‘As you wish.’ With disorientating cool, he watched her gather up her bag and climb out of the car on rubbery legs, teetering dangerously for an instant on the very high heels she always wore.
Dragging wayward eyes from his dark, virile features, she closed the door and crossed the street. She felt dizzy, shell-shocked. All those lies, she thought guiltily; all those lies to protect Daniel. Not that Luc could be a threat to Daniel now, but she felt safer with Luc in ignorance. Luc didn’t like complications or potential embarrassments. An illegitimate son would qualify as both.
A little dazedly, she shook her head. Apart from that one moment of danger, Luc had been so…so cool. She couldn’t say what she had expected, only somehow it hadn’t been that. In the Savoy, she could have sworn that Luc was blazingly angry. Obviously that had been her imagination. After all, why should he be angry? Four years was a long time, she reminded herself. And he hadn’t cared about her. You didn’t constantly remind someone you cared about that they were living on borrowed time. At least, not in Catherine’s opinion you didn’t.
Her mind drifted helplessly back to their first meeting. She had rewarded his mere presence at the gallery with a guided tour par excellence. She had never been that close to a male that gorgeous, that sophisticated and that exciting. Luc, bored with his own company and in no mood to entertain a woman, had consented to be entertained.
He had smiled at her and her wits had gone a-begging, making her forget what she was saying. It hadn’t meant anything
to him. He had left without even advancing his name but, before he had gone, he said, ‘You shouldn’t be up here on your own. You shouldn’t be so friendly with strangers either. A lot of men would take that as a come-on and you really wouldn’t know how to handle that.’
As he’d started down the stairs, glittering golden eyes had glided over her one last time. What had he seen? A pretty, rounded teenager as awkward and as easily read as a child in her hurt disappointment.
In those days, though, she had been a sunny optimist. If he had happened in once, he might happen in again. However, it had been two months before Luc reappeared. He had walked in late on and alone, just as he had before. Scarcely speaking, he had strolled round the new pictures with patent uninterest while she’d chattered with all the impulsive friendliness he had censured on his earlier visit. Three-quarters of the way back to the exit, he had swung round abruptly and looked back at her.
‘I’ll wait for you to close up. I feel like some company,’ he had drawled.
The longed-for invitation had been careless and last-minute, and the assumption of her acceptance one of unapologetic arrogance. Had she cared? Had she heck!
‘I’ve been shut in all day. I’d enjoy a walk,’ he had murmured when she’d pelted breathlessly back to his side.
‘I don’t mind,’ she had said. He could have suggested a winter dip in the Thames and she would have shown willing. Taking her coat from her, he had deftly assisted her into it, and she had been impressed to death by his instinctive good manners.
As first dates went, it had been…different. He had walked her off her feet and treated her to a coffee in an all-night caf;aae in Piccadilly. She hadn’t had a clue who he was and he had enjoyed that. He had told her about growing up in New York, about his family, the father, mother and sister who had died in a plane crash the previous year. In return she had opened her heart about her own background, contriving to joke as she invariably did about her unknown ancestry.
‘Maybe I’ll call you.’ He had tucked her, alone and unkissed, into a cab to go home.
He hadn’t called. Six, nearly seven agonising weeks had crawled past. Her misery had been overpowering. Only when she had abandoned all hope had Luc shown up again. Without advance warning. She had wept all over him with relief and he had kissed her to stop her crying.
He could have turned out to be a gangster after that kiss…it wouldn’t have mattered; it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to her feelings. She was in love, hopelessly, crazily in love, and somewhere in the back of her mind she had dizzily assumed that he had to be too. How romantic, she had thought, when he presented her with a single white rose. Later she had bought a flower press to conserve that perfect bloom for posterity…
What utterly repellent things memories could be! Luc didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. He had simply set about acquiring the perfect mistress with the same cool, tactical manoeuvres he employed in business. Step one, keep her off balance. Step two, convince her she can’t live without you. Step three, move in for the kill. She had been seduced with so much style and expertise that she hadn’t realised what was happening to her.
Pick an ordinary girl and run rings round her. That was what Luc had done to her. She might as well have tied herself to the tracks in front of an express train. Every card had been stacked against her from the start.
Glancing at her watch in a crowded street, she was stunned to realise how late it was. Lost in her thoughts she had wandered aimlessly through the afternoon. Without further ado, she headed for the bus-stop.
Drew’s housekeeper, Mrs Bugle, was putting on her coat to go home when Catherine let herself into the apartment. ‘I’m afraid I was too busy to leave dinner prepared for you, Mrs Parrish,’ she said stiffly.
‘Oh, that’s fine. I’m used to looking after myself.’ But Catherine was taken aback by the formerly friendly woman’s cold, disapproving stare.
‘I want you to know that Mrs Huntingdon is taking this divorce very hard,’ Mrs Bugle told her accusingly. ‘And I’ll be looking for another position if Mr Huntingdon remarries.’
The penny dropped too late for Catherine to speak up in her own defence. With that parting shot, Mrs Bugle slammed the front door in her wake. A prey to a weary mix of anger, embarrassment and frustration, Catherine reflected that the housekeeper’s attack was the finishing touch to a truly ghastly day.
So now she was a marriage-wrecker, was she? The other woman. Mrs Bugle would not be the last to make that assumption. Annette Huntingdon’s affair was a well-kept secret, known to precious few. Dear God, how could she have been so blind to Drew’s feelings?
Harriet had been very much against her brother’s desire for a divorce. She had lectured Drew rather tactlessly, making him more angry and defensive than ever at a time when he was already hurt and humiliated by his wife’s betrayal.
Had she herself been too sympathetic in an effort to balance Harriet’s well-meant insensitivity? When Drew chose to talk to her instead, had she listened rather too well? She had felt desperately sorry for him but she hadn’t really wanted to be involved in his marital problems. All she had done was listen, for goodness’ sake…and evidently Drew had read that as encouragement.
What she ought to be doing now was walking right back out of this apartment again! But how could she? After paying Mrs Anstey a month’s rent in advance, she had less than thirty pounds to her name. Peggy had raged at her frequently for not demanding some sort of a wage for looking after Harriet, whose housekeeper had retired shortly after Catherine had moved in. However, Harriet, always ready to give her last penny away to someone more needy than herself and, let’s face it, Catherine acknowledged guiltily, increasingly silly with what little money she did have, could not have afforded to pay her a salary.
And it hadn’t mattered, it really hadn’t mattered until Harriet had died. With neither accommodation nor food to worry about, Catherine had contrived to make ends meet in a variety of ways. She had registered as a child-minder, although, between Harriet’s demands and Daniel’s, that had provided only an intermittent income for occasional extras. She had grown vegetables, done sewing alterations, boarded pets…somehow they had always managed. But the uncertainties of their future now loomed over her like a giant black cloud.
As she unpacked, she faced the fact that she would have to apply to the Social Services for assistance until she got on her feet again. And when Drew returned from Germany, she decided, she would tell him about her past. If what he felt for her was the infatuation she suspected it was, he would quickly recover. Either way, she would lose a friendship she had come to value. When she fell off her pedestal with a resounding crash, Drew would feel, quite understandably, that he had been deceived.
The doorbell went at half-past six. She was tempted to ignore it, lest it be someone else eager to misinterpret her presence in the apartment. Unfortunately, whoever was pressing the bell was persistent, and her nerves wouldn’t sit through a third shrill burst.