No Longer A Dream

She didn't believe she had made love with Caleb Steele, no matter what he said to the contrary!

She turned straight round and marched back into the bedroom, no longer caring that she wore only the draped sheet. ‘You're a lying, rotten, lousy—–’ She broke off as she realised Caleb Steele was no longer alone, that an older man had joined him, a well-dressed pleasant-faced man who appeared to be taking instructions when she entered the room. And from the cursory glance he gave in her direction, the blue eyes completely devoid of emotion, he found nothing unusual in seeing a sheet-wrapped woman walking about his employer's bedroom suite!

Black eyes met her stormy green ones with icy disdain. And then Caleb Steele turned away and resumed his business discussion with the man at his side.

Cat couldn't believe it, had never been dismissed in such a way before! It was just as if she were of no importance at all. She drew in an angry breath. ‘I said—–'

‘I heard you.’ His head snapped up. ‘It may have escaped your notice,’ he drawled with heavy sarcasm, ‘but I'm busy right now.'

Busy! He was busy. She was trying to regain her self-respect and he was busy! It may be clichéd, but who the hell did he think he was! The answer to that was all too obvious, but who he was and the amount of money he was worth, didn't much matter to her at this moment. Who she was, and the amount of money she wasn't worth didn't mean Caleb Steele could dismiss her like an old shirt! If he treated all of his women in this way it was no wonder his affairs didn't last.

‘You may be busy, Mr Steele—–’ her chin rose challengingly when his associate at last showed surprise—at her formality with the man who's bedroom she stood almost naked in. It was the erroneous impression her appearance gave that made her carry on in spite of the cold anger emitting from Caleb Steele. ‘But I want to talk to you. Now,’ she added firmly as she guessed he was about to dismiss her a second time. ‘Unless you would care to discuss what happened in that bed last night in front of an audience?'

The man at his side gave a choked sound, somewhere between a cough and a laugh, beginning to cough in earnest as that coal-black gaze was suddenly riveted on him.

‘You sound bad, Norm,’ his employer grated with icy insincerity. ‘Why don't you go and get yourself a cup of coffee and we'll continue with this later. When you're feeling better.’ The last was added threateningly.

‘Sure.’ The other man spoke for the first time, American like his employer. ‘I—er—nice to have met you, Miss—er—–'

‘Cat,’ Caleb Steele put in icily before she could make any reply. ‘And believe me,’ he drawled suggestively, ‘she more than lives up to her name!’ He flexed his shoulders as if something there pained him.

Like claw marks, from a cat! And she knew damn well that except for that fine covering of dark hair his back was smooth and unmarked.

A speculative light entered the man Norm's eyes. ‘Perhaps we'll meet again, Cat,’ he murmured in a somewhat puzzled voice, as if for once he were surprised at his employer's choice of a bed-partner.

‘I doubt that,’ she answered him but looked at Caleb Steele. ‘I wound to kill!'

‘Yes. Well,’ the older man looked flustered now, ‘I'll talk to you later, Caleb.’ He made a hasty exit before he was caught in the verbal war that seemed to be taking place in the bedroom.

Caleb Steele looked at her with expressionless black eyes. ‘And just how do you intend to wound me, Catherine Howard?’ he challenged in a softly threatening voice.

Her eyes flashed. ‘If I had any sense I'd stab you in the back the way my namesake should have done Henry the Eighth! You're as lying and deceitful as he ever was!’ She tossed back her mane of golden hair.

‘I am?'

Steel encased in velvet. There was no other way to describe that softly spoken threat. But she wasn't about to be intimidated by him; he had lied to her and he was going to admit it. ‘I didn't make love with you in that bed,’ she pointed to it angrily. ‘Or anywhere else last night!'

Dark brows rose. ‘You didn't?’ he drawled.

‘You know I didn't.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘I always pass out. I don't—don't—–'

‘Leap into bed with men you don't know,’ he finished coldly. ‘Then how did you wake up in my bed this morning?'

Delicate colour darkened her cheeks. ‘I don't believe you slept in it. I also don't remember you being at the party last night. I can't remember seeing you there, and—–'

‘I arrived late,’ he bit out, as if he were tired of the whole conversation. ‘And I did sleep in that bed last night. Next to you.'

She swallowed hard, knowing by the flat uninterested tone of his voice that he didn't lie. But she always passed out!

Her distress must have shown in her face, because something like compassion flickered in his eyes. ‘Cat—–'

‘I'm sorry,’ she bit out jerkily, swinging away, needing to escape back to the sanctuary of the bathroom. ‘I was rude to you just now in front of an employee.’ She couldn't think straight, needed to be alone away from the tumbled intimacy of this bedroom so that she could try to piece together the events of last night, try to make some sense of it in her own mind. ‘I—I'll apologise later if you would like me to. I—I'll go and take my shower now—–'

‘Cat!'

Again she ignored the steely command in his voice, running into the bathroom, locking the door behind her this time before collapsing back against it.

If only she could remember, if only she knew what had happened last night to make her want to make love to Caleb Steele. She couldn't believe she had wanted to make love with him; she didn't even like the man.

What had Vikki said to her before she left for the party last night, ‘Be good'? And then they had both come back with the rejoinder about ‘being careful’ before Cat had laughingly taken her leave. She had no idea whether she had been ‘good', but careful she certainly hadn't been.

How could she have taken Caleb Steele as her lover when she belonged heart and soul to Harry?

CHAPTER TWO

SHE had been so buoyed up the evening before as she got ready for the party, overjoyed at the prospect of finally meeting Caleb Steele after weeks of writing for an interview to his London office and home when her publisher had told her he was the only way she would ever be able to speak to his father, the reclusive author Lucien Steele.

The series of articles she had done the year before on Hollywood marriages had proved to be a tremendous success, a publishing company approaching her about doing a book on the subject, with the condition that she covered four marriages of their choice, the rest being left to her discretion. Unfortunately, one of the marriages the publishing company had chosen had been that of Lucien Steele and the late Sonia Harrison. Of course, Cat could have gone ahead and written the chapter on this golden couple of the Hollywood of the forties without talking to Lucien Steele, but she hadn't wanted to do that. But to actually arrange an interview with him had proved more difficult than she had imagined, the now elderly man having disappeared from the Hollywood scene thirty years ago after the tragic death of his wife in a fire that had destroyed their mansion house, and absenting himself from London society a few years ago, too, to all intents and purposes disappearing off the face of the earth. Except that his son and grandson had to know of his whereabouts.

She had been warned of Caleb Steele's aversion to meeting the press whenever possible but she hadn't realised he could be so elusive, almost as bad as his father. Polite letters to his office had been ignored; telephone requests to have a meeting with Caleb Steele had been politely evaded by his secretary; a visit to his London home two days ago had introduced her to Luke Steele, his notorious son. Where the grandfather and father seemed to avoid publicity the grandson seemed to court it! He was always in trouble of one kind or another, always being asked to leave hotels and restaurants because of his outrageous behaviour, and had been thrown out of two universities at the last count.

But he had been very friendly towards her yesterday afternoon, and if she had been a little wary of his over-bright eyes and unkempt appearance she forgave him the minute he invited her to his party, assuring her that his father was going to be there.

She had even ignored the over-familiarity and the provocative remarks he kept making when she got to the party, and the way it seemed impossible to escape his company—or not to notice the amount of alcohol he was consuming.

She could remember all that, the noise, the loud laughter of too many people having drunk too much, could remember deciding shortly before eleven that Caleb Steele wasn't going to come to his son's party after all, remembered telling Luke Steele she was leaving, and then—nothing. The next thing she had been aware of was that slap to her bottom!

Promiscuity hadn't been something she consciously avoided, but something she ignored. That sort of relationship was for other people, not her. She had her friends, a lot of them, male and female alike, admittedly more of the latter than the former, but that was probably because a lot of men didn't believe there could be just friendship between a man and a woman. She believed the opposite, that friendship should come before the love. She and Harry had been friends from the moment they walked through the gate on their first day at school, when Harry had given a painful tug on the single braid that lay down her spine, and she had turned around and punched him straight on the nose! They had both been too proud to cry and so they had laughed instead. After that they had be come inseparable, their friendship surprising them both—if not other people—by turning to love when they were both fifteen.

And she had betrayed that love last night with a man like Caleb Steele!

She didn't even need to guess what Harry would think of the other man; she knew the two men would have disliked each other intensely, Harry so open and boyishly handsome, Caleb Steele hiding any emotions he might have behind that harsh face and cold black eyes. They were as different as night and day, one devil, one angel, and she—she had lain with the devil!

A brisk knock on the bathroom door made her jump nervously. ‘Breakfast is here, Cat,’ Caleb Steele informed her abruptly. ‘Either run the water and have a shower or come out and eat,’ he advised irritably. ‘You can't stay in there all day.'

She wished she could! Maybe other women could handle this situation confidently, but she couldn't. And she certainly couldn't sit down to breakfast in an evening dress!

‘Cat?’ his voice had sharpened. ‘Have you fallen asleep in there?'

Asleep? She didn't think she was ever going to fall asleep again—too afraid of what she would find when she woke up!

‘Answer me, Cat,’ he advised in a steely voice. ‘Or would you rather suffer the embarrassment of my having someone break the door down?'

She swallowed hard, barely breathing, trembling like a leaf about to fall from a tree. ‘I don't want any breakfast,’ she told him a quivery voice, on the verge of tears.

‘Cat?'

That velvet rasp sounded directly through the wood behind her head, and she moved hastily away, turning to stare at the door with wide eyes.

‘Cat, are you crying?’ He sounded incredulous at the idea.

Was she crying? Yes, she could taste the tears on her top lip, although she hadn't been aware of them falling. Why shouldn't she cry when her heart was breaking into little pieces!

‘Cat, open the door,’ he encouraged now, persuasively. ‘There's no need for this, Cat,’ he cajoled softly. ‘Would it help if I told you nothing happened between us last night? That I didn't even touch you until this morning?'

Hope flared in her over-bright green eyes, and then it faded, leaving her looking more miserable than ever. ‘Not when it isn't the truth,’ she said dully.

‘But it is,’ he insisted firmly. ‘I was damned angry this morning when I let you think we had made love. Open the door, Cat, and we'll talk.'

Why on earth was he so obsessed with her unlocking the door? What did he—no, he couldn't think that! God, if she were the type to commit suicide she would have done it years ago, and over a much more worthwhile man than Caleb Steele.

She straightened, her head back proudly. ‘I'll be out as soon as I've showered. Would you please order me a taxi so that I can leave immediately?'

For a moment that was silence on the other side of the door. ‘Very well,’ he bit out coldly, no longer so close to the door. ‘The hysterics are over, I take it? he derided.

She stiffened. ‘You can rest assured that I don't intend using your razor to cut my wrists!'

‘That might be a little difficult,’ he drawled. ‘I use an electric shaver!'

Cat bristled indignantly at his mockery. ‘I could always used it as a saw!'

A soft throaty chuckle answered her anger. ‘Your name does fit, Cat,’ he murmured admiringly. ‘You spit and claw right back, don't you?'

‘I thought you already knew that,’ she reminded bitterly.

‘I told you,’ he said softly. ‘I didn't make love to you last night.'

Was he telling the truth? She didn't know. But she desperately needed to believe that he was, slowly unlocking and opening the door, looking up at him anxiously, coal-black eyes staring straight back at her. And she could read nothing from them, years of deliberately shielding his emotions making that impossible. Cat continued to stare back at him.

‘You were already in my bed when I got home,’ Caleb Steele told her briskly. ‘And by that time I was too damned tired to care who I shared my bed with!'

Cat's face drained of colour, leaving two deep green pools of bewildered hurt.

‘How the hell old are you that it shocks you out of your mind to even think of sharing a bed with a man?’ He scowled at the accusation in her expression.

‘Old enough,’ she muttered.

‘For what?’ He turned away disgustedly, his hands thrust into the pockets of his trousers, pulling the material taut across his thighs.

‘For whatever,’ she returned sharply.

‘Eighteen isn't old enough for whatever!’ he rasped, scowling heavily. ‘Is there anyone that's going to be worried by your non-appearance last night?’ he suddenly frowned.

She thought of Vikki, and then as quickly dismissed her friend and flatmate. Vikki would probably be gleefully lying in wait for her when she got home, demanding to know all the details, had been urging her for years to take a lover.

‘You mean like a father or brother?’ She arched honey-blonde brows at him.

His mouth was tight. ‘Or a husband?'

Her laugh was brittle. ‘God, yes, I could be married, couldn't I?’ she said hardly.

‘Are you?’ Black eyes were narrowed, as if he didn't like the idea of sharing a bed with a married woman, under any circumstances.

‘No,’ she assured him flatly. ‘Nor engaged, nor seeing anyone seriously. I don't have a brother and my parents live in Cornwall, so you needn't worry about Daddy coming after you with a shotgun!'

‘Is that a possibility?’ Caleb Steele asked slowly.

‘Not if it's true that we didn't make love.’ There was a question in the statement.

‘And if it isn't true?’ he grated.

She shrugged. ‘Then my father is old-fashioned enough to want his grandchild to have a father. But you were telling the truth when you said we didn't make love, weren't you?’ Anxiety darkened her eyes, although her expression remained bland.

He considered her for long, timeless minutes before nodding abruptly. ‘I'd been in a meeting for over forty-eight hours; I have union trouble.’ There was a resigned twist to his mouth. ‘But yesterday was Luke's birthday—–'

‘It was?’ Cat gasped; it hadn't been like any other birthday party she had ever gone to!

‘It was,’ he nodded, giving an impatient sigh as he watched her continually hitch the sheet over her breasts in an effort to keep it in place, turning with leashed energy to push open one of the mirrored doors to his wall-length wardrobe, searching inside.

‘Do you have a mirror fetish?’ Cat burst out impetuously, fascinated by the way there were mirrors everywhere, even on two walls in the adjoining bathroom; it had come as something of a shock to see the tousled reflection of herself across the width of the luxurious room, the sunken jacuzzi meaning she had an unhindered full-length view of herself!

He turned briefly to give her a dismissive glance. ‘If you're expecting me to say they were already in the house when I moved in you're going to be disappointed,’ he drawled, taking out a dark brown robe. ‘Here, put this on.’ He held it out to her.

She gratefully took the robe, then looked down awkwardly at the sheet, wondering how she was going to go from one to the other and still maintain her modesty.

‘Let's not go through that again,’ Caleb Steele whipped the sheet from around her body, holding out the robe for her to put her arms into. ‘You were naked when I climbed into bed next to you last night, and you didn't even have the sheet on you when I woke up this morning!’ he dismissed impatiently.

‘That isn't the point,’ a red-faced Cat snapped, quickly turning to put her arms into the robe.

‘Because you're awake now?’ he mocked. ‘There,’ he murmured softly. ‘That's why I like mirrors.'

She froze, slowly turning her head to look at him, but he was staring up at the ceiling, and with the heated colour darkening her cheeks she reluctantly followed his gaze.

She had her arms thrust into the sleeves of the robe but he hadn't yet put the material in place about her shoulders, her back arched, her breasts thrust out invitingly. The reflection reminded her all too forcibly that earlier she had issued a similar invitation—and that he had accepted!

She pulled the robe about her in hurried movements, her cheeks burning as she tied the belt about her slender waist, the thigh-length robe reaching down past her knees, the sleeves falling down over her hands as she straightened her arms.

‘Let me.’ Caleb Steele moved to turn up the sleeves, treating her with all the resigned patience of an adult dealing with a recalcitrant child. ‘I could snap you in half and not even know I'd done it,’ he murmured as if to himself.

‘I'd know you had done it,’ she told him with feeling.

The coal-black eyes became even darker, the cynical light going out of them to be replaced by a surprising warmth, before that stern mouth actually curved into a grin, deep grooves etched into his cheeks, his teeth very white against his tanned flesh.

Cat's eyes widened like a surprised feline. ‘Why do you hide all that dental work?’ she once again spoke without thinking first. ‘I mean, you rarely smile,’ she tried to amend, grimacing her embarrassment as she knew she had failed.

This time he laughed outright, a rich deep sound, roughness once again cloaked in velvet. ‘Like everyone else I laugh when something amuses me.’ He still smiled. ‘And I'll have you know that these teeth are all my own, and they're the genuine uncapped variety!'

She stared at him in fascination, amazed at the difference his smile made. He looked almost handsome! And years younger, not quite so much as if every minute of his thirty-nine years had been spent amassing the power and money that made him the dangerous man he was.

‘Cat?'

She suddenly realised he was no longer smiling, but eyeing her watchfully as she openly stared at him. ‘I can see that now,’ she rushed into speech. ‘One of the front ones is a little crooked.'

He nodded. ‘If you were a guest at my son's party last night why didn't you know it was his nineteenth birthday?’ he asked icily.

This man would have been lethal as a courtroom lawyer, would have held the judge and jury mesmerised by the way he never missed even the slightest irregularity!

‘He didn't tell me,’ she answered truthfully.

‘If you're a friend—–'

‘I told you, I'm only an acquaintance.’ She bit her lip. ‘I—I went to the party last night because I wanted to meet you,’ she revealed, knowing honesty had to prevail now.

His eyes glazed over, his nostrils flaring, his mouth a thin angry line. ‘So it was all an act,’ he said disgustedly. ‘The surprise, the dismay, the shock,’ he added impatiently. ‘When I didn't show at the party you decided to wait for me, in my bed!’ He began to pace the room, shaking his head as he looked at her. ‘You ought to get an Oscar for the act you just put on in the bathroom,’ he grated. ‘I actually did feel a first-class heel for lying to you!'

‘Because you are!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘It was cruel to make me believe we had—we had been lovers. Everything I told you was the truth, my drinks were doctored, and I have no idea how I came to be in your bed—–'

‘For God's sake don't start crying again!’ he rasped as the tears began to fall. ‘We'll get to the bottom of this once and for all,’ he bit out, picking up the receiver to dial. ‘Luke?’ he barked in the mouthpiece. ‘Get in here,’ he ordered as coldly as he had earlier told his son to leave. ‘And make sure your story is a good one!’ he advised threateningly before slamming down the receiver to once again pace the room.

For all the notice he took of Cat as they waited for the arrival of his son she might as well not have been here.

‘Do you always talk to him that way?’ she finally asked curiously.

His head snapped back, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets again. ‘What way?'

She shrugged. ‘Like one of the hired help,’ she frowned.

His mouth twisted. ‘If I spoke to Norm in that way he would leave.'

‘Your son doesn't have the same prerogative,’ she drawled.

‘But he does,’ Caleb Steele corrected in a hard voice. ‘He's his own man.'

Man sounded a little hopeful for the immature boy she had witnessed at the party last night, his youth obvious in the way he drank too much, laughed too loud, and was too familiar with a woman five years his senior. She doubted Caleb Steele had ever been that young, had been married and on his way to becoming a father at the same age.

‘Let me put that another way,’ he drawled, seeming to guess her thoughts. ‘Luke is independently wealthy from money given to him by his mother, and at nineteen he's over the age of consent.’ He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘If he doesn't like the way I talk to him he's free to set up on his own.'

The underlying friction of the father towards his son was unmistakable. But considering the amount of newsworthy trouble Luke Steele had been in over the last couple of years perhaps that was understandable. She had found the younger man to be totally brash and rude. And, secretly, she couldn't forgive his witnessing those moments of intimacy she had shared with his father earlier!

‘Don't look so worried, little cat,’ Caleb murmured throatily. ‘We won't come to blows over you.'

If they did she had no doubt who would be the victor. And she had a feeling Caleb Steele didn't either, despite the fact that he was twice his son's age. She also knew he didn't give a damn how she felt, that he once again believed the worst of her.

‘Do you get a lot of women throwing themselves at you?’ she frowned.

Black eyes narrowed to steely slits. ‘I've never actually had a woman I don't know waiting for me in my own bed before,’ he bit out.

‘I—–'

‘Come in, Luke,’ he called out to his son as a knock sounded on the door.

Physically father and son were very alike, although Luke's eyes were a deep blue. They both possessed that rugged attraction rather than handsomeness, but maturity had given Caleb that cynical light in his eyes where Luke displayed only recklessness. And in contrast to Caleb's tailored shirt and trousers Luke looked the height of casualness in faded denims and a loose sweater. The bravado in his stance was directed at both his father and Cat.