by Penny Jordan
‘And when you add in all the children...it’s just as well that most of them are still small enough to share their parents’ rooms.’
As Katie walked into Queensmead’s drawing room she could see what Maddy had meant, large though the room was, it was packed, filled with people.
Saul and Tullah were standing with their children talking with Saul’s parents. Luke and Bobbie were in another group which included James, Luke’s brother, their two sisters and their families and their parents.
‘Looks like there’s a full turn-out from the Chester contingent of the Crightons,’ Louise remarked to Katie as they stood together just inside the doorway.
‘Mmm...that’s definitely going to make Gramps’s day,’ she began, thinking of how pleased their grandfather would be at being able to boast to the two cousins he had always secretly felt he had had to compete with, of Max’s good news, but Louise, who didn’t as yet know, gave her a puzzled look.
Bobbie, Luke’s American wife who had just caught sight of the twins, was waving to them and, detaching herself from her own family group, came over, bringing her children with her.
‘Wow...love the dress,’ she approved as she studied Katie appraisingly. ‘It is just soooo sexy...’
As Katie coloured up Louise groaned and then laughed, ‘Don’t tell her that. I’ve just spent the last hour convincing her that it isn’t...’
‘I never said you’d succeeded,’ Katie pointed out dryly.
‘So...’ Bobbie teased her gently, ‘where is he?’
Katie knew perfectly well who the ‘he’ Bobbie meant was and she closed her eyes as a wave of sharp pain clawed her.
Louise was nudging her, warning, ‘Katie... Katie...’ causing her to open them again, but the words of protest she had been about to deliver to her twin were lost when she saw Seb standing framed in the open doorway.
Even among the collective force of her male Crighton relatives, all of them tall, all of them dark and all of them extremely good-looking, Seb stood out as she slowly scanned him. Katie avidly allowed her starved senses full rein to enjoy themselves and then Seb turned his head and saw her.
Katie sucked in her breath. The way he was looking at her made her feel—made her think...made her believe... Her heart was pounding heavily; the interested massed ranks of her family faded into total oblivion. Seb was still looking at her and in his eyes she could see... She saw his lips form her name and then he was moving towards her. At her side Louise gave her a firm push in Seb’s direction and somehow she was taking one step forward and then another and all the time he was looking at her with ‘that’ look.
* * *
SEB WAS USED to large families. His own was huge, but the Crightons were a family apart, or so Ben Crighton liked to think, and as he stood looking into the packed drawing room Seb could see why. But there was only one person there he really wanted to see. Quickly he searched the room and then he found her, standing next to her sister, wearing a dress that made her look as ethereal as a wood sprite, as delicate and fragile as a piece of thistledown, as... He caught his breath as he saw the way she was looking at him, her whole heart in her eyes.
‘Katie...’ He breathed her name, and the crowd of people separating them seemed to part as though by magic.
‘Katie...’
As he reached her and said her name Katie closed her eyes, unable to stop the ecstatic shudder of happiness that shook her and then she was in his arms and he was holding her, kissing her.
Eagerly she returned his kiss, her lips parting hungrily as she clung to him.
‘Seb.’ She gasped his name.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she heard him groan. ‘Why didn’t you ring...get in touch? Why am I wasting time talking? Why are we wasting time here?’ he muttered thickly against her mouth, ‘And why are you wearing that damned dress that makes me want to...’
‘Seb,’ Katie protested, pink-cheeked, but smiling as she placed a cautionary finger against his lips. His hand curled around her wrist and he kissed her finger, nibbling tenderly on it while his thumb monitored the frantic thud of her pulse. With give-away bemusement in her love-dazed eyes, she reminded him shakily, ‘There are children here and...’
Children...a sudden shockingly explicit look darkened his eyes so that they smouldered and burned.
Shielding her from everyone else with his body he told her quietly, ‘You could be carrying my child...our child...’
Katie couldn’t help it, she gasped out loud, her whole body reacting to the intimacy of what he was saying.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she told him. ‘Not...’
‘...not this time,’ he suggested.
Not this time... Katie felt as though she might faint; she was so incandescent with happiness and disbelief. How could this be happening? How could her emotional skies have gone from darkest grey to brightest blue and all within the space of a single breath, all because of one specific look?
‘I never thought you’d be here,’ she whispered. ‘I was going to tell everyone that there’s been a misunderstanding, apologise to them for not saying anything before. I never dreamed...’
‘No.’ Seb was giving her a very rueful look. ‘Did you think then that what we shared together was so common-place and mundane...’
Katie shook her head immediately.
‘Oh, no...no...it was...’ She paused and looked at him, her eyes, her gaze direct but a little shy. ‘It was wonderful, Seb... magical...something I never imagined. It frightened me a little to go from not knowing, from not realising just what I felt to recognising that all that anger, all that aggression I’d been feeling towards you was really nothing more than a barrier I’d built up because I was afraid to acknowledge what I really felt.’
‘And what do you really feel?’ Seb asked her.
Katie looked at him. The look she could see in his eyes was telling her to trust in him, to believe in him, to have the courage to be honest with him.
She took a deep breath.
‘I... I love you,’ she told him huskily.
As she said the words she felt his fingers tighten around her wrist.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he told her thickly. ‘What I want to say to you...what I want to do with you...’ Katie heard him groan. ‘That damned dress,’ he whispered vehemently. ‘It’s driving me crazy...you’re driving me crazy, Katie Crighton, crazy with longing, crazy with need, crazy with love...’
‘We can’t go yet,’ Katie protested unconvincingly. Her relatives had discreetly drifted away, leaving the two of them surrounded by a protective moat of empty space and silence, but...
‘If you don’t stop looking at me like that I’m going to have to make love to you right here and now and be damned to the consequences,’ Seb growled. ‘That will impress your grandfather, won’t it? I must be more of a Cooke than I’ve ever realised and I’m certainly enough of one not to give a damn who knows or sees just how much I want you, Katie...and enough of one to carry you off, steal you away with me as my notorious ancestor was reputed to have done with his lady love.’
‘Seb,’ Katie protested breathlessly. ‘Just let me go and say my farewells to Gramps and then we can go.’
‘I think you’re going to have to do a bit more than just wish him farewell,’ Seb told her wryly, ‘at least if the looks he’s been throwing in our direction for the last few minutes are anything to go by.’
‘Give me a few minutes to explain to him,’ Katie suggested, ‘and then I’ll introduce you to him.’
Nodding his head, Seb slowly released her hand and then, just as she was about to slip away, reached for her possessively and kissed her briefly but very passionately. ‘A few minutes,’ he warned her. ‘That’s all. You and I have got a lot of lost time to make up.’
‘Mmm...a whole week of it,’ Katie teased him
blissfully before wriggling out of his arms and heading towards her grandfather.
Tenderly Seb watched her. She was his joy, his future, his hope, his love, and he didn’t care who knew it. And he intended to prove it to her very, very thoroughly and protractedly indeed just as soon as he could get her to himself. That dress... He closed his eyes as he imagined touching her through it, kissing her and then opened them again as close at hand he heard a woman’s voice saying quietly, ‘My goodness me, what a change in Katie... I hardly recognised her.’
Alison Ford raised her eyebrows a little as she listened to her sister Rachel. Their father, Henry Crighton, was Ben’s cousin and their brother Luke was married to Bobbie, Ruth Crighton’s American granddaughter. Nearly two decades older than Louise and Katie, they were both married with growing families.
‘Mmm...quite a change from the way she looked at Louise’s wedding,’ Alison agreed.
‘Yes indeed. It’s never been mentioned, but my private suspicion was that her feelings for Gareth weren’t just those of a sister-in-law...’
‘You mean she was in love with him?’
As the two women started to move away from Seb their voices faded but the damage was done. Fiercely he searched the room until he found who he was looking for. Gareth, Louise’s husband, and there, right beside him, was Katie, looking up at him, smiling at him, standing so close to him that she was within easy kissing distance of him... His Katie...
Seb was not by nature a jealous man but the sight of Katie standing so intimately close to Gareth after what he had just overheard and while his own love for her was so newly declared and his ego so fragile and vulnerable, overwhelmed all his logic and self-control.
How dare Gareth stand so close to his beloved? How dare he talk so intimately to her? How could he possibly resist her especially when she was wearing such a dress, a dress that would make a saint want...?
Katie chuckled appreciatively as Gareth reached the end of the amusing anecdote he had been relating to her. It amazed her how much she was enjoying this new relationship she had developed with him, the sense of camaraderie, of sisterly closeness and warmth which she could tell he happily reciprocated. She felt no sense of discomfort or self-consciousness in his presence now. The Gareth she had believed she loved had simply been a creation of her own imagination, an impossibly one-dimensional and, yes, virtually sexless figure who bore absolutely no resemblance to the real Gareth at all.
‘I thought you said you wanted to say goodbye to your grandfather.’
Katie jumped as out of nowhere, or so it seemed, Seb suddenly materialised at her side, somehow or other managing to stand in between her and Gareth, his eyes hard and angry, his voice unmistakably harsh.
‘Yes. I did... I do...but...’
‘But you found someone more...interesting to talk to...’ Seb suggested grittily to her.
Katie stared at him.
‘I...’
‘Oh, you don’t have to explain to me,’ Seb told her firmly. ‘I’ve just heard a very enlightening conversation.’
Out of the corner of her eye Katie could see the curious looks they were attracting. Gareth, who was standing the closest to them, was starting to frown a little bit.
‘Seb,’ she protested, but he ignored her, propelling her towards the door.
‘Who was it you were really saving your virginity for, Katie?’ he demanded. ‘Not me, that’s for sure.’
‘Seb,’ Katie protested again just as soon as they were on their own in the hallway.
‘It was Gareth, wasn’t it?’ he demanded, ignoring her. ‘Gareth, your brother-in-law!’ he emphasised. ‘You’re in love with him. Don’t bother denying it. Is that why you’re wearing that dress? For him... Hoping that he’d...’
‘You’re jealous,’ Katie gasped as she saw the emotions darkening his eyes. ‘And...and you’re wrong... I don’t love Gareth...’
‘Gareth—what?’ Seb demanded savagely. ‘Gareth doesn’t want you because he’s married to your twin... Well, that certainly wasn’t the impression I just got. He was looking at you as though...’
‘Seb, you’ve got it all wrong,’ Katie protested swiftly.
‘No, you’re the one who’s got things wrong. If you think for one moment that I’m going to let another man—any other man come between us. I love you, Katie, and I’m pretty damn sure that you love me, no matter how much you might think that another man... Just give me a chance to prove how good it could be for us, Katie, that’s all I ask, and I promise you...’
He stopped when he saw the searchingly solemn-eyed look she was giving him and then, taking a deep breath, he decided to use his trump card, the card he had promised himself he would never play; the one that came so loaded with emotional dynamite that he’d have to be either a fool or desperate to use it—or maybe even both.
‘Remember what the gypsy said,’ he told her gruffly. ‘It was my baby she saw you with, Katie.’
His baby... Katie stared at him, his jealousy, his passion, his determination, all of them were so unexpected, so very much the opposite of what she had assumed to be his feelings towards her, his indifference towards her, that she still couldn’t quite totally absorb them.
His baby... Her heart and with it her doubts melted in the sweet hot-honeyed tide of love that spread through her.
‘No,’ she corrected him softly. ‘Not your baby, Seb...’ The look in his eyes made her reach out impulsively to touch him reassuringly, her fingertips resting on his arm, hard and tensed beneath the cloth of his jacket as though he was both fearing her rejection and bracing himself for it.
‘Our baby, Seb... Our baby. Yours and mine.’
As she looked at him she saw him swallow and then heard him say in a thick emotional voice, ‘Come on, let’s get out of here...’
In the drawing room Max had just given Ben Crighton his news. Through the open doorway Katie could see her grandfather’s face quite plainly. Max’s news had totally eclipsed anything she might have said to Gramps or anything he might have wanted to say to her—thankfully.
Breathing a small sigh of thanks to her brother she looked up into Seb’s face.
‘Yes,’ she agreed softly. ‘Let’s...’
* * *
‘HAVE I TOLD you just how much I love you...just how wonderful you are, how gorgeous, how adorable, how sexy and...’
‘Mmm...but you can tell me all over again if you like,’ Katie said happily as she snuggled deeper into his side.
The late-afternoon sun shining in through the window of his apartment brushed their naked bodies with a soft gold wash of colour. Seb’s skin was much darker than hers, his body hair dark and silky.
Idly she stroked her fingers through it and then leaned over teasingly, kissing one of his nipples and then the other.
‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ Seb growled, his growl turning to an urgent low groan of reaction as she tugged sensually on the small hard nub of flesh, her palm spread flat on the concave plane of his belly.
‘I never really loved Gareth, you know,’ she told him gently a few minutes later as she propped herself up on one elbow and looked lovingly down into his face. ‘I just thought I did, but the Gareth I imagined I loved never really existed, he was just someone I’d created in my own head, and as for you being jealous of him...’ She gave him a searching look and then said quietly, ‘You’ve been married, Seb. You must have loved Sandra once...and...’
Quickly Seb shook his head.
‘We thought we loved one another but it was just an infatuation, something which by rights we should have got out of our systems with a few nights of experimental sex, but I was too strait-laced, too aware of my Cooke heritage, to do that. Sandra and I should never have married and we certainly should never have had a child. I do feel guilty about that, about not being there for Charlotte whe
n she was growing up, but when Sandra told me that she felt it was for the best that Charlotte didn’t have any kind of contact with me rather than be torn between the two of us, I felt that she was right and then she married George and to all intents and purposes he became Charlotte’s father.’
‘That must have been hard for you,’ Katie said gently, ‘knowing that another man was taking your place.’
‘It wasn’t always easy,’ Seb agreed wryly, ‘but for Charlotte’s sake...’ He stopped. ‘When I first got in touch with her I was terrified that she might be disappointed in me, that I wouldn’t live up to her expectations and that I might somehow have damaged her by not being there for her, but she’s just about the most well-adjusted human being I know...’
‘Mmm...’ Katie agreed and then asked him a little hesitantly, ‘How will she feel, do you suppose, about us?’
Seb looked at her and then shook his head gravely. ‘That’s going to be a problem, I’m afraid,’ he told her solemnly.
Katie’s heart lurched. ‘It...it is?’
‘Mmm... She’s already told me that there’s absolutely, totally no way she will ever...’ He paused while Katie looked anxiously at him. ‘Ever...’ he continued dramatically, ‘wear a bridesmaid’s dress that makes her look like a pink meringue...’
‘What?’ Katie glared at him and then burst out laughing.
‘She thinks you’re wonderful,’ Seb told her softly, ‘and she can’t wait for us to provide her with another clutch of half siblings...’
‘Oh, Seb,’ Katie whispered, her eyes full of emotional tears.
‘Oh, Seb, what?’ Seb repeated equally emotionally, but Katie couldn’t make any rational vocal response because he was kissing her, pressing her back against the pillows, pinioning her arms in a tender mock-masterful lover’s embrace as he kissed her, slowly and softly at first and then with increasing passion and urgency as his body hardened and Katie gave a low female moan of arousal deep in her throat. The soft rose-pink colour staining her breasts now didn’t come from the dying sun but from the slow sensual suckle of Seb’s mouth. As he kissed the soft curve of her belly Katie arched frantically beneath him. His hand caressed her thigh and then tenderly touched her sex. Katie moaned out loud.
