Bittersweet Love - Cathy Williams [18]
Instead of rushing to her feet, Natalie relaxed back in the chair, a smile of contentment playing on her lips, and sipped from the cup of coffee.
‘You never answered my question,’ Kane said, his green eyes flicking over her body and then resting on the soft, gentle lines of her face.
‘Question?’ Natalie laughed slightly and half closed her eyes. ‘What question?’ Her head felt pleasantly fuzzy. It was almost too much trouble to think and it was certainly too much trouble to be on her guard.
‘Why did you and your boyfriend have company on your romantic evening out? Whatever happened to young lovers whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears?’ He took a mouthful of coffee and looked at her over the rim of the cup.
The distant clang of alarm bells rang in her head. The question was harmless enough, if a bit impertinent. It was the atmosphere which had become dangerous. Natalie recognised that somewhere in the muddled recesses of her brain, but somehow couldn’t seem to get up the energy to do anything about it.
‘Is that what you do with Anna?’ she heard herself asking and he shot her a lazy, charming smile.
‘I outgrew sweet nothings quite some time ago.’
‘What a shame,’ Natalie remarked.
‘Why?’
I shouldn’t be encouraging this, Natalie thought. He can handle it, but I can’t. She blinked and sat up a bit straighter, but the suddenness of the movement didn’t seem to have the desired effect. She raised one eyebrow in irony. ‘If you don’t know, then I can’t help but feel a little sorry for you. After all, there’s a lot more to a relationship than sex.’
The amusement left his face for an instant and he gave her a blank look. ‘Really?’ He appeared to give the matter some thought, then he said slowly, ‘Though now that you mention it I do recall a time when I would have agreed with you.’
‘When was that?’ she asked, with genuine curiosity.
‘When I was about fifteen. Her name was Laura and I thought that she had descended directly from the heavens. I think the word for it was infatuation.’
‘And what happened?’
‘To Laura? She changed schools and vanished out of my life forever. Probably married now with a litter of children. And as for infatuation—it gave way to experience.’ His voice was bitter, though still light. He poured himself another cup of black coffee and proceeded to survey it contemplatively, his finger tracing the rim. ‘I found out that the more money one has, the more women’s attitudes undergo a change.’
‘I think that’s called human nature. Shame that you allowed it to jade you.’ Natalie couldn’t believe what she was saying. The words were corning out of her mouth and it was as if she, personally, had had no hand in forming them.
‘You make me feel about a hundred,’ he said, and the bitterness had left his voice. That teasing, amused tone was back, re-establishing the balance between them. ‘You always have. And what about you? One confidence de-serves another, don’t you think? I know so much about you, maybe more than I’ve ever known about any woman in my life, but there are all sorts of gaps. For instance, were you ever the victim of infatuation?’
Natalie could feel the blood rush to her head. What would he say if she confessed to him where her own personal agonies lay? Would he laugh? Feel sorry for her? He said that he knew her, and he did, just as she knew him, with all his quirks and habits that had managed over the years to embed themselves in her, but that very special knowledge that sprang from true intimacy wasn’t there.
‘Of course I was,’ she murmured, looking away. ‘But it can be lonely when you’re not in the beauty-queen stakes.’ She challenged him with her eyes.
‘Beauty is a personal thing.’
‘Is that why your women are all physically perfect?’ she couldn’t resist saying, and he shot her a quizzical look from under his lashes.
‘Beauty and physical perfection are quite different, though,’ he