'What?' It was almost as though he had read her mind, she thought faintly as he sat down beside her at the little carved wooden table, depositing her dry white wine in front of her with an easy smile.
'For the wedding.' The black eyebrows rose fractionally. 'And do you want all the trimmings? A white dress, bride-maids and so on?' he asked with indulgent easiness.
'I haven't really thought about it,' she prevaricated quickly, mortified at the touch of colour she could feel in her cheeks.
'Then think.' He was still smiling but there was a touch of steel about his mouth now. 'I thought the beginning of June would be suitable. That will give you a few weeks to fuss about your dress and all the other details and we could have a month's honeymoon at my villa in Northern Spain and get to know each other.' She blushed bright red now at the immediate picture in her mind, but if he noticed he didn't comment on it. 'Later we could perhaps take a cruise, spend the winter abroad if you would like that?'
'I—' She was floundering again and hated herself for it, but the careless ease with which he spoke of their future plans left her breathless. 'I don't mind. Whatever you think.'
'Submissive as well as beautiful?' The dark voice was both amused and mocking and grated on her nerves like barbed wire. What did it matter what she thought anyway? she asked herself painfully as she averted her eyes from his. She was nothing to him beyond a body in which to nurture his precious heirs; he had made that perfectly clear, and she would have to come to terms with that.
But somehow… Somehow, the more she got to know him, the harder that became. She wanted him to see her. The self-knowledge was frightening, opening her as it did to a vulnerability that she was sure he would capitalise on if he sensed it.
But he couldn't read her mind. The thought enabled her to raise her head and smile with a composure she was far from feeling. 'But of course.' She took a sip of her drink and carefully placed the glass back on the table, pleased to see that the trembl
ing inside was hidden and that her hand was perfectly steady. 'You are paying a great deal for me, Carlton. It's only fair that I give value for money.'
As his mouth straightened into a thin line and his eyes took on the consistency of splintered glass she realised that she had gone too far, but there was no way she could take the words back. They had been a defence, a desperate cover for her bruised feelings, but she hadn't liked their ugliness and she suspected that Carlton liked them still less. But it was too late now. There was nothing she could do but brazen it out.
'Is that how you really see things?' he asked coldly after several seconds had ticked by in deathly silence.
'What other way is there?' she asked dully.
'Dammit, Katie!' The explosion was sudden and frightening but even as she shrank back from him and the heads of the only other couple in the bar turned their way the perfect control was back in place, the only betrayal of the rage burning inside in the glittering darkness of his narrowed eyes as they fixed on her white face.
'You're making this harder than it needs to be,' he said quietly. 'You do see that? If you give yourself half a chance you might even find you like me.'
That's what terrifies me, she thought painfully. She had gone through the whole gamut of emotion since the first moment she had heard his voice on the day her father collapsed, but none had been as frightening as the one that was creeping insidiously through her veins now.
She knew he was like her father—cold and austere and devoid of normal human warmth. She knew that he was ruthless, that he had had lots of women—hadn't Jennifer confirmed that very thing? He would find it easy to mould her to his will, to pick her up and drop her whenever he felt like it She had seen her father do it time and time again with different females since her mother's death. She knew all that. It was a solid weight in her chest that was there night and day.
So why, knowing it, did she still have the urge to reach out and touch his face and ask if they could begin again as though the last few days had never happened? To beg him to look at her, really look at her, and see her for what she was rather than the future mother of his children?
She had spent thirteen years trying to win her father's love and approval; she couldn't spend the rest of her life trying to win Carlton Reef's, and for that reason she had to keep herself detached, remote from this thing that was going to happen to her. It would be hard, but the alternative was unthinkable.
CHAPTER SIX
The next few days rushed by at breakneck speed, for which Katie was thankful. It gave her less chance to think and that way she could function on automatic. She explained to the headmaster at the school that it would be necessary for her to leave after Easter, and although he was reluctant to see her go he was more than understanding about the position she was in.
'We shall miss you, Katie, but I didn't think we'd hang on to you this long,' he said warmly as she sat across the desk from him in his small office. 'And you know that there's always a place for you here.' The brown eyes smiled with real friendliness.
'Thank you.' His kindness had touched her. 'And I'll always be available to help out now and again once I'm married if anyone is sick. I'll let the office have my new address and telephone number.'
'That'd be useful but we know you've got a lot on your plate, what with your father and all.' Mr Mitchell patted her arm as she rose to leave. 'But if you wouldn't mind doing the odd bit of supply teaching in the future it would be a great back-up for us. Your fiancé wouldn't mind?'
'No, no, of course not.' Would Carlton object? she thought as she left the orderly little room and walked back to the general staffroom. She had no idea. She stopped still in the corridor as the full enormity of it all swept over her again. She didn't know him, what he thought, how he would behave as a husband…
She pushed the whirling thoughts back into the box she had kept them in for the last few days and closed the lid firmly. She wouldn't think about it now. All that would have to wait Just getting through each day was enough for the moment, what with the host of arrangements and plans to discuss each night and with her father expected home at the end of the week.
Carlton insisted on coming with her to fetch David the following Friday evening and she was glad of his hard male strength as they wheeled him to the Mercedes outside the main hospital doors. 'Damn fuss!' David White was red with anger at the ignominious position he had been forced into. 'There's nothing wrong with my legs.'
'It's not your legs we're worried about,' Carlton said mildly as he opened the passenger door and helped him into the car. 'And stop acting like such an idiot, David. You've had a couple of major heart attacks in as many days and you either knuckle down to good advice or you break your daughter's heart Which is it to be?'
Grey eyes met pale blue ones and neither was prepared to give an inch. As Katie watched them she felt a bubble of laughter for the first time in days. It looked as if her father had met his match at last The thought sobered her instantly.
Once he was home, Mrs Jenkins fussed around him, patently ignoring his baric and avoiding his bite, helping to establish him in his study, which she and Katie had converted to a bedsit over the last few days. Katie sat on the end of his bed while he ate a light supper.
'You do see it's better for you to avoid the stairs for the time being?' she asked him warily as Carlton walked in with a bottle of Scotch that made David's eyes light up. 'And this room is huge, and it looks on to the garden, and the cloakroom and loo are right next door—'