Bittersweet Love

‘I’m only asking for one night to think it over,’ Natalie informed him, still bemused.

‘Why? Do you need to consult someone? Can’t you make your mind up on your own?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You heard me. I’m offering you the chance of a lifetime, with a pay rise to match—’ he threw her a figure that made her inwardly gasp, then continued in the same flat, hard voice ‘—and you’re not sure whether you want to accept it or not? Don’t you think Eric will approve?’

Natalie’s eyes widened. What was he on about now? Then the realisation dawned. Of course. He had seen them together, albeit in the company of someone else, someone who didn’t count since she was Eric’s sister and had been introduced to him as such, and had jumped to the wrong conclusion. He still thought that she had done something with herself because of a man. He couldn’t understand the concept of a woman making the most of herself for herself.

Workwise he depended on her. This was his attempt to redefine his authority over her. Give her a promotion, make sure that she’s not going anywhere, and life can carry on as normal.

Natalie stared at him with frozen politeness. It was on the tip of her tongue to inform him that Eric had nothing whatsoever to do with her request, then she thought, Why should I?

‘Why should he disapprove?’ she asked blandly.

He didn’t care for that response. He preferred her to be uninvolved with a man. That was how she had been for the past five years and he had grown accustomed to it. She had always been able to fall in with his hours, his breakfast meetings, his weekend work at short notice.

He frowned but didn’t reply and she said on a sigh, ‘Look, if it means that much to you to have my answer now, then I accept.’

He relaxed visibly. ‘Personnel will fix up the new contract.’

‘I’ll pop along there this afternoon,’ Natalie promised. Sometimes there was something boyishly transparent about him. He moved back to his desk, but instead of resuming work he continued to stare at her until Natalie flushed awkwardly.

‘Shall I get along to my desk?’ she volunteered. ‘I might as well start sorting out my workload.’

He ignored her remark completely. ‘So I was right after all. Eric is the man in your life.’

Natalie shot him an impatient look and wondered whether she could get away with telling him that she had better things to do than stay in his office and discuss some non-existent boyfriend. Then she decided that her promotion really was too good to toss out of the-window in a fit of bravado. He might have given her the job for all the wrong reasons, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a damn good job and she had no intention of jeopardising it.

‘If you say so,’ she said, glancing at her watch.

‘What do you mean “If I say so”? Is he or isn’t he?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought that that was any of your business,’ she said, restraining the urge to snap. Her feet were beginning to ache from standing up. She wanted to get back to her desk, but she knew well enough that that was impossible. Nothing incurred Kane’s wrath more easily than leaving before he was ready for you to leave.

‘He looks as dull as dishwater,’ he said with an oblique glance in her direction, and Natalie bristled.

‘Does he now?’ she queried softly, angry on Eric’s behalf even though she was not involved with him at all. What gave Kane Marshall the right to make snap judge-ments on anyone’s personality anyway? It was hardly as though he was as unblemished as the driven snow.

‘No need to get into a flap about it,’ Kane said with infuriating calm. ‘It was merely an observation.’

‘I am not in a flap,’ Natalie said stiffly, feeling very much like someone in a flap and wondering why. ‘And since it’s a free country you can make any number of observations that you like.’

He grinned at her and she glared back at him. ‘I wouldn’t have thought that he was your type at all, though,’ he murmured, pursuing his line of thought with utter disregard for her tightened lips and glacial expression. ‘Mind you, he does have a certain secure look, and women seem to yearn after security, for some peculiar reason.’

He lowered his eyes, the long, dark lashes drooping against his cheek and Natalie stared at him in frustration. He was deliberately provoking her and, like it or not, here she was, responding. Couldn’t she do better than this, for heaven’s sake?

‘I don’t yearn for security,’ Natalie informed him. ‘So much for your generalisations.’

‘Don’t you?’ There was a mixture of curiosity and interest in his eyes when he looked up at her. ‘You must be the exception to the rule in that case.’

‘Or else you’re completely off course in your sweeping comments about the female sex.’ She smiled sweetly, feeling her composure return with reassuring speed, ‘But no. I don’t suppose you could be wrong. That would be unthinkable.’

He laughed at that, his eyes warm with appreciation for her verbal barb, and she had to force herself not to respond to him. And he talked about women wanting security? she thought. She certainly hadn’t been lying when she told him that that was the furthest thing from her mind. Oh, no. Nothing as simple as a desire for security for her. Why settle for the easy course when she could waste her life secretly craving this sexy, arrogant, brilliant man sitting in front of her?

He glanced down at the file open in front of him, his hand on the telephone, and she knew that already his mind was back on work, after its short interlude wreaking havoc with her thoughts.

‘Do you need any help with the transferral of ac-counts to you?’ he asked, confirming her thoughts.

Natalie frowned. ‘If you give me a list of the ones you want me to take over, I’ll have a look at them this afternoon. I should be all right, but you might need to fill me in on any peculiarities with any of them.’

He nodded briefly. ‘Tonight,’ he said bluntly, already dialling his number. ‘I take it you’re no longer averse to overtime?’

‘I never was,’ Natalie said ambiguously.

‘Fine.’ He gave her a curt nod, his hand over the receiver. ‘My place. Seven sharp. I’ll get O’Leary to do something to eat.’

Natalie’s mouth dropped open in dismay. This was not her idea of agreeable overtime one little bit. True, she had been to his flat before to work, usually in the presence of other people when she was used mainly to take the minutes and attend to practicalities. But it had always made her feel uneasy.

Poring over files with no one else around, apart from O’Leary, his manservant-cum-general housekeeper, who was as deaf as post and generally retired to his quarters to watch television as soon as he feasibly could anyway, was not her idea of a fun night out

‘But…’ Natalie began in protestation, but he was already talking down the line, waving her away.

It wasn’t until she was almost ready to leave for home that she next got the opportunity to try and wheedle out of the nightmarish scenario, but Kane was having none of it.

‘Three of the files are at my place. The most complicated three, in fact.’ His eyes narrowed suspiciously on her. ‘Not trying to tell me that you can’t work a bit of overtime, are you? Because I needn’t tell you that this promotion will entail a fair amount of it. I won’t allow clock-watching.’

‘Of course I understand,’ Natalie said hastily, following him with her eyes as he prepared to leave for yet another meeting, this time with one of his financial directors.

‘Good,’ he said smoothly. ‘In that case, there’s no problem, is there?’

‘No problem,’ she agreed with vast understatement.

She got home with barely enough time to have a bath before she rushed back out. The phone was ringing as she stepped out of the bath, and for one fleeting moment of heady optimism she thought that it might be Kane cancelling his engagement.

No such luck. It took her a second or two before she recognised Eric’s voice, then she remembered that she had given him her telephone number, had agreed that they mustn’t lose touch. She rubbed herself dry, wandering around the bedroom with the receiver tucked behind one ear, awkwardly getting dressed in a pair of jeans and a thin cotton top with buttons down the front.

In her left ear, Eric chatted to her enthusiastically until she gently interrupted to tell him that she was going out and would have to say goodbye. She knew that he was going to arrange to see her; after all, hadn’t she given him every encouragement despite her ‘hands off warning? Even so, when he asked her to dinner later on in the week, she felt herself hesitate slightly.

Was it wise? Could she trust him? What if he wanted involvement, even though he had emphatically stated that it was the last thing on his mind?

Then she thought of Kane, the chiselled beauty of his features, the trail of women who flocked behind him, and on the spur of the moment she agreed with Eric that yes, dinner and the theatre would be wonderful.

‘I’m afraid it’ll have to be an early start,’ he said. ‘Can I meet you at your workplace? Say around six?’

It’ll do me good, she thought, catching a taxi to Kane’s flat in St John’s Wood. She wasn’t about to fall into the same old rut of all work and no play, promotion or no promotion. And Kane already knew of Eric’s presence in her life. She would not have to explain anything further to him.

It was raining steadily outside and she let her thoughts drift as the taxi wound its way along Finchley Road, taking ages because the traffic was appalling. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in the country? she thought. No traffic, no pollution, just wide open spaces. She had grown up in the country and although it was years since she had last lived there she still hankered for the peace and quiet.

Whenever she visited her sister in her delightful little house in Tamworth-in-Arden in the Midlands, she felt the same yen to pack in everything, Kane Marshall included, and do something really useful like become self-sufficient somewhere terribly rural.

Of course she wouldn’t.

‘You’d collapse from sheer boredom after a week,’ her sister always told her, whenever her thoughts became a little too fanciful. ‘London’s in your blood now. You’ll probably end up having to wean yourself out of it. Richmond first, then maybe Windsor, then the vegetable plot in the wilderness.’

But then vegetable plots in the middle of nowhere didn’t include Kane, did they? Dammit, she thought, don’t think like that! You’re in the process of trying to exorcise him, or have you forgotten? Thinking along those lines isn’t going to speed it up, is it?

She had to cover her head with her handbag when the taxi set her down outside Kane’s flat. The steady drum of rain had become more of a downpour and she arrived on his doorstep soaking wet. O’Leary opened the door for her and she shouted by way of apology for removing her shoes in the hall.

‘It’ s pouring outside! Don’t want to bring my mud into the lounge!’

O’Leary took her jacket and said, shaking his head, ‘Raining outside, is it?’

Obviously not wearing his hearing aid tonight, Natalie thought, her lips twitching. Most people would be mystified as to why Kane kept him on, but it didn’t puzzle Natalie at all. Kane could be surprisingly indulgent in some areas and this was one of them. O’Leary had been with his family for years and when his parents retired to the South of France he had inherited the old man without question.

‘Master Kane’s in the lounge,’ O’Leary was telling her, preceding her through the hall. ‘Work, work, work—don’t you young people ever know when to stop?’

Natalie knew better than to answer. Answering O’Leary without his hearing aid was an exercise in torture, so she clucked a bit and glanced around her. It really was a magnificent flat. It never ceased to impress her. The carpets were deep and in a soft, minty green colour, the walls, split by a dado rail in the middle, gave back the hues of green, but were mixed with creams and peaches as well, and were scattered with paintings, most of them impressionistic and all of them originals. Strange to think that someone as bold and self-assertive—in fact downright persuasive—as Kane Marshall could actually live in surroundings as restful as these.

O’Leary showed her into the lounge, yelling at Kane that the meal would be ready in half an hour sharp and could he please be prompt because there was a detective show on television that he wanted to watch.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Kane muttered, when O’Leary had departed, ‘why on earth do I keep on that old duffer?’ He turned towards the drinks cabinet and poured himself a gin and tonic for himself and a vodka and orange for her.

‘Because it would break your heart to see him go.’ Natalie accepted her drink, even though she would have preferred something non-alcoholic, and sipped from it tentatively.

‘I must be mad,’ he grumbled under his breath. ‘I should have sent him packing off to the South of France with my parents.’

The files had been dumped on the marble coffee-table in front of the fireplace, and Natalie sauntered across to them, picking one up and rifling through it.

The sooner they got down to business, the sooner she would be on her way home. She was about to tactfully lever the conversation around to one of the accounts when she heard a silky voice from the doorway and looked up to see Anna standing there, barefoot, her blonde hair loose and trailing down her back in a mass of tendrils. The other woman was staring at her with open malice. ‘Now I see why you cancelled our dinner date this evening,’ she said with a freezing smile, stepping into the lounge and moving gracefully over to the sofa. She slipped into a pair of flat gold ballet shoes and turned towards Kane. ‘Or maybe I don’t.’ A flick of a glance in Natalie’s direction. ‘If you’ve decided to supplant me with her, then your taste has certainly gone downhill.’

‘This is work, Anna. Not that I have to justify cancelling a dinner date to you. So get your claws back in and wait for the taxi in silence like a good little girl.’ Kane looked at Anna with a mixture of boredom and amusement.

‘It’s so passé to sleep with your secretary!’ There was a hint of tears in her voice and Natalie checked the vigour of her retort back.

Kane glanced across at her, amused, and Natalie glared back with impotent fury. ‘I am not sleeping with Mr Marshall,’ she said tightly. ‘I’m here to work, and in fact if it would ease things over I don’t mind going right back home. Not one little bit.’

She bent to retrieve her handbag and Kane snapped, ‘Stay put. Anna is the one who will be leaving.’

‘I was looking forward to some time together,’ Anna said in a smaller voice, and Natalie almost felt sorry for the other woman.

Kane shrugged. ‘Work first, all else later.’

Anna bit her lower lip and threw Natalie a venomous look, then she said to Kane with a trembling smile, ‘Darling, I forgot my bag upstairs. In your bedroom. Would you mind fetching it for me, please?’

He clicked his tongue impatiently, but left the room, and as soon as he was out Anna turned to Natalie. The trembling lip had gone, as had the broken, tearful voice.

‘I might have guessed,’ she said. ‘You. Little Miss Background goes to grooming school and then thinks that she can steal my man. Well, you’re in for a shock if that’s what you’re up to.’

CHAPTER THREE

NATALIE stared at the other woman, appalled.

‘Up to?’ she repeated faintly.

Anna walked towards her and Natalie took a step backwards, shamefacedly admitting to herself that an out-and-out fight was hardly on the cards, but not liking the expression on the other woman’s face at all.

‘Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I mean,’ Anna spat, glancing backwards at the door to make sure that Kane had not put in a stealthy and unexpected appearance. This, Natalie knew instinctively, was precisely the sort of scene that would infuriate him. Two women, fighting like fisherwomen in the middle of his cool, elegant lounge. Or rather one woman fighting, the other gaping like a bemused goldfish.

‘You’re way off target.’ Natalie gathered her wits together and made an effort to take control of the situation. ‘I have no intention of taking your man, as you put it. Frankly, you’re quite welcome to your man.’ She grinned to herself. Kane would hate being referred to as Anna’s man. As anyone’s man, for that matter. Expressions like that had a proprietorial ring that he would not have approved of one little bit.

Ownership wasn’t his style at all. He preferred to be totally free to come and go as he pleased, with whomever he pleased.

‘I don’t believe you.’

Natalie shrugged nonchalantly.

‘Funny sort of coincidence,’ Anna continued maliciously, ‘this new you, who suddenly happens to find herself in Kane’s apartment, for “work”, isn’t it? Ha. Do you think I was born yesterday?’

‘Look,’ Natalie said patiently, ‘I am here to work.’ She made a sweeping gesture towards the stack of files on the coffee-table. ‘What do you think they are?’ A new line in ornaments? she wanted to ask.

‘Good grief. A bunch of stupid files. Well, you would need some kind of excuse for coming on to Kane, I suppose. And a few files are as good as any.’

Natalie’s patience was beginning to evaporate. ‘I am not interested in Kane Marshall,’ she said angrily, ‘and this conversation is ridiculous.’

‘Not interested in Kane? Ha!’ Anna’s eyes narrowed on her. ‘You’ve always been interested in him. Even when you were a podgy little thing hiding behind those great big spectacles of yours. So who are you trying to kid?’

There was a sharp silence, then Natalie turned away, concealing her trembling hands by picking up one of the files and studying it closely, then returning it to the coffee-table.

Had Anna meant that or had it been just a stab in the dark? If it had been just a stab in the dark, then it’ s accuracy was amazing. If, on the other hand, she had spoken from observation, then the consequences were not worth thinking about, because, Natalie thought, if Anna, flitting in and out of the office occasionally, had noticed her foolish love, then was Kane aware of it as well?

She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her up, or a sudden freak cyclone to whip her away to another planet. She said coolly enough, ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about. Your imagination’s running riot because you’re jealous, for no reason whatsoever, and I don’t have to stay here and listen to you.’ Where precisely she could retreat to was anyone’s guess. She certainly had no intention of giving Anna the satisfaction of watching her run away, wounded. That would have been tantamount to admitting that there was something in what the other woman had said, for a start.

They heard the doorbell ring, then Kane’s voice ad-dressing the taxi driver, and Anna turned to face her quickly.

‘I’m just warning you,’ she bit out, ‘keep your hands off him. I can’t stop you watching, but he’s mine.’

‘Does he see it that way as well?’

Anna’s face went bright red, then white. For a second, Natalie thought that that fight which she had nervously dismissed earlier on as being a ludicrous over-reaction to the situation might materialise after all, but it didn’t.

‘You think you’re so clever,’ she muttered, ‘but if you make the mistake of trying to get your hands on Kane, then we’ll see just who the clever one is.’

Kane appeared at the door, his eyes flicking expressionlessly between the two women, but already Anna was smiling at him and Natalie herself had something plastered across her face which she sincerely hoped resembled a relaxed grin as well.

‘So nice to have had that little chat with you.’ Anna oozed from her stronghold next to Kane.

‘Wasn’t it?’ Natalie agreed, with as much control as she could muster, then she watched as Anna pulled Kane’s head towards her and kissed him, long and hard and without any inhibitions whatsoever.

Natalie felt the sting of tears behind her eyes, foolish, foolish tears, but not a flicker of emotion crossed her face. What does she hope to achieve by that? she asked herself angrily. Does she think that I’m going to collapse in a jealous, writhing heap on the floor? Or maybe, and much more likely, she’s just trying to let me know who owns who.

O’Leary appeared from behind them and shouted in exasperation, ‘Taxi’s here! Time to break all this up!’

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