‘What is it with you and doctors?’ Catherine asked, flicking her chin from his grasp. ‘Next thing you’ll be tucking me into bed with a hot toddy.’
Bed. His bed. So close. Cathy naked in it.
Max tried to block the image but it was there, like a beacon, flashing at him. Take me, take me now, take me.
Oblivious, Catherine was prodding at her wound. ‘I put some antiseptic on it. That’ll do. Emily was in worse shape—not physically, but emotionally. God knows what would have happened if I hadn’t burst in when I did.’
Okay—limit reached!
Max jumped to his feet, started pacing, needing an outlet for his dark energy. ‘Something did happen, Catherine! He hurt you.’ Stop. Glare. ‘What were you thinking, to be taking that guy on?’
Catherine jammed her glasses back on. ‘What is wrong with you?’ She jumped to her feet. Stripping the elastic from her hair, she started pacing in the opposite direction from him, winding her hair round and round in an approximation of a chignon. ‘Someone had to help her. And I told you I had a punishing right knee—my aim was just a little off this time. And you seemed to think my knee action was admirable a few minutes ago.’
‘Yes, but—but— God.’ Stop. Glare. ‘You should have let him go and called me.’
Stop. Glare. ‘Oh, really? So you could come and save the day? I thought Sir Galahad was flipping burgers with Elvis!’ She started securing her hair with the elastic, doubling, tripling it around the tight bun with a snap. ‘I know all about men saving the day. I’ll look after myself, thank you.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Who do you think stood by doing nothing while my boss was attacking me?’
‘Who?’
‘My boyfriend—that’s who!’ Catherine walked right up to Max, still glaring. ‘The man I was stupid enough to follow to the Middle East.’
And then the fight seemed to go out of her. And he hated that. Hated it. Wanted to hug her again. What was that, with the hugging?
Catherine ran a hand over her eyes. ‘No point talking about him. It’s over.’
Well, whatever the hugging thing was, Max couldn’t seem to help it. He pulled her into his arms. He heard, felt the sob as she buried her face there, and it almost broke his heart.
‘It’s not over, Cathy. You’re not over it. And I need to know so I have some clue how to stop sticking my foot in my mouth up to the patella.’
Long, fraught silence. And then she nodded. Just once, against his chest. ‘All right. You can let me go. I’m not going to cry.’
‘I’m not letting you go, Cathy. I’ll never let you go. Get used to that idea and things will be a lot easier.’
He felt a shiver race through her. ‘You will. When the time comes. And it won’t make you like your father. It won’t be your fault. It will be mine—for writing the book that started everything unravelling on Friday night, for pushing you ever since.’
His arms tightened. ‘Cathy, can’t you see? I’ve been putting myself wherever you were every chance I could so you could push me. I wanted you to push me. I wanted you to push me until we were in it up to our necks. God knows why, but that’s where we are.’
There was a long silence.
And then she spoke. ‘James—that’s his name—kept telling me I was imagining things. When it became clear that I wasn’t imagining anything, that it was real and happening to me—me!—when I’d always been so scathing of women who put up with such behaviour, had been so sure I never would—’ She choked there.
Max forced himself not to tense, just to hold her. Safe, protected.
‘James said... He said I could handle it,’ she said. ‘And I was arrogant enough to believe it. When it escalated I wanted to go to Human Resources and report it, but James begged me not to because he’d got me the job and it wouldn’t look good for him. That’s love for you! Back then I really didn’t know the score—but James sure taught me.’
She pulled away, gave him a smile so brittle he felt his heart crack.
‘And you’re so right, Max. An endless stream of just-sex-no-forever is a lot less painful than promising love.’
‘Cathy, we both know I say some stupid things. Don’t throw them at me.’
‘I need... I need space. The river. It’s...soothing.’
She opened the doors, stepped onto the deck, waited for Max to join her. ‘You know what really gets me?’ she asked. ‘That James used the things he supposedly loved about me to make me “behave”. I was feisty, I was fearless, I never took crap from anyone—so why couldn’t I handle one man?’
She raised her hands to her mouth, breathed through them for a moment. Then she squared her shoulders, dropped her hands to her sides. ‘In D.C., it became clear that I could not handle that one man and I was frightened. I didn’t bother calling James that last time, since he clearly couldn’t have cared less about me. I called the head of HR instead. HR—responsible for staff welfare, right? Wrong. Because our head of HR advised me that it would be dangerous for someone in my position—someone secretly living in an illegal unmarried state with a man—to make trouble in Abu Najmah. Because it would only take one phone call and I’d be arrested. Funny, isn’t it? My boss sexually harasses me, but I could be the one arrested.’
She shifted restlessly.
‘So I sat in my hotel room, wondering what it was about me that made my boyfriend think it was okay to essentially prostitute me. That made my boss think he could feel me up whenever the urge took him. That made HR tell me to shut up about it.’ She was shaking with anger as she turned to him. ‘Better to look after myself, don’t you think, with that track record? Like I did today.’
Max raised a hand to touch her but Catherine pulled away.
‘Keep your sympathetic pats,’ she said. ‘Just help me. Have sex with me, Max. Take away all those terrible memories and give me new ones. Now.’
‘When you’re ready,’ he said, and it came out harshly.
She whirled to the river, tore the elastic from her hair and threw it in. Next the little gold hoops were ripped from her ears, hurled at the water. She spun back to him. Vibrating with rage. Glowing with it. Magnificent. ‘Well, I’m not hanging around waiting for you to get it up. So screw you, Maximilian Rutherford! Screw. You.’
‘Nice choice of words,’ he said mildly.
‘I’ve got others! Plenty.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you do. You know, I always knew there was something under that prim and proper exterior. I just didn’t know the extent. And now, at last, the real, full-strength Catherine North makes an appearance. Bravo.’
‘And you’re not man enough for her,’ Catherine sneered. ‘You won’t like the real Catherine North. She swears. She drinks. She has a tattoo. She skinny-dips, she bungee-jumps and sky-dives, and she rides a motorbike like her brother and her tattooed-freak neighbour. She is not a virgin. In fact she once had sex in a movie theatre.’
‘I’ll see your movie theatre and raise you a department store women’s fitting room. You’re not scaring me, Cathy. Now, anything else you’d like to get out of your system while we’re going?’
‘I’m done. I resign.’
‘No. You don’t.’
‘I do.’
He grabbed her arms. ‘Every time you threaten to leave I know you’re not ready. I’m not letting you run and hide, Cathy.’
‘It’s not running if there’s nothing to run from.’
‘What about a job you’re good at? And what about me?’
‘There are other jobs. And other bosses. Maybe even one who won’t have to be coerced into taking me to bed. So from here on in you can shove your “poor little Cathy” sentiments right up your—’
Max jerked her in, kissed her hard on the mouth before she could get that suggestion out of her mouth. And then
, past bearing it another second, he spun her to face the river. He’d give her soothing! He bent her forward, hiked up the back of her dress.
‘Is that better?’ he demanded. ‘Do you really want me to use you like he did? You want me to snap? Well, I’m snapping. I’m done. I’m going to take you, Catherine. Right now, on this deck.’ He was breathing hard in her ear, his arms like steel bands around her. ‘Now, test me a little more. Tell me to stop. Will I or won’t I, do you think?’
She kept her mouth closed but her body was rigid.
‘Come on, Cathy.’ He thrust against her bottom.
‘No,’ she said, and the word sounded torn out of her. ‘I’m not going to say it.’
He used his chin to nudge her hair away from her neck. Put his mouth there and sucked hard, hard, until she cried out.
‘I want you so much I’m shaking with it. Can you feel it? Can you?’
‘Yes—yes!’ she panted.
‘But you know what, passion flower? I am going to stop.’
Another sucking kiss, a tortured groan against her skin. And then slowly, painfully, he pulled away. He reefed her around to face him, jerked her hem down.
‘And now we know,’ he said.
‘Now we know what?’
‘That I’m not like RJ. And I’m not like my father. And I sure as hell am not like your loser ex-boyfriend. Because I won’t hurt you, and I won’t use you, and I won’t let anyone else do it, either.’
There were tears in her eyes. ‘I already knew that.’
‘But I didn’t, Cathy. I didn’t.’
‘So now you know and now I know. Finish it.’
‘No.’
She stared at him. Incredulous. Furious. Sexy as hell.
‘Are you serious? You’re really and truly stopping?’
‘Just because you say yes doesn’t make it right. You’re not ready.’
‘You—you—you—’
‘Careful, firebrand. Don’t say something you’ll regret.’
Foot-stomp with a hair-toss thrown in. ‘You are not leaving me like this!’
Max snatched her into his arms again. He was half laughing, half groaning as he hugged her. Kissed her mouth hard. Then the top of her head. ‘Yes, Cathy, I am leaving. Because I have to make sure Raymond is dealt with—and don’t bother telling me you can look after that yourself.’
‘I can look after it myself, damn you.’
‘Then I’m going to the business lunch you arranged—don’t come.’
‘I’m coming.’
Another laugh. ‘Tell you what, Cathy, come or not to the afternoon meetings. But nudge my leg just once under the table and you’ll know all about coming. And in front of all those business people! Got it?’
* * *
Catherine wondered if Max could hear the echo of her, ‘Arrggggghhhhhh!’ as he strode up the path. Because it had disturbed a whole array of birdlife.
She raked her hands through her hair, yanking it.
‘Ouch!’
That didn’t help.
So she took off her damaged glasses, threw them on the wooden deck and stamped on them.
That didn’t help, either.
‘Arrggggghhhhhh!’
There went the birds again.
What the hell was going on in his head? Because she just didn’t get it.
Max wanted her. She could feel it—she could almost taste it. He’d been huge and hot and shaking. He’d given her a love-bite. Who over the age of sixteen did that without a total loss of control?
How many times did she have to ask? To beg? To—?
Oh.
It was there—the answer—shimmering like a promise.
Catherine-the-Great did not ask and beg. She did not submit. She didn’t allow a man to kiss her, to touch her, acting like a block of damned wood.
That was what Max was waiting for. For her to be in it. Up to her neck.
If she wanted him to take her she had to take him.
Well. All right, then.
* * *
It didn’t take long for Max, in full wrath of God mode, to get Raymond sorted.
Getting himself sorted was another matter.
He was a mess. A lust-crazed, desperate, testosterone-laden mess. He wanted her so damned much.
Catherine-the-Great, her brother had called her.
And she was.
She’d said she wouldn’t allow RJ Harrow to be the yardstick by which she measured every sexual relationship for the rest of her life and she’d shown her mettle—coming after him, bold and beautiful, to prove it. How could you not love that?
Defiant. Brave. Smart. Tough and feisty and sexy and outrageous. She could make him laugh and steam and want and pant. Every feeling he had for her was over the top. She was everything any man would want. His for the taking. He’d never wanted a woman more.
And he was going to have her.
Just as soon as he’d worked out how to keep her.
Because the way she kept trying to resign did not fill him with confidence.
If she left there would be a huge, gaping hole. How would he ever fill it?
By getting yourself a tall, horsey blonde, idiot.
He could just hear Catherine saying that—and the fact that it made him laugh out loud, in the middle of the guy next to him at the lunch table telling him about a failed development in the Northern Territory—not funny—had him seriously wondering about that strait-jacket.
Had she cooled down yet? He doubted it. He was sure he could anticipate some revenge for the way he’d left her. Like wearing something to the afternoon meetings designed to drive him wild. Touching him in some oh-so-innocent way, expressly to fry him a little hotter.
And the weird thing was he was looking forward to it.
He took his seat in the meeting room after lunch with a feeling of anticipation way out of proportion to what was on the agenda, watching as each participant arrived, waiting for her. Waiting. Waiting...
By start time everyone was seated—except her. But he knew she wouldn’t have been able to resist that ‘come or not’ dare he’d flung at her—so he delayed the start of the meeting. She’d arrive at any moment. Any moment now. Any moment...
Fifteen minutes past start time Catherine’s seat remained defiantly empty.
And Max wanted to punch something!
He caught one or two curious looks and knew he could wait no longer. ‘Okay, let’s start,’ he said, and wrenched his folder open. Blindly, he pulled out whatever was on top.
And shock stopped his breath with the first word: Jennifer.
Jennifer was waiting. Perfectly poised. Candlelit. Wearing something white and floaty. The music oozed, slow and steady, as she held out her arms, the white shifting and flowing around her body...
Oh. My. God. Max looked down at his lap. Yep. Straight to attention down there.
He shoved the pages back into the folder. ‘Right. Er... Right. Where we were?’
The meeting progressed, but Max’s brain disengaged and every time his voice wasn’t actually needed he slyly opened the folder—just enough for him to read secretly.
‘One rule,’ Jennifer whispered. ‘Say you’ll agree or this goes no further.’
‘I promise. Anything—anything at all.’
‘No touching, Alex. The only one touching tonight is me...’
Max shoved his chair back—there didn’t seem to be room for his legs and his hard-on under the table—then shoved it straight back in before anyone clapped eyes on his lap.
‘Problem, Max?’ Eric asked.
Max wondered if he looked as if he was about to come. Because that was what he felt like.
‘No—no problem,’ Max said, sounding strained
. ‘Just— Nothing. Continue.’
Stop reading.
But as they moved on to the next topic Max—almost pathetically grateful at being able to hand the floor to Doug for a PR round-up—opened his folder again.
She swirled around him, hands smoothing across his chest. Another swirl and she was leaning over him, breasts tantalisingly close to his mouth.
‘There are seven veils, Alex. And they’re coming off one by one before your blue, blue eyes. By the time the last one hits the floor you’ll be inside me...’
Blue-eyed Alex. Him. Inside her. Him.
Okay. Okay, okay, okay—calm down. Calm the hell down.
But he couldn’t calm own.
By the time the meeting broke up Max’s heart had been going hard enough and long enough to constitute an aerobic workout.
He went back to his cabin. Took a cold shower. Undid the scant good the shower had done him by reading the scene again.
It was game over.
He couldn’t walk around with his hands jammed under his armpits for the rest of his life, trying not to touch her. So he was going to touch—and he was going to make it so damned good she’d sign her life away for more.
He was experienced with women. Successful in business. A shrewd entrepreneur used to getting his own way. A natural and efficient problem-solver.
One short, prim, improper brunette was not going to get the better of him.
It was time to take control.
First he would give her a little of her own medicine and make sure he looked as hot as a forest fire for tonight’s dinner.
Then, after dinner, they would have a civilised discussion about how their affair was going to proceed—the ground rules for managing the affair and a suitable salary package that would contract her to Rutherford Property for an unbreakable term irrespective of anything personal that happened between them.
Then he would take her to bed.
He was whistling as he headed to the restaurant, alive with the need to see Catherine, ready to seal the deal.
Turning the Good Girl Bad Page 15
