Getting It Right This Time (25 page)

“But she was discovered by you.”

Silence.

“I love you, Mark Johnston.”

He looked up, met her eyes. “Underwood has never forgiven me for the interviews I’ve turned him down for. Once Mum and Dad paid the massive fines and Dad was served with extended probation, they moved to Scotland to get away from Underwood. I swear for as long as I live, Kate, I will use my money to give people the chance to survive. To win. People make mistakes, but they shouldn’t be forced to pay for them forever.”

“And what mistakes have you made?”

“You really have to ask that?”

Kate frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I let you go. That’s the biggest mistake I ever made--letting James take you away from me.

Never again. Never again will I lose you. Never.”

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She swallowed as her heart picked up speed and lust and love soared through her body. “Then why don’t we forget the food and take dessert in the living room?”

A smile twitched his lips. “The living room?”

“Humor a mum, Mark. I can’t remember the last time I had the freedom to eat dessert on the living room carpet.” She paused, winked. “If you know what I mean?”

She stood up and walked from the room, her body humming with desire. He followed behind, so close she could hear him breathing. She clutched the banister. “I’ll be two seconds, go on in.”

“Where are you…”

She wiggled her eyebrows. “All will be revealed.”

Kate raced up the stairs, laughing when he planted a smack on her bottom. She went into her bedroom and slipped off her dress. Even though it was far from high-necked, her reliable black dress suddenly felt too restricting. Ideally, she would have the courage to strut naked down the stairs except for the single white rose Mark gave her slipped into her hair like a model from a Renaissance painting. But she wasn’t that brave…yet.

She hurried to the wardrobe and pulled out her new purchase. The sapphire blue satin nightdress and matching wrap had called to her from the picture window of the lingerie shop.

She’d been lured inside the shop under its shiny, sheeny spell as though in a hypnotic trance. She shimmied into it and smoothed her hands over her waist and hips. Mark made her feel sexy. Mark made her feel alive. She blinked against the tears that sprung into her eyes.

She couldn’t regret the wasted years, because those years with James gave her Jessica, but if only her stupid pride hadn’t stopped her from telling Mark how she’d felt. Why did she leave it up to him? Reading far too many of her mother’s romance novels were likely to blame. She’d been stuck in the idea her hero would come along and throw her over his shoulder whilst banging his chest with his fist and verbalizing ownership to the entire world.

Sitting at her dresser, Kate laughed and swiped at her tears. Mark would never have done that. Even though he’d owned her the minute he looked at her all those years ago. The man back then lacked the self-belief to act upon what he felt humming between them like a tangible thread--

but now? Kate ran her hand over the curve of her breasts. Now, he’d take her and then some.

Grinning, she opened her jewelry box and swapped her simple gold hoop earrings for a pair of pearl teardrops. Memories of Mark’s parents swept through her mind’s eye and she spared a thought for what they must have gone through at the pen and camera of Underwood. Her hands shook and Kate took a few deep breaths. Well, she and Mark would pay him back by standing united against him.

With a final spritz of perfume to each wrist and between her breasts, Kate stood up, tipped a saucy a wink at her reflection and made her way downstairs. She peered around the frame of the living room door and gasped. She pressed her hand to her mouth and drank him in.

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He’d taken the somewhat presumptuous action of removing his shirt. He lay on her living room floor, all beautiful six feet, two inches of him out flat, his hands relaxed on either side of him, his eyes closed. Kate crept into the room and stood over him with every part of her body aching for his touch. His skin was dappled bronze beneath the moving flames of the ten or more candles he’d lit on the mantelpiece. He looked like a powerful Roman warrior.

Kate surrendered. She released every fear, every reluctance, every doubt she’d felt since leaving Foxton all those years ago. She was home. Home with a child she loved more than life itself and the one man she’d always wanted. The man she knew was her destiny since the age of eighteen when Mark held her hand for the first time.

Lowering her body over his, she lay on top of him and his eyes flickered open.

He smiled sleepily. “Hi.”

Kate kissed his jaw. “Hi.”

“I was thinking how beautiful you are.” He traced his fingertip across each of her eyebrows in turn. He stopped. “Wait. What’s this?”

Heat leapt to her cheeks when he fingered the spaghetti straps of the nightdress, the smooth surface of his nail gliding over her skin, waking up every sensitized inch of her flesh.

“That’s cheating, Miss Marshall.”

She took his bottom lip gently between her teeth and their eyes locked. The hazel irises, the jet black pupils of his eyes bore into her soul as Kate saw her own eyes in their reflection and they were hungry. She wanted him so much it hurt. She released his lip and pressed her mouth hard to his. An almost animal-like moan escaped from deep within his throat, stoking the heat between her legs. She writhed and moved on top of him, felt her dampness through the scrap of her thong and the thin satin of the dress.

With their lips together and his fingers roughly tangled in her hair, she moved from his chest to the side. Sliding her hand down the firm flatness of his stomach toward his belt, Kate smiled.

He inched away from her. “Kate?”

She met his eyes. “Mmm?”

“I love you.”

She grinned. “You’re going to love me even more in about sixty seconds.”

“Aw, man.”

She laughed as she slid down the length of his body and with her head level with his fly, she undid that pesky buckle and got rid of those troublesome trousers.

Chapter 14

Mark stormed into Liam’s office and slammed the door.

His assistant leapt from his seat and slapped his hand to his chest as though he’d been shot.

“Jesus, Mark. Give me a heart attack, why don’t you?”

“A heart attack?” Mark said as he marched toward him. “A heart attack? Count yourself lucky Kate is a saner woman than me, otherwise I would’ve wrung your neck with my bare hands yesterday.”

The color drained from Liam’s face, and his throat shifted as he swallowed, but still he tilted his chin in a gesture of defiance. “And what is it I’m supposed to have done?”

Mark rested his knuckles on the edge of the desk. “Sit down. And for Christ’s sake drop the attitude. You are nowhere near experienced enough to pull it off.”

Bristling, Liam sat down. “I don’t know--”

“Why weren’t you following Marcia yesterday like I asked you to?”

“I did.”

Mark glared at him. “No, Liam, you didn’t.”

Liam’s eyes darkened, his gaze not wavering from Mark’s for a second. Mark continued to glare at him, acknowledging that maybe Liam possessed the backbone to be an agent one day after all. Especially if he was going to face him off at that moment--if he was going to seriously try to do that, then the kid’s balls were bigger than King Kong’s.

“I tailed her until six o’clock,” Liam said, quietly. “I tailed her to the theatre and then went home. Her performance doesn’t finish until after midnight. I didn’t expect her to get up to a lot after that. Did something happen after midnight?”

“Where were you yesterday at lunch time?”

“Outside the coffee shop on Union Street. She went in there for something to eat. Bit downscale for Marcia, but maybe she’s changing her ways.” He smiled, and then it dissolved.

“What?”

“Kate was in there with her daughter.”

Liam said nothing for a moment and then blew out a breath. “And? Mark, why are you acting as though she put a gun to her head? She wouldn’t do anything to hurt Kate in the middle of a public place.”

Mark pushed away from the desk and fisted his hands on his hips. “You don’t get it, do you? Underwood went in there afterward and got some pictures of Kate and her daughter. If those pictures show up on the front page of any magazine, I’ve lost her.”

“Who?”

“Kate!” Mark glared at him.

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Getting It Right This Time

“Oh, right.”

“No, Liam, it’s not right. I spent the night with her last night thinking about this the entire time. I’ve got to put this shit to bed.”

Liam looked at him. “Do you know something?”

“What now?”

“I’m starting to think maybe Marcia’s got a point. The way you’ve been acting since Kate turned up is not normal. I understand she’s the love of your life but this paranoia…”

The occasional suspicion Liam could have something to do with Mark’s myriad of problems came teetering to the top of his conscience again. There was only one way to find out. He crossed his arms.

“How much, Liam?”

“What?”

“How much is she paying you? Do I not pay you enough to ensure your damn loyalty?”

The room fell silent, and Mark heard the roaring of his blood as it rushed through his system--

he’d worked with Liam from the start. He was barely out of university when he’d applied for the job as Mark’s PA. He’d respected Mark was starting out and wanted to be a part of the business, learn every aspect from the bottom up before realizing his own dreams of being a theatrical agent one day. Mark saw the glimpses of possibility, but if the kid had stabbed him in the back and slithered in side by side with Marcia, he would kick his ass to kingdom come.

“She’s paying me nothing.”

Mark stomach lurched. “You did this for nothing?”

“I haven’t done anything.”

Mark stared at him. His gut told him Liam spoke the truth. That maybe he had a point about him losing his mind over Kate but his defenses were weak. He needed her and after last night, probably the best night of his entire life, if he lost Liam, the business, none of it mattered. He could start again. He could find new clients. But there was only one Kate--and there was only one Jess.

“You’re not working with Marcia to sabotage my relationship with Kate, the business?”

Liam’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe you’d say that to me, Mark. God, I work my ass off for you. You know I do.” He got to his feet, held up his hand. “Do you know what? I’m sick to death of this shit. First Marcia, now you…”

Mark tensed. “So she has said something to you.”

Liam flicked his hand in the air. “Of course she has. She’s a bloody diva, isn’t she? She threatened to ruin me, to make sure I lost my job with you and never worked in the theatre business.

She’s mental. I told her to try.”

“Wait a minute. So you knew what she was up to and never told me? That makes you part of this.”

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“She said you needed to get away from Kate and focus on your clients. I told her she was being ridiculous. That your clients are important to you and you’d never let anything personal get in the way of that. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Guilt whispered along Mark’s nerve endings, but he nodded. “Of course.”

Liam gave a satisfied nod. “That was the night you saw her at my place. She knew she had no chance of me turning on you so she never mentioned it again. I thought she’d dropped the whole malicious carry-on. But from what you’re saying, she’s done it again.”

Mark dropped into the visitor’s chair. “She’s working with Underwood, I’m sure of it.

Underwood would sell his soul to the devil to get to me. Taking pictures and making up shit is nothing to that man. Nothing at all. He fired off a load of shots of Marcia, Kate and Jessica before skipping out of that damn café like the spineless sap he is.”

“Maybe he won’t publish them. Well, of Jessica anyway. Even a moron like Underwood wouldn’t stoop that low, would he?”

“Who knows? I wouldn’t put anything past him. I just hope Kate keeps to her promise and sees this out.” He paused, bit his teeth together. “But as for Marcia? She’s out of here. She can find someone else to represent her spiteful ass, because I’ve had a gutful.”

He stood up, walked toward the door and stopped when he opened it. “Get her on the phone, tell her I want to see her. Today.”

With adrenaline pumping through his veins and heating his blood, Mark marched along the corridor to his own office. He pushed open the door. And the sight that greeted him sent his blood to boiling point and his anger to fever pitch.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Marcia whipped around, laughed. “God, Mark, don’t do that! I nearly slammed my finger in this thing.”

Dressed in a black skirt suit that skimmed and fitted her body like a second skin, sky-high heels and a low fitting top, she looked like Cruella de Ville. Mark narrowed his eyes and slammed the door shut.

“Why are your fingers anywhere near my filing cabinets, Marcia? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kick you out on the street right now. You can’t come in here--”

“I think I can, Mark,” she purred, her smile widening. “I’ve been taking care of quite a bit of your business over the last few weeks, wouldn’t you say?”

He strode toward her and without thinking, gripped her wrist. She gasped. “Ow, take your hand off me. Right now.”

“Sit down.” He steered her toward his chair and pushed her into it before releasing her. She rubbed at her wrist as she glowered at him. He stared straight back, his heart beating like a drum in his head. “I want some bloody answers.”

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She let go of her wrist and gripped the arms of the chair instead. The seconds passed as her blue eyes moved slowly over his body, from head to toe. She closed them for a moment and when they re-opened her gaze was like that of an innocent doe.