‘All right. But you take care of yourself.’
‘I will.’ She opened the door and gently pushed him back into the room. ‘I love you and I want you to be happy.’
‘Thanks, Kate.’
She softly closed the door and turned away, making a conscious effort to pull herself together. She came face to face with Damien. ‘Oh …’ she said weakly.
‘Yes, oh.’ His look was contemptuous. ‘I’ll say this for you, Kate, you really have style. James has just got himself married, his bride is waiting for him on the other side of that door, and you’re out here kissing him and making arrangements to meet him when he gets back from his honeymoon. I’ll give you full marks for sheer nerve!’
Her eyes darkened with distress. ‘It wasn’t like that—’
‘It damn well was! I’ve been out here for quite some time and I heard it all. It’s Sheri I feel sorry for. And what I’m learning about you I don’t like.’
‘What you’re learning isn’t strictly me.’ She sighed. ‘You’re just reading what you want to in what I say, seeing what you want to see.’
‘I don’t think there’s any other way to see it. Let’s get out of here,’ he added, suddenly impatient. ‘Weddings have never been on my list of pleasurable activities. I avoid them where possible.’
‘So I’ve noticed.’
‘Mm—well, are you ready to go now? You’ve arranged to meet James, he’s going to call you this evening, so there can’t be much else you want to do here.’
‘He’ll expect to see me when they come down.’
Damien grasped her arm and led her purposefully towards one of the exits. ‘Then he can damn well expect,’ he declared grimly, indicating for his car to be brought round to the front of the hotel. ‘I don’t share my women with anyone!’
Kate gasped as he thrust her inside the car and angrily walked round to get in beside her. ‘I’m not one of your women!’ she told him adamantly.
‘But you’re going to be. And for the time I’m in your life I’m going to be the only one. Get that?’
‘Oh, don’t start that again. I don’t want to be your mistress and I’m not moving in with you.’
‘You’ll do as you’re told!’ His gaze remained fiercely on the road in front of him. ‘What’s your address?’
‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that! You don’t own me.’
‘No, but I’m going to. You have a lesson to learn about human relationships, and I’m going to teach it to you. James is married now and I think you should leave him alone. He’s a man, and he won’t make the first move to finish things between the two of you—you’ll have to do that. You can start tonight by not answering his call.’
‘I will not! He’ll wonder what’s happened to me. He’ll worry,’ she added.
‘If you don’t answer his call he’ll know what’s happened to you, you’ll be with me. And he should have better things to do than worry about his mistress on his wedding night. I’m surprised Sheri allows things between you to go on still, she’s never appeared to me to be the complaisent sort.’ His expression hardened as he looked at her. ‘Don’t you feel in the least guilty about what you’re doing to her?’
‘Are you trying to find some good in me somewhere?’ she scorned hotly. ‘Because the way you twist things I doubt you’ll find anything.’
‘Don’t blame your inadequacies on my twisted mind. Now, your address?’
Reluctantly Kate told him. It wasn’t easy to defy him, he was so forceful. And so very attractive. The last few weeks had done nothing to dull her attraction to him, in fact she found him even more fascinating. And yet, in a way, he also frightened her. How could she both love and fear him at the same time? With startling clarity she realised that the two emotions were deeply connected. She loved Damien and yet feared the power that gave him over her.
It wasn’t the sort of love she had wanted to feel for any man, sure that this was a similar emotion to the one her mother must have felt for Richard St Just. And look what had happened to her!
Kate had wanted the secure sort of love, the dull everyday sort of love that most of her school friends had always talked about, the sort of love their parents had for each other. She didn’t want to be in love with the elusive Damien Savage, ravaged by emotions that could eventually tear her apart.
She had always looked down on the feelings her mother must have felt for her lover, always thought her mother should have had more will-power than to fall in love with a married man. But now she knew how her mother must have felt for this dynamic man, the temptation it must have been to sacrifice all her principles for one night in his arms. But she wasn’t going to fall into the same trap, not for Damien or any other man!
The flat was in chaos when she let them in a few moments later. Josie came bursting out of the bedroom, frantically pulling rollers out of her hair. ‘Oh, Kate,’ she cried, ‘everything’s gone wrong! My hair wouldn’t dry, I smudged my nail-varnish, and somehow my dress has got all creased along the bottom. I’ll never be ready!’
‘Calm down, Josie,’ Kate said soothingly. ‘I thought you were the one who was all organised.’
‘So did I,’ Josie groaned.
‘Okay, well just calm yourself. You brush out your hair and re-do your nails, and I’ll go and iron your dress. It’s that stupid wardrobe, of course, it simply isn’t tall enough.’
Josie began to look less panic-stricken. ‘Oh, thanks, Kate. You’re a love!’
Kate removed the jacket to her suit, pinning back her own hair with a wooden slide. ‘I won’t be two minutes,’ she promised.
‘Kate?’
She looked up with a start at the sound of that soft
