Bittersweet Love
CATHY WILLIAMS
Seducing her boss!To Kane Marshall, her arrogant boss, Natalie had always been the perfect secretary: quiet, efficient, undemanding. For five years Kane had thought he controlled her life - and secretly Natalie knew he controlled her heart! But now - with a new image and her confidence renewed - the time had come for Natalie to stop dreaming and live life to the full.The trouble was, Natalie's new independence was a challenge Kane couldn't resist. Natalie was playing with fire, and it seemed that scorching seduction was on the agenda!
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u13fc7dbf-4513-5e09-894b-a2313ccc204c)
Epigraph (#u22bfdb0f-d6cd-587c-b88c-0ef149ca2d35)
Dear Reader (#u355f38d5-35ed-5084-8cf0-02d9a237281c)
Title Page (#u75d32e64-ecfc-5f99-ba5e-9b08a9ccf2c3)
CHAPTER ONE (#u28eb1e37-d9b0-50bf-9dfb-499f2c70b97f)
CHAPTER TWO (#udac0e8d1-83af-5acf-9461-e41f1a6106f5)
CHAPTER THREE (#udcf62bd0-c2f0-568d-8a54-25893b44aa80)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
(#u355f38d5-35ed-5084-8cf0-02d9a237281c)Dear Reader,
What a good opportunity to write a few words to thank you all for your support over the years. I have been writing for Harlequin for nine years and it still gives me great pleasure to think that my books are enjoyed by you, I hope, as much as I enjoy writing them.
It’s wonderful to know that contemporary romance fiction is still alive and well!
Happy twenty-fifth anniversary, Harlequin Presents®—may we continue to have a long and enjoyable relationship!
Best regards,
Cathy Williams
Bittersweet Love
Cathy Williams
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_c2d6ef90-c2b0-540e-ab52-e4a4a55e71e7)
NATALIE could feel the spring in her step become heavier and heavier the closer she got to the awesome glass edifice that housed the Marshall Corporation.
Why not admit it? she told herself. I don’t want to see Kane Marshall. I don’t want to see his face, I don’t want to hear his voice, I don’t want to feel that awful, sickening rollercoaster of emotions every time he glances in my direction.
Not that he had the slightest idea what went on underneath that bright, efficient smile of hers. If he had, she would have left his employment immediately.
She stuck her hands into her jacket pocket and stood still for a moment outside the building, letting the cool summer breeze whip her hair across her face, glaring at the squares of glass, already hating him for what he did to her.
She was twenty-seven years old, and she had spent the last five of those years hopelessly in love with a man who wouldn’t have noticed her if she had stood naked on top of his desk with a rose between her teeth.
He was the boss, and she was his personal assistant. He discussed work with her, trusted her completely in that respect. In fact, he had jokingly told her once before that the office would seize up should she ever decide to take her talents elsewhere. She had smiled politely at the compliment, wondering how it was that some compliments could sound very much like insults.
But she knew how he saw her. Plain, slightly overweight, owlish behind her spectacles, brimming over with crisp efficiency. Neat navy suits and sensible shoes. Reliable little Natalie Robins.
Even when, six month ago, he had taken her out to dinner, and announced that he would be leaving the country to set up a new and important subsidiary in the Far East, he had had no qualms in handing her the reins of responsibility. He would be accessible by telephone and on the fax machine. The rest he was quite confident that she could handle.
Six months without being subjected to the force of his aggressive, dominant personality, was a long time. Long enough to think very carefully indeed about where her life was going. Long enough to lose quite a bit of weight, to get rid of those awful spectacles that did nothing for her eyes, to style her hair into something more resembling a tousled mane than the lank bun which she had been wont to wear to work every day.
Long enough to make up her mind once and for all that loving Kane Marshall was a disease which she would overcome if she died in the process.
Even so, standing here in front of the building and knowing that she would be seeing him for the first time in six months made her skin prickle with alarm. She was realistic enough to realise that her idiotic love for him was responsible for that clutching knot in the pit of her stomach, but that didn’t mean that she had to like it.
She took a deep breath and quickly covered the ground towards the building, her feet automatically taking her to the private lift which would carry her straight up to his office. The knot in her stomach seemed to have grown, making it difficult for her to breathe, and her hands were balled into nervous fists in her pockets. Thank heavens her cool, slightly aloof face betrayed none of this inner turmoil. The outward package might have undergone a few renovations here and there, but basically she was the same collected person as she always had been. She had spent years perfecting the ability to express on her face only what she wanted the world to see, and as she stepped into the office now, quietly hanging her jacket on the coat-stand next to her large L-shaped desk, she thanked God for that.
She knocked perfunctorily and pushed open the connecting door between her outer office and Kane’s main one, unable to prevent her quick intake of breath as her eyes rested on his tall, powerful frame. He was standing half turned from her, staring out of the window, his thoughts miles away. He couldn’t have heard her soft knock.
She had thought her memory to be quite vivid, but now, seeing him for the first time in months, he seemed so much more overpowering than she had remembered. The black, springy hair was slightly shorter than when he had left, his frame a little leaner, as though he had spent a great deal of time working out. Or maybe it was simply that his tan created that illusion, because he was certainly more bronzed now than she could ever remember him being.
‘It’s good to have you back, Mr Marshall,’ Natalie forced herself to speak into the silence, afraid that she would be unable to tear her eyes away from him until he turned around and caught her in the act of watching him.
He turned to face her, and whatever he had been about to say remained unspoken as his eyes swept over her. She could see the surprise written there, and she met his gaze blankly, steeling herself for the inevitable sarcasm.
‘Natalie?’ he finally asked, moving towards her, his hands in his pockets. He circled her, his green eyes amused as he inspected her with the thoroughness of a racehorse owner inspecting a horse. ‘You’ve changed.’ He continued to look at her, his brilliant eyes missing nothing, and she had the intensely uncomfortable feeling that she was being leisurely stripped by someone who was quite an expert at the procedure.
‘People tend to,’ Natalie said crisply, moving away from him and positioning herself closer to the door. ‘From time to time.’
‘Do they?’ He sounded as though this was a novel concept, but she could still see the amusement lurking there in the depths of his eyes and it irritated her. She had forgotten just how quickly he could get under her skin. ‘I haven’t,’ he pointed out, returning to his desk and gesturing for her to sit in the chair facing his.
‘You look much browner,’ Natalie said non-committally. ‘Was it very hot out there?’
‘Oh, very. And what was the weather like over here? Do tell.’ He leaned back and surveyed her from under his thick black lashes, his eyes flicking once again over her body, resting on the gentle swell of her breasts, which she had hitherto played down under muted, baggy clothes, as if he couldn’t quite get to grips with the transformation.
‘I’m merely trying to make small talk,’ Natalie said, frowning.
‘Don’t you think we’ve known each other too long for small talk?’
It was the sort of remark that, in different circum-stances, might well have sounded quite intimate, but here, in the clinical severity of his office, she knew what he meant. They had worked together for so long that they operated with the kind of familiarity that came to old, married couples.
‘Besides,’ he was saying, moving on from his offhand observation, ‘if we’re going to play that game, let’s at least talk about something slightly more interesting. Like what the hell has happened to you?’
‘Not a great deal,’ Natalie informed him, deliberately misunderstanding his question. ‘I’ve taken up squash and swimming. My sister has made me godmother to her little boy. And, of course, I’ve pretty much kept on top of the workload, you’ll be pleased to hear, although, as you suspected, that Grafton deal is proving trickier than was originally anticipated. But I discussed all that on the telephone with you a couple of days ago. The file is on my desk, if you’d care to see it.’
She rose to get it, too nervously conscious of his eyes on her to remain in the room any longer.
‘Sit down,’ he barked. ‘I haven’t laid eyes on you for six months, dammit, to find that you’ve gone and got yourself overhauled. You haven’t found yourself a man, by any chance, have you?’ There was a thread of suspicion in his voice.
Natalie gave him a look that would freeze water, and he laughed.
‘Good. I can’t afford to have you besotted with any man. There’s too much work on here at the moment for that little luxury. The Hong Kong operation is going to have a massive knock-on effect on our outlets over here.’
He began rooting through some paperwork on his desk and she glared at the downturned dark head. She had become quite accustomed to this trait of his. He would pick up a topic, explore it for a while, like a child with a plaything, and then when he was satisfied that there was nothing left to discover about it, or when it began to bore him, he would drop it without a backward glance.
It was how he treated the women in his life, and there were enough of them. Blonde, brunette, red-haired, all perfectly proportioned Barbie doll look-alikes who adorned his arm for just as long as he wanted them to, before boredom set in.
It never failed to amaze her that she had fallen in love with someone whose character she was quite capable of assassinating with a few easy strokes. How could anyone with a scrap of common sense actually love a man whose idea of involvement was a diamond necklace and a weekend in Rome, work permitting, and whose attitude to parting was a philosophical shrug of the shoulders?
Now, she thought acidly, he had sized up her transformation, made sure that it would not cause any ripples in her work life, and, that done, was quite content to get back to the business in hand.
For once, though, Natalie was not going to accept his change of direction with equanimity. Maybe six months of freedom from his engulfing, mesmeric personality had taken their toll in more ways than one after all.
She looked at him, her grey eyes level, and said coolly, ‘You can rest assured that the presence of a man in my life would not affect my work here in the slightest’
He glanced up from what he was doing, his black brows drawn together in a frown.
‘But there is no man, is there?’ He looked at her doubtfully, and she could read what was going through his head.
Natalie Robins, prior to reconstruction, plump, unappealing, was safe and reliable. Now he wasn’t too sure. She had moved on from that image and there was the niggling suspicion that men might actually begin to feature on the scene.
She smiled expressionlessly at him. ‘And if there were? Do the hordes of women in your life interfere with your ability to work?’
He sat back in the chair and clasped his hands behind his head, his green eyes giving her their full attention. There was interest in his face, as though the nature of her question had startled him slightly, but not enough to deter him from responding.
‘Nothing interferes with my ability to work. You, of all people should know that.’
“Then why should you assume that it would be any different for me?’
‘Women are a part of my life,’ he said bluntly, his green eyes roving over her face. Then he leaned back and stared at her from under those thick black eyelashes. ‘I know how to handle them. I can put them into perspective.’
There was no need for him to say anything further. Natalie knew well enough what he was getting at. The unspoken implication was that she had no experience with men, so how could she possibly handle something as extraordinary as a love-affair?
She looked at him coldly and when she spoke her voice was well modulated and perfectly controlled, even though inside she was bristling with anger.
‘Can’t you just?’ She lowered her eyes and began flicking through her typing pad.
‘And what exactly does that remark mean?’ He circled round his desk to perch on the edge of it in front of her, and she wondered whether this was as casual as it appeared to be. She wouldn’t put it past him to subconsciously use body language like that to addle her.
‘It means that your treatment of women, from what I’ve seen, leaves a great deal to be desired.’ She stared straight ahead of her, her profile neat and clean.
‘Well, thank you for that remarkable piece of insight into my love life.’ His voice was still threaded with amusement ‘I had no idea that you disapproved so strongly of it. Or maybe I had.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and Natalie gritted her teeth together because she knew that he was laughing at her. ‘Yes,’ he continued slowly, ‘your disapproval was always there in that tight expression you wore every time a woman walked through the door. But you never actually came right out and said anything. Perhaps your new body image has brought on a change of personality?’ The question hung in the air, and Natalie sincerely hoped that he didn’t expect any answer, because she had no intention of providing one.
‘Well?’ he pressed. ‘Has it? I hope not. I liked you the way you were. My life’s too complicated without you suddenly deciding that you need to discover yourself.’
‘In that case,’ she said calmly, ‘I’ll make sure that I discover myself outside working hours.’
What an arrogant, selfish swine, she thought. How could I have ever fallen in love with you?
She thought that they had killed the subject. What else was there to say?
His movement when he leaned over to twirl one long strand of hair between his finger surprised her so much that her body jerked around and she faced him angrily. He laughed, his eyes mocking, and folded his arms.
‘I still can’t get over this transformation,’ he murmured. ‘What prompted it? If it wasn’t a man, then what?’
Natalie stood up, working on the theory that she would feel far less disadvantaged if she was at least on eye level with him, and then instantly regretted it because that brought her far too close to his dark, handsome face.
Was it really any wonder that women found him so irresistible? Even with all her defences in full working order Natalie could feel that intangible pull be exerted over the opposite sex. He had that particularly lazy, self-assured brand of sexuality that could conquer without a great deal of effort. She had seen even the most hardened of feminists fall victim to it, and every time she saw it, it made her annoyed. It just didn’t seem fair that one man should be so shamelessly magnetic.
‘That,’ she said frozenly, ‘has to be the most chauvinistic remark I have ever heard.’
He laughed. ‘Really? That just goes to show how little experience you have of the opposite sex.’
She looked away quickly to hide the faint flush that had crept up her cheeks. God only knew why she had allowed this sort of personal conversation to sneak up on her and catch her unawares. It never usually happened.
‘Well,’ she bit out defensively, ‘if you are anything to go by, then I’m heartily glad about that.’
She looked at him, horrified by what she had just said.
‘Are you?’ His eyes were curious, and she realised that her remark, rather than ending their conversation, had had just the opposite effect.
‘I am, as a matter of fact,’ she muttered under her breath. She could hear her heart hammering away in her chest, and would have given anything to have been able to sit back down, but if she did that might delude him into thinking that she was actually interested in this conversation.
‘I’m mortally offended,’ he said, his eyes gleaming with suppressed amusement, and she could have hit him. What a keen sense of humour. Was this his idea of getting back into the routine? By starting off the morning with a little laugh at her expense?
‘Mortally?’ she said, refusing to share the joke. ‘In that case, I’ll try and make time to come to the funeral.’
He laughed and threw her an appreciative look.
‘I can’t tell you how nice it is to be back here, at the mercy of that vicious tongue of yours. The secretary I had out there was awful. She spent six months complaining and generally acting as though working for me was on a par with enforced labour. If she hadn’t come with a personal recommendation, I would have got rid of her so fast she wouldn’t have known what had hit her. But I didn’t want to offend my man over there, so I stuck it out. Just.’
He moved back to his chair and Natalie released a sigh of relief.
Poor girl, she thought sympathetically. She could have understood the reaction. Kane Marshall could be very intimidating at times. When it came to work, he could be unforgiving, and his peculiar ability to grasp complex matters quickly made him short-tempered and impatient with anything he saw as ignorance.
These were not lovable traits—not that Kane would see it that way.
He began rattling instructions to her and her private thoughts were quickly swamped under a torrent of shorthand and paperwork. He showed her pictures of the new complex and Natalie watched in appreciation, asking sensible questions, fully relaxed now that they were both involved in work and nothing more. They began going over some reports, and she expertly flicked through them to the relevant spots, rapidly jotting down amendments in the margins as Kane went through them with her.
It was midday when she next glanced at her watch and she looked up at him to find him staring at her with an intensity that confused her for a split second, before she had time to gather her thoughts together.
They had been sitting close to one another, the reports between them. Now she moved her chair away just a fraction, and as surreptitiously as she could so that he would not notice.
‘You look completely different without your glasses,’ he remarked musingly. ‘I never noticed what a peculiar shade your eyes were. Pure, undiluted grey.’ His voice was light, but his expression was disturbingly serious.
Natalie blinked, taken aback. For once, her talent for repartee deserted her, and she stammered, ‘Is—is that a compliment? If it is, thank you. But what about those figures we were talking about?’ Her fingers were trembling very slightly, and she shoved them on to her lap in irritation.
Couldn’t she trust herself not to react like this after all this time? Shaking hands because he happened to make a personal comment on her appearance, schoolgirl blushes because his eyes on her face betrayed the vaguest element of interest which she had never noticed being there before.
It was ridiculous, pathetic. She refused to be either ridiculous or pathetic.
‘Why don’t we discuss it over lunch?’ he said smoothly, standing up and raking his fingers through his hair, his eyes already off her as he prowled into his office for his jacket. ‘We can go to that wine bar,’ he threw over his shoulder, ‘you know the one. If it’s still there. I had no idea how much could change in six short months, until I saw you.’
He re-emerged into the room and frowned when he saw that she was still sitting at her desk, stacking some of the files in order, skimming through the paperwork that would need actioning when she returned from lunch.
‘I can’t go,’ Natalie informed him flatly, and she didn’t think he could have been more surprised if she had told him that she was about to become a belly-dancer in Egypt.
‘You can’t go?’
Natalie didn’t look up. ‘That’s right. I’ve started working out at a gym near by during my lunch hours.’
He paced across the room to where she was sitting and she reluctantly met his eyes.
‘You can skip today’s session, in that case,’ he said in that tone of voice which she had come to recognise over the years. It was the one he used when he was not about to take no for an answer.
‘I’m sorry,’ Natalie informed him politely. ‘I’ve arranged to meet a friend there; we’re going to grab a salad afterwards.’
She switched off the computer terminal and reached underneath for the bag which she kept under the desk and which contained her spare case of make-up and a towel, as well as her keep-fit gear. Kane continued to watch her as though she had suddenly taken leave of her senses, and it made her want to laugh.
Except the laughter would have been streaked with self-disgust. Had love made her so amenable to him that she had always been willing to bend to whatever he wanted? From the expression on his face, it certainly seemed so.
‘So you have changed more than simply the packaging,’ he said with a hard, assessing smile. ‘You’ve suddenly turned into Miss Popular of the Year. What a revelation.’
Natalie’s fingers tightened on her holdall. She knew what lay behind that biting cynicism in his voice. He had become accustomed to her readiness to comply with everything he wanted. Her work had been the main-spring of her existence. Everything else fell around it and somehow slotted in. Now it was different. From here on in she intended to live her life to the fullest, and work would simply have to slot itself in. She wouldn’t slack off, but on the other hand she would no longer allow it to absorb her the way it had done. That was one of the things she had decided in his absence and she intended to stick to it.
In the past, she had been like an addict, feeding on her blind love for him, open to exploitation. No more. And the sooner he realised that, the better.
‘If there are things to discuss outside working time,’ she said, ignoring his gibe and bypassing him to the door, ‘I’m more than happy to work overtime tonight. But I shall have to leave by seven, I’m afraid. I’m going out.’
He followed her out of the office and into the lift as it silently transported them to the foyer.
‘Where?’
This was getting on his nerves, she could sense that. Kane was someone who liked being in control—in fact he saw it as his prerogative. The fact that she had altered in his absence to someone whom he didn’t know and could no longer control irked him.
‘That’s none of your business,’ Natalie murmured sweetly, flashing him a smile which made him scowl.
They were outside the building now and she glanced across at him, her breath catching in her throat as his sexual allure engulfed her.
That, she thought, was one thing that hadn’t changed. Unfortunately. The glare from the sun, which normally was so relentless in emphasising the inadequacies of people’s features, threw his into relief and somehow made them more startling. What, under the synthetic lights in an office, were angular and impressive, in day-light were devastatingly sexy.
‘I’ll see you after lunch,’ she said firmly.
‘And make sure you’re back on time,’ he responded in a silky voice, which had just the smallest element of warning in it. ‘All these frantic activities are one thing, just so long as they don’t interfere with your working life.’
Natalie glared at him, the smile dropping from her face.
‘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 (#ulink_27b78db4-7779-5aa3-b0cb-38d650c99e09)
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.
‘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 (#ulink_e5cb4f4d-3eb5-5b6d-9a07-9085a0849bcc)
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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