Bittersweet Love - Cathy Williams [40]
But he didn’t, and she walked into the kitchen, only aware that he was following when she felt his presence by the doorway.
‘Why do women think that marriage is the inevitable conclusion to a relationship?’ he asked, leaning against the door-frame and surveying her.
When it comes to you, Natalie felt like saying, I have no idea. Marriage and Kane Marshall seemed about as compatible as fire and water. At least I never entertained that idea, she thought; at least I knew where to draw the line. I might have been a fool to fall in love with him, but I wasn’t so stupid as to imagine that he would look at me twice, or even if he did that it would lead to anything at all. He was a catch, though. One of those big fish that every angler wanted on the end of her line.
‘Do you think that marriage is the inevitable conclusion to a relationship?’ he asked curiously.
Natalie handed him his mug and tried to edge her way past him, but he stretched out one arm, barring her exit, forcing her to stare up at him.
A sudden brainwave hit her. ‘Yes,’ she said emphatically, feeling a swift moment of triumphant satisfaction at her own cleverness. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. What’s the point of getting to know someone if at the end of the day all you do is part company? What’s the point? No, for me, it’s marriage, and children, the lot.’ She smiled, totally relaxed now that she had decided on this defensive action. If it was one thing to scare off Kane Marshall, it was a woman with commitment on her mind, and she badly wanted to scare him off right now. She didn’t care for him in her flat, she didn’t care for the way he had looked at her in the lounge, and she certainly didn’t care for the heady sensations that had been washing over her from the very moment he had entered the place.
‘And solid Eric promises all those things?’ His mouth twisted cynically and her eyes clashed with his defensively, but she didn’t reply. Lying on that scale would have been a bit too blatant.
He took her silence for agreement. ‘I knew it was on the cards,’ he muttered. ‘Didn’t I ask you whether a man was behind all that?’ He gestured to her and Natalie choked back her automatic response to deny it.
‘Everyone’s different,’ she said truthfully, thinking aloud. ‘Some people, like you, don’t want commitment. You like your freedom…’
‘Damn right,’ he bit out, as though she had been at-tacking him. ‘What’ s wrong with that?’ He gave her a dark, brooding look. ‘And I thought that you agreed with me.’
‘Me?’ Natalie looked at him in surprise. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘You never thought anything of my succession of females. Not that you said, anyway.’
Natalie shrugged. ‘It was none of my business.’ She stared down at her fingers, twining them together on her lap. It was none of her business, that was true enough, but that had never stopped her from hurting every time she knew that there was a new woman on the scene, did it? That had never stopped her fertile mind from throwing up all sorts of images of Kane and his latest conquest in bed together, had it?
‘The perfect secretary,’ Kane grated cynically, ‘mind set only on work. No opinions on anything else. Or do you keep it all so well hidden?’
He stood up and prowled around the room, finally standing by the bay window and staring outside, his hands in his pockets.
‘I had no idea that I was paid to voice my opinions,’ she said.
‘You’re voicing them now.’ He looked around at her, and her heart fluttered uneasily in her chest. ‘I like that. Why don’t you do it more often? Are you scared of me? No, don’t answer that; I know you’re not. Even when you don’t say a word I know it’s not because you’re scared of my response. Dammit, most women are usually so awed by money and power. It makes them compliant. Who the hell wants compliance?’
‘Did you come here to pick a fight with me?’
‘Of course not. You know why I came.’ He raked his fingers through