'All right, all right, all right…' He raised a hand in protest. 'I give in—for the moment,' he added quickly.
'And you promise you'll take your pills and rest?' She thought she might as well press the point while she had Carlton for back-up. 'It's important Dad.'
'He knows that.' Carlton had poured two hefty measures of whisky into two tumblers as she had been speaking and handed one across to him with a wry smile. 'He might be a cantankerous old so-and-so but he's not stupid.'
'Well, thank you.' David's voice dripped sarcasm. 'I was beginning to wonder if everyone thought my brain was addled as well as my body.' But he accepted the whisky with a nod as Carlton sat down on an easy-chair by the side of the bed and stretched out his long legs.
'Should you have that?' Katie asked anxiously but as both men gave her a withering glance she acknowledged defeat, took her father's tray from the bed and left them to it.
Much later, after a short phone call to Jennifer, who was back in her flat in London and preparing to dash off the next day to the wilds of Scotland on some story or other, and after checking the guest list for the wedding, Katie was sitting finishing the wedding invitations when Carlton walked into the drawing-room. 'He's asleep.'
Ignoring the tightening in her body that his presence always induced, she lifted what she hoped was a calm face and smiled carefully, but it was hard not to betray what his big body, clothed casually in jeans and a black sweatshirt, did to her nerve-endings. 'Thank you for staying with him tonight, Carlton.'
'No problem.' He shrugged as he flung himself down in a chair opposite the large sofa, where she was sitting with the invitations spread around her. 'I thought he needed some sort of normality after all those days in hospital so we chatted about business and so on.' His eyes were fixed on her face. 'He's totally accepted our explanation, by the way, even congratulated me again on acquiring you for my future bride. He hoped I realised that I was the luckiest man this side of heaven.' Her eyes shot to his face and Carlton smiled easily.
'Did he say that?' she asked with a painful casualness that wasn't lost on him.
He nodded slowly. 'That he did,' he said softly. 'Do you want to know how I replied?'
The room had become still, very still, and she found she was holding her breath as she looked into the dark, handsome face opposite her. 'I—' But then she jumped violently at the shrill intrusion of the telephone ringing loudly at her side and lifted the receiver to the sound of Carlton's muttered curse in the background.
'Yes.'
'Katie, is that you?' It was Joseph's voice. 'Is Carlton still with you? There's some emergency or other with his American office.'
'Just a minute.' As she handed the telephone to Carlton she rose quickly, scattering invitations over the floor. 'Would you like a coffee?' she asked quickly.
'Fine,' he nodded before speaking into the receiver and she left the room quickly as though the devil himself were on her heels. There had been something in his face during those last few seconds, something dangerously hypnotising. Was that how he looked at his other women before he made love to them?
She found that she was clenching her hands tightly against her side and forced herself to relax them slowly, finger by finger. But he'd said that once married to her he would be faithful. Did she believe that? She toyed with the question as she busied herself fixing the coffee. She really didn't know. What if he fell in love with someone else? The thought caused her heart to jump violently. What would he do then?
'Why such a deep frown?' She nearly jumped out of her skin as his voice sounded just behind her, and turned to see him leaning in the doorway, his hands thrust into his jeans pockets and his dark eyes glittering as they wandered over the soft gold of her hair.
'Carlton, what if—?' She stopped abruptly. She had almost been going to say 'you'. 'What if either of us falls in love with someone else?' she asked quickly, before she lost her nerve. 'What happens then?'
He straightened, anger darkening his eyes and stiffening his body as he moved to stand in front of her 'Is this a rhetorical question or is there something you're trying to tell me?' he asked softly as he lifted her chin to look into the soft greeny brown of her eyes, his mouth hard.
'No, I'm not trying to say anything,' she protested quickly. He smelt good; he smelt so, so good. 'I just wondered—'
'Quit wondering.' As his mouth came down hard on hers she realised that there was more than a touch of anger in the kiss—almost a fierceness that bruised and punished, but it didn't seem to make any difference to her traitorous body, which leapt into immediate and vibrant life.
In fact, the only time she was alive, fully and completely alive, was around him, she realised helplessly as he ravaged her mouth with a raw desire that was shockingly pleasurable. His hands firm in the small of her back, he moulded her into the length of him and shaped her against his arousal so that the embrace was almost like an act of physical possession.
It should have shocked her, she knew that, but, instead of anger or self-disgust at her wanton response to his aggressive domination, she gloried in it, gloried in the fact that she could make him want her so badly.
When he released her they were both breathing heavily, and as she touched a finger to her swollen lips his eyes followed the gesture, self-contempt turning his eyes black. 'I'm sorry, Katie; I didn't mean to hurt you,' he said thickly as he turned and walked to the doorway.
'Carlton?' Her voice stopped him as he was about to leave. 'I didn't mean—I haven't met anyone.'
He turned to face her and nodded slowly, his face expressionless now and his eyes veiled. 'Good.' His eyes stroked over her face, flushed and warm, and over the tousled silk of her hair. 'Because I don't share what's mine, Katie, not now, not ever. And I would kill anyone who tried.' She stared at him, her eyes wide. 'Does that answer your question? And skip the coffee; it's getting late. I'll see you tomorrow.'
Once Easter had come and gone and she no longer had to work each day, Katie found that she was dividing her time between her own house and Carlton's most of the time. His limitless wealth had smoothed the arrangements for the wedding like magic in spite of the comparative haste.
The church was booked and she had chosen her dress— a fairy-tale concoction of ivory silk and old lace over a wide hooped skirt and tiny fitted bodice. The staff of the madly expensive hotel where Carlton had booked the reception for over two hundred guests had fallen over themselves in an ingratiating desire to satisfy his every wish, and even Jennifer's dress—her sister was her only bridesmaid—was hanging ready and waiting in her wardrobe at home.
The fact that all that side of things was taken care of had left Katie free to organise some changes at Carlton's home—a suggestion that had come from the man himself.
Since that night when David had come home Carlton had maintained a cool, almost distant approach to her when they were alone that Katie didn't understand. In company he was the perfect fiancé—charming, attentive and always ready to please—but when they were alone… Katie wrinkled her brow as she smoothed the last fold out of the new curtains in the room that was to be their bedroom. He was reserved, wary even. Always holding himself in check.