‘I’m not going to meet him, so you can put that thought right out of your mind,’ Kat said.
‘But he could help you get established in the theatre,’ Flynn said. ‘Why wouldn’t you want to make the most of your connection to him?’
‘It might be the way you lawyers climb the career ladder, by using the old boys’ network, but I prefer to get there on my own,’ Kat said. ‘I don’t need or want my father’s help. He wasn’t around when I needed it most and as far as I’m concerned it’s way too late to offer it now.’
‘What if it’s not help he’s offering?’ he said. ‘What if he just wants to get to know you? To have some sort of relationship with you?’
‘I don’t want to get to know him,’ Kat said. ‘I don’t need a father. I’ve never had one before so why would I want one now?’
‘Do you have any family now your mother’s gone?’
Kat didn’t like thinking of how alone in the world she was now. Not that she hadn’t always felt alone anyway; but somehow having no living relative now made her feel terribly isolated, as if she had been left on an island in the middle of a vast ocean with no hope of rescue. Her grandparents had died within a couple of years of each other a few years back and, as her mother had been an only child, there were no aunts, uncles or cousins.
The Christmas just gone had been one of the loneliest times in her life. She had sat by herself in a damp and cold bedsit eating tuna out of a can, trying not to think of all the warm, cosy sitting rooms where families were gathered in front of the tree unwrapping gifts, or sitting around the dining table to a sumptuous feast of turkey and Christmas pudding. To have no backup, no sense of a safe home-base to go to if things turned sour, was something she had never really grown up with, but it didn’t mean she didn’t long for it—that sense of belonging, the family traditions that gave life a sense of security, of being loved and connected to a network of people who would look out for each other.
‘There’s just me,’ she said. ‘But I prefer it that way. I don’t have to remember any birthdays or buy anyone expensive Christmas presents.’
The edge of Flynn’s mouth tipped up in a wry smile. ‘Always a silver lining, I guess.’
A small silence ticked past.
His eyes did a slow perusal of her face, finally lowering to her mouth and lingering there for an infinitesimal moment. The air felt charged, quickened by the current of sensual energy that arced between them.
Mutual attraction. Unmistakable. Powerful. Tempting.
Kat had been aware of it the first time they’d met. She was acutely aware of it now. She felt it in her body—the way her skin tightened and then lifted away from the scaffold of her skeleton; the way her breasts tingled as if preparing for his touch. Her insides quavered with a flicker of longing, shocking her because she had always been slow to arousal. She loved the intimacy of sex, of touching and being needed, but it always took her so long to get there.
But in Flynn’s presence her body went on full alert, every erogenous zone flashing as if to say, ‘Touch me!’ Even the weight of his gaze on her mouth was enough to set her lips buzzing with sensation. She sent the tip of her tongue out to try and damp down the tingling but his hooded gaze followed every millimetre of movement, ramping up the tension in the air until she felt a deep, pulsing throb between her legs that echoed in her womb.
‘Would you like to stay here tonight?’ he said.
Kat laughed to cover how seriously tempted she was. ‘I think I’ll take my chances with the wildlife next door.’
‘I wasn’t asking you to sleep with me.’
Kat wished she could control the blush that filled her cheeks. A blush not so much of embarrassment, but of wanting what she wasn’t supposed to want. And knowing he knew it. ‘I’m not interested either way.’
‘Liar,’ he said. ‘You were interested the moment I walked into that café that day with that cheque. That’s why you haven’t dated anyone since October.’
Kat wondered how on earth he had found out that information. Did he have someone tailing her? Keeping tabs on her? The last thing she wanted was anyone to find out she had mistakenly dated a married man. Her fledging career would be sabotaged if her affair with Charles Longmore were leaked in the press. Thankfully her partner in crime and grime was too frightened of his wife finding out to do his own press leak and cash in on her newfound fame as Richard Ravensdale’s love child. ‘I haven’t dated because I made a celibacy pact with my best friend. We’re off men until February.’
His eyes smouldered. ‘I’ll wait.’
Kat arched her brows. ‘You don’t strike me as a particularly patient man.’
‘I know how to delay gratification,’ he said. ‘It makes the final feast all the more satisfying.’
No wonder he was a force to be reckoned with in court. He had a way with words that would leave most people’s heads spinning.
But Kat was not most people. She too could delay gratification. Not only delay it but postpone it indefinitely. ‘Don’t set the table too early,’ she said. ‘Your guest might not show up.’
‘Oh, she’ll show up,’ Flynn said with another glint in those bedroom eyes. ‘She won’t be able to stop herself.’
IT WAS SNOWING in earnest when Flynn walked Kat back to the house next door. Even though it was only a few metres, she was conscious of his tall, warm body walking beside her along the footpath. In her flat shoes she barely came up to his shoulder. She didn’t like admitting it but their playful banter was something she found intensely stimulating. Sparring with him was like being involved in a fast-paced fencing match. She had to be on her guard every second.
She wondered if he would come into the café tomorrow. A little spurt of excitement flashed through her at the thought of seeing him again. She didn’t want to be attracted to him, or to even like him, but the way he had handled the ‘rodent-ectomy’ as he called it had lifted him in her estimation. She still couldn’t get over the fact he hadn’t mocked her for her phobia. It had been a perfect opportunity to tease her. But instead he had simply dealt with the problem with surprising expertise and tact, as if it were perfectly normal for her to be squeamish about removing an unwanted creature from beneath the sofa.
Kat unlocked the door and turned to look up at him through the falling snow. ‘Thanks for tonight.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said. ‘I closed the cat flap, by the way. I put some duct tape over the catches. I think Monty must’ve worked them loose. He’s a smart cat.’
Kat couldn’t stop looking into his dark brown eyes with their thick fringe of lashes. Every now and again his gaze would flick to her mouth, the contact of his gaze making her lips feel tingly. ‘Thanks for not making fun of me.’
His brow furrowed like a series of tide lines on a seashore. ‘About what?’
‘My silly phobia.’
He blinked away some snow and smiled, the flash of his white teeth making her stomach do a jerky little somersault. ‘I used to be scared of the dark when I was kid. I slept with a night-light on for years. I got an awful ribbing about it at boarding school but eventually I got over it.’
‘I can’t imagine you being scared of anything.’
There was a long beat of silence.
Kat looked at his mouth—the way it was curved, the way his dark stubble surrounded it, the way his lean jaw with the sexy cleft in his chin made her ache to trail her fingertips over its rough surface. She sent the tip of her tongue out over her lips, watching