Bittersweet Love - Cathy Williams [39]
‘There’s nothing in the fridge to eat,’ Natalie in-formed him. ‘I can make you a cup of coffee if you like.’
‘Please don’t put yourself out. I wouldn’t want you to collapse from the effort,’ Kane drawled, but his eyes were sharp with amusement. He cocked his head to one side, waiting for her retort, and Natalie walked off into the kitchen, thankful for the privacy to get her thoughts together.
What was he doing here? He was here for a reason, and since his arms were not burdened under the weight of files she could only assume that it wasn’t to do with work.
The haziness of the alternative made her tremble with apprehension. She returned to the lounge and handed him his cup of coffee, then retired to the furthest chair away from him, and surveyed him from under her lashes, troubled.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked finally.
‘I merely came to say thank you for all the long hours you put in this past week.’ He looked at her, offended, but she knew better than to think that he really cared one way or another what she thought of him.
“That’s quite all right,’ she said with an optimistic glance at the door. ‘Although there was no need to come over here,’ she consulted her watch, ‘at nine-thirty to tell me.’
‘I was tired and hungry and I wanted someone to chat to,’ Kane said with a hint of irritation in his voice.
The implication was there that any other woman would have been flattered at his sudden appearance on her doorstep, tired and hungry and in need of a chat.
‘How did the meetings go?’ she asked, seeing with a frown that switching the conversation on to work had not met with his approval. But what did he expect? Did he subconsciously think, from her reaction to him, that she was amenable to him whenever he chose?
He clicked his tongue impatiently and briefly told her what had been decided at the meetings. Natalie listened with interest. This aggressive, manipulative skill in dealing with other people on a work level never failed to intrigue her. She had never known anyone who could handle himself with such self-assured ease, and looking at him in action was always a treat.
‘I didn’t come here to talk about work,’ he said, rubbing his eyes and relaxing back on the sofa. Natalie studied his reclining figure with a sense of fascinated alarm, as if any minute now he would spring into action and she would have to run for her life.
‘What did you come to talk about?’
He shrugged and looked at her from under his lashes. ‘Anything you’d like to, provided it has nothing to do with work.’
Natalie’s heart skipped a beat and then went into overdrive. Something in that dark, intimate gaze made the blood rush to her head, made her all too aware that they were alone together. This time there was no Eric singing in the bathroom to remind them that reality was only a hair’s breadth away.
Then she laughed at herself. Where was she letting her imagination lead her?
‘Don’t you have a girlfriend to fulfil those needs?’
He shot her a lazy smile. ‘What needs in particular are you referring to?’
The sudden silence was deafening.
‘You know what I mean,’ Natalie said on an angry note. He was playing games with her. Maybe the delightful Anna wasn’t around. Whatever the reason, she didn’t see why she had to put up with him in her flat, confusing her for his own benefit.
‘Anna doesn’t listen the way that you do. Besides, she’s—what shall I say?—getting a little demanding.’
‘I see.’ So she was on her way out. After all that possessiveness, those threats, she was on her way out whether she liked it or not. Kane could be quite ruthless in his personal life.
‘She’s beginning to insinuate that there might be more to life than sex.’
Natalie suspected that he was being deliberately pro-vocative in his choice of words, but his face was perfectly serious.
‘Silly Anna,’ she said. ‘She can’t know you very well.’
‘But you do, don’t you?’ Kane said softly, and Natalie looked across the room at him, startled. All of a sudden panic gripped her by the throat, making her sick.
‘I’ll get