Her One and Only (24 page)

It was a kiss more of anger and retribution than anything else; Katie was not so naive that she didn’t recognise that fact.

He had resented the fortune-teller’s prediction and he was angry with her because he didn’t like her and this was his way of punishing her.

‘No...’ she managed to protest sharply against his mouth as she struggled to break free of him, her teeth accidentally grazing his bottom lip as she did so.

‘What the...’

As she heard him curse Katie froze. She could taste the slight saltiness of his blood on her own tongue and was horrified by what she had done, even if he had provoked it.

‘...and what you want is a gentle passive lover,’ she heard him demanding savagely. ‘You’re a liar, Katie. You want a man whose passion matches your own, a man who...’

‘What I don’t want is you,’ Katie told him frantically.

‘And I don’t want you,’ Seb assured her sharply, his expression changing and, holding her in paralysing thrall, he added rawly, ‘but I want this...’

Katie whimpered in protest as his mouth possessed hers, possessed it, seduced it...ravished it...the pressure of his mouth on hers making her own lips feel so sensitive that her whole body shook with the tiny quivers of sensation she was feeling.

Through the dapple of the leaves on the trees she could feel the warmth of the sun on her face, but its heat was nothing to the heat Seb was generating inside her.

She tried to break free of him. She knew she had to. Why were her arms entwined around him, why was her body pressed so close to him, why was her mouth parting beneath the pressure of his...why...?

‘See, I told you you were passionate,’ she could hear Seb telling her huskily. ‘The only reason you’d ever want a meek and mild apology for a mate is so that you could destroy and devour him like a praying mantis...’

‘Oh...’

As the cruelty of his words jerked her back to reality, Katie pulled away from him.

‘You were the one who... I did nothing,’ she amended quickly, unable to look at him.

‘Nothing...’

As she attempted to move away from him Seb reached out, cupping her jaw in his hand and turning her face up so that he could look down at her.

‘Then, what’s this,’ he demanded, lifting her hand to his mouth and pressing her fingers against the bruised rawness of his bottom lip.

Giving a small, choked protest Katie pulled away. Her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. She was dizzy and lightheaded and somewhere deep inside her there was a small insidious ache that frightened and shocked her.

But before she could say or do anything she heard Guy’s familiar voice calling out semi-scoldingly, ‘There you are, you two, Jenny thought you must have got lost...’

* * *

L
ATER
K
ATIE
ASSUMED
that she must have said and done everything that was expected and required of her during lunch. Certainly no one seemed to find her behaviour odd or out of character, but she herself was intensely, uncomfortably aware of Sebastian Cooke’s presence all through the light-hearted alfresco family meal. While the others were chatting and exchanging pleasantries and banter, she was finding it hard to force down so much as a mouthful of her mother’s delicious cold spread.

In fact, she noticed a little bitterly at one point, Seb seemed more at ease and relaxed than she did and as for Charlotte...it was plain that she was enjoying herself hugely. Katie could hear her telling Jenny enthusiastically how much she was enjoying life at her sixth-form college.

‘Being a boarder there makes it even better,’ she gushed. ‘The other girls are great and I’ve made so many new friends.’

‘It must have been quite a difficult decision for you to make,’ Jenny remarked to Seb.

‘It was,’ he agreed. ‘Sandra, George and I all sat down with Charlotte to discuss it. I know she believes at sixteen that she’s an adult, but while we accept that she is mature enough to make most of her own decisions about her education, it is an unfortunate fact that this modern world we live in is not always a very safe place for a young woman.

‘However, the school has an excellent policy which allows the girls some freedom while at the same time ensuring their safety.’

‘Yes, we’re allowed evening exeats and we can even go clubbing, just so long as there’s a group of eight or more of us and we all come back together in the school minibus.

‘Mum and George and Dad did take a bit of persuading to allow me to go, but it’s the best “A” level college in the country for my subjects and since I’m hoping to get a place at Manchester University it made sense to move here.’

With her own cousin and younger brother at a very similar stage in their education Katie was not surprised that her mother should be so interested in Charlotte’s ‘A’ level studies, but she wished her mother would not be quite so warm and welcoming towards Sebastian Cooke.

She was uncomfortably aware that by some fluke of circumstance, the group of adults around the picnic had separated themselves out so that she was actually now sitting closer to Seb than she was to anyone else. Unfortunately, the nearest other person to her was Gareth and she had determined to remove any remaining longings for him from her life by keeping as much distance—in every sense of the word—between herself and her brother-in-law as she could.

Still, at least she could comfort herself that Louise had not told the rest of the family about the fortune-teller’s prediction and Louise, Katie fervently hoped, would never refer to it again.

* * *

H
OWEVER
,
LATER
IN
the day Katie discovered that her relief had been premature.

At Louise’s insistence she had driven her over to see her new apartment while Gareth had been left behind to bathe and feed Nick.

‘It’s
fabulous
,’ Louise pronounced once the short tour was over and they were standing in the apartment’s living room. ‘When do you expect to move in?’

‘Well, hopefully by the end of the week. The carpets should be down by then, although I’m not sure whether or not all the curtains will be finished, but Mum has offered to lend me some in the interim if they aren’t.’

‘Mmm... It’s a
very
sophisticated bachelor-girl place,’ Louise approved. ‘Although...’ with a twinkle in her eye she told Katie, ‘Although, if what your
gypsy
friend predicted is true...’

‘Seb and I...’ Katie interrupted her quickly. ‘We...’

But before she could finish her denial Louise was reaching out to touch her, asking her seriously and quietly, ‘Can we talk? Properly, I mean...’

Katie’s heart sank. This was the moment she had been dreading ever since Gareth and Louise had announced their love for one another.

‘Of course...’ she responded with what she knew was a forced note of jollity in her voice. ‘What do you want to talk about? We...’

‘Katie, come on...this is
us
...you and me... Look, I know...’

Katie froze. Louise knew
what
? That she, Katie, loved
her
husband...?

But, instead of continuing Louise shook her head and said huskily, ‘We used to be so
close
, you and I. We told one another
everything
...but since Gareth and I married... You’re my
twin
... I still
need
you... I always will and I
hate
feeling that there’s this distance, this
barrier
, between us. If I’ve said or done something to hurt you...’

‘No. No, of course you haven’t,’ Katie denied quickly, terrified in case Louise continued to question her and somehow discovered the truth. It wasn’t
her
fault that she, Katie, loved Gareth. It wasn’t
anyone’s
fault, except her own, and the last thing she wanted to do was to widen the rift which Louise had so correctly pinpointed by admitting how she really felt. All that admitting her feelings could do would be to embarrass Louise and Gareth and to humiliate herself.

‘It’s just...’ She stopped, frantically hunting for a satisfactory explanation to silence her sister’s questions. ‘Well, obviously things are different now that you and Gareth are married and that you have Nick.’

‘Well, yes, of course,’ Louise agreed, her mouth curling into a wide smile as she laughed. ‘Still, by the sound of it, it won’t be long before you and Seb have a child of your own... He’s gorgeously sexy, Katie.
Seriously
sexy,’ she underlined, rolling her eyes appreciatively. ‘And if I weren’t so very much in love with Gareth...’

‘Louise, Seb and I...’ Katie began frantically, appalled by the direction the conversation was taking and the assumptions Louise had so mistakenly leapt to.

‘It’s a pity the two of you didn’t discover you were in love before you bought this place though. Still it’s obvious that you’ll make a good profit on it when you sell it. Have you made any plans yet, or...’

‘Louise, we barely
know
one another,’ Katie protested. ‘I don’t even...’ Like him, never mind love him, she had been about to say, but typically Louise wasn’t giving her time to finish her conversation before continuing enthusiastically,

‘I could see how much Charlotte has taken to you as well. That’s wonderful. Mind you, you’re so gentle and loving that you’d be able to cope with even the most difficult of step-children and anyone can see that Charlotte is not that. And, of course, it couldn’t be better, you and Seb living so close to one another.’

‘Louise...’ Katie began desperately and then stopped as Louise glanced out of the window and exclaimed,

‘Oh, here’s Gareth. He must have wondered why we’ve been gone for so long. Oh, Katie, I’m just
so
happy for you,’ Louise told her excitedly, and she turned to embrace her twin in a loving hug. ‘I can tell you now that there was a time when I wondered...well, you were always so determined to defend Gareth in the early days when I was so antagonistic towards him, and I suppose because we
are
twins and because
I
love him so much, I worried that you might...’

With every word Louise spoke Katie could feel her anxiety and anguish growing. It lay like a block of ice against her heart; weighed like the heaviest of lead weights on her conscience. It was all her worst fears come to life. Louise had intuitively sensed her own feelings despite
everything
she had done to try to prevent her from doing so. Louise was her twin, her other half, and there existed between them a bond which called forth from Katie, not just her fiercest loyalty, but also a need to put Louise’s needs above her own, to protect her from the hurt and pain that knowing that she, Katie, loved Gareth would cause her. She struggled with her conscience not wanting to deceive her twin but as she already knew, it was almost impossible to stop Louise once she took hold of an idea and started to run with it. And, after all, the truth would very quickly become apparent—it was so obvious that she and Seb loathed one another.

* * *

‘A
ND
YOU
WON
’
T
forget about your grandfather’s party, will you?’ Jenny Crighton reminded Louise as she kissed her goodbye.

They had brought the car across from Belgium and were driving on to see Gareth’s family in Scotland before returning to Brussels. As she hugged her mother, Louise promised her, ‘We’ll be there. How could we possibly miss it when it will be Katie’s first formal opportunity to show Seb off to the family?’

‘Seb?’ Jenny questioned in surprise. ‘But...’

‘I could see that there was something between them straightaway,’ Louise continued happily, ‘and I’m just so glad for Katie, Mum. She’s been so unlike her normal self just lately. That’s worried me. It’s funny the way things work out, isn’t it?’ she continued conversationally. ‘If she hadn’t had to give up her old job because of that awful boss who was making life so miserable for her, she would never have come home and then she wouldn’t have met Seb.

‘You should have seen her face when Charlotte told us what the girl at the fair had predicted for her and Seb,’ Louise had chuckled. ‘A baby boy no less,’ she enlightened her bemused parent. ‘Charlotte was thrilled to bits. No potential problems there, that’s
very
clear, but then Charlotte’s almost a young woman herself and since, from what Guy told me, Seb and his ex-wife’s divorce was mutually agreed and they get on tolerably well together, at least Katie won’t be walking into an unpleasant situation.

‘She’s so sensitive,
too
sensitive for her own good I sometimes think. She always puts other people’s feelings and other people’s needs above her own.’

‘Yes, she does,’ Jenny agreed soberly.

It was news to her that Katie was romantically involved with Seb Cooke, but Louise was quite correct when she stated that Katie had been unlike her normal self over the last year or so. Always quiet, she had become to a mother’s anxious eye worryingly withdrawn, and it had been at least in part because of her concern that Jenny had suggested to Jon that they persuade Katie to come home and join the family business when she admitted that she was thinking of changing her job.

Not that Jenny had any objections to Seb Cooke as a prospective son-in-law, far from it. She had taken to him virtually immediately and she thought that Charlotte was a honey. No. What
did
surprise her was that her normally hesitant and even reticent daughter should have committed herself so immediately.

* * *

‘O
H
,
YES
, G
UY
,
I’m sure that Katie would be thrilled with it,’ Jenny enthused as she studied the pretty little desk which Guy had invited her to come and see. The antiques shop they had originally begun as a joint venture was now managed by one of Guy’s many relatives, Didi Fowler, while Guy concentrated on the other aspects of his small financial empire.