Pathetic: arousing pity, especially through vulnerability or sadness.
In other words, Kate Cleary: sexless on Valentine’s Day. The usually imperturbable Dean, the barista, had instantly clocked her out-of-character vulnerability. And she didn’t need a dictionary to know that she was arousing pity—in herself!
How very…well, pathetic.
Although at least she could dispute the ‘sad’ part of the definition. Because she was not sad. She was sexually frustrated! Completely different from sad. Not that two whole nights without sex was going to kill her. She’d gone way longer than two nights before! Waaaaaay longer. She wasn’t a nymphomaniac! Or…hell! Was she a nymphomaniac?
Nylon…nymph…nymphalid…nymphette… Nymphette? Good Lord—nymphette? Nympholepsy…
Nymphomaniac: a woman who has abnormally excessive and uncontrollable sexual desire.
Ohhh, crap. Maybe she was a nymphomaniac. At her age! That was just…sad.
Oh, God! Sad!
She was a fully-fledged pathetic nymphomaniac.
Kate fled to the terrace—the only place in the apartment she hadn’t had sex with Scott. And the only reason she hadn’t had sex with him on the terrace was because exhibitionism wasn’t exactly his ‘thing’. And, even though it wasn’t her ‘thing’ either, the realisation that she probably would have gone there, in full view of any passersby, flashed through her mind and shocked her.
Depraved pathetic nymphomaniac! That was her. And it was Scott Knight’s fault. Because she’d never been this desperate for sex in her whole life.
And now she wouldn’t even be able to enjoy the view from her terrace, because one quick look at the boats confirmed that Scott was now firmly entrenched as part of her escape daydream.
When the intercom finally buzzed that evening and she heard her sister’s calm voice, she almost cried with relief.
Her family always anchored her. And you had to get it together when you had two children to entertain.
When Shay and Rick had left she pushed the coffee table out of the way so the girls could take up their preferred positions on the rug—seven-year-old Maeve leaning back against the base of the couch, engrossed in a book about cake and cookie decorating, and five-year-old Molly stretched out on her stomach, leaning on an elbow and drawing her version of a fairy house in her sketchbook.
Kate was just about to pick up the phone to order pizza—the girls’ favourite meal—when the intercom buzzed again. Shay and Rick should be sipping champagne at the restaurant and surely could have telephoned if they were having a last-minute panic—but nobody needed to tell a family lawyer that parents could be irrational!
She pushed the ‘talk’ button. ‘Yes, Shay?’ she said with an exasperated laugh.
‘Um…nope. It’s me, Kate.’
SCOTT.
Kate’s vocal cords froze. God help me, God help me, God help me.
‘Kate? Come on—buzz me up. My arms are going to fall off in a minute.’
Kate buzzed the door and then just stared at it, paralysed.
Something was swelling in her chest—a mixture of joy and yearning and uncertainty. What did it mean that he’d come when she’d told him not to? He shouldn’t be doing this. She was glad he was here. No, she wasn’t—because they had rules. But it was Valentine’s Day. No, that meant nothing. She couldn’t let him get away with breaking the rules. No matter how glad she was that he was doing it.
Mmm-hmm. She sure was making a lot of sense!
She heard Scott’s voice vibrating through her door like a tuning fork. That disarmingly lazy drawl, addressed to some stranger. A laugh. Yep—he’d hooked a new fan in under a minute.
She rested her palms against the door, could almost feel him through it.
Breathe. Just breathe.
One knock.
Breathe!
She opened the door and Scott stepped over the threshold as though he owned the place.
‘What are you doing here?’ she managed to get out.
‘Why wouldn’t I be here?’
He handed her two bottles of wine—a white and a red—and carried a six-pack of beer and a paper bag containing who knew what into the kitchen.
Kate followed him, put the red wine on the counter, the white wine and beer in the fridge.
‘You can’t just buzz the intercom whenever you feel like it,’ she said, in her Don’t disturb the children voice.
Scott shrugged. ‘If the intercom annoys you, give me a key.’
Which, of course, was not the point. ‘I am not giving you a key.’
Another one of those shrugs of his. ‘Then it’s the intercom.’
‘You can’t stay,’ she said. ‘I’m just about to order pizza.’
‘I love pizza.’
‘Not for you, Scott. You shouldn’t be here. I told you I was babysitting Maeve and Molly tonight.’
‘And I emailed you back to say that wasn’t a problem.’
‘That wasn’t—? I mean… Huh?’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Were you trying to tell me not to come? Tsk, tsk, Kate—you have to be more specific, in that case. Lawyers shouldn’t be leaving loopholes. So, to be clear…it’s not a problem that you’re babysitting tonight, which is why I’m here. And, yes, Sunday is fine too.’
Kate thought back to her email, his reply, acknowledged the ambiguity…but knew very well he was playing her.
‘You knew what I meant, Scott. And we’re supposed to negotiate if we have a problem with dates.’
‘Okay, let’s negotiate.’
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Opened her eyes to find him looking all woebegone.
‘Don’t you like me any more?’ he asked.
She stared at him as laughter and frustration warred inside her. ‘No.’
‘But why?’
‘Because you’re—’ She broke off, laughed because she just couldn’t help it, damn him. ‘Just because. And I hope you like entertaining children—because that’s the only action you’re getting tonight. I can’t—won’t—leave two little girls eating pizza while you and I go for a quickie in the bedroom.’
He leaned in close, snatched a kiss. ‘One—that’s just a kiss, not a proposal of marriage, so don’t complain. Two—I’m not asking you for a quickie in the bedroom while the girls eat pizza. And three—it won’t be quick; it will be nice and slow…after Maeve and Molly’s parents have picked them up.’
One more rapid-fire kiss.
‘You really have the most sensational mouth in the world.’ Another kiss—quick and scorching. ‘And make mine pepperoni.’
He had the nerve to laugh at the tortured look on her face.
‘What? Is it the money?