Getting It Right This Time (23 page)

“Just tell me.”

“It will save a lot of heartbreak in the end.”

Suspecting Marcia was enjoying every minute of her sadistic torture, Kate leaned back in her seat in a show of nonchalance. “Marcia, please just spit it out. I want to take Jess home and the longer I sit here, the more likely it is that some other idiot will come in here with a camera.”

“Mark and I were lovers, Kate.”

The woman might as well have slapped her across the face. Kate’s breath caught like barbed-wired in her throat but somehow she managed to maintain the nonchalance, a small smile even played at her lips. “Why would you lie?” she asked, her voice so much calmer than the fireworks storming around inside her. “What good will it do you?”

“Exactly. So you must know I’m not lying. Didn’t you hear Underwood just say--”

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Kate held up her hand, cutting her off. She threw a quick glance at Jessica. Once Kate was confident she was still happily playing on the fiberglass horse, she turned back around and leaned across the table toward Marcia. Her foot bounced manically up and down beneath the table.

“Now you listen to me,” she said, quietly. “I don’t know what else you want from Mark but you won’t get it. Believe me, he’ll pour his entire being into your career, but sweetheart, anything else? It’s never going to happen.”

An unflattering shade of red flooded Marcia’s face. “It already has.”

Kate swallowed. “For God’s sake…”

“I know he hasn’t told you about us, but I refuse to let him make fools of us both.”

Kate stared at her. Tiny voices of doubt whispered into her brain and try as she might, she couldn’t silence them. Marcia looked away and as Kate stared at her profile, she couldn’t ignore how fragile, even afraid she looked. If she was telling the truth…

“Fine,” Kate said, clasping her hands tightly together in front of her to hide the shaking.

“I’ll talk to him.”

Marcia turned, slapped her hand to her chest. “Good, good. That’s all I ask. He needs to tell you about the future we had planned before you came back. We were going to leave Foxton and start building my career in New York or Sydney. Mark was equally as excited as me.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”

Kate stared at her. The pain on her face was too deep to be denied. She gripped her hands tightly together. “Do you love him?”

She nodded, her sapphire eyes shining. “Yes. But I’m not telling you this in the hope you’ll leave him.”

“Then why?”

She put her knife and fork down on the table and reached for Kate’s joined hands. Kate barely managed to resist pulling them away. “Mark needs to understand he can’t get away with hurting people this way. He promised me the world a couple of weeks ago and now he’s doing the same to you.”

Feeling as though she stood at the edge of an extremely high cliff, Kate took a breath. “Give me one good reason why I should believe there is anything more to this than jealously.”

“I am not lying.”

Giving in, she pulled her hands from Marcia’s. “I have been away for five years. Don’t you think I’d be pretty stupid to think Mark didn’t have other relationships in that time? He has no reason to keep them from me. Why wouldn’t he tell me about you? Unless, of course, it never happened.”

Jess suddenly came bounding up to the table and Kate immediately stood up, refusing to sit there with the tension simmering like a lit bomb between her and Marcia.

Marcia stood too. “Kate…”

“I’m going,” Kate snapped. “Right now.”

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“Fine. But at least take these.”

With her heart beating an out of control tattoo in her chest, Kate fumbled with her handbag and shopping bags while Marcia rifled inside her own bag. Kate hitched the bags onto her shoulders and took hold of Jessica’s hand.

“What are you looking for? I want to go.”

“Wait, wait. You must take these.”

“Take what?”

“These.” Marcia thrust some papers at her.

Kate swallowed. “What are they?”

“Just read them. Then you can make up your own mind.”

Kate’s gaze swept over the front sheet and a cold sweat formed on the back of her neck as she recognized Mark’s handwriting. “Marcia…”

“It’s evidence of our plans together. Our relationship. If you don’t believe what I’m saying, maybe you’ll believe what is right in front of you in black and white. I’m so sorry.”

And then she brushed past Kate and left the coffee shop. Her uneaten lasagna completely devoid of steam and now just an unappetizing mess. Unable to help herself, Kate turned over the first page and nausea immediately burned in her stomach.

The photocopied airline tickets showed Mark and Marcia’s planned flight to Paris the following week. Could it be a business trip? Or had Mark been planning on whisking his long-term lover away for a weekend of passion and romance?

Kate stormed from the shop, dragging poor Jessica behind her. She didn’t know but knew damn sure she would by the end of the day.

Chapter 13

Kate pulled up to the iron gates of The Landscape. Her anger had simmered into submission on the drive over and now only frustration remained. Deep down she knew it would serve no purpose for Mark to keep a romantic relationship with Marcia from her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want an explanation. Leaning through the open window, she punched in the security code on the panel beside her.

“No doubt the explanation is Marcia Langton is a head case,” she murmured.

The gates slowly opened, and she drove through them. As she started the drive toward the house, she tipped the rearview mirror at an angle. Jessica had fallen asleep within ten minutes of them leaving the car park in town, and for that at least, Kate was grateful. She loved her more than anything in the world but Jessica’s incessant chatter about “Mummy’s lady friend” and “the bad man with the camera” had been difficult to listen to.

And Kate knew the moment Jess’s eyes opened again, she would be straight in for round two. Not only was her daughter intelligent, she was ridiculously intuitive and Kate suspected she sensed the tension in the café like a heavy cloak around her three-year-old shoulders.

Swallowing her guilt, she pulled to a stop beside Mark’s Mercedes and got out. Stretching the kinks from her neck and shoulders, she reached her arms above her head. If she could just transfer Jess from the car to somewhere comfy without waking her, it would be a much needed bonus. Having no idea how the upcoming conversation with Mark would pan out, she didn’t want Jess witnessing it, either way.

Lifting her daughter carefully from the car seat and elbowing the door shut, Kate walked around to the back of the house. As she’d guessed, even though it was Saturday, Mark still worked, albeit outside in the sunshine. Concentration creased his brow as he pored over the papers spread out in front of him. It passed through Kate’s mind that they probably didn’t make as interesting reading as those in her bag. She took a few steps closer, and he lifted his head. The moment their eyes met, her heart stopped. She loved him so much.

His jet black hair shone blue in places beneath the sunlight, his hazel eyes instantly changing from distracted concentration to delight when he saw her. His mouth stretched into a slow sexy smile that kick-started her heart and made her center burn. He was all she wanted and more. Marcia would not ruin it with her words and lies. Whatever she thought she would achieve by this, she was wrong. Together, she and Mark would stamp it out. Yet, despite her positive thoughts, the sharp sting of tears belied the fear Mark may have kept a relationship with Marcia secret from her. That maybe there were other skeletons in the cupboard that would fall out one by one over the coming months.

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She climbed the steps onto the veranda, and he rose from his chair. His smile was so infectious, Kate returned it and for a moment they stood in silence grinning at each other.

“Hi,” she said eventually.

“Hi.” He leaned forward to press a kiss to her cheek. “This is a nice surprise.”

She tipped her head toward Jessica. “Can I put her on your sofa?”

His eyes softened when he gazed at Jessica’s sleeping face. “Sure.”

With the maneuverability only a mother could execute, Kate shifted Jessica’s weight, hitched her handbag from her shoulder and dropped it onto the honey-colored decking. She followed Mark back down the steps and he led her across the huge stone patio toward the mammoth conservatory stretching the breadth of the house. The puffy cream and navy blue sofas inside provided the perfect cozy makeshift bed for Jessica. Carefully laying her down, Kate kissed her temple and then she and Mark left the room.

As soon as they stepped outside, Mark drew her into his arms. She welcomed the feel of his lips against hers and melted into it, savoring and filing away each sensation, each touch, in case it was the last. Her hands stole around his waist, inviting him closer, their kiss intensifying as their tongues searched and devoured.

When they pulled apart, Kate laughed as she touched her tender lips. “I guess we’ve missed each other over the last few days.”

He stared deep into her eyes. “I love having you here. It feels…”

Kate’s stomach did a pleasant loop the loop. “Right?”

He nodded. “Right.”

They shared another kiss before Kate forced herself to bring the matter of Marcia to the forefront of her mind. She slid her hands down his strong forearms to hold his hands. He frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“I ran into Marcia in town today.”

The frown deepened. “And?”

“Let’s go and sit.” Dropping one of his hands, she kept the other firmly intertwined with his and led him back along the patio and up the steps to the veranda. She sat and watched his handsome profile as he gathered his documents and stacked them in a neat pile.

He placed his pen on top, sat down and met her eyes. “So…what did Miss Marcia have to say for herself?”

Kate leaned down and drew the papers from her bag and slid them across the wrought iron table toward him. With his eyes questioningly lingering on hers, he slowly took them. Kate went rigid in her seat as she waited. His gaze darted over the first page, then the second, then the third, his jaw tightening with each passing second. After what felt like hours, he slowly folded the papers and placed them carefully on the table as though they were made of glass. He looked up.

“What did she say these were?”

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Kate’s mouth was devoid of saliva, she swallowed. “A trip away. The two of you were in a relationship before I came along, and you were planning to leave for Paris next week.”

“And you believe her?” His eyes were unreadable as he stared at her.

She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

He pushed out his bottom lip, slowly nodded his head up and down. “I see. Well, why don’t I clear up that problem for you first, and then we can deal with the bigger issue.”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “Why are you talking to me like that? I’m not the one on trial here.”

“No, it appears that would be me.”

Defensiveness bristled through her, causing the hairs on her arms to rise. The atmosphere shifted, charging the air around them with its heat. Was he being this flippant due to guilt or anger?

“Why are you reacting like this?” she asked, lifting her hands. “What did you expect me to think when the woman practically wet herself in her enthusiasm to show me those papers?”

“And you didn’t stop to think she could be making trouble between us?”

“Of course I did,” Kate said. “I’m not stupid, but I still need to know if there is any truth in what she is saying. Is that so wrong? I don’t think so.”

He crossed his arms. “The tickets were for a business trip. There’s a theatre in Paris I think Marcia should visit with me. I hoped it would pull her back to why she started acting in the first place. It is old and modest, the entire audience is the same number that would fill the stalls only at the Theatre Royal.”

“So you’re saying her ego was escalating sky-high before I even came back to Foxton?”

A small smile twitched his lips. “I can hardly be heard saying that about one of my clients now, can I?”

“Maybe not, but I can.”

Mark dropped his arms. “I thought you were going to throw another barrage of doubts at me.

I don’t think I can do this alone. If you don’t believe…”

She reached across the table and took his hand. “I do believe. But I’m not sure if I can pay the price for us to be together.”

He looked at her. “What are you saying? God, Kate, I’d pay any price to be with you. Any price at all.”

“You can’t say that. I have Jess’s welfare to consider, and it seems to me that Marcia is becoming increasingly unhinged.”

He smiled. “Unhinged?”

“I’m serious! The woman has the look of a maniac sometimes. I don’t know how you work with her. You do know she’s in love with you, don’t you?”

“She said something along those lines. But I don’t think how she’s behaving backs that sentiment up, do you?”

“Exactly. Why would she be in love with you? I mean she’s successful, wealthy and beautiful. She could have pretty much any man, why does she want you?”

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“Gee, thanks.”

Kate winked. “I’m joking. I know why she wants you. The thing that sticks in my gut is her reasons are a million miles away from mine. She wants to keep you focused on making her career fly off the scale. God forbid you should have any sort of personal life. I don’t trust her, Mark, and I don’t think you do either.”

He closed his eyes. “You’re right. I don’t. Not anymore. But then again, I don’t trust anyone at the moment.” He opened his eyes. “Except you.”

“What are we going to do?”

He reached across the table for his Blackberry. “The first thing we’re going to do is let Miss Langton know I have a personal life. A personal life I am not giving up.”