Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [189]
‘Katherine,’ he crooned, in a low voice, ‘if you’re worried that it would ever happen again or that I would ever be unfaithful to you, you are way, way wrong. I’m not just saying this now because you’re angry with me, but the way I feel about you is –’ Joe stopped. He’d thought he’d heard the sound of a key jiggling in the lock. Seconds later Tara burst into the room, with what seemed like an army of people. His heart sank. The sooner Tara got her own place the better.
As Joe tried to paste on a happy face for the visitors, Tara chattered enthusiastically, gesturing to the three people standing behind her. ‘We were just passing and I thought it might be nice for you to meet, because you’ve all heard about each other. This is Amy from my work and this is Benjy…’ She paused and mouthed exaggeratedly, ‘My fella,’ at Katherine and Joe, then discreetly clutched her stomach and rolled her eyes, indicating the desire to puke. And continued, ‘And this is…’
Then Joe got a shock. He recognized the third person. It was impossible not to. He almost filled the room with his huge shoulders and great height and long red hair. It was that spoilt-brat actor from the butter commercial, Lorcan something-or-other.
Lorcan had obviously recognized Joe also, because he interrupted the introductions by exclaiming, in loud surprise, ‘Hey, I know you.’
Joe sighed and braced himself for unpleasantness. Until something filled him with inexplicable fear. He’d followed the line of Lorcan’s gaze and saw that Lorcan wasn’t talking to him. He was talking to Katherine.
73
Katherine was death-white. ‘Hello,’ she said faintly.
‘Hi.’ Lorcan grinned, clicking his fingers as he tried to remember her name. He just couldn’t place where he knew her from but he suspected that at some point in the past he’d had sex with her. What a guy!
Tara’s excited introductions stopped abruptly as she picked up that another dynamic had taken over, that she was no longer in charge. ‘Do you two know each other?’ she hooted, in surprise, looking from Katherine to Lorcan and back again.
‘Seems to me we do.’ Lorcan gave Katherine an intimate smile. ‘Do we?’
She nodded.
At that, for no obvious reason, the mood in the room turned. Joe sat frozen and fearful on the couch. Mid-floor, Benjy, Amy and Tara stood silent and unsmiling. Viscous, impenetrable emotion radiated from Katherine.
‘I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on,’ Tara said gaily, desperate to dispel the heavy, ominous confusion. But it seemed to make everyone even more tense. Behind her Tara could sense Amy’s fear. Smell it, in fact.
‘You’re… ah… um…’ Lorcan tried to remember the girl’s name. Jessica? Inez? Mary? Christ, it could be anything. The catch-all ‘Babe’ had saved Lorcan’s life on many occasions, especially those mornings when he woke up and couldn’t remember the name of the woman lying beside him, but it wasn’t going to work here. And where the hell did he know her from exactly? ‘I’m hopeless with names,’ Lorcan smiled his please-forgive-me smile as he looked down on Katherine slumped in a daze. She was a cute little thing, actually, he wouldn’t mind refreshing his memory!
Despite her shock, Katherine was raging with herself. How many times had she prayed for this moment when she finally met him again and pretended that she hadn’t a clue who he was? How many years had she practised reducing grown men to frightened children with one arch of her perfectly shaped eyebrow, just so that when the time came she’d be able to use it on him? And now she couldn’t even raise her head from the back of the couch.
More shaming than her physical debilitation was that she wanted him to remember her. Trembling, she watched, willing him at least to know her name. But it had been a long time ago…
‘It’s Katherine,’ she whispered.
With a dazzling smile Lorcan smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. ‘Of course it is.