Catching Katie Read online

  He held her as the shudders ran through her as if they would shake her to pieces. At last she was still. She turned her head until her lips were a hair’s breadth from his naked shoulder.

  ‘Darling,’ she heard herself murmur. It was no more than a breath in the silent room, a shy avowal

  He carried her hand to his lips and kissed the palm. It was graceful and courteous but it was not an avowal. She could not pretend to herself that it was. Katie flinched.

  To hide it, she turned onto her side, curled up and lay as still as a mouse. This, she thought, was going to hurt. When she had time to think about it. When she got away.

  He did not appear to notice. He pushed the hair back from her sweat-dampened brow. It was an oddly touching gesture. She blinked tears back.

  ‘I like an enthusiast.’ His voice was full of lazy laughter.

  ‘Yes.’ She sounded wooden. She could not help it

  He did notice that. He came up onto one elbow, peering down at her in the darkness.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Then, in quick concern, ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’

  ‘H-hurt me?’ Suddenly her voice was stark panic.

  Her hand jack-knifed to her middle. She had forgotten. Oh, God, how could she have forgotten? She must have been out of her mind. She had to get out of here now. Before—

  ‘No,’ she said in a strangled voice.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He was frowning. Katie could hear it. He reached out a long arm towards the bedside table.

  ‘Don’t put on the light.’

  ‘What?’ Her vehemence startled him. ‘Why—?’

  And that was when the phone rang. With one last troubled look at Katie, he rolled away to pick it up.

  ‘Hello? Who?’ A pause. ‘Oh, Lisa, hi.’

  Katie went very still. There was something in his tone. He did not sound like the gardener talking to an acquaintance of his employer. He did not sound like any sort of employee at all.

  He was talking into the telephone, oblivious of her reaction. ‘Yes. Yes, she’s here. What?’ Then, in a voice of unholy amusement, ‘Well, well. And I never knew. OK, I’ll find it. Yes, nice to talk to you too. Bye.’

  He put the phone down and turned. Katie was staring at him as if the world had turned upside down. Which, in a way, it had.

  Why had it not occurred to her before? The signs were all there. Security expert! Gardener! She could see now what ludicrous ideas they were.

  ‘My car’ he had said in the garage. Not ‘Mr Tremayne’s car’. Not even ‘the boss’s car’. My car. Because, of course, that was what it was. His car.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said in a whisper.

  He thought it was funny. ‘Women have said a lot of things to me in bed. But I don’t recall being asked to introduce myself before.’ Katie was scrambling away from him.

  ‘You knew I didn’t know who you were,’ she flung at him. She was crying but she was hardly aware of it. ‘You knew.’

  It annoyed him. ‘I knew we both wanted to make love.’

  Katie winced. It was all too true.

  But she said fierily, ‘I didn’t know I was going to bed with a neurotic millionaire who was going to fit me in between deals.’

  ‘Fit—you—in?’ He was now as angry as she was. ‘What right have you got to say that?’

  She had none and she knew it. She bounced out of bed and scrabbled under his discarded clothes for her tee shirt. When it was on, she felt braver. She turned to face him.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were? Did it give you a kick?’

  Haydon’s temper shot off the scale. But, unlike Katie, he was good at focusing—and even better at dissembling.

  ‘Yes, it did, actually.’

  He put on the light. Katie jumped. He was completely unselfconscious about his nakedness. She was not. She did not look away but it took considerable resolution not to.

  He took in Katie’s defiant stance and resumed tee shirt and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Not staying?’

  She forgot her embarrassment. She made a small explosive sound of extreme rage. He smiled.

  ‘I am going,’ she announced. ‘I’ll sleep in the square if I have to.’

  His smiled broadened and he leaned back among the pillows. They were dark green. They made his tanned shoulders look like worked bronze.

  Katie looked away. It was so unfair. How could anyone be so unprincipled and look so sexy?

  ‘Sure? It will be cold.’

  Katie knew it would. She did not look forward to it at all. But—

  ‘Better than the alternative,’ she said bravely.

  He put his hands behind his head and watched her struggles with amusement.

  ‘Not willing to trade your honour for a decent night’s sleep?’ he mocked.

  She gave an involuntary shiver. ‘I think the honour went some time ago.’

  He stopped smiling. He stood up and shrugged into a dragon-embroidered robe.

  ‘According to Lisa, the Bateses have your spare key,’ he said curtly. ‘If she’s right, I know where it is.’

  He strode downstairs, snapping on lights as he went. Katie tumbled after him.

  ‘And if she isn’t right?’

  He turned and looked up at her, his teeth a flash of pure white malice.

  ‘Then it’s the open air for you, isn’t it?’

  But the Bateses had the key. Katie took it from him with great care, so that their fingers did not touch for even a second. He saw her home. Katie said goodnight with great ceremony across a distance of two metres and a broken heart.

  ‘Katie—’

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Tremayne.’

  ‘In the circumstances,’ Haydon said grimly, ‘that is bordering on a declaration of war.’

  Katie was temporarily confused and allowed it to show.

  He showed his teeth in a smile of no amusement at all. ‘Do you think either of us is going to have a good night?’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AND of course he had been right. Now Katie turned her head to look at the sun-drenched landscape through which she was travelling. She had not had a good night. Not then, nor any night since.

  And she could not even blame anyone but herself. Oh, he had been a stinker, not telling her who he was, leading her on, using that profoundly dubious sexual expertise against her.

  But she had started it. No matter which way she looked at it—and in the ensuing lifetime she had looked at it from every angle there was—she could not get away from one inescapable fact. He had said it was her choice. And she had made the first move.

  She put both arms over her middle, as if she were in pain.

  ‘Heaven help me,’ she said aloud.

  The car pulled up at a flight of moss-covered steps. Katie sat up with a jerk. She must have fallen asleep. For a moment she did not know where she was.

  The driver swung round in his seat.

  ‘San Pietro,’ he said reproachfully.

  Katie looked round. As far as she could see they were in the middle of a wood. Tall chestnut trees were planted seemingly at random. Even the track up which they had come was not metalled. Its course almost lost itself in places under a riot of hedgerow plants. The leaves were so green they seemed to be burning in the sun.

  Katie appreciated the picture even as she registered that there was not a soul in sight. More important, there was no castello.

  For a moment she quailed. Then she pulled herself together. The driver looked more disappointed than any kidnapper would be under the circumstances.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Er—bello.’

  It seemed to be the right thing. He beamed and swung out of the car. He held her door open.

  ‘Thank you.’

  She scrambled out and stood up, sniffing the air. The woods smelled of summer, of moist earth and vegetation racing wildly towards maturity. Now she looked more closely, she saw early wild roses and the small gramophone horns of bindweed tumbling among t
he hedgerow. She drew a long breath.

  ‘Beautiful.’ This time she meant it.

  The driver got her pack out of the trunk and put it on the bottom step.

  Katie thanked him. ‘But where is the house?’

  It was too much for his English. He looked blank.

  She tried again. ‘Castello?’

  He grinned and waved his arm up the steps. They looked as if no one had climbed them for a hundred years. Katie gave private thanks that she was wearing sensible shoes.

  ‘Oh, well, adventure is good for the artist,’ she muttered.

  She pulled out her wallet from the pouch she wore around her waist. The driver shook his head violently. It did not take much floundering through their two languages to work out that the trip was already paid for. So there was nothing for Katie to do except thank him, heave her pack onto her shoulders and start up the slippery steps.

  He got back into the car and she heard it bump off down the track. When the engine died away, she was left in silence except for her own breathing. Katie stopped, listening. No, not silence. Somewhere in the wood to her right there was running water. A desultory bird called in the afternoon haze.

  It all felt very strange. For some reason it made Katie uneasy. She had not expected the place to be so wild. Or so lonely. Still—

  ‘I know there’s a castello round here somewhere,’ she said aloud with determined cheerfulness.

  She went on up the steps. And then suddenly, turning an overgrown corner, she came upon a huge oaken door. It spanned the steps and was set between grey stone walls that curved away into the trees as far as the eye could see. They were quite twenty feet high and looked as if they had been there for centuries. She fell back, open-mouthed.

  ‘Where there’s a door, there’s a doorknocker,’ she encouraged herself.

  It was like something out of a fairy tale. In spite of her trepidation, Katie could not help laughing. Feeling a bit of a fool, she began to pass her hands carefully over the door’s old wood.

  The knocker took some finding. For such a huge door it was rather modest. And when she had rapped as hard as she could, there was-no response at all. In the distance the bird called again, and was silent. Katie’s unease grew. She looked over her shoulder nervously. But the woodland hillside and the steep steps were empty.

  She banged the knocker again, with the full force of her arm.

  And then, with a creak that any horror movie director would have been proud of, a small door set into the larger one swung slowly open. No one came out. Katie’s heart started to bang. But she was no coward and she was pretty sure that this was a test of some sort. More and more like a fairy tale.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Katie muttered. She raised her chin and said in the sort of voice that quelled the lower fifth, ‘Love the effects. Where’s the director?’

  There was a soft laugh. And Haydon Tremayne stepped through the doorway.

  Katie was so relieved she could have kissed him. Only for a moment, of course. But a moment was enough to give him the triumph he wanted.

  She saw his eyes flare and knew that he had seen her instinctive reaction. But by then she had remembered her dark suspicion about the ease with which Simon had made these arrangements. Remembered, too, Haydon’s deception, his cleverness, and the heartbreaking skill of his seduction technique. But by then it was too late.

  It made her so furious she could have screamed.

  ‘I might have known,’ she spat at him. ‘Did you deliberately get me all the way out here so you could scare the living daylights out of me?’

  He was more laid back than she had ever seen him, in well washed shorts and no shirt. It was horribly, maddeningly sexy. He gave her a lazy grin.

  ‘Nope. That was a bonus.’

  Katie was speechless.

  He took her pack from her and looped it easily over one shoulder.

  ‘Good journey?’ he asked, quite as if he were an ordinary welcoming host and she a willing guest.

  Katie was not going to allow herself to be deflected by hospitality. Especially when it was spurious.

  ‘A great deal better than it would have been if I’d known I’d find you here,’ she said between her teeth.

  ‘Which just goes to show how right I was not to tell you,’ he said complacently. He gestured to the small wooden door. ‘After you.’ Katie hesitated.

  ‘Where were you thinking of running?’ he asked softly.

  She looked at the sun-filled chestnut trees with loathing. He was right. The taxi was long gone and she had not the slightest idea where she was. She did not even know how close she was to the nearest village. And if she tried to reach it she would certainly get lost in the woods. All of which Haydon Tremayne had presumably calculated in advance.

  There was nothing else for it. She gave a small shrug and allowed herself to be led inside.

  ‘Good thinking,’ he murmured, closing the door after them.

  Katie hated him then. She said nothing, though. There was no point. And she would have her revenge, she promised herself. Haydon Tremayne was not going to be allowed to get away with trickery like this.

  They were in a small garden. It was filled with a geometric pattern of low box hedges and a startling amount of statuary.

  ‘Your collection?’ she asked in a cool little voice.

  He frowned quickly. ‘Part of it, certainly.’

  It was an interesting combination of baroque nymphs and ultra-modern pieces. Normally Katie would have wandered happily, discovering. It was a measure of her temper that she barely let her eyes rest on a voluptuously naked lady throwing herself backwards onto a diving dolphin.

  Haydon did not miss her determined indifference. He said with irony, ‘You must let me show you round.’

  He put his arm round her to guide her through the intricate pathways. Katie moved away decisively. His arm fell.

  ‘I’ve given you a room in the turret. It’s not as grand as the main suites but I didn’t think you’d mind that. You get a wonderful view.’

  Katie’s flash of temper was uncontrollable. ‘I don’t care if you’ve put me in the hen coop. I shan’t be staying.’

  He remained maddeningly calm.

  ‘I hope you’re wrong.’

  ‘You can’t kidnap me,’ she said with contempt.

  ‘Of course not.’ He even managed to sound shocked, damn him. ‘It’s just a question of practicalities.’

  Katie was instantly on her guard. ‘What sort of practicalities? ’

  ‘I think you’ll find your ticket is not exchangeable.’

  There was a nasty silence as she took this in.

  ‘Of course, you may have brought enough money to pay your fare back on another flight . . .’

  He left it hanging in the air. There was no need for Katie to say she had not brought anything like enough money. It was written all over her.

  He relented. ‘You really don’t have to see any more of me than you want, you know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He gestured to the castle ahead of them. The closer they got to the building, the greater the crick in Katie’s neck as she looked up at its formidable battlements. It felt huge.

  ‘There’s more than enough room for both of us,’ Haydon said with irony.

  ‘But—’ Katie was bewildered. She stopped and looked at him very straightly. ‘Why did you bring me here?’

  The blue eyes were ironic. ‘Did you think it was to finish what we started?’

  She flushed. But she held his eyes steadily. ‘The thought did flit across my mind.’

  ‘Banish it.’

  He sounded perfectly sincere. So why wasn’t she relieved? Katie asked herself. It couldn’t be—could it?—that she had wanted him to say something quite different.

  Haydon saw her hesitation and misinterpreted it.

  ‘Look, the castello is supposed to be a centre for artists to work. We have master classes for musicians. In the summer there is a whole month devoted t
o painting. You’re just here between scheduled groups, that’s all.’

  Katie found the flaw in that argument. ‘So why are you here?’

  He gave a soundless laugh. ‘I am not entirely selfless.’

  She thought about that. She did not like the sound of it. Again she could not have said why. Oh, this man was tying her up in knots.

  She said almost to herself, ‘I wish I knew what to do.’

  ‘Stay here,’ Haydon said swiftly. ‘Use the studio. Go out and paint the landscape. Forget about me.’

  The trouble was, thought Katie, that was easier said than done. Not that she was going to pander to his ego by saying so. She shook her head wearily.

  ‘All right. I’ll give it a try. I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?’

  There was an odd, intent look in his eyes. For a moment she thought he was going to reach out and touch her. Instinctively she braced herself. But he was only shifting her pack.

  ‘Try and keep an open mind, Katie,’ he said quietly.

  And took her into the house.

  One thing that he had said to her was true at least, she thought. The Castello San Pietro was enormous.

  The room he took her to was circular, sitting on top of a larger round gallery with a mosaic floor and paintings that made her catch her breath.

  ‘It’s like a cathedral,’ she said.

  Haydon nodded, not unduly flattered. ‘It started out as an abbey. This part is Romanesque. Then the Abbot fell out with the local landowner and the Count moved in and took over.’

  ‘I didn’t think that sort of thing happened in Italy,’ Katie remarked.

  ‘They were also brothers. Family feuds happen everywhere.’

  She pulled a face. ‘Tell me about it.’

  Haydon put her dusty old pack down carefully on a sixteenth-century blanket chest.

  ‘Do I detect a woman who falls out with her siblings?’ he asked lightly.

  Katie shook her head. ‘No siblings.’

  ‘No? Then that’s something else we have in common.’

  His voice was smooth as honey. Katie sent him a suspicious look. She did not ask what was the first thing they had in common. She was half certain that she knew. And it was not a subject she wanted to bring up in a remote room with a huge four-poster bed between them.