Bittersweet Love - Cathy Williams [37]
‘Are you all right?’ he frowned. ‘I thought I heard voices.’
‘You did.’ Natalie smiled at him brightly. ‘It was just Kane. He wanted to tell me what time to start this morning.’
Eric looked dubiously at her. ‘Are you sure that was all?’
‘Of course!’ She laughed airily even though her throat felt dry and painful. ‘What else? You seem to forget, I’m not Anna. I’m his secretary.’
Please, she thought desperately, never let me forget that again.
CHAPTER SIX
KANE kept Natalie busy for the remainder of the week. As fast as one pile of work was reduced, another one swelled to take its place, and on top of that she had to find the time to keep on top of her newly appointed accounts.
For the first time since she had been working there she felt an absurd urge to be reassured that she could handle everything, that her promotion had not been a huge mistake, but asking Kane for that kind of assurance was out of the question. Self-doubt was some-thing he had not been afflicted with. She knew that he would treat it in other people with that barely concealed impatience that was more effective than outright irritation.
Besides, she didn’t want to broach anything remotely personal with him. She just wanted to put her head down and get on with her work, and if she cracked under the strain of it, then she would simply glue the pieces back together in the privacy of her flat, and carry on.
Eric was slightly put out that he could not see her. He had quite quickly, too quickly, grown accustomed to her compliance in falling in with his plans. She patiently explained that she was working twelve-hour days, but he still grumbled.
‘He can’t work you like that. You shouldn’t put up with it! The man’s a slave-driver.’
‘What do you suggest?’ Natalie had asked, smiling down the telephone receiver. ‘A sit-down strike? Work to rule?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because chances are he would decide that I wasn’t worth the bother. I’d find myself conducting my sit-down strike in one corner of the room while he introduced my replacement in the other.’
What she couldn’t explain was that she enjoyed working late. When Kane was focused on work to the exclusion of everything else, there was a powerful camaraderie between them. They could communicate almost without talking. It was dangerous from her point of view, but it still gave her a high, made her feel vibrantly alive and tuned in to him.
On the Friday, she was almost tempted to give in to Eric’s invitation to dinner. Kane was in Paris for a series of meetings and was not going to be back. In the end, a dogged determination to clear her desk made her refuse, and she remained in the office until after seven o’clock, wearily struggling back to her flat for a light supper of salad and cheese. She felt physically exhausted, but pleasantly so. She had not had much time to think during the week. Now, she sat in front of the television, with her plate on her lap, and all those thoughts which had taken a back seat rose from the shadows and started to nibble away at her consciousness.
What had happened in the bedroom five days ago still made her body burn. She could remember in vivid and agonising detail every touch of his hand, the feel of his lips exploring her mouth and breasts, the heat from his body making hers tremble with desire.
Of course she had known that she was in love with him. She had known that for a long time. She was no fool, and she had never tried to hide that inescapable fact from herself. But what she had not known was the depth of reaction that physical contact with him would stir in her. Because she had controlled her love for years, living with it but never letting it escape from the narrow confines in which she nurtured it, she had always assumed that everything was under control.
Nothing could have prepared her for what she had felt when Kane had kissed her, when he had touched her in places that had never been touched before. Was it all the harder to bear because she was so inexperienced? Would she have been