Getting It Right This Time (7 page)

She picked up her glass, took a fortifying mouthful and said, “Well?”

He too, took a drink, carefully watching her over its rim. After a moment, he lowered it and his gaze never left hers. “I never contacted either of you once you left because it was too hard seeing you with James. I loved you, Kate--”

Her stomach lurched with something she didn’t want to contemplate…because it felt strangely like relief. “Don’t go there, Mark.”

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Getting It Right This Time

“Why? Does it scare you?”

Her heart picked up speed. “Forget I asked. You don’t owe me anything. I didn’t agree to seeing you to bring up the past.”

His expression hardened. “I just want you to know--”

“And now I do. Let’s talk about something else.”

“I’m trying…” He shook his head and let the sentence drift off. His gaze bore into hers with the look of a man stranded on a treacherous river with no paddle. “You have to meet me halfway here, Kate.”

“What?”

His jaw tightened. “If you won’t let me even speak, why did you bother coming at all?”

She glared at him. Fear and guilt, confusion and anger burst into a flurry of colliding emotions inside her. He would not do this. He would not look at her and make her feel that pull toward him.

She’d looked after herself for a long, long time. Even when James was alive--she looked after herself, with absolutely no problem at all. If she’d had known then just what she was capable of and how strong she was, Kate would have escaped James’s temper tantrums and violent mood swings years ago. She always thought taking Jess from him would make him worse, so she’d stayed.

Cursing the stinging behind her eyes, Kate snatched her gaze back to her menu and drew on every ounce of her inner strength. She fought to stem the heat simmering and building momentum inside of her like a volcano waiting to erupt. To her utter humiliation she could feel the rise and fall of her breasts as she struggled to regulate her breathing and knew her pale skin would harbor, rather than disguise, the pinkness in her face belying her anger.

“Kate…”

“No, Mark.”

“No?”

She looked up as a surge of confidence finally flooded her veins. “No.”

For a long moment, their gazes locked. The momentary look of hopelessness she saw in his eyes vanished. Now he stared back at her with a nerve jumping and leaping in his jaw. The reappearance of something she remembered so well--his stubbornness. It kicked her confidence into overdrive. Mark was always a worthy opponent during a disagreement despite her….other feelings toward him.

“You’re not leading the conversation,” she said. “I am.”

He opened his hands, letting his menu slap to the table. “Fine.” He leaned back in his chair.

“So why don’t you tell me what happens next?”

She couldn’t restrain her smugness at taking control and slowly smiled. “We order our food and then I’ll start the chosen topic of conversation. Okay?”

He lifted his eyebrows and stuck out his bottom lip. He appraised her for a second or two before casually lifting his shoulders. “Okay.”

Rachel Brimble

33

With her heart beating a triumphant tattoo in her chest, she tipped her head toward his abandoned menu. “Shall we order?”

Finally, he dragged his eyes from hers and picked up his menu.

“Have you eaten here before?” she asked.

“Yes. Would you slap me if I was alpha-male enough to suggest ordering for both of us?”

She smiled and closed her menu. “No, that’s fine. Food I can trust you with.”

His mouth curved into a slow grin and then he gave a toe-curling wink before raising his hand for the waiter. “That’s a start, I suppose.”

The meal was fabulous. Although, he was less than subtle with his choice of oysters to start, followed by salmon with béarnaise sauce and blanched asparagus, their conversation of purposely orchestrated small talk about Mark’s burgeoning career and Kate’s new one filled the first courses.

Kate fought with how to raise the subject of Jessica…and how to shield herself from the smoke that would undoubtedly erupt from Mark’s rapidly retreating heels.

Drawing in a breath, she prepared for launch when his mobile phone rang inside the pocket of his discarded jacket.

“Damn. Sorry.” He pulled out the phone and looked at the display. Kate didn’t miss the clenching of his jaw or the way his color darkened. When he looked up, his smile was back in place. “I’ll be right back,” he said, before leaving the table.

Staring after him, Kate wondered if she should beat a hasty retreat while he was gone. Picking up her wine, she swallowed back her nerves. No, she would do this and she would do it tonight.

Already her mind was far too preoccupied with Mark. It annoyed her that she wanted to know who had called to put such a look on his face. Putting down her glass before she was tempted to drain it, Kate leaned down and picked up her bag.

She checked her phone for any missed calls from Lucy but as she suspected there were none.

Dropping it back inside, she took out her compact and checked her reflection. Her face was flushed and her eyes sparkled. She looked like a woman on the brink of desire. She snapped it shut. Not good.

Putting her bag on the floor, she shifted further into her seat and straightened her spine. As soon as Mark returned she would tell him about Jessica. No more delaying, no more small talk.

She jumped when his hand dropped onto her shoulder. She turned. His face was etched with anger.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, unconsciously raising her hand to her throat. “You look as though you could throttle someone.”

“I could.” He reached across and whipped his jacket from the back of his chair. “We have to go. I’m sorry.”

“What?”

He took her hand. “There’s a problem with one of my clients. She’s at my office in a state close to hysteria. I can’t just leave her there.”

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Getting It Right This Time

“Fine, then go.” She moved to pull her hand from his.

His grip tightened. “You’re coming with me. We’ve said nothing important tonight. I want to talk to you and before the night is over, I will. Now grab your coat, we’re leaving.”

“Mark…” She clenched her teeth as she felt the curious gazes of other patrons turn in their direction. “I am not leaving with you.”

He stared at her. His eyes roaming over her face, lingering at her mouth. Kate’s stomach turned over with excitement or anger, she wasn’t sure. “Yes, you are,” he said quietly.

And then he tossed a few twenty pound notes on the table, and with his hand still firmly wrapped around hers, led an unusually speechless Kate through the crowded room. Her body hummed with suppressed emotion as she silently cursed the annoying fact she was turned on by Mark’s show of dominance. What was wrong with her? Did she think this was 1910? Tilting her chin and forcibly bringing her rightful anger to the forefront, she remained tight-lipped until they reached the car park and finally whipped her hand from his.

“I said, I am not going with you.”

He opened the passenger door. “Yes, you are.”

Enough was enough. Kate hitched her bag onto her shoulder and fisted her hands on her hips. “What’s the matter with you? Have you gotten the impression I’m the sort of woman you can push around?”

He stared at her for a long moment, before his shoulders slumped. He looked to the sky.

“Of course not. Kate, please, I want to talk to you but I can’t leave Marcia to deal with the press.

They’re God damn animals when they want to be.”

“Marcia? Marcia Langton?” Kate’s interest piqued.

Slowly, Mark smiled. “Yep, the one and only. Want to meet her?”

A smile tugged at her lips. Damn him for knowing her so well. She shrugged. “Not really but if she’s your client and you think…”

He ran around the car and opened his own door. “Get in the car.”

And despite the warning voice screaming
No!
inside her head, she slid into the leather seat, barely having time to buckle her seat belt before Mark pulled away with a screech of tires against asphalt.

Chapter 5

Mark struggled to concentrate on the road as he drove toward his office. What the hell was Marcia thinking ringing him at this time on a Saturday night? He gripped the steering wheel. Who was he kidding? None of his clients hesitated to ring him, day or night, week or weekend, because they all knew the only thing Mark Johnston cared about was work. Until now. Until Kate.

He risked a glance in her direction and bit back a smile. Her stance hadn’t shifted a millimeter since she’d gotten into the car. Her arms were still folded tightly across her chest, her jaw still set so firmly Mark could’ve sworn he could hear her teeth grinding. He stared ahead. Why did it suddenly feel as though it was taking hours to get to his office rather than the usual twenty minutes?

He pressed down on the accelerator. Wasted moments, wasted seconds when he could be talking to her, finding out how she felt, what she’d been doing in the years she’d been away…if there was any chance she would one day consider him hers.

He swallowed. God, he was so damn angry Marcia called tonight of all nights. The atmosphere between him and Kate had been better than he could have hoped for…eventually.

When she walked into the restaurant looking utterly breathtaking, his heart had stopped. Immediate possessiveness stole over him as he watched one guy after another turn to look at her as she passed them. But she’d been absolutely oblivious to her own sexual allure, instead her eyes scanning the room in her easy, controlled way. And when she’d seen him they widened for the briefest of seconds, before settling into cool indifference once more.

No longer the innocent, wide-eyed wonder he fell in love with over ten years before, Kate Marshall was now a self-assured, confident and ridiculously sexy woman. And he loved her, of that he was one hundred percent certain. But what could he do to ensure he didn’t lose her a second time? Because even if it took every breath in his body, he intended to make her his.

“Oh, my God. You’re kidding me.”

The sound of her voice broke through his reverie. “What’s wrong?” he asked, looking at her.

She waved a frantic finger toward the windshield. “Please tell me this is nowhere near your office.”

He turned and peered through the darkness. “For crying out loud.” Adrenaline spiked through his body making his hackles rise like a protective Doberman. He quickly turned to look at her.

“Kate, it’s all right. They--”

She held up her hand. “No, Mark. No way. Turn the car around. I am not getting out of this car with that lot--”

“I’ll get rid of them,” he said, pulling the car to a stop outside his building. “I can’t leave Marcia to deal with them alone.”

35

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Getting It Right This Time

Her green eyes burned in the semi-darkness as she glared at him. “The press were not part of the deal, Mark. I agreed to a meal, not this.”

“I know. I know. Give me ten minutes, tops. Please. We’ll run straight past them and up to my office.”

“Run? Run?” Her eyes grew wide. “Have you seen the length of the heels I’m wearing?”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh, yes.”

She scowled. “Not funny.”

His smile dissolved when he saw the dangerous glint in her eye. “Please. I have to do this for Marcia. She’s doesn’t deserve to be eaten alive, does she?”

She continued to look at him for a moment longer before turning her gaze back to the windshield. Her jaw clenched as she considered the scene in front of her. Mark watched her, silently praying quite a proportion of the old Kate remained. The Kate that wouldn’t leave anyone in need to their own devices, and Kate who wouldn’t let anyone, including a bunch of paparazzi orchestrate what she could and couldn’t do. She met his eyes.

“Fine, I’ll come in,” she said. “But for the record…I’m doing this for her, not you.”

Mark tried his best to hide his smile. “Thank you.”

She tilted her chin. “Let’s go.”

The paparazzi surrounded Marcia like flies around a candy cane. Mark stood on the pavement and his heart picked up speed. The sound of Kate’s passenger door slamming shut behind him moved him forward, his eyes firmly on the pack of vultures in front of him.

“I want the lot of you out of here, right now,” he shouted. “You’ve got five seconds before I call the police.”

They turned as one. A pack hunting its prey. They barely gave him a passing glance before they were looking straight past him to Kate. Marcia and Mark were forgotten as they moved toward her. Did they seriously think he would let them get within an inch of her? His rage exploded with a roar of blood in his ears and molten lava in his chest. He held up his hands, threw a glance over his shoulder.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Who’s this, Mark?”

“She’s a beauty.”

“Known Mark long, missus?”

The questions fired from their mouths like verbal diarrhea. Mark planted his feet firmly apart, ready to take them out one by one if necessary, but then Kate brushed past him, elbowing a path through the photographers, knocking them to the side like they were pins at a bowling alley.

She headed straight for Marcia and clasped a firm hand to her elbow. Mark’s smile grew at the shocked look on Marcia’s face as Kate steered her toward his office block without as much as a backward glance.

Rachel Brimble

37

The paparazzi turned to find the mass of Kate’s auburn curls disappearing through the glass and chrome doors of Mark’s office building. They charged forward but the two security guards were too quick and they were left standing on the pavement, cursing and swearing as the automatic door swished closed.

Shaking his head, his smile the width of the Grand Canyon, Mark followed Kate through the path of photographers, his hands casually stuffed into his pockets.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, as he passed them. “I have two beautiful women waiting for me.”