‘That was what I thought. But then you disappeared with him—at least, I suppose it was with him. You both disappeared at the same time.’
‘Damien can be very—dominant. But I got away from him as soon as I possibly could. Are you coming in for coffee?’ she asked as they reached her flat.
He nodded his agreement, locking the car before following her into the lift. The coffee made, they sat down to chat. Alan stayed for an hour or so, lingering over their parting.
‘See you tomorrow?’ he murmured against her lips.
‘Mm, come round for lunch. Josie’s going down to Kent tomorrow to meet Paul’s parents, so we’ll have the flat to ourselves.’
He quirked an eyebrow. ‘That sounds nice.’
Kate laughed huskily at his expression. ‘I hope I can trust you to behave.’
‘Don’t I always?’ He kissed her gently.
‘Yes.’
He lifted her chin, laughing a little. ‘Hey, don’t sound so disappointed!’
She wasn’t disappointed, she just wished that for once, he would try to sweep her off her feet. That way he might erase Damien from her mind and body.
She pretended to be asleep when Josie got home, her face turned firmly against the wall, not in the mood for girlish chatter this evening. But she lay awake long after Josie had gone to her own room, her eyes wide as she admitted to herself that Alan’s kisses had in no way helped to blot out the feel of Damien’s burning lips upon her own. She doubted that any man’s kisses could do that.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘I INSIST that you stay to dinner,’ Sheri told her. ‘James should be home soon and I know he’d love to see you. You haven’t been over much lately.’
Kate hadn’t been over because she didn’t want to run the risk of accidentally running into Damien here. ‘Well, I have started my secretarial course now and I go out with Alan quite a lot in the evenings.’ Although not so much of late.
‘How’s the secretarial course going?’
‘All right, but there’s an awful lot to learn, much more than I realised.’
‘And how are things with Alan?’
Kate wished she knew. They went out together two, maybe three times a week, she enjoyed being with him, and she responded reasonably well to his kisses. But that was where the trouble between them lay. She knew Alan was starting to wonder at her lack of ardour, that the light lovemaking between them did not fire her as the merest touch from Damien could do.
She was beginning to wonder if she was being fair to Alan, if she wasn’t using him as a shield against her real feelings. She did enjoy being with him, yes, but she enjoyed being with Damien more.
Damien! Why did he have to keep intruding into her life? That he was back on his usual social whirl she knew, pictures of him dining out or at the theatre with one girl or another often appearing in the daily newspapers. He was a celebrity and his activities were definitely news, red-hot news some of it.
Actually she hadn’t seen Alan for the last three days, but they were meeting later this evening. She would have to make sure she was back in town for that. ‘Things are fine between Alan and me,’ she finally answered.
‘And Damien?’ Sheri probed.
‘What about him?’ she asked sharply.
Sheri shrugged. ‘I had the feeling a couple of months back that you were rather keen on him.’
Kate attempted a light laugh. ‘He’s every girl’s dream. I was bound to be bowled over by his interest in me. I used to dream about meeting him when I was a child—you know the fantasies we have at twelve and thirteen.’
‘And he didn’t live up to them?’
He more than lived up to them! He was larger than life, very sexy, and totally immoral. He was the sort of man who didn’t think marriage was necessary and indulged in numerous affairs.
‘You know he did,’ she admitted softly. ‘But you must know what he’s like.’
‘I know what he’s like now. James hardly ever gets home before eight o’clock in the evening, and he’s always tired out when he gets in. Damien’s just gone overboard for work.’
‘So James said the other week. I suppose that’s how Damien got to the top in his profession.’
Sheri frowned. ‘He’s playing hard too. He never goes out with the same woman twice.’
Kate gave a bitter laugh. ‘I don’t suppose he needs to if he gets what he wants the first time around.’
‘Oh dear, he has made a bad impression with you! I told you from the first that he’s a very blunt person.’
He was blunt to the point of being rude, never mixing his words when talking to her, making his impression of her very clear. ‘How’s the film going?’ Kate changed the subject.
Sheri shrugged. ‘James says very well. But the tension between Matt and Damien is reaching exploding point.’
Damien again! She grimaced. ‘Couldn’t we leave him out of the conversation?’
Sheri giggled. ‘It’s impossible with James. For the first ten minutes when he gets home he does nothing but complain about him. You wait and see—I don’t think tonight will be any different. He was going to insist on getting home by seven tonight, so he’ll probaby have a blazing row with Damien so that he can get away.’
‘Is he really that bad?’
‘Impossible,’ Sheri confirmed.
The two of them were seated in the lounge, Kate having arrived after lunch to spend the afternoon with Sheri. Her sister-in-law was occasionally a little lonely during the day now that she had given up her modelling career and so Kate had decided to help occupy one afternoon for her.
James had asked Sheri to give up her career so that they might be together when he Wasn’t working. Sheri had enough sense to realise that two people working extensively here and abroad, often at different times, found it difficult to make a success of a marriage. She acknowledged the fact that while her career had been enjoyable it wasn’t to
