Tiarnan’s face looked unbearably harsh in the flickering light of the candles for a moment. ‘Yes, they are.’ He sounded almost surprised, and then his voice became hard. ‘I, however, learnt my lesson a long time ago. I indulged in the dream for a brief moment and saw the ugliest part of women’s machinations, and how far they’re prepared to go to feather their nest.’
Kate’s heart clenched. He was talking about Stella, of course—and every other woman too, it would appear, by proxy.
Tiarnan looked into his wine glass, tension gripping him. He cursed himself again for allowing this woman to loosen his tongue, and forced down the tension. He looked up and caught Kate’s eye, allowed himself to dive into the deep blue depths. He saw her exactly as she was: a woman of the world, successful, confident, single. Not afraid to take what she wanted. She was like him. Immediately he felt on a more even keel. He snaked out a hand and caught hers, revelling in the contact, the way her skin felt so warm and firm and silky. Revelling in the sensual anticipation.
‘For people like us, however, things are different … We won’t be caught like that, seduced by some empty dream.’
Kate’s heart clenched so hard at that she had to hold in a gasp. She stung inside that he believed her to be the same as him. Ironically enough, out of his sister and Kate, Sorcha had been the more cynical of the two, constantly teasing Kate for her innate romantic streak, for her maternal instinct. Sorcha had been the one with the high walls of defence erected around her, and Romain had been the only man capable of gaining her trust, opening her heart …
Yet, despite her own largely loveless upbringing, Kate had somehow emerged clinging onto those maternal instincts and that romantic dream. And a very secret part of her was still doggedly clinging onto it, despite witnessing the cynicism of the man to whom she was willingly, stupidly planning to give herself, in the hope that perhaps it would cure her of this obsession. The fact that he believed her to be as jaded as he was surely had to be in her favour? Protection for when she would walk away? He would believe her to be in one piece, unmoved, moving on with blithe disregard to her next lover. And she would be, she told herself fiercely now. She’d be blithe if it killed her.
She wanted to ask him about his wife—ask if she’d managed to break through his cynical wall to make him believe in love for a brief moment. But even if she had, considering how she had deceived him about Rosie, it could only have reaffirmed his beliefs, made them even more entrenched.
Kate forced down all her questions and leaned forward to start eating again, even though her appetite seemed to have vanished. She smiled brilliantly.
‘Well, then, we can rest easy in the protection such beliefs can offer us: no expectation, no disappointment.’
The words seemed to score through her heart like a serrated knife, they so went against her own personal philosophy. A philosophy she couldn’t share with Tiarnan.
Tiarnan smiled lazily, eyes narrowed on hers. ‘A kindred spirit. I couldn’t have put it better.’
As Kate forced herself to eat and sip the wine, engage in conversation that moved away from darker topics, she told herself that at least now she was under no illusion that some kind of fairytale would happen here. Tiarnan was utterly content with his life and there was no way he was going to let in Kate to shake things up.
The plates were gone, Mama Lucille had bade them goodnight, and Kate had kissed her in thanks for the meal, making the older woman look embarrassed but happy. Papa Joe, her handsome husband, had come to collect her to walk her home. Being bowed with age didn’t diminish his charm. He seemed as naturally friendly and happy as his wife, and they heard them laughing and conversing loudly in local French patois all the way down the garden path. Witnessing their happiness made Kate’s conversation with Tiarnan over dinner feel all the more unbearably poignant.
The heavy perfumed air was alive with the sounds of insects. Kate felt almost painfully sensitive to everything. All too aware of what she yearned for and what she was prepared to settle for with Tiarnan. He reached out and took her hand, and predictably she tensed.
‘You don’t seem very relaxed.’ He stated the obvious.
Kate shrugged and forced down her tangled thoughts of yearning. ‘Despite what you might believe, I’m not used to being whisked halfway across the world to become a rich man’s mistress for a few days.’
Tiarnan’s jaw clenched. She kept talking about the time limit. And she certainly wasn’t just a rich man’s mistress. She was going to be his lover. Her words over dinner, her reassurance that she was like him, should be making him feel at ease, confident, and yet they weren’t. Not entirely. He didn’t trust her. And he didn’t know why that rankled. What woman did he trust? He was used to not trusting women.
He drove away the questions. He had no need to question anything. Kate Lancaster was here, his for now, and that was all that mattered. They were wasting time. He studied her downbent head, the gleaming blonde hair, the satin smooth skin of her bared shoulders under the straps of her dress, the swell of her breasts … and he knew just how to drive away those thoughts, the tenseness which made ambiguous feelings run through him.
Tiarnan kept a hold of her hand and stood, tugging her up with him. Kate’s eyes met his and the world seemed to stop turning momentarily. ‘I know just what we need.’
‘You do?’
Kate’s voice came out like a squeak. She cursed her inability to sound insouciant when she needed to. He nodded, and started to walk back into the house, taking her with him, his grip strong and sure. Her legs felt like jelly. Panic started to rise up, strangling her. She had to tell him, had to say something. He thought she was something she wasn’t …
‘Tiarnan, I—’
He turned and pressed a finger to her lips.
‘I’m taking you out.’
Confusion cut through the panic. The scarily vivid images of their naked limbs entwined on his bed faded.
‘What? Where?’
He looked at her for a long moment, and then just said, ‘Dancing.’
Kate’s hand was still in Tiarnan’s as he led them into a dimly lit bar not too far from the house. A throbbing pulsing beat of music enveloped them instantly, along with the heat of bodies and muted conversations.
He’d waited till she had put on some shoes and had obviously made a call, as an open-top Jeep with a smiling driver had been waiting for them outside the villa. He led her to the bar now, only letting go of her hand to put an arm around her waist and draw her in close. Kate saw the bartender spot him and come over with a huge smile on his face.
‘Tiarnan, my man! It’s good to see you.’ The barman’s openly curious and very flirty glance took Kate in with blatant appreciation.
She felt embarrassed, and very out of her depth. Tiarnan kept surprising her at every turn, and the thought that he might have read her trepidation and done this to somehow make things easier for her made her feel vulnerable.
‘And your beautiful guest …’
For the first time in his life Tiarnan felt the intense spiking of jealousy as his old friend Luc looked Kate up and down with what seemed to be insulting impunity. He’d noticed every other man’s head swivelling too, as they’d walked into the bar. Kate stood out like a magnificent bird of paradise.
Resisting the unfathomable urge to walk straight back out again, he forced himself to sound civil and say, ‘Luc, good to see you too. We’ll have two of your best rums.’
He looked down at Kate and was surprised to see her looking almost … self-conscious. He tugged her in closer and she looked up, a flare of colour racing across her cheekbones.
‘Is that OK?’
Kate felt almost disembodied, looking up into Tiarnan’s eyes. ‘Is what OK?’
‘Martinique