Bittersweet Love - Cathy Williams [52]
‘‘What question?’ she asked briskly, standing back to allow him to open the car door for her, and then slipping inside very quickly. Kane leisurely opened his door, but instead of starting up the engine he turned in his seat to look at her, his eyes doing a very careful appraisal of her flushed face.
‘You wanted to know why I didn’t occupy my time chasing other women.’
Natalie stared straight ahead of her while her heart did funny things in her chest. After the fairly relaxing, unthreatening light-hearted banter over lunch, the sudden casual intimacy in Kane’s tone alarmed her, though she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of showing it.
‘I’m not really that curious,’ she said.
‘I’m not chasing other women, because right now there’s only one woman I’m interested in chasing.’
Right now, she thought bitterly. He certainly was an expert at introducing lack of permanence in his relation-ships, wasn’t he? She looked at him coldly. ‘It was a very pleasant lunch. Why do you have to spoil it?’
‘Is that what I’m doing?’ He reached out to stroke the side of her face with one ringer and she pulled back. His eyes, smiling, flickered over her. He was playing a waiting game. Biding his time, content to let minor obstacles such as her objections be trampled by time and patience.
‘I’m not interested.’
‘No,’ Kane agreed with a hint of laughter in his voice, ‘just so long as it’ s only me you’re not interested in.’
He started up the car, expertly manoeuvring it through the crowded streets back to Tony Harding’s offices, which were in a far less plush, and consequently much cheaper, part of London.
‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he said as the car stopped in front of the building, and Natalie shook her head vehemently.
‘I’m busy.’
‘So am I,’ Kane said, as though he was agreeing with her over some innocuous statement like, Isn’t it hot today?
She glared at him helplessly. ‘Why me?’ she asked on a high whisper. ‘You never used to look at me twice.’
‘What makes you say that?’ he asked with interest.
Natalie frowned, disconcerted and puzzled by his response. ‘We had a good working relationship,’ she said. ‘I would have known if you had been interested in me in that way. I know there was that stupid Christmas party, but that doesn’t count.’ She laughed shortly. ‘Don’t forget I had an awful lot of experience of seeing you in action with other women. I would have recognised one of those deliberately charming looks from a mile away.’
‘I don’t think I care for that description,’ Kane in-formed her, his voice half-offended, half-amused.
It was one-thirty and groups of people were trooping back into the building, some of them idly glancing at the parked Jaguar. The four-storeyed structure housed several companies, though Natalie was beginning to recognise some of the faces of people she saw intermittently in the lift, even though they did not work with her.
It was a warm day and there was a general air of reluctance about their slow-paced return to work. Natalie herself was reluctant to go back inside the hot building. There was no air-conditioning, which meant the small windows had to be pushed open to their maximum, not that that encouraged a great deal of ventilation.
She indulged in a wild, brief fantasy of driving some-where with Kane. To a secluded beach somewhere perhaps. Making love on the sand. The image was so vivid that she felt her cheeks burn and immediately opened her car door.
‘It’s true,’ Natalie said quietly, dragging her thoughts back to the present. ‘You only noticed me after I lost weight and found a boyfriend.’
‘You were never overweight.’
‘Ha!’ Natalie laughed incredulously. ‘Do you really expect me to believe that?’
‘No,’ Kane said, ‘but it’ s the truth nevertheless. You lost weight and you changed—you began to notice men’s reactions to you instead of simply assuming that they weren’t interested.’
‘That’s not true,’ Natalie denied automatically; but was he right? Confusion swept over her and her hand was trembling when she pushed the car door open.
‘I have to go,’ she muttered, and he caught