A Perfect Night (19 page)

At her own suggestion, instead of returning to her own apartment, Katie drove over to her parents' where she had arranged to spend the night so that she would be on hand from early in the morning to help her mother and Maddy with their preparations for Ben's party.

As she walked in her mother's kitchen she was welcomed by the warm scent of baking and as Jenny enveloped her in a hug and asked her how her court case had gone, Katie thrust away the image that had been tormenting her all the way home of walking up to her apartment to find Seb waiting there for her with open arms.

But of course, that was never going to happen.

Over supper she chatted with her parents about her visit with Louise and the recent concluded court case.

She'd met with Max while she'd been in Chester and he'd confided to her, 'It looks very much as though I'm going to be elevated to the ranks of Queen's Counsel.'

'Oh Max,' Katie had beamed with sisterly pride.

'That's wonderful.'

'Well, it should help to cheer Gramps up a bit,' Max had agreed. 'I've talked it over with Maddy and we've both agreed that I should tell him during the party.'

'So that he can boast about it to everyone who's there,' Katie had teased, adding truthfully, 'Max, he will be so thrilled, this is what he's always wanted, to be able to claim a member of his own immediate family has those all important initials after his name—Max Crighton, QC. Oh Max...' She had hugged him excitedly and then shared the bottle of champagne that Luke had insisted on opening in their chambers when Max confessed to him that he hadn't been able to resist telling her his good news.

'You deserve it, Max,' Luke assured him and the two men had exchanged such a look of warmth and respect that Katie had felt her eyes start to fill with emotional tears.

'I've already told the folks,' Max had added to Katie just before she left.

'They will be thrilled,' Katie said.

'Yes,' Max agreed, and then giving her a wry look he had added, 'but like me, they feel that what I've got with Maddy and the children is of far more value.'

Katie had hugged him again knowing how much soul-searching and pain had been endured by both Max and Maddy before they had reached the loving intimacy of the marriage they now shared.

Now, seated at the table with her parents, Katie reflected that at least Max's news would take the pressure off her. With Max's elevation to boast about, her grandfather was hardly likely to concern himself with her relationship—or lack of it—with Seb. The female members of the family had never been accorded or merited as much importance in her grandfather's eyes as the males and for once Katie was happy to let that be so.

'Have you seen Seb since you got back?' her mother was asking her in a little concern now. 'You must have missed one another this last week...'

'I...' Now was her chance—her golden opportunity—

to tell her parents the truth, Katie recognised, but as she took a deep breath ready to do so the phone rang and her mother got up from the table and hurried out of the room to answer it.

Before she returned, Max's wife Maddy had arrived to drop off the fruit that Jenny needed to fill the tart cases she had been baking and then, within the hour, Maddy was on her way back to Queensmead where var-ious members of the family were going to be staying for the weekend. Then Louise, Gareth and Nick had arrived and any chance Katie might have had to talk to her parents in private had gone.

'Well, that's the last batch of food delivered to Queensmead and it's time for us to get ourselves ready,'

Louise announced, deftly removing the chocolaty crumbs her son was about to scrunch into her clean outfit

'I can't wait to see you in that dress,' she enthused to Katie who immediately looked down at the floor, causing Louise to stop what she was doing and demand determinedly,

'You
are
going to wear it, aren't you, Katie?'

'I can't,' Katie protested. 'It's not...it's too...anyway, I don't have it here with me, it's at the apartment and there isn't time...'

'Lou,' Katie protested as her twin immediately reached for Katie's handbag and deftly extracted her keys, telling her in a voice that brooked no argument,

'There
is
time. I shall
make
time, and you my dear darling twin will wear it. Gareth,' she called over her shoulder to her husband who had just walked into the kitchen with Jon, 'You're going to have to wash and change Nick. His things are all laid out on the bed upstairs...'

'Louise,' Katie protested but it was too late, her sister was already out of the doorway and heading for hers and Gareth's rented car.

Seb frowned as he put down the telephone receiver. He had just rung Katie's flat for the fifth time without getting any reply that morning.

It had only been when he had telephoned the office and spoken with Olivia that he had discovered that Katie had returned from an unplanned visit to Brussels and then had virtually gone straight to court in Chester.

Was it a set of freak circumstances that was prevent-ing him from being able to speak with her or was she
deliberately
avoiding him? Today was the date set for her grandfather's party—an event to which
he
was supposed to be escorting her—at least according to Guy.

Oh yes, he had enough, and to spare, practical reasons for needing to see Katie, but it wasn't those that were causing the aching longing which had taken over not just his emotions but his thoughts and time as well. Like a series of vivid flashbacks he kept getting mental images of the night they had made love, images which tormented every one of his five senses.

Broodingly he wondered what Katie herself was thinking and feeling. Did she regret what had happened?

Did she blame him for it...hate him for it? Was she avoiding him out of embarrassment or anger? Did she...

Did he really need to ask himself those questions he derided himself bitterly? He only had to remember what he had said to her before they had made love, the accusations he had made, the anger he had shown. But once they had touched, kissed, held one another... There was no point in him staying here, he decided, he might as well go out.

Louise was just crossing the hallway to Katie's flat when Seb opened his own front door.

'Katie...' he began and then stopped as he realised his mistake and Louise, who had seen the hope and longing flare quickly in his eyes only to die when he saw
her,
made a mental promise to herself that her twin would most definitely wear her new dress even if she herself had to dress her in it and drag,her forcibly to the party.

'Katie's at home helping my mother get ready for Gramps's party,' Louise told him easily.

'Yes. Yes, of course. I...er...how is she?' Seb asked lamely.

Louise looked at him. Although they were identical twins, Seb knew that he could never mistake Louise for her twin. Katie was special, unique, she was...

'If you're
really
concerned, if you
really
care...'

Louise emphasised, 'Then perhaps you should tell her so,' she suggested firmly.

Seb frowned.

Had Katie discussed what had happened between them with her twin? It seemed out of character for her.

He knew instinctively that she was a very private and even reserved person, but twins shared a relationship and an intimacy that went far beyond that shared by non-twin siblings.

Louise brandished the elegant carrier bag she was holding.

'Katie's dress...for the party...' she told him conversationally, adding more pointedly and not entirely truthfully, 'She bought it in Brussels to wear today. For you...'

She was taking a huge risk, Louise knew that, and even worse she was not the one she was doing the risk taking for. If she had got it wrong and Seb did not care...

If he was merely being polite...if what had happened between the two of them
had
simply been an impulsive act of the moment with no emotional importance in it for him, but no...there had been no mistaking that uncertain moment when he had asked about Katie, the very way he had been there, wanting to ask about her.

'The party starts at three,' she told him quietly, and then before he could say anything she hurried towards the lift.

Back at her parents' home Louise made no mention of seeing Seb much less of having spoken with him.

Instead, she bundled Katie upstairs ignoring her protests that the dress was far too over the top for the nature of the event, pausing only to kiss Gareth as he emerged from their bedroom holding Nick.

'Mmm...you both smell wonderful,' she told him, adding impishly, 'Baby powder is soooo sexy on a man...'

'Lou, I can't
possibly
wear this,' Katie wailed. 'You can see right through it.'

'No you can't, it's got a nude slip, you just think you can...'

'That's what I mean,' Katie told her despairingly. 'It looks as though I haven't, as though I'm not...it's...'

'It's provocative and sexy and you look stunning in it,' Louise told her firmly.

She
did
look stunning in it Katie acknowledged as Louise determinedly turned her round to the mirror and commanded,

'Look...yes, I
know
you can see through it, but like I said, all you can actually see through to is the lining.

Yes, I
know
it's flesh-coloured but look, it isn't as though you're showing masses of cleavage, not with that neat little round neck-hugging neckline, and, in fact, the only bits of you that are really bare are your arms and legs...'

'Maybe, but everyone will think that
all
of me...'

'Let them,' Louise interrupted her and then said with quiet sincerity, 'Katie, it looks wonderful on you. You
must
wear it. It makes you look...it makes you look like you should look...'

As she gave Louise an old-fashioned glance Louise shook her head and said, 'No, not like that. Yes, all right, it
is
sexy, but it's also stylish, elegant and sensual, not sleazy as you seem to be trying to say. There's nothing cheap or sleazy about it...or about you...

'Come on, it's time we went down, otherwise we're going to be late. Oh no,' she added when Katie told her that she needed to get her car keys, 'You don't think for one minute that I'm going to let you out of my sight, much less into your own car so that you can sneak back to your apartment and get changed behind my back.

You're coming with us...come on...'

Queensmead was a big house with plenty of spare bedrooms which was just as well, Maddy had told Jenny, because they were certainly going to need them to put up all those members of the family who wanted to stay overnight.

'And when you add in all the children...it's just as well that most of them are still small enough to share their parents' rooms.'

As Katie walked into Queensmead's drawing room she could see what Maddy had meant, large though the room was, it was packed, filled with people.

Saul and Tullah were standing with their children talking with Saul's parents. Luke and Bobbie were in another group which included James, Luke's brother, their two sisters and their families and their parents.

'Looks like there's a full turn-out from the Chester contingent of the Crightons,' Louise remarked to Katie as they stood together just inside the doorway.

'Mmm...that's definitely going to make Gramps's day,' she began, thinking of how pleased their grandfather would be at being able to boast to the two cousins he had always secretly felt he had had to compete with, of Max's good news, but Louise who didn't as yet know, gave her a puzzled look.

Bobbie, Luke's American wife who had just caught sight of the twins, was waving to them and, detaching herself from her own family group, came over, bringing her children with her.

'Wow...love the dress,' she approved as she studied Katie appraisingly. 'It is just soooo sexy...'

As Katie coloured up Louise groaned and then laughed, 'Don't tell her
that.
I've just spent the last hour convincing her that it isn't...'

'I never said you'd succeeded,' Katie pointed out dryly.

'So...' Bobbie teased her gently, 'Where is he?'

Katie knew perfectly well who the 'he' Bobbie meant was and she closed her eyes as a wave of sharp pain clawed her.

Louise was nudging her, warning, 'Katie... Katie...'

causing her to open them again but the words of protest she had been about to deliver to her twin were lost when she saw Seb standing framed in the open doorway.

Even among the collective force of her male Crighton relatives, all of them tall, all of them dark and all of them extremely good looking, Seb stood out as she slowly scanned him. Katie avidly allowed her starved senses full rein to enjoy themselves and then Seb turned his head and saw her.

Katie sucked in her breath. The way he was looking at her made her feel—made her think...made her
believe ..
. Her heart was pounding heavily, the interested massed ranks of her family faded into total oblivion. Seb was still looking at her and in his eyes she could see...

She saw his lips form her name and then he was moving towards her. At her side Louise gave her a firm push in Seb's direction and somehow she was taking one step forward and then another and all the time he was looking at her with 'that' look.

Seb was used to large families. His own was huge, but the Crightons were a family apart, or so Ben Crighton liked to think, and as he stood looking into the packed drawing room Seb could see why. But there was only one person there
he
really wanted to see. Quickly he searched the room and then he found her, standing next to her sister, wearing a dress that made her look as ethe-real as a wood sprite, as delicate and fragile as a piece of thistledown, as... He caught his breath as he saw the way she was looking at him, her whole heart in her eyes.

'Katie...' he breathed her name and the crowd of people separating them seemed to part as though by magic.

'Katie...'

As he reached her and said her name Katie closed her eyes unable to stop the ecstatic shudder of happiness that shook her and then she was in his arms and he was holding her, kissing her.