inside the compartment, directly facing her, was a man whose identity was unmistakable. She hadn’t seen him for almost ten years but she knew him instantly and her heart quivered from the impact he made on it.
Carver Dane.
Carver…who, in her heart of hearts, had been behind the pirate’s mask…a fantasy, stimulated by a host of frustrations and the wild and wanton desire to feel what she had once felt with him. The mask had let her pretend. The mask had made a dream briefly come true. But that was all it had been. A dream!
The man facing her was the real person!
Shock hit him, too. No doubt she was the last woman in the world he expected to see or wanted to meet. His facial muscles visibly tightened. There was a flare of some violent emotion in his eyes before they narrowed on her in a sharply guarded scrutiny that shot her nerves into a hopelessly agitated state.
Only a few nights ago she’d been fantasising about the intimacy they’d once shared. The raw sexuality she’d indulged in—with a masked stranger who’d strongly reminded her of Carver—suddenly flooded her with embarrassment. Here was her first and only love—in the flesh—and she simply wasn’t prepared to face him, especially when that memory was so fresh.
“Are you coming in, Katie, or would you prefer not to ride this elevator with me?” he asked.
“I…I was wondering if you were stepping out.”
“No.” His mouth curled into a sardonic little smile. “I’m on my way up.”
She flushed, painful old memories rushing over her embarrassment, making it more acute. The expensive suit Carver was wearing was evidence enough that his status had risen beyond anything her father had predicted, but what he was doing here Katie had no idea. While she wrestled with her inner confusion the elevator doors started to slide shut.
Carver reached out and pressed a button to reopen them. “Well?” he challenged, a savage glitter in his dark brown eyes.
A surge of pride got her feet moving. “I’m going up, too,” she declared, stepping into the compartment beside him. She was not her father’s little girl anymore. She was an independent woman, all primed to establish her own business, and she was not about to be intimidated by anything Carver could bring up against her.
He released the button holding the doors. As they closed her into sharing this horribly small space with Carver, Katie fiercely hoped the elevator lived up to its promise of being an express one. She couldn’t bear being with him for long, knowing they couldn’t ever be truly together, not how they’d once been.
“What floor do you want?” he asked.
“Eighteen.” It was easier to let him operate the control panel than lean across him and do it herself. “Thank you.”
“You’re looking good, Katie,” he remarked as the compartment started rising.
She flashed him an acknowledging glance. “So are you.”
“You’re back home with your father?”
“No. I’m on my own. How’s your mother?” she retaliated, burning with the memories of how each parent had played a critical part in breaking up the relationship they saw as destructive to the best future for Carver and Katie.
“She has to take it easy now. Not as well as she used to be.”
And probably plays that to the hilt, too, Katie thought bitterly. Lillian Dane would never give up her apron strings. She wondered how Carver’s wife coped with her mother-in-law, and was instantly prompted to add, “And your wife?”
The supposedly polite interest question was not immediately answered. The tension in the silence that followed it was suddenly crawling with all the conflicts left unresolved between them, and the string of circumstances that had kept the two of them apart, preventing any possible resolution.
Katie gritted her teeth as the memories flooded back—the pressures that had forced the break-up, the timing that had been wrong for them, even years later when Carver had come to England looking for her, just when she’d been between jobs and back-packing through Greece and Turkey…the letter he’d left, asking if there was any chance they could get together again, a letter she didn’t know about for six months…her phone-call, wild hope fluttering through her heart until the call was answered by his wife…then the confirmation from Carver himself that he was, indeed, married.
That was the cruellest cut of all!
Five years apart…then six months too late!
Though to be absolutely fair, maybe she’d read too much into his coming to London, too much into the letter, as well. It had only been an inquiry, not a promise. He might simply have wanted to put the memory of her to rest, and her apparent lack of response could well have effected that very outcome. She could hardly blame him for getting on with his life.
He wasn’t hers.
He’d never be hers again.
“My wife died two years ago.”
The flat statement from Carver rang in her ears, then slowly, excruciatingly, bounced around her mind, hitting a mass of raw places she didn’t want to look at. The sense of waste was totally devastating.
She wasn’t aware of the elevator coming to a halt.
She was blind to the doors opening.
It took Carver’s voice to jolt her out of it. “This is the eighteenth floor.”
“Oh! Sorry!” she babbled, and plunged out of the compartment, without even the presence of mind to say goodbye to him.
She found herself in a corridor with a blank wall at one end, glass doors at the other. Her legs automatically carried her towards the doors which had to lead somewhere. It wasn’t until Carver fell into step beside her that she realised he had followed her out of the elevator. She stopped, her head jerking towards him in startled inquiry.
“This is my floor, too,” he informed her, his eyes flashing derisively at her non-comprehension. “Are you seeing someone here?” he went on, moving ahead to open the way for her.
“Robert Freeman.” The name tripped out, though it was none of Carver’s business. “Are you seeing someone?”
He shook his head, holding one of the glass doors open and waving her through to what was obviously a reception area. “I work here, Katie,” he said quietly as she pushed herself into passing him.
Again her feet faltered, right in the doorway next to where he stood, shock and bewilderment causing her to pause and query this extraordinary statement. What did a doctor have to do with an investment company?
“You work…?” was as far as she got.
He bent his head closer to hers, murmuring, “I’m one of the partners… Andrews, Dane and Freeman.”
Not only was she stunned by this information, but she caught a light whiff of a scent that put all her senses on hyper-alert. Recognition of the distinctive male cologne was instant and so mind-blowing, she almost reeled away from it, barely recovering enough to hold her balance and move on into the reception area.
“How…how nice for you,” she somehow managed to mutter, though she was totally unable to meet his eyes.
He couldn’t have been the pirate, she frantically reasoned, but her gaze was drawn in terrible fascination to the mouth that now thinned at her lame response, and her heart was catapulting around her chest at the possibility that fantasy had crossed into reality.
It was the physical similarities that had got to her at the masked ball. Plus her own sexual response to them. But that didn’t make his identity certain. Far from it. Neither did the cologne. It was probably a popular brand bought and used by many men. She was not normally close enough to most men to notice a scent. It was silly to get so rattled by a coincidence that could be easily explained.
“Life