Bittersweet Love - Cathy Williams [51]
‘You can’t be serious,’ she said shakily, licking her lips to moisten them. She stared straight ahead of her, not wanting to face him because she was scared of what she might see there. His anger, his arrogance, his cynicism—those were things that she could cope with. His pursuit was not. That was dangerous because it ex-posed her vulnerability to him, and she wasn’t going to fall into that trap a second time.
‘Why not?’ he answered coolly, his hand resting lightly on the gear shaft.
Natalie eyed it in trepidation and edged away. If the car were at a standstill right now, she had no doubt that she would have flung open the door and run as fast as her legs could take her. Her heart was beating so quickly that she had the giddy sensation that any minute she would choke to death. She forced the panic back. That, she knew, was not going to help her. What she needed to fight his devastating relentlessness was calm.
She breathed deeply and tried very hard to summon up a feeling of calm. Pretend, she told herself, that he isn’t Kane Marshall. Pretend that he’s simply an ordinary, paunchy, balding businessman sitting there, making a pest of himself. She closed her eyes and filled her mind with the image, immediately feeling more in control.
She gave a little laugh. ‘Why not?’ she repeated with a hint of amusement in her voice. ‘I can think of several thousand reasons, but the main one is I don’t want it.’
‘No?’ He shot her a sideways glance and some of that exquisite control slipped slightly. ‘We could always put that to the test.’
‘No, we could not!’ Natalie replied sharply. ‘This isn’t some kind of game. If you feel the urge to chase a woman, then do me a favour and find another one to chase. I have a new job and,’ she continued with sudden inspiration, ‘I’m trying to build a relationship with Eric.’
The car pulled over to the kerb and Natalie glanced at him uneasily. She hoped that he wasn’t about to try anything, because she knew that a single touch from him would be enough to shatter her will-power to shreds. She clutched the door-handle and he said with lazy amusement, ‘Relax. I’m not about to jump on you in this public place.’
‘I never said you were,’ Natalie answered quickly.
‘You didn’t have to. You looked like a scared rabbit about to dash into the nearest hole. Are you?’
‘Am I what?’
‘Scared of me? Afraid of what might happen to you if I lay a finger on you?’
Everything about him, his voice, the way he was sitting there, lightly resting against the door, was controlled and unhurried. He was in absolutely no rush whatsoever, and the fact that she had told him, quite firmly, that she had no intention of sleeping with him didn’t appear to bother him in the slightest. In fact, Natalie thought angrily, he seemed to be relishing the situation.
‘Are we going to have some lunch?’ she asked coolly. ‘Because if we aren’t I have a million things to do back at the office.’
Kane laughed softly and she had the frightening feeling that he viewed her protestations as delaying tactics that would not possibly defer the inevitable.
‘Lunch, by all means,’ he drawled, letting himself out of the car and moving around to open her door for her. Natalie shot out, her arm burning where it brushed against his.
They dined at a pleasant Italian bistro without a hint of the suffocating intimacy which Natalie had expected, and Kane kept up amusing conversation on an array of subjects.
Very crafty, she thought, making sure that he doesn’t frighten his prey away. Not that it was going to work. She responded politely, interested in what he had to say about what was going on at the Marshall Corporation, amused by his witty anecdotes and quite happy to chat to him about her new job.
When they were leaving the restaurant, he bent slightly towards her and said in a lazy undertone, ‘I never answered your question, did I?’
Natalie pulled back, alarmed at the slow tingle of heat that had spread through her body