this her destiny? To live in his shadow, in the constant grip of jealous passion? She hated the thought of it and she hated herself for being caught in that trap like a fish in a net—seeing the freedom of open water, but powerless to reach it. She knew that it was this that made her terse with him, despite the fact that she wanted to at least appear nonchalant and relaxed.

She handed him his cup and he absent-mindedly grunted, not looking up at her.

‘What the hell has been going on with this contract for Tony Harding?’ he shot out, as she was preparing to leave the room and head for the quiet sanctuary of her own office. He looked at her, his eyes flicking over her quickly, then returning back to her face. Natalie suffered the casual appraisal as equably as she could. Kane Marshall appraised all women. It was part of his nature. It did not signify any personal appreciation. Still, there was something fleeting but worrying in those eyes as they ran over body, something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She lowered her eyes, confused, not prepared to dwell on it.

‘He’s halted it until some contractual queries are sorted out,’ Natalie replied smoothly, knowing immediately what he was talking about. ‘He’s been asking for copies of some minor variations to be made, but we have been a bit long in getting back to him.’

‘Why?’

Natalie shrugged. ‘You’ll have to speak to Roseanne and Mr Douglas; they’ve been handling it in your absence.’

‘Or not, as the case may be.’ He sat back and looked at her rather longer this time, his eyes narrowed and calculating. ‘Why didn’t you take over?’

‘I would have needed your say-so,’ Natalie said promptly.

He loosened his tie a notch further and she found her eyes helplessly drifting towards the dark hairs just discernible on his chest. She impatiently pulled herself together and produced a businesslike expression on her face.

‘How would you like to handle some of the smaller accounts? From beginning to end? See them all the way through? The more sensitive ones, like Tony Harding.’ He threw her a wry smile. ‘I haven’t got time for them all.’

‘Haven’t you?’ Natalie remarked innocently. ‘You do surprise me.’

‘Sarcasm, Natalie?’ He raised one eyebrow. ‘Some bosses wouldn’t stand for that, you know.’

Something in his voice suddenly confused her. Was he flirting? No. Her imagination. She relaxed and re-turned his teasing smile with a mocking one of her own.

‘How lucky I am to have you for a boss, then,’ she gushed, enjoying their rapport. ‘Perhaps I ought to be paying you for the privilege instead of the other way around.’

‘Seriously, Natalie. What do you think? Do you like the sound of my idea? It would be a promotion, and of course there would be a pay rise. I might even see my way to throwing in a company car as well.’

The offer had caught her by surprise. She looked at him levelly and saw that he was waiting for her response.

‘Can I let you have my answer tomorrow?’ she asked. Instead of the ready assent which she had expected, he frowned heavily and began fiddling with the fountain pen on his desk, tapping it on one of the files; then he gave an impatient sigh.

‘Is that really necessary?’ he snapped. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that you would have needed time to consider my proposition. In fact, most people would have jumped at it.’

Natalie stared at him, surprised. Was she being dense here? Was she missing something? She had thought her request the most natural thing in the world, but from his reaction anyone would have thought that she had asked for the impossible. What was going on here?

He stood up and prowled across to the large window behind his desk and stared down at the street below, his back to her, then he swung back around to face her, half perched on the window-sill, his arms folded across his chest.