The Passionate Mistake (14 page)

In the light of the streetlamps he
wore a faint frown and there was a shadow in his eyes.

“Back to my place?
” he said with the hint of a question in his tone.

She gazed at him for a long moment of silence, then smiled and said: “Yes.”

Chapter Fifteen

On Sunday morning she woke and stretched slowly, the smooth glide of luxurious cotton sheets contrasting with the subtle ache of overused muscles. She heard the faint clatter – already familiar – of Mike working some wizardry in the kitchen.

Mike was a nurturer. He fed her body, then he lavished it with languorous lovemaking, then he fed her again. A woman could get used to this very quickly. They should probably go for a walk or do some sort of exercise.

Well, some
other
sort of exercise. Surely a surfeit of sex didn’t really count for much when it came to calorie burning? Nothing that felt so wickedly good could also be virtuous. It stood to reason.

She definitely should shower. Take the opportunity to escape from this wide bed for the few minutes that Mike’s attention was elsewhere. Perhaps he would come in and join her
in the shower. He had done that yesterday, and his well-informed hand on the control of the water jets had been quite an education.

Of course it had made it very difficult to stand upright. In the end he had to hold her up. But he didn’t seem to mind.

In fact he didn’t seem to mind much of anything. She could hear him whistling in little snatches, then stopping, as if remembering the sleeping woman in the next room, then breaking out again as if he couldn’t help himself.

She knew the feeling. Or at least on the inside of her skin it felt like bursting with happiness, with delight, with a rare, pure joy.

Almost pure. Almost. But as dark clouds threatened to gather she reminded herself she wasn’t thinking about this stuff.

In fact, she was getting better at not thinking about it. She could feel her mind
travel in that uncomfortable direction, and she could stop it; Like slamming a door it its face. Door shut. Think about something else. Think about that shower.

So she washed, and dressed in his robe
, put on her protective barrier of make up and went to find him. They ate together – French toast and the grapefruit juice that she was coming to like – and talked about random things like the books on his shelves and whether French toast was better sweet, savory or a mix of the two, and if the people in the sailboats on the water could possibly be having such a pleasant weekend as they were.

She felt she was doing a good job of steering their conversations away from herself. Not that there was really anything that was a secret for Kate. It was Cathy who had all the secrets. If he brought up work she could refer to working in the family business and although she had twice caught
herself just before she made a comment that would have revealed familiarity with the way he ran his company, she had covered that possibility – rather cleverly she thought – by asking all manner of questions about his work so now a slip of the tongue that revealed her knowledge could have come from his words rather than from her own personal experience.

“. . . but that’s no part of my goals for the company.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, having missed a couple of crucial sentences of what he was saying, and hoping he’d fill the gaps without realizing her inattention.

“About profit sharing?”

“Yes. What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Only that in our society now, and most particularly in our industry, the average person controls the means of production.
The computers. We all have them, and they are the most versatile, powerful tool humanity has ever created. For business to survive in a meaningful way, it has to share more with employees. Otherwise they’ll opt out.”

“
Opt out?”

“Opt out of being employed. Work for
themselves. Why not? They have the tool, sitting on a desk at home. They have the means of production. And everyone has an idea, somewhere inside them. Sometimes not so deeply buried. Success now is not a matter of ‘can you produce the goods?’ It is ‘can you get the goods noticed?’ I think the next big learning curve will be marketing and self-promotion. That’s the basis of all the social media hoohaa, and such a small proportion of those who are trying it are getting it right. Don’t you think?”

“Yes, that’s true. And all the self-taught ‘social media gurus’ are a bit of a joke. But I still don’t get what you mean by profit sharing.”
She was smiling, taking such delight from his fine mind, the ease with which he discussed ideas both practical and philosophical.

“I believe businesses with employees have to get buy-in from those people, or they’ll lose them. Why work for someone else when you can do the same thing at ho
me with so many more freedoms, and keep all the profit?” He leaned back in his chair, head tilted back contemplatively, one large hand resting on the table. “Sure, once upon a time running a business meant taking your hands off the work you loved while you tried to be salesperson, accountant, market researcher and every other role your growing business needed. But now software packages can do so much of those roles, the internet provides instant information and contacts, and social media – if you use it right – builds sales and marketing right into the activities you’d do recreationally.”

“You mean businesses have to give away some of the
ownership of the business to keep their staff? Or everyone will take off and build their own start-up?”

“Exactly.
If people have the sense their efforts are growing something they themselves own, they’re not only much more motivated to work hard, they are more likely to stay.”

“So turning your whole building into a playground isn’t enough, you have to give stuff away too?” she asked in a teasing tone.

“Oh, the playground is more about creativity than work satisfaction. The two are linked of course, but not exactly the same.”

“You really do tie your employees to the business with chains of steel, don’t you?”

“It’s my job. Making sure together we all get where we want to go.”

“It’s so different.”

“What is?”

“
Listening to how you talk about the business. I mean, Dad and Damian treat our business like it’s a money making machine, and the only question is how much is coming out of it. Dad talks about it like it’s broken and gets all angry and frustrated at it. Then you talk about it like it’s a . . . I don’t know . . . a living organism or something. Something to take care of. And you don’t . . .”

He waited patiently while she sorted through images, trying to put her finger on the exact thing she meant. She saw Dad, pointing a finger and laying the blame elsewhere.
Always on some other person or thing. She saw Damian trying to ape their father’s bluster as he laid down the law to a man a decade his senior – the only way he’d ever seen an employee directed. The man’s face had closed and he’d listened quietly, then turned away when Damian had finished speaking. Another ‘flake’ who had quickly left the company.

She saw an office full of people at their desks with heads down, s
houlders hunched as Damian and Dad went at it hammer and tongs over why exactly a major client had bailed. And how they couldn’t possibly survive if another big account like that walked.

The company
was
a broken machine. Non-functioning. Dead. And she had been half-dead within it, going through the motions. Sticking it out because that was what a person was supposed to do: stick by family.

But the company
wasn’t
her family. It was just a big, dead encumbrance. They should just abandon it completely and get real jobs. Get a real life. Like she was doing.

When she didn’t pick up the thread of her thought again, he said,
“I can’t believe I’m talking about work to you
again
! You must be bored out of your mind.”

She was feeling galvanized by epiphany. Like she should rush out now and do something to make a change. She forced herself to focus on him, to hear what he was saying.
Though of course as soon as she really looked at him and his dark blue, meltingly warm eyes she was hooked back into her loop of gooey infatuation. Really, she was fighting a losing battle trying to keep it all together.

“No, no I like listening to you talk. And every now and again when it all gets too much I let my mind wander and I think about your body for a while. That keeps me riveted.” He pretended to splutter and look indignant, but she thought he was pleased by her comment, delivered with a smirk.

“You mean it’s not my rapier wit that amuses you?”

“Frankly I
can’t decide if I like your happening mind or your hot body more. The question defeats me.” She shook her head in pretended sadness.

“Either
are at your service. Both together I’m not sure I can manage, after this weekend of gluttonous debauchery. I might be
just
about able to string two thoughts together when I’ve got my hands on you. Best not to count on it though.” He stroked her fingertips lightly, suggestively, and she couldn’t believe the thrill that went through her at that delicate touch. How could she respond so strongly to him when – as he said – they’d spent so many hours satisfying themselves in bed already, and so recently? It boggled belief.

“No, no,” she said, speaking almost at random as she withdrew her hand. “We must cultivate a little discipline.” She
was still not used to the feeling he gave her: of being totally off balance, adrift without a strong sense of her true self. It wasn’t just the lies she had told. She was so different in character when she was with him. Not a bad different. But extraordinarily, specifically horny, for one. Fixated on him. No other man would satiate this desire. And happy. Gentle. Unfocused.

“Discipline?
Are we talking whips and chains here?” he quirked an eyebrow at her, and she laughed.

“
No! I just mean we have been rather . . . wallowing in it lately.”

“We’ve reached the end of your tolerance
for sybaritic delights, then? You want something more cerebral? I can manage that. A little transcendental meditation, perchance?”

“Say what?”

“Meditation.”

“Get out.”

“No, actually I’m serious. I do it every day, for about half an hour. I reckon it’s that that keeps me from burning out.”

“I can
’t imagine you burning out. You’re always so . . . chipper.” When he gave her a slightly questioning look she realized that was an incongruous observation from someone who knew another as little as he thought she knew him. “I mean, you just seem that way each time I’ve seen you. And in your letters. Um, transcendental meditation. Sure. Why not? Let’s give that a try if you’re sure it’s so good,” she hurried on.

“You’ll find it useful, I think. It’ll help you mellow out.”

“Mellow? I’m mellow.”

He snorted in a way that made her shoot him a suspicious glance. He met her look, interpreted it accurately, and raised
his eyebrows as he said, “You’re about as mellow as a firecracker.” He was smiling at her, inviting her to smile with him, but she frowned instead. “I like that. You burn so brightly you’re – well – mesmerizing.”

She considered the metaphor, and
thought she saw a link. “Burning? Sunshine?” she repeated the name he had used for her a few times.

“Yes.
You’re so hot and glowing. But sunshine can also be a soft, nurturing warmth.”

She narrowed her eyes.
Too many metaphors. What was the damned man trying to say? “Now I’m confused. Firecracker doesn’t sound the same as soft and nurturing.”

“More that you could remain yourself and
yet develop the soft, nurturing, sunshiney part of your personality.”

“
Say what? You mean instead of the harsh and glaring part?” she said with an edge to her tone, seriously ready to be offended now, both by the specifics of his words and the thought that he was trying to mould her personality.

He looked at her, shrugged and was silent.

She paused, considered, reviewed what they had each said. He sat and looked at her with his infuriatingly patient expression. Finally she rolled her eyes at him. “So fine,” she muttered ungraciously. “I guess that wasn’t the most mellow reaction.”

“Sadly not,” he said
, shaking his head mournfully with that ever-present twinkle in his eye. “I can only imagine what you must be like when you’re sexually frustrated and on edge instead of your current laxed out self.” He looked smug.

She blew a raspberry at him, and he laughed outright. “Come on then,” he said, getting out of his chair and coming
around behind her. He hauled her up with hands under her arms and she caught her balance and stood. His hands went to her shoulders and gave them a friendly squeeze. “I prescribe transcendental meditation, for sure.”

“Is that so, doctor?” she said, trailing in his wake as he led the way down some stairs and around the corner, in an area of the house that
she hadn’t been in yet. She didn’t really want to try something new in front of him, in case she looked foolish. At the same time she didn’t want to refuse to try something he recommended. She wanted him to think she was agreeable and brave. “You know, you should have been a therapist. You’ve definitely got that whole thing going on.”