A Perfect Night Read online

  'Guy organises the marquees and the entertainers as his contribution,' Chrissie informed Seb.

  Guy gave a modest shrug.

  'It's nothing really. What we normally do is arrange the event to tie in with one that we're giving commer-cially up at the Hall so that we can give the kids their day out either for free or at a minimum cost. Lord Astlegh allows us to use the parkland for free and you'd be amazed at the amount of talent there is among Aarlston employees.'

  '...and among your family,' Chrissie reminded him.

  'Last year's fortune-teller was a really big hit. Who was she? You never would tell me...'

  'No, and I'm not going to now,' Guy informed her.

  'Her identity is a professional secret.'

  'Mmm...well, she was definitely a Cooke,' Chrissie murmured.

  'Well, of course. What else would you expect with our gypsy genes?' Guy countered teasingly.

  They had reached the house and as Katie led the way into the large conservatory off the kitchen where the main buffet table had been laid out she decided that now that her duty was done she could safely escape. Seb's brooding presence was having a decidedly disturbing effect on her senses. Was that really his aftershave she could smell and was so acutely aware of, that potently musky odour?

  As they started to help themselves to the buffet another group came in including Saul and Tullah and their children. Almost immediately Saul and Seb began to discuss some mutually interesting aspect of their work at Aarlston-Becker but for some reason, instead of retreating back into the garden, Katie discovered that she was simply staying where she was listening and observing.

  Saul said something which made Seb laugh. It was the first time Katie had seen him properly relaxed and a warning feathering of an emotion she didn't want to name curled dangerously down her spine. She wasn't attracted to him she told herself fiercely, she couldn't possibly be, she loved Gareth.

  Saul's daughter Meg tugged on her father's sleeve and Katie saw quite plainly the look of sombre reflection that darkened Seb's eyes as he watched Saul turn to respond to his daughter.

  He envied Saul. But why? Katie had recognised immediately when she had seen him with Charlotte just how close and loving a bond there was between the two of them.

  As though she had guessed what was going through Katie's mind, Chrissie who had been standing beside her and who had also observed the small bit of byplay, explained in a quiet voice, 'Seb feels very guilty about the fact that he was an absent father for much of the time when Charlotte was young.'

  'He abandoned his wife and child?' Katie demanded sharply.

  She had turned her back towards Seb to speak with Chrissie and was therefore unaware of the fact that he had both disengaged himself from his conversation with Saul and overheard her own sharp question until he spoke from immediately behind her, his voice bitingly harsh as he told her quietly,

  'No, I did not abandon them...'

  Katie felt her face start to burn as Chrissie discreetly melted away leaving her to confront Seb on her own.

  Katie knew that by rights she ought to apologise, if only because Seb was a guest in her parents' home, but for some extraordinary reason, a streak of wilful stub-bornness normally more likely to manifest itself in her twin than in her, suddenly propelled her into defensive action, causing her to walk angrily towards the door at the same time throwing acidly over her shoulder,

  'But you did leave diem, desert them...'

  As she walked into the narrow passage which linked the conservatory to the laundry room through which she had intended to make her escape, to her consternation Seb followed her, pulling the door to behind him, his height and breadth of shoulder taking up so much of the narrow space that as she turned to face him, Katie felt almost as though she was actually being deprived of au-to breathe.

  'Why you...!'

  Katie's eyes widened as she saw how very angry Seb was, a dark flush burning along his cheek bones, his eyes the colour of molten metal. A sharp frisson of fear ran through her body, but she refused to give in to it or to be intimidated by it, or by him. Stubbornly she stood her ground.

  His close proximity to her in the passage though was making her feel acutely claustrophobic. She had always had a fear of small enclosed spaces, something to do perhaps with the fact that once as a young child she had become trapped in a cupboard, but as she turned intending to walk away, she froze with shock as Seb suddenly reached for her, taking hold of her upper arm to restrain her as he told her furiously, 'Oh no you don't.... What gives you the right to sit in judgement of me?' he demanded curtly. 'Have you ever been married? Have you ever had a child? No, of course you haven't, you're...'

  You're one of fortune's favourites he had been about to tell her. You're cushioned and protected from the realities of life by your parents and your background, but when he saw the white, tight look that drove the colour from her face and felt the way she froze, tensing her body almost as though he had physically hurt her, he stopped while his scientist's analytical brain tried to process all the conflicting information he was receiving.

  Katie stared at him. How had he guessed her increasingly humiliating secret? She could feel her heart racing, her body taut with anxiety. He couldn't possibly have actually guessed how she really felt, could he?

  From the moment Gareth and Louise had announced their love for one another Katie had made a fierce promise to herself that she would somehow find a way of making a fulfilling life for herself without Gareth in it.

  And she had worked hard and determinedly towards this goal.

  She had a career that she found very challenging and fulfilling, a family and friends who she truly loved and who she knew truly loved her in return. And she was determined that she would never ever allow her love for Gareth to turn to bitterness or envy over her twin's happiness. But at the same time, deep down inside, she knew there was a part of her that suffered, not just a sense of loss but a sense of insecurity as well over the fact that she had not experienced the kind of sexual fulfilment she had often heard her peers discussing.

  She had tried to reassure herself that there was nothing to be ashamed of in feeling not just a little enviously curious about how it must feel to share true sexual intimacy with a lover, but also a little anxious about the fact that because of her love for Gareth she had allowed herself to become isolated on her own small personal island of inexperience and inhibition.

  Of course, the thought of sex for sex's sake was naturally totally repugnant to her, but she couldn't help wishing sometimes that way back before she had met and fallen for Gareth she could have known the rite of passage that would have meant that she did not now have that irritating gap in her life's experience, that worrying chink of insecurity in her female armour.

  And certainly the last thing she wanted now was to have Seb Cooke finding that chink and taunting her for it.

  Pulling away from him she demanded sharply,

  'Let go of me...'

  Let go of her... Seb hadn't even realised he was still holding her arm, but once he did...once she had drawn his attention to the fact that she was virtually his prisoner, she who had dared to accuse him...to criticise and condemn him...

  The passageway wasn't very well lit by its single solitary small window, but there was more than enough light coming in through it for Seb to see the shocked disbelieving expression widen Katie's eyes as he closed the distance between them and tightened his grip on her arm.

  'Stop it ...what are you doing?' Katie protested frantically as she felt the hard heat of his body pressing hers against the passage wall, one hand on her shoulder, the other on her waist as he held her pinned there.

  There wasn't time fo» her to feel frightened or to do anything more to by to express her outrage as he bent his head and covered her half-open mouth with his own.

  Thanks to the unwanted attentions of her ex-boss Katie knew exactly how it felt to have a man kiss her against her will, but the sensations, the emotions, that coursed through
her body as Seb kissed her bore no resemblance whatsoever to those she had experienced then.

  Dizzily she wondered where they were and why in their place she was experiencing this odd feeling of lightheadedness; why she was hearing this deafening, thudding rushing sound that reminded her of breaking surf, pounding on a beach. She recognised it was, in actual fact, the roar of her pulse combined with the frantic surge of her heartbeat and she wondered, too, why her mouth seemed to be actually enjoying the sensation of the hard warmth of Seb's expertly caressing it, but before she could answer any of these questions, her brain went into overload, short circuiting its own ability to reason or analyse any of what was happening.... Her eyelashes fluttered, her body softened, her hand lifted to touch Seb's face as a small sound of sensual pleasure purred in her throat.

  Seb lifted his hand from Katie's waist to the temptingly soft curve of her breast. Through her top and her bra he could feel the delicate pout of her nipple. Desire kicked through him in a shocking breath-stopping surge.

  Against his hand Katie's nipple hardened provocatively.

  As Seb's body read her responsiveness to him it reacted instinctively and Katie's sensually soft purr gave way to a shocked strangled gasp as she felt the betraying hardness of Seb's body.

  Outside, behind the closed door, one of the children called Katie's name. As Seb heard it, it brought him back to reality. Immediately he lifted his body away from Katie's releasing her and just as immediately Katie pushed herself away from him and darted down the passage.

  The hallway was empty—thankfully—and Katie headed instinctively for the stairs and the sanctuary of her bedroom.

  From outside in the garden she could hear the laughter and chatter of her parents' guests but she felt as remote from them as though she were on another planet, their voices nothing more than a backdrop to the appalled anguish of her own thoughts. Her whole body was trembling, shuddering from head to foot, galvanised by what she told herself was her total revulsion for what had happened.

  The way Seb Cooke had treated her, touched her, was unforgivable... unforgettable... an insult... an assault against both her emotions and her most dearly held moral beliefs. She hadn't encouraged him, she hadn't wanted him.

  Hot-faced she closed her eyes, choking back the devastatingly honest inner voice that told her that she wasn't being truthful with herself.

  Squeezing her eyes tightly closed Katie whispered under her breath, 'All right, so I did...react to him, but that was just physical...any man could have...' Biting her lip she opened her eyes. Any man could have what?

  Exacted the same response from her. If that was true...

  Frenziedly she whirled round and paced the floor. It was because she had been thinking about Gareth... It was Gareth who she really wanted...who she loved, and it had been a combination of that love for him and her anger at Seb's obviously intended, if not actually uttered, jibe that she was sexually untouched and frus-trated... that she was—oh the shame of it—still a virgin.

  How had he guessed,..known...? Katie closed her eyes as a fresh wave of anguish-fuelled despair drenched her.

  At her age she was past the stage where her virginity could be considered a praiseworthy indication of her respect for herself and her determination not to rush into sexual experimentation simply for its own sake.

  Her discovery while at university that she loved Gareth had prevented her from following the path taken by most of her peers and forming an intimate loving relationship with a fellow student. The result was that now she was almost something of an oddity, an adult who was not really properly a woman at all. Only she knew how left out, how uncomfortable, how ashamed she felt on those occasions when her female family peers and most especially, her twin sister, appeared with that bemused, slightly dazed and wholly femalely smug look in their eyes which said that they had recently enjoyed good sex. But even worse than that were those times when her twin Louise tried to coax her to confide in her.

  'Who are you dreaming about?' she had teased Katie the last time they had seen one another. 'Do I know him...?'

  Katie had shaken her head of course, retreating immediately behind a protective wall of cool hauteur which had left Louise looking both bewildered and hurt. But how could she tell her that the man she had been daydreaming over was Louise's own husband?

  Determinedly Katie gritted her teeth. What had happened with Seb Cooke had simply been an expression of her very natural longing to be able to offer someone her own sensuality, she was sure of it. A very dangerous expression of course, but the relief of knowing there was a plausible, acceptable reason for the way she had let herself go in his arms, the way she had not just responded to him but allowed him to see how much he was arousing her, was such that she immediately began to feel more like her normal self.

  It would have been unbearable to have had to face him knowing that she had actually wanted Seb. But he still thought that, she reminded herself.

  Downstairs, Seb was saying his 'goodbyes' to his hostess. Fortunately their stay had only been a brief one as Chrissie was expecting her parents down to visit the following day and she and Guy still had to pick up Anthony from Guy's sister.

  He still had no idea what on earth had come over him for those few minutes he had held Katie Crighton in his arms, or rather he was perfectly well aware what had, but what he did not know was why it had. He had known far more forthright women, women who had made it more than plain that they would love him to take them to bed, and had been able to turn away from them without even the merest twinge of the savage flood of desire that Katie had aroused in him.

  Anger and desire. As a scientist he ought to know that there was no more potentially dangerous sexual combination and as a scientist, too, he ought also to know that as a man his desire and his arousal were simply physical reactions... Maybe. But as a man he also knew that what he had felt when he touched Katie had had the same raw, powerful energy that nature herself possessed and as yet man had found no satisfactory way of controlling.

  Ask any scientist who had tried to find a way of com-batting a hurricane, a tidal flood, a volcano or an earth-quake... Damn the woman, she was the last kind of complication he needed in his life, now or at any time.

  Even so, just for a moment he allowed himself the luxury of closing his eyes and briefly reliving that moment out of time when she had opened hers and looked at him, her eyes full of shocked liquid pleasure. Had she looked into his and seen there just what he was thinking?

  Feeling...wanting...? Just how much he had yearned to have her then lying naked on a bed beneath him while he licked the damp salt taste of her pleasure from her body and felt her quiver in the aftermath of her orgasm while he did so.

  A bad father and a bad husband he might have been, but as Sandra had once openly and frankly told him, as a lover his sensuality had totally overwhelmed her.

  A sensual scientist. It was a contradiction in terms, two imperfect halves that when put together rubbed and jarred against one another causing friction and pain.

  In the front seat of the car Chrissie commented quietly to Guy, 'Katie still doesn't look very well. I don't think she's been as happy as she used to be since Louise got married... I suppose it must be hard for her, them being twins...'

  'Mmm....' Guy agreed. 'She did seem rather subdued, but then she always has been the quieter of the two of them. Well, at least she's got Louise's visit home for Ben's party to look forward to.'

  'What did you think of her, Seb?' Guy asked and then laughed, 'Or shouldn't we ask? There were certainly some sparks flying between the two or you.'

  'I found her rather too idealistic and over-emotional,'

  Seb responded curtly. 'Not my type at all.'

  In their front seats Guy and Chrissie heard Seb's response. It had been unexpectedly curt and did not exactly bode well for Katie and Seb's future as close neighbours.

  C H A P T E R F I V E

  FOR the umpteenth time since she had arrived at work, Katie smoothed down th
e skirt of her impressively formal black suit. She couldn't remember ever having dressed for work with such anxiety and awareness. This suit was one she had bought in London at Louise's urging and was much more her sort of thing than Katie's own.

  The jacket was immaculately tailored, the skirt short and straight. It was an outfit that breathed professional-ism and power. In it, with her hair smoothed back she looked, Katie had decided, impressively formidable and there was no way that anyone, but most especially Seb Cooke with whom she had an appointment in fifteen minutes' time, was going to get die wrong impression about her attitude towards him. He was a client and, of course, that was all and she intended to treat him as such.

  'Goodness. You look smart,' Olivia commented as she walked into the room and did a small double take as she studied Katie's suit. 'Very elegant.'

  'It's Armani,' Katie felt impelled to tell her, admitting wryly, 'Louise chose it...'

  'Mmm... It's the kind of suit that men visualise a woman wearing with absolutely nothing on underneath,'

  Olivia murmured teasingly. 'Or so Caspar would have had me believe when I bought one.'

  Normally Katie would have taken her comment with a good humoured pinch of salt but the way Seb had behaved towards her, her own reaction to him, their aggression and the passion which had burst into life between them, had put her so much on edge that instead she demanded flatly,

  'I hope you aren't serious.'

  'Men are never more serious than when they're talking about sex,' Olivia responded dryly. 'I promise you that when Caspar saw me wearing what I had innocently imagined was a perfectly respectable and business-like suit to go to court in, he told me that the only "briefs"

  that would be on everyone's mind in the courtroom would be mine and that in those male minds they would most definitely be black and silky. Absurd, I know.' She gave a rueful grimace. 'I had a hard time getting my own head round it, but apparently there's a deep in-built male psychological reason for it, something to do with their need to compete with and diminish a woman's worldly power, a throw-back to their childhood when they had to learn to detach themselves from their mothers and learn how to become men... They're quite sad sometimes really, aren't they, poor things,' Olivia continued cheerfully, pausing as their receptionist came in to tell Katie, 'Seb Cooke is here to see you.'