That clearly met with his approval, and he went without further comment, leaving Kathryn to sigh heavily. Then, because she was a practical person, not given to languishing on thoughts of what might have been, she gathered together her sponge bag and a change of clothes and went in search of the bathroom.
As it turned out, Kathryn didn’t get an opportunity to look over Joel’s computer until after dinner. When she went back downstairs, this time dressed in a long-sleeved holly-green dress made of soft wool, she met Agnes coming from the dining room.
‘My, don’t you look nice this evening, miss,’ the housekeeper declared with a warm smile.
Kathryn smiled back. ‘Thank you, Agnes. Something smells good.’
‘Lancashire hotpot. Master Joel’s favourite. The table’s set, so it won’t be more than a few minutes now. If you go into the sitting room, you can help yourself to a drink before dinner,’ Agnes suggested, pointing to a door on the other side of the hall.
Realising her hope of looking over the computer had to be abandoned, Kathryn obediently made her way to the sitting room. It was a pleasant room, with comfortable sofas and armchairs surrounding the brick fireplace where another fire blazed cheerfully. Drinks were set on a tray on the sideboard, and Kathryn helped herself to a small Martini. If she wanted to get some work done later, drinking too much now would be inadvisable.
She was studying a group of photos on the mantel-piece when a subtle shift of the air told her Joel had come into the room. She had never been so attuned to a man that she could sense his presence even at a distance. It was uncanny, and she didn’t know quite what to make of it. Turning, she found him just inside the door, studying her with eyes that gleamed appreciatively. In response, her nerves took a tiny leap and set her pulse throbbing. He looked magnificent, and her heart did a crazy lurch as her own eyes ate him up. The white silk shirt and black trousers he now wore barely seemed to tame him. He moved, coming towards her with a lithe, pantherish grace that tightened her stomach with desire.
‘You look good enough to eat,’ he murmured, his gaze setting her nerves alight with such disconcerting ease it was a wonder she didn’t melt on the spot.
‘I thought hotpot was your favourite,’ she countered, far too breathlessly for comfort, and he was smiling softly as he looked deeply into her eyes.
‘When it comes to food, yes. However, the appetite you arouse will settle for nothing less than your presence in my bed.’
It was heady stuff on an empty stomach, and she groaned silently, aware that her body responded to every soft word with a will of its own. Still, she had made her decision and would stick to it.
‘If you check with the management, I think you’ll find I’m not on the menu,’ she returned smoothly, watching the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when his smile deepened.
He bent towards her confidingly. ‘Could you really watch me starve?’ he taunted softly, and she raised an eyebrow quizzically.
‘Somehow, I don’t think you’d starve for long,’ she quipped, and strangely enough it hurt to say it, which was odd, for she had always known she was not important to him. She was no more than a passing fancy because she was here.
‘Ah, but sometimes hunger can only be satisfied by one thing—or one woman,’ Joel insisted softly.
Kathryn took a steadying sip of her drink, fearing he was right. He had come out with all guns blazing this evening, and the attack on her defences were definitely weakening them. She needed the drink to strengthen her resolve.
‘But hunger is such a contrary thing. Now it wants one thing; next time it wants something completely different,’ she countered, but he shook his head.
‘Not always. Sometimes it takes a very long time for hunger to be satisfied.’
‘Just not for ever,’ Kathryn shot back pointedly, and he acknowledged the hit with an inclination of his head.
‘No, not for ever. Everything diminishes in time,’ Joel agreed as he wandered over to the drinks tray and poured himself a small whisky. Sipping it, he looked at her over the glass.
‘There is an exception, though I hesitate to mention it, knowing your opinion of love,’ Kathryn reminded him, and he lowered the glass.
‘Do you really think this love you believe in lasts for ever?’ he asked curiously.
‘It can do, but it has to be worked at. You can’t ever take it for granted, but the more you feed it the more it grows,’ she said with utter conviction, and that brought a tiny frown to his forehead.
‘You can say that, even though your own grandparents’ marriage failed?’
She sighed. He had to pick on the one failure to illustrate his case, but his argument was based on a false premise. ‘The marriage failed because there was only love on one side. My mother has told me many times that my grandmother loved my grandfather; she just couldn’t live with his coldness.’ Left alone with her father, it hadn’t been easy for her mother either. In the end it had driven Lucy Makepeace to find a place of her own to live as soon as she was old enough.
‘What happened to your grandmother?’ Joel asked conversationally, sliding one hand casually into the pocket of his trousers.
The question caught her off-guard, allowing the old sadness to show in her eyes as she frowned. ‘I really don’t know. There was a messy divorce and a bitter custody battle, which my grandfather won, and that was the last anyone ever saw of her,’ she revealed with a faint shrug of her shoulders.
‘You miss her?’ Joel asked curiously, and Kathryn sighed heavily, because her feelings concerning the situation were more complex than a simple answer could convey.
‘It’s hard to miss someone you never knew. What I miss is not having known her. The person she was. There is so much about her I want to know,’ she said honestly, and her smile was deprecating. ‘I guess I want to ask her why she never came to see my mother. I can’t ask my grandfather because he never speaks of her. It’s a mystery I don’t know how to solve.’
‘Have you never tried to trace her?’
Kathryn shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ she declared wistfully, then, because thinking of her grandmother always left her dissatisfied, she made a determined effort to lift her spirits. ‘What about you? Are both your parents living?’
‘Oh, yes. They’re still going strong, and seem younger than ever, even though they celebrated their golden wedding last year. At present they’re in Canada, visiting relatives. Then they’re off to Hawaii,’ Joel confirmed, and she tipped her head to one side thoughtfully.
‘So they weren’t the ones who made you so cynical about love. That means it has to be a woman,’ she mused, watching him carefully. But, as she was coming to expect, he gave nothing away.
Instead one eyebrow lifted lazily. ‘You think so?’
Kathryn laughed softly. ‘It has to be, and you haven’t denied it. What did she do? Leave you for another man?’
Joel shook his head. ‘She couldn’t, as she’s nothing but a figment of your imagination.’
Her eyes narrowed as she tossed that around in her mind. ‘Hmm, I see. That’s very interesting. If it wasn’t one woman, then it has to be all women. What do we fail to do that convinces you love doesn’t exist?’ She posed the question to herself, and almost immediately saw the answer. ‘We don’t see you as just a man, do we? All we see is a bank balance. An unending source of spending money. That’s it, isn’t it?’ she charged him, convinced she was right.
In response,