Bittersweet Love

by Cathy Williams

  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

  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 wit
h 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.