Читать книгу Her Tycoon Lover - Lee Wilkinson - Страница 14

FOUR days later, Luke was on a flight to Manitoba.

He’d made a phone call before he left, to book his room at the resort. Very casually he’d said, near the end of the conversation, “I’d like a table in the dining room with the same waitress I had before…I believe her name was Katrin.” And then waited, with a dry mouth, to be told she no longer worked there.

“No problem at all, sir. We’ll see you tomorrow evening.”

It was seven-thirty that evening by the time Luke climbed out of his rental car at the resort. He took a deep breath of the cool air. He could smell the lake. The trees rustled companionably behind him. He felt simultaneously very tired and totally wired.

He was here. In only a few minutes, he’d see Katrin again.

Beyond that, he couldn’t go. He didn’t know why he was here, or what he was going to say to her; nor did he have any idea how she’d react to his presence.

He wanted to make love to her. That much hadn’t changed.

Grabbing his overnight bag, he walked to the lobby, checked in and went to his suite. He took a quick shower and dressed in casual cotton trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, combing his hair into some kind of order. He should have gotten a hair cut, he thought absently. His heart was racing, as though he’d been jogging. He felt about as suave as a twelve-year-old.

In the lobby, he grabbed the daily paper; he needed something to do with his hands. Or somewhere to hide his face. He’d never thought of himself as a coward.

What was he doing here?

He’d come on impulse, after that equally impulsive visit to the library in San Francisco yesterday afternoon, where he’d read the reports of the trial. Or had he come because he couldn’t forget Katrin, no matter what he did?

He’d tried. For two whole days, after his lunch with Ramon, he’d pushed any thoughts of her out of his mind as soon as they surfaced.

Forty-eight hours. It didn’t seem like much.

On Saturday night he’d even had dinner with a tall brunette, an architect from Sausalito. A move that had proved equally ineffective.

Taking a deep breath, Luke walked into the dining room. Olaf, the maître d’, said politely, “Good evening, sir. Let me show you to your table.”

Luke was given a table by the window, which gave him a view of the wharf and of a daysailer bobbing gently in the breeze, its red sail furled. He buried his nose in the wine list.

Then, as though a magnet had drawn his attention, he looked up. Katrin was crossing the dining room, carrying a loaded tray, her attention on the table nearest his. He noticed immediately that she was no longer wearing her ugly plastic glasses; her hair was in a loose and very becoming knot on the back of her head, a few strands curling on her nape. Then he saw how pale and tired she looked. Dispirited, he thought slowly. Sad. What could be wrong?

Just before she put the tray down, she glanced over at his table. For a moment frozen in time, she stood like a statue, staring right at him as if he were a ghost. The color fled from her cheeks. The tray tilted sideways; the loaded plates slid gently and inexorably toward the edge.

She suddenly realized what was happening and shifted her grip in a valiant effort to straighten the tray. But she was too late. One after another, four platefuls of roast beef with all the trimmings inscribed graceful arcs in the air and landed on the carpet, the food with an uncouth squelch, the plates with a loud clatter. A Yorkshire pudding rolled under the table, coming to rest by a guest’s sandal. The broccoli, Luke noticed, was the same shade as the carpet.

There was a moment of dead silence. If Katrin’s cheeks a moment ago had been white as paper, they were now as red as the sails on her boat. She put the empty tray down on the dumbwaiter and looked helplessly at the congealed mass of gravy and rare roast beef at her feet. It was quite clear that she had no idea what to do next.

Luke stood up. Into the silence he said, “You didn’t hurt your wrist?”

His voice sounded like it was coming from another man, one who had nothing to do with him. Discovering that his one urge was to pick her up, carry her bodily out of the room and put her on the first plane to San Francisco, he added without any tact whatsoever, “You don’t look so hot…what’s the matter?”

“What are you doing here?” Katrin croaked.

She’d asked the one question to which, basically, he didn’t have an answer. As he sought for words, Olaf arrived on the scene with two waiters in tow, equipped with brooms, cloths and a pail of soapy water.

“Our apologies, ladies and gentlemen,” Olaf said smoothly to the four people whose roast beef was on the floor rather than on the table, and who had been listening in fascinated silence to the exchange between Katrin and Luke. “Your meals will be replaced as quickly as possible,” he went on, “and they will be, of course, compliments of the chef.” Subtly his voice changed. “Katrin, perhaps you could take the plates back to the kitchen and reorder immediately…Katrin?”

She gave Luke a hunted look, then bent to pick up the plates. Plunking them on the empty tray, she almost ran across the dining room. As throughout the room the hum of conversation resumed, Olaf and his crew cleaned up the mess with remarkable efficiency. Then Olaf walked over to Luke’s table. “Perhaps I could take your order, sir?”

Luke hadn’t even looked at the menu. “Soup of the day and whatever fresh fish you have,” he said.

“Wine, sir?”

“Perrier, thanks.” He needed all his wits about him if he was going to talk to Katrin tonight. He should have phoned her yesterday evening and told her he was coming. But deep down he’d been afraid that if he did so, she’d vanish.

Very soon one of the waiters brought the second round of roast beef, passing a plate to each of the four guests. Then Katrin came out of the kitchen carrying Luke’s soup. She walked straight toward him. With a quiver of inner laughter, Luke could tell that she’d progressed from shock and embarrassment to rage. All her movements jerky, like a wind-up toy, she put a basket of rolls on his table and the bowl of soup. Spinach soup, by the look of it. He’d never liked spinach.

He supposed it served him right. He said, trying not to sound overly familiar, and as a result sounding indifferent, “I’m sorry I startled you.”

Between her teeth, she gritted, “Why are you here?”

“To see you,” Luke said.

Her lashes flickered. Once again her cheeks paled, until they matched the white linen cloth on his table. She whispered, “You know. About Donald. Don’t you?”

“You didn’t do it,” Luke said, putting all the force he could behind his words. “You were totally innocent. I knew that the moment I heard about it.”

“I inherited all his money,” she said flatly.

“I don’t care if you inherited a billion dollars—you had nothing to do with his death.”

To his horror Luke saw tears flood Katrin’s eyes and tremble on her lashes. “Oh God,” she said, “I’ve got to get out of here.”

With a huge effort Luke stayed sitting in his chair, his fingers wrapped like manacles around the arms. “I’m really sorry,” he said, and this time could hear the emotion in his voice. “Taking you by surprise like this was about the dumbest move I could have made.”

She drew a long, shaky breath. “For once we’re in complete agreement.”

“Well, that’s something. And now you’d better go back to the kitchen…Olaf’s glaring at me. He probably thinks we’re having a rip-roaring affair.”

“There’s not a chance in the world of that,” she retorted with a trace of her usual spirit. Then she pivoted and hurried back to the kitchen, ignoring Olaf as if he were just one more oak chair.

Hoping she didn’t mean it, Luke buttered a slice of crusty French bread and took the first mouthful of soup. It smelled like and tasted of spinach. Naturally. Trying to think of it as penance, he unfolded his newspaper.

Why had Katrin been so shaken up by her first sight of him?

The fish was excellent. He followed it with a maple syrup mousse that more than made up for the soup, and two cups of coffee. After she’d poured the second one, Katrin said politely, “Can I get you anything else, sir?”

The four guests who’d had the roast beef had just left. Luke said forthrightly, “Can I meet you somewhere after work? Do you have your car here?”

“My bike. Why do you want to meet me?”

“I need to talk to you!”

She looked at him coldly, rather as if he were a fly she’d just discovered in his spinach soup. “You came all this way to talk to me? You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes, I did. And yes, I do.”

“I’d have thought you had better things to do with your time. More profitable, anyway.”

“I came here to see you, Katrin,” Luke repeated, his voice rising in spite of himself.

“Short of hiring a bouncer, I’m not going to get rid of you, am I?”

“Not before you and I sit down and discuss everything I found out.”

“You’re boxing me in!”

“I know I’m not doing this right,” Luke said in exasperation. “Please, Katrin, let me come to your place later on, will you do that much?”

For a moment it hung in the balance. Then she snapped, “No earlier than ten-thirty.”

Her eyes were now filled with a mixture of hostility and terror; Luke wasn’t sure which he disliked more. “I’ll be there,” he said. “Tell Olaf to jump in the lake if he gives you a hard time.”

“My pay gets docked the price of four plates of roast beef,” she said. “C’est la vie.”

“That’s disgraceful—the resort shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”

“I’m not a labor lawyer,” Katrin said sweetly, “I’m a stockbroker. See you later.”

Somehow—once again—Luke was quite sure she was telling the truth. Guy had known her background; that’s why he’d goaded her with talk about investments. She’d be very good at her job, Luke would be willing to bet. Although most people might steer clear of a beautiful female broker who had a murder trial in her past.

Had he really categorized her as deadly dull the first time he’d laid eyes on her? He couldn’t have been more off base if he’d tried.

It was five to nine. He had an hour and a half to kill.

He went for a stroll along the lakeshore, listening to the shrill chorus of frogs and the soft lap of waves on the sand, the hands on his watch moving with agonizing slowness. He should have been on a jet to Whitehorse today, to look after a contract dispute; instead he’d delegated the job. Early this morning he ought to have been talking to a foreman in Texas. But yesterday afternoon had put paid to all his plans and schedules. Yesterday afternoon he’d gone to the library.

Against his better judgment Luke had spent a couple of hours there, reading through the accounts of the trial. The flash photos of Katrin had cut him to the heart. Her dark suit and silk shirt, her smooth, sophisticated chignon, her elegant pumps and gold jewellery: none of these were familiar to him, showing him another side to a woman who was still, in her essence, mysterious. But her air of reserve and her pride of bearing came across even in the grainy newsprint; these he knew all too well.

The headlines were cheap and degrading; her privacy had been mercilessly invaded for months at a time. As for her dead husband, Luke loathed him on sight, with his heavy jowls and thin, rapacious mouth. Why on earth had Katrin married him?

Even now, on the lakeshore, Luke couldn’t get those photos out of his mind.

At ten twenty-four he was in the parking lot unlocking his car. At precisely ten twenty-nine he turned into Katrin’s driveway. The lights were on in the house. A bicycle was parked by the side door. He walked up the steps, wiped his damp palms down the sides of his trousers, and rang the doorbell.

The door was pulled open immediately. Katrin ushered him in and shut the door with an aggressive snap. Then she stood a careful three feet away from him and said brusquely, “We can’t talk for long. I’m on the breakfast shift.”

As an opener, thought Luke, this wasn’t encouraging. She looked as though she’d just gotten out of the shower, her hair still in its loose knot, damp strands curling by her ears. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes guarded; her jeans and loose sweater hadn’t been chosen with seduction in mind. He said, “I like your hair like that.”

“You didn’t come here to talk about my hair.”

He said calmly, “May I sit down?”

She flushed. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No, thanks.” He looked around, trying to get a sense of her surroundings. He was standing in an old-fashioned kitchen, panelled in pine, with colorful woven rugs on the softwood floor and plants on the wide sills. There were dishes in the sink, papers on the oak table, mail thrown on the counter. It was a room as different from his immaculately tidy stainless steel kitchen as could be imagined. He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. With obvious reluctance, Katrin sat down across from him.

As far away from him as she could get.

Luke cleared his throat and said the first thing that came into his head. “Why did you drop the plates when you saw me?”

“You were the last person I was expecting to see.”

“Come on, Katrin, there was more to it than that.”

“If you just came up here to interrogate me,” she said tautly, “you can turn right around and go back.”

He leaned forward. “Yesterday I went through all the newspaper accounts of the trial…I can’t imagine how you survived such an ordeal.”

She tilted her chin. “I knew I was innocent and I had the support of good friends.”

This wasn’t going the way he’d hoped. Hadn’t he pictured her falling into his arms as soon as she opened the door? “Why did you marry him?” Luke asked quietly.

“For his money, of course.”

Luke held hard to his temper. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then you’re one of the few.”

“I never did like going along with the crowd,” he said with a crooked smile, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

“I was young. Naive, if you’re feeling charitable. Stupid, if you’re not.”

She was scowling down at the table, digging at the grain in the wood with one fingernail, the light from the Tiffany lamp shining on her wheat-gold hair. Wanting her so badly he could taste it, Luke said, “I don’t mean to be interrogating you—you’ve had more than enough of that. But after I saw those photos of you in the papers—your dignity and courage, the strain in your face—I can’t explain it. I booked a flight and here I am. I should have let you know, I guess. But I figured if I did, you might take off.”

“You were right. I probably would have.”

“Why?”

“We’ve got nothing to say to each other.”

He suddenly reached across the table and stilled her restless fingers. She snatched her hand back. “Don’t touch me!”

Pain knifed him; followed by jealousy, hot and imperative, clawing at his entrails. “You’ve got me out of your system, haven’t you?” he snarled. “Who with, Katrin?”

She glared at him. “There’s one thing you should know about me, Luke MacRae—I don’t have affairs.”

Slowly his body relaxed. “I’ve dated three different women since I left here and they all bored me to tears.”

“Hurray for you.”

“Why did you marry him?” Luke repeated.

For a long moment she gazed at him across the table. “If I tell you, will you go away?”

His eyes met hers, refusing to drop. “I’m not making any promises.”

“You only want me because I’m not falling into your arms!”

“Give me a little more credit than that.”

“I don’t know what makes you tick—how could I? You’re an enigma to me.”

“You know you’re important enough that I flew all the way up here once I found out what your secret was,” Luke said forcefully. “And if you don’t have affairs, Katrin, I don’t chase women who don’t want me around. Neither do I indulge in bed-hopping, it’s not to my taste.” His throat tight, he asked the second crucial question. “Do you still want to go to bed with me? Because in New York and San Francisco I couldn’t forget you, day or night. Although the nights were worse. I should be in the Yukon right now dealing with contract negotiations—but I’m here instead.” He gave a wintry smile. “I don’t neglect business for anyone. You should be flattered.”

“You frighten me,” she whispered. “You’re like a rockslide—nothing in your path will stop you. And that includes me.”

He was losing, Luke thought, his mouth dry. And how could he push himself on a woman whose boundaries had been cruelly invaded by police, lawyers and the avaricious appetites of the public? Not to mention her husband. “Katrin, let’s get a couple of things straight,” he said in a clipped voice—a voice that belonged to a high-powered businessman rather than a man attempting seduction. “Yes, I want to go to bed with you. But I’m not the marrying kind. No commitments, no permanence. In other words, I won’t hang around pestering you.”

“We already discussed that,” she said frostily. “I’m thinking of going to law school, so I don’t want any complications in my personal life.”

Luke thoroughly disliked being seen as a complication. He said flatly, “Right now, if you tell me you really don’t want me anymore, I’ll leave and I won’t come back.”

His words echoed in his ears. Did he mean them? Could he do it—simply leave, and never know exactly what Katrin meant to him? Surely she did still want him, just as badly as he wanted her? She couldn’t have changed that quickly, not in the few days that he’d been away. So he was now trusting her innate honesty; gambling that she’d tell him the truth.

She said evenly, “You mean that, don’t you?”

Luke nodded, reminded of that long ago day when he was negotiating for his first mine. When his whole life had lain in the balance.

Ridiculous, he told himself. We’re talking bed here. Seduction. Nothing else.

And waited for her reply.