harshly. ‘You’ll find clean linen in the cupboard in the spare-room,’ she added tiredly. ‘I trust you know how to make a bed?’
He grinned. ‘I already have.’
Kate gave a disbelieving frown, marching over to open the door to her spare bedroom. The bed was neatly made up, the top covers turned back invitingly. She turned to Jared with blazing eyes. ‘You were very confident!’
‘Not really,’ he shook his head. ‘I just know my Katharine Mary.’
‘You don’t know me. And I’m not your anything!’
He shrugged. ‘I think the answer to both those statements is, not yet.’
‘Not ever!’
He sighed. ‘Please yourself.’
‘I intend to!’
‘And I intend pleasing myself too,’ he looked at her in challenge. ‘And being with you pleases me more than anything else. You really shouldn’t have run out on me like you did.’
‘I didn’t run out on you,’ she denied. ‘It was time to leave the hotel, so I left.’
‘While I was making a telephone call!’
‘We had nothing more to say to one another, we’d already said goodbye.’
‘Strange,’ Jared drawled, ‘I don’t remember that. I remember asking you to go to North America with me.’
‘And I thought you would understand my answer,’ she scorned.
‘Maybe I did,’ he nodded. ‘But the Rourkes have never been known to give up.’
For a social drop-out that was a very strange statement! Jared seemed to read her thoughts once again, for his mouth twisted wryly.
‘Maybe I just need the right woman to help me settle down,’ he said lightly.
Kate’s head went back. ‘Well, don’t look at me!’
‘Was I?’ he teased.
‘You know you were,’ she dismissed abruptly. ‘But I’m going to marry Richard next month.’
‘Of course you are,’ Jared nodded.
‘Jared?’
He turned, his brows raised in innocent query. ‘Hm?’
Kate sighed, putting up a weary hand to her forehead, unconsciously using her left hand, the diamond there sparkling brightly, unknowingly provoking the man standing opposite her.
‘Don’t worry, me darlin’,’ once again he spoke with an Irish brogue, pulling her towards him, ‘I’m sure the best man will win.’
‘Jared, there is no contest—–’
‘Ssh, Katharine Mary,’ he spoke into her hair. ‘You’re too tired tonight to think straight.’ He kissed her chastely on the forehead.
‘There’s nothing to think about!’ She pulled away from him, glaring her anger. ‘I want you gone from here before I get up in the morning, do you understand?’
Jared looked unperturbed by her vehemence. ‘Perfectly. Now don’t frown like that,’ he advised. ‘It’ll give you wrinkles.’
With one last exasperated glare she turned and slammed into her bedroom, gritting her teeth to stop herself going back to confront him again as she heard him mutter something about waking the neighbours. They were her neighbours, damn it, and she would wake them if she wanted to!
Heavens, she was being ridiculous now! Of course she didn’t want to wake the neighbours.
What had she done to bring that tormentor back into her life? It hadn’t been her doing at all, if it hadn’t been for Brian she would never have been at that hotel in the first place!
She and Brian had met at art college five years ago, and liked each other immediately, spending most of their time together, Kate often cooking for them both in her room. They had fallen into the habit of meeting most evenings, eating a meal together and then spending the rest of the time talking or listening to music. They had been halcyon days, when the future was only as far as tomorrow, and there was still the present to enjoy.
When their college days were over Kate went to work for an advertising agency, not being good enough to become a professional artist herself, but knowing that Brian was. She hadn’t minded helping to support him as he struggled to make a name for himself, hadn’t cared at all that they rarely went out, or that the engagement ring he had given her on her twenty-first birthday still hadn’t been given the accompanying plain gold band even three years later. She understood and respected the fact that Brian wanted to be established in his art before committing himself to marriage.
The time hadn’t passed slowly for her. Her own career had progressed very satisfactorily along the path she had chosen, her father helping her out financially when the chance of running her own agency came along. At the time she had considered the longer hours, the hard work, all worthwhile, the money she made after paying her father back his loan helping Brian with his career. She hadn’t realised that he resented the fact that she spent less time with him, less time taking care of him, and that he would seek out someone else who could give him the attention he needed.
Coral Simpkins was a rich young widow who had bought one of Brian’s paintings from the gallery he submitted them to, her curiosity about the artist making her seek him out. It had been only the first of many meetings, Kate found out months later. Brian had suddenly changed, often being curt with her, and the time between their meetings becoming farther and farther apart. At first she hadn’t even noticed that, secure in their love for each other, deeply involved in the advertising agency that had become so much a part of her life. But the night she had finished early at the agency and gone round to surprise Brian had been the night she got her surprise!
She had the key to Brian’s flat and she let herself in as she usually did, carrying the bottle of wine she had bought to celebrate the success of another contract acquired for her agency. The only light on in the flat had been the one in the studio, but then that wasn’t unusual. Brian often worked in there for days at a time without a break. But he hadn’t been working that night, and neither had the blonde woman in his arms!
It had been a humiliating as well as a painful experience for Kate, especially as Coral Simpkins felt no awkwardness about the situation. The older woman simply got up from the camp-bed Brian kept in there, pulling on his robe to light a cigarette, looking at Kate insultingly through the smoke.
One thing Coral Simpkins didn’t lack was confidence—and she didn’t lack Brian at the end of the exchange either. Kate did!
Sorry, Brian said. It just happened, he said. We’re in love, he said. We’re going to be married, he said!
Something had died inside her that night, something precious that she felt sure she would never find again. And she didn’t want to find it, not if it meant being disillusioned and hurt by a man she had known and loved for five years. A sensible marriage, with no illusions, to a man who was too sophisticated himself to want a clinging wife, was what she planned for her
