Bittersweet Love - Cathy Williams [31]
Are you quite finished? she wanted to ask, but she dreaded the sort of cryptic, mocking answer that might meet her question, so instead she said calmly, ‘Shall I wait for the guests in the lounge?’
‘I’ve never seen you in that dress before.’
He moved towards her and Natalie felt her skin prickle with sudden, alarmed awareness.
‘There are lots dresses you haven’t seen me in before,’ she murmured. She edged her way into the lounge, keenly conscious of him following her.
Im beginning to think that there’s a whole lot about you that I don’t know,’ he said in a voice that sounded mildly accusing.
Natalie sat down and crossed her legs, noticing that in so doing a great deal of slender thigh was exposed. It made her feel uncomfortable, a hang-up from when she was overweight and inclined to hide rather than reveal.
‘I do apologise,’ she said with bland irony. ‘I know you prefer the female sex to be one-dimensional.’
Kane laughed and poured them both a drink, placing hers on the coffee-table in front of her and then sitting on the sofa next to her, so close that she could feel the warmth emanating from his body.
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ he asked silkily. ‘I happen to know, and respect, quite a few highly intelligent women.’
‘Oh, yes, that’s true. I guess you just don’t like them in your bed.’
She flushed at the stupidity of what she had just said and he laughed softly under his breath, whether at her discomfort or at her observation she didn’t know.
‘Sometimes I think that you’re obsessed with my sex life,’ he murmured.
‘Not at all,’ Natalie informed him evenly, remembering what Anna had told him and determined not to give him any leeway for thinking that she fancied him. ‘I guess I just see a great deal of it first hand. After all, you’ve never exactly hidden the fact that you, you’re…’
‘Interested in women?’ he prompted, amusement in his voice.
Natalie shrugged. ‘Anyway,’ she said, dragging the conversation back to a more manageable level, ‘I bought this dress after I had lost some weight. It was a sort of present to myself.’
‘And this is the first time that you’re wearing it?’ he asked.
She nodded and her breath caught in her throat as he reached out and trailed one finger along the neckline of the dress, following it to where it scooped down towards her breasts. Then she pulled back fiercely, her heart hammering in her chest.
‘It flatters you,’ he murmured in a voice that made her skin go warm, ‘or maybe it’s the other way around.’
She had to force herself to keep her body under control, and it made her angry. She didn’t want to feel this way, dammit!
‘Spare me your well-worn clichés,’ she said tightly. ‘Don’t forget I know all those games you play with women.’
‘Who’s playing games?’ he asked, his mouth curving into an amused smile. ‘Or maybe you’re one of those women who is incapable of accepting compliments at face value.’
Nothing you ever do is at face value, Natalie wanted to inform him. Did his sense of ego want him to prove that she was more attracted to him than she was to Eric? It wasn’t a pleasant thought.
Her hand strayed to where his fingers had brushed against her skin. It still felt hot and prickly.
‘If it was a genuine compliment, then thank you,’ she muttered, not daring to meet those clever, assessing green eyes. ‘It’s just that I don’t ever recall you having paid me any compliments in the past before. Except along the lines of work, of course.’ And that suits me just fine, her voice implied. She tilted her chin defiantly to him and he raised one eyebrow in cynical amusement.
‘Don’t you? I recall a certain very attractive russet dress at a certain Christmas party…’
Colour stole along her cheeks until he could feel her face burning. She remembered the occasion as well. She had never forgotten it She could recall every detail of what had happened between them, the music, the noise of the office workers, all slightly drunk, the secluded corner in which she had suddenly, alarmingly found herself alone with Kane, the huskiness in his voice when he told her