A Perfect Night (16 page)

'You don't have to stay now,' she told him huskily as she took the mug of coffee from him and avoided looking into his eyes. 'You must want to get back to your own place...you must have things to do...'

'Well yes,' he agreed, informing her laconically, 'I do have some telephone calls to make and I shall certainly need a change of clothes before we meet your parents for lunch. Your mother called.'

'What?"
Katie sat bolt upright in bed.

'She rang earlier while you were still asleep. I answered the phone,' Seb told her matter-of-factly.

Katie stared at him as though she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

'My mother rang and
you
answered the phone?'

'Mmm...' Seb agreed.

'What did she say? What did you say?' Katie began wildly. 'Oh, but this is awful. Now she's never going to believe that you and I aren't...'

'That you and I aren't what?' Seb asked her ironically.

'That you and I aren't lovers...but we are!'

Nonplussed Katie looked at him.

'But that was private,' she told him huskily when she eventually found her voice. 'It was...' She stopped.

'It was what?' Seb probed, but Katie shook her head.

How could she tell him that what they had shared, what she had experienced was for her, even in the sharp clear light of morning—even knowing logically what she did know—something so special...so mystical, that she knew that even if she could she would not have changed a single heartbeat of it?

Every thought, every image she had ever had with Gareth as her lover had been completely extinguished by the heat of Seb's passion, extinguished and obliter-ated.

'None of this should be happening,' Katie told him helplessly. 'You shouldn't... You don't... My parents think we're a couple, but we're not...'

'No,' Seb agreed, 'but then I could hardly tell your mother that when she telephoned and learned that I was here, could I? What would I have said? Yes, I've spent the night in bed with Katie but that was all it was...just a night in bed...'

Katie's face drained of colour as she listened to him.

If they knew the truth her parents would be so shocked, so shamed by her behaviour.

As he watched the emotions chase one another across her mobile face, Seb reflected inwardly that he was going to be in big trouble if she found out that
he
was the one who had suggested to her mother that they should all meet for lunch and that
he
was the one who, by the tone of his voice and the careful words he had used, had made it clear to Jenny Crighton that he and Katie had spent the night together, rather than her assuming it.

Tradition might have it that it was the woman who trapped the man into a relationship with sex and not the other way around, but last night had proved to him, if he had needed any proof, just how unreliable tradition actually was. Katie might have been a virgin but there had been no shrinking hesitancy, no fear or apprehension, no holding back or coyness in the way she had responded to him, the way she had
given
to him.

Early that morning, while she had slept, he had gone for a solitary walk along the river needing the time alone to make sense out of the jumble of thoughts and emotions jostling for supremacy inside him.

As he had walked he had admitted that he would be a fool to pretend that he had not known even before last night, just how strong and dangerous his feelings for her actually were. You simply didn't get so hyped up and angry about a person who didn't matter, and
he
certainly wouldn't have had the kind of physical reactions he had had last night without... As he paused to watch a pair of swans with their offspring he had been forced to recognise a truth he had been hiding from himself all along.

Right from the very start, the very first time he had seen her, Katie had had a profound effect on him. The anger, the intensity he had experienced that very first time he had seen her had been too strong, too alien to his normal behaviour pattern. It was as though at some deep-seated buried level his senses had locked on to her, reacted to her, and he had suppressed that reaction. What was he trying to say to himself, that he had fallen in love with her and then gone into denial?

Well, he certainly hadn't been in any kind of denial last night, had he? he had mocked himself.

As he had watched the swans he had acknowledged that while he might love Katie, she most certainly did
not
love him.

No, but she
wanted
him. His body had quickened fiercely and hungrily in response to this thought and his need to turn round and go straight back to rouse her from her sleep and take her in his arms had been so strong that the effort of controlling it had made him grunt out loud in protest at his own pain.

As he walked back towards the house, he was ironically aware of how the whole of his life had come full circle. He and Sandra had married, confusing their physical desire for one another with love, but now that he had actually come face to face with the real thing, now that he actually
knew
love, he could see so plainly the world of difference that separated what he had felt then with what he felt now. But if he had made the mistake of committing himself to a relationship based on physical desire once he wasn't about to do so again. Katie deserved better. She deserved not just to be loved, and he most certainly
did
love her, but to know love, to feel it, experience it, share it for herself.

He had walked back into her apartment fully intending to make it plain to her that he had no expectations, that what had happened was an isolated incident, over and done with, when the phone had rung and he had answered it and without even knowing himself what he was going to do he had subtly confirmed to her mother that they were lovers, trapping Katie in her family's expectations and his own love. He was old enough to have known better, old enough to have
done
better by his love and by Katie herself.

'This can't be happening,' Katie was whispering plaintively as she nursed the now cold mug of coffee he had brought her. Perhaps it shouldn't be happening, but it quite definitely was and contrary to her expectations, instead of accusing her of messing up both their lives, Seb seemed to be totally relaxed about the whole situation.

I wasn't the one who started it,' Seb reminded her wryly.

Katie frowned. No he wasn't and she had only herself to blame for the situation she now found herself in—and in more ways than one.

'I'll ring my mother and cancel lunch,' she told Seb quickly but, instead of greeting her suggestion with approval, an expression she found hard to define crossed his face then he shrugged and told her curtly,

'If you wish.'

Ten minutes later when he had left to return home Katie decided that she couldn't fathom him out at all.

But was she any more capable of understanding
herself
than she was him? Last night her behaviour had been completely out of character. So much so, that even though she was now on her own she still blushed to recall some of the things she had said—and done!

She telephoned her mother as soon as she had showered, explaining with her fingers crossed behind her back that Seb wasn't going to be able to make it for lunch as he had realised he had some work he had to attend to urgently.

'In fact,' she began, taking a deep breath, suddenly determined not to end the telephone call until she had told her mother the truth, but before she could do so her mother was saying quickly, 'Darling, I have to go, there's someone at the door. Never mind about lunch, we'll fix something for another day, and besides,' she laughed gently, 'I'm sure that you and Seb would much prefer to be on your own...'

She
would certainly like to be on her own Katie admitted, completely and
totally
on her own. Dressing quickly she picked up her bag and her car keys. She needed time to think, time to let the reality of what had happened sink in fully.

While Katie was hurrying down to her car, Seb was getting out of the shower. As he padded naked across his bedroom he caught sight of Charlotte's photograph.

She had been telling him with increasing insistence that it was time he fell in love and remarried. She had taken an immediate liking to Katie. Look at the way she had reacted to that gypsy girl's ridiculous prediction. Seb froze and closed his eyes, muttering a pious prayer-cum-plea beneath his breath as he suddenly remembered what, in the heat of last night's passion, he had so recklessly forgotten.

He knew he had a clean bill of health so what they had done, while irresponsible, was not hazardous, but from the point of view of potential conception... There were modern methods, though. Safeguards... As he hurried towards the door the telephone rang. He hesitated and paused and then quickly reached for the receiver, his heart starting to thud with anxiety as the leader of the field trip Charlotte had been attending the past week explained that there had been a small mishap and that she had suffered a fall.

'They're keeping her in hospital to check that she isn't suffering from concussion,' he explained to Seb, 'but I can assure you that there's nothing for you to worry about.'

'Where is she? Which hospital?' was Seb's uncom-promising response.

Before he left he telephoned Katie's flat, waiting for her to answer for several minutes before hanging up. He couldn't delay any more, not with Charlotte in hospital.

He would have to ring Katie later on his mobile and warn her of the danger he had left her exposed to.

Later, Katie couldn't explain, even to herself, what had prompted her to do what she did or quite how or why she was on her way, virtually at a moment's notice, to Brussels. She'd made a brief telephone call to her twin to warn her that she was coming, and another and even more muddled one to her mother, disjointedly explaining that she was at the airport and on her way to her sister and that she didn't know how long she would be gone.

'It will only be for a couple of days,' she reassured Jenny. 'Tell Dad and Livvy that I'm sorry to spring this on them, but...'

On the other end of the line Jenny simply listened. It was totally unlike Katie to behave so impulsively, but she couldn't help but be glad that the rift she had seen slowly growing between the two girls was now being mended. If Katie needed her twin enough to drop everything to fly over to her then Jenny knew that Louise would be there for her.

'She's gone where?' Jon demanded in astonishment when Jenny broke the news to him of Katie's unplanned visit to her twin sister.

'It will only be for a few days. It's just a short break,'

Jenny soothed him while he sighed in exasperation and then smiled ruefully at her.

'I certainly hope so. We're hellishly busy at the moment. What on earth brought this on?'

When Jenny simply looked at him he gave another rueful paternal sigh and guessed.

'Love trouble!'

'A small crisis of confidence I suspect,' Jenny told him.

'In
Seb?'
Jon frowned. He might not be either a possessive father nor the type who became vehemently verbally proactive on behalf of his children—right or wrong—but he was nevertheless
very
protective of them.

'If that's the case then I should have thought she'd be better off without him.'

'No, not in Seb,' Jenny told him gently. 'I suspect that the confidence she lacks is in herself... I noticed particularly how when she was at university she developed the habit of standing in the shadows as it were, of accepting second place...second best...'

'Like father—like daughter,' Jon offered ruefully as he and Jenny exchanged mutually understanding and loving looks. For many years Jon himself had stood in the shadow of his twin, so much so that his resultant lack of self-esteem had affected every aspect of his life and he and Jenny had been determined that their twin girls would not suffer similarly; encouraging them both to develop and be proud of their differences as well as their similarities.

'Seb will be good for her. He won't allow her to take a back seat in life. As a Cooke he'll know just what it means to sometimes have to fight to win other people's respect and, even more importantly, to maintain one's own. He will understand Katie's vulnerabilities and she'll see through his outer image of toughness to the sensitivity that lies beneath it.'

'Mmm...well, it all sounds very positive and hopeful.'

'I can see a very happy future ahead for the two of them.'

'And I can see a very expensive one ahead for us,'

Jon riposted. 'Why couldn't fate have arranged for them to meet a little earlier? That way she and Louise could have had a double wedding, two for the cost of one, so to speak.'

The airport was exceptionally busy. After she had gone through to the departure lounge Katie checked the board for her flight and then made her way through the crowd to the coffee shop. As she did so, out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a tall dark-haired man crossing the concourse in front of her.

Immediately a fierce surge of joy and excitement raced through her.

'Seb.'

His name was on her lips, her heart pounding. He was here. He had come to look for her. He
wanted
her. He
loved
her just as she loved him. She loved him! She loved Seb. For a few seconds Katie stood perfectly still as the world kaleidoscoped around her and the revelation of her own emotions hit her with all the devastating effect of a strong drug taking over her senses, entering her bloodstream. Her thoughts, her emotions were so searingly intense that she was oblivious to everything else going on around her. She might have been standing completely alone so little did the busy crowds around her impinge on her awareness.

She
loved
Seb.

She closed her eyes and said his name slowly, sa-vouring it and then opened them again frantically searching for his familiar figure. But as she started to hurry towards him, he stopped and turned and with a sickening jolt Katie recognised that the man she had been following wasn't Seb at all and that now she had seen it she saw that his face bore no resemblance to Seb whatsoever. His features lacked the patrician nobility of Seb's.