About Last Night (7 page)

As she made her way down the stairs to the street, she reminded herself it was probably for the best. She and Nev didn’t make sense together. And if the thought of never kissing him again made the squeezing sensation in her chest worse and the tears spill over, well, that’s what she deserved for getting herself into this mess to begin with. After a two-year hiatus, she’d let
Bad Cath out to play, and Bad Cath had royally screwed everything up, same as she always did.

But hey, the good thing about living in a big city like London was you could start over as many times as you wanted. She didn’t have to see Nev again. She could run a different route through the park, take a different train, and he’d disappear altogether. She’d show up for work on Monday as New Cath, and sooner or later this whole episode would become a blip. It might take a few years to blippify it completely, but she’d manage.

It wasn’t as though sleeping with him had been a
huge
mistake. The guy didn’t even come close to meriting a tattoo.

Until the door closed behind her, Nev hadn’t understood Cath meant to leave. A bit slow on the uptake, perhaps, but his worlds were colliding, and he could do with a few moments to adjust.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get them, and now he’d bollixed up the situation irretrievably. He should have introduced Cath to his brother, found out what Winston wanted, and eased him out of the flat. He’d been thinking of making her dinner later on, perhaps talking her into staying over the rest of the weekend.

But when she’d stepped out of his room, Nev had seen her for a moment through Winston’s eyes—a rumpled waif in a short skirt, with messy hair and whisker burn on her jaw—and it had startled him to know what this must look like to his brother: a one-night stand between too obviously mismatched people.

It hadn’t felt like that at all.

Or maybe it had to Cath. Dressed in her own clothes, chin up, she’d been formidably distant, and she’d barely paused to say good-bye on her way out the door. She hadn’t left him her phone number, which meant she didn’t mean to see him again.

Thanks for everything?
It bothered him to think she could dismiss him so easily, without
a backward glance. It hurt, in fact.

How had that happened? How had she acquired the power to hurt him in the space of a few hours?

“Who was that?”

Nev turned to see his brother sneering at him, and the intrusion—the presumption—transformed his pain into sharp irritation. What the hell was Winston playing at anyway, coming around the flat for the first time on a Saturday without even phoning ahead? He and their mother had both made a point of never visiting Greenwich, having deemed it beneath them. Beneath Nev, too, but he’d put his foot down and moved here anyway, ignoring Mother when she insisted that if he wanted to live in the city, he ought to occupy the family flat in Kensington. Kensington being a more suitable neighborhood for a Chamberlain.

Suitable wasn’t at all what Nev had been looking for. He’d wanted a space of his own, an escape from the stifling influence of his family. After scouting locations with an estate agent, he’d settled on Greenwich, a modest suburb with the feel of a small village that was nonetheless a manageable distance from his office. Here, he could be an ordinary person with an ordinary life. He could go to work, do his own shopping, make his own meals, paint, and play rugby on the common on weekends. In comparison with being housed within range of his mother, it was idyllic.

“It’s none of your concern who that was. What do you want?”

Winston laughed. “Where are your manners, little brother? I want to be invited to sit down, and I’d like a cup of tea. Then we’re going to have a chat.” He strolled toward the kitchen, apparently having decided to dispense with the invitation. “And put a shirt on, for goodness’ sake. You look like a savage.”

Nev joined him in the kitchen and put the kettle on, but he left his shirt off. Why bother making Winston feel comfortable? No doubt he was only here to meddle.

Once he had his tea in hand, Winston announced casually, “You’re to be promoted at the bank. You’ll be second-in-command.” He took a delicate sip, and Nev marveled at his ability to
drink and curl his upper lip at the same time. Nev had made the tea in the mug by pouring boiling water directly over the tea bag, knowing Winston would consider the absence of loose leaves and a warmed teapot an abomination. Knowing, too, that the lack of a proper cup and saucer would wind him up.

Nev took pleasure in doing what he could to make his enemy uncomfortable.

“How unusual,” he remarked, referring to the promotion. He wouldn’t allow himself to feel triumph or even satisfaction. Winston had just moved the first pawn in what would no doubt be a long, difficult game of chess. The promotion ought to have been Nev’s long ago, but his brother had withheld it, preferring to dangle it over his head as a way of making him do various unpleasant or difficult tasks. Nine years older, Winston had spent much of Nev’s life alternately tormenting and ignoring him. The prerogative of an older brother, Nev supposed.

If Winston had changed his mind, it wouldn’t be because he was impressed by the fact Nev had been killing himself at the office. It would be because he wanted something. “Aren’t offers of promotion normally made by the board?”

“This isn’t a formal offer, naturally. Consider this visit more of an … advisory. I’ve spoken to the board members, and they’re uncomfortable with your situation. They feel if you’re to be put in a position of such responsibility, you ought to be settled, with a wife who can help you entertain important clients.”

Nev snorted at the absurdity of this, seeing his mother’s hand at work. “And did the board propose anyone in particular to be my wife, or am I meant to choose my own?”

“Don’t be daft, of course you can choose. So long as you select someone … appropriate.” He glanced toward the hallway, his message clear.
So long as you don’t choose someone like that
.

Nev narrowed his eyes, daring Winston to say it. One word about Cath, and Nev would throw him out. Simple as that. It was an advantage of flat-ownership he hadn’t previously appreciated.

Winston didn’t take the bait, forcing Nev to deal with the matter at hand—marriage. Not
just marriage, but
suitable
marriage, to an appropriate woman. A woman like Winston’s wife, presumably. Rosemary was perfectly lovely. She always wore attractive clothes, and when she spoke, she said only correct things. Nev had learned over the years to avoid her at family gatherings, because whenever he conversed with Rosemary, he found himself trying out one gambit after another in an attempt to force her to offer an opinion—any sort of opinion, on anything at all. And every time, she succeeded in being the blandest woman alive.

She’d given Winston a daughter, Beatrice, thirteen years ago, and when no further children had arrived, Mother had begun waiting for Nev to bring his own Rosemary home to meet her.

He’d made the matter worse by introducing her to Grace at the bank one day when he and Grace had been on their way out for a lunch date. The two women had shaken hands, all business—his mother was on the board, Grace in Human Resources—but he’d seen the triumph on his mother’s face.
This one!
her expression had said.
Marry this one!

When he told her they’d broken it off after dating only a few weeks, Mother hadn’t taken it well. Since then, she’d hinted several times he needed to put himself on the market again.

Now, clearly, she’d decided to take the matter into her own hands.

“And what if I don’t want to marry?” Nev didn’t particularly look forward to the answer to this question, but given the likelihood that Winston and his mother were both involved in the scheme, there would be multiple layers of blackmail involved. His mother was the sort who liked to poison and stab her victims, just to be certain she’d done the job properly.

“The board has determined that another candidate is better suited to your current position. If you don’t wish to move up, I’m sure we can arrange a transfer to one of the branch offices.”

Ah. So he had to come up with a bride or suffer banishment. That sounded like Mother.

It also sounded illegal.

“You can’t be serious. No place of business can blackmail its employees into marrying. For the board even to have discussed this is a serious breach of ethics.”

Winston leaned back in his chair, smirking. “The conversations were all quite informal, I
assure you. I think you’ll find, if you care to investigate, that our position is perfectly legal and completely secure.”

Translation: try to bring a lawsuit, and you’ll lose. In the networks his family belonged to, influence and convention mattered a great deal more than the law. The law could be bought, and cheaply at that.

Nev crossed his arms over his chest. “It may not be necessary for you to send me off to Swansea. I’ve been thinking of leaving the bank behind to pursue other options.”

This wasn’t strictly true, unless daydreaming about finding a gallery for his paintings counted, but he needn’t tell his brother that.

Winston merely smiled. “What are you going to do, paint? You’re too old to play at being an artist.”

“That’s for me to decide.”

“I suppose it is. But I should tell you, if you leave the bank, you’ll be on your own. Mother will cut you off without a cent.”

Nev relaxed, relieved to hear the other shoe hit the floor. If he didn’t marry, he’d be demoted. If he left the bank, he’d become a pauper. Mother was fond of marking out her approved course of action by making all the alternatives as unattractive as possible. She didn’t have a high opinion of his intelligence.

Of course, he could always find work with one of the rival banks, but he wouldn’t, and Mother and Winston knew it. He lacked their vindictive streak, as well as their passion for the family business. If he wasn’t to work at Haverford Bank, he’d just as soon leave banking altogether, and both of them would have guessed that.

“Does Dad know about this?”

“I haven’t spoken with him.”

That was most likely a no, then. His father wouldn’t approve. But he wouldn’t do anything about it, either. He always went along with Mother.

Winston set his unfinished tea on the table and stood, straightening the creases in his
slacks. “You have until the bank holiday. You’re to bring a fiancée home with you.”

The next bank holiday was at the end of August. That gave him a month to comply with this ridiculous scheme. “You can’t be serious. Even if I were inclined to go along, you can hardly expect me to manage to find a wife in a few weeks’ time.”

Winston simply shrugged. “You can be charming when you put your mind to it. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

Nev saw his brother out, resisting the urge to help him down the stairs with a foot in the arse, then closed the door with a weary sigh.

He ought to have seen it coming.

But it was bizarre, wasn’t it? By any objective standard? He found it difficult to be certain sometimes. His family was so far from normal, they had a way of scrambling his sense of how ordinary people behaved. Which was one of the reasons he’d insisted on moving out in the first place.

He couldn’t imagine why Mother and Winston were so anxious to get him down the aisle. It was hardly a disgrace to be a bachelor at twenty-eight, and it wasn’t as though Mother required an heir or needed more grandchildren to cuddle. The notion of her cuddling anyone was frankly alarming. Perhaps she simply wanted a big social event to plan.

More likely, his move to Greenwich had loosened the noose she kept around his neck, and she wanted to tighten it up, simply to demonstrate that she could.

She could. But only if he allowed her to.

What his mother failed to understand was that he’d made up his mind to stop allowing her to. He’d grown tired of living someone else’s life, of waking up in the family home and commuting to work at the family bank under his brother’s thumb. Moving to Greenwich had been his first step toward independence. He wasn’t about to turn around and find some polished society woman to wed because his mother and brother thought he should.

He wouldn’t play along anymore. When they went to tighten the noose, they would find it was no longer around his neck.

Chapter Seven

She did what she could to avoid City. Skipping her Monday-morning run, she showed up at the station at six-thirty, more than half an hour before his usual train. Once seated, she plugged her iPod into her ears and delved into her bag for her journal and favorite pen. But when she looked up for inspiration, she found herself staring into a very familiar pair of green-brown eyes.

“Good morning, Mary Catherine.”

He was standing with one hip braced casually against the pole for support. Dressed for work in a dark blue suit and a silvery tie, City was every inch the banker again—except he was smiling his shark smile, and he no longer looked the least bit remote or cold.

Nope, everything about the man was seriously hot.

Cath tried to ignore the flush of pleasure that washed over her at the sight of him, but it was hard. Half a dozen different places on her body were reminding her of what he’d done to them on Saturday, and not one had a bad word to say about him. Stupid body.