and guarded.
This was pretty much the same thing the two girlfriends before Olivia had complained about. Was he cold? Guarded, yes. He did protect himself from becoming emotionally dependent on anyone, and especially a woman. Why shouldn’t he? He had seen the massive damage that kind of relationship could have on the family and the man. There was no way that he could ever allow himself to love one person and one place so completely. Not when they could be snatched away from him at a moment’s notice and he was powerless to prevent it. But cold?
Blinking his eyes open, Heath was about to reply to Kate’s question with some casual throwaway comment, when his gaze fell on the open box.
Something sparkling and shiny nestled in the tissue paper.
In two steps he was standing, looking in disbelief at the confection of dusty pink lace and satin, scarcely able to believe his eyes.
‘What’s this?’ he asked, pointing to the swirls of iridescent ivory-coloured pearls which had been sewn into the lacework across the bodice and sleeves.
‘Embellishment, of course.’ She grinned.
He should have known that things were going too smoothly. Embellishment!
Amber had trusted Kate, but then again Amber adored her friends and was obviously incapable of being objective about their abilities.
After today’s little bombshell from Olivia, the last thing he wanted to do was deal with faulty bridesmaids’ dresses.
Heath picked up his tablet computer and scanned through emails. ‘Alice sent me very specific instructions about the bridesmaids’ dresses that she required for her wedding. All four had to be the same design and made of the same fabric. Very plain. And no mention of the word embellishment.’
He looked up at her, eyebrows raised. ‘Has she made any comments about the first three?’
Kate nodded. ‘Alice has been travelling with your father for the past two weeks so I sent them over to the Manor yesterday. She texted me to say that they had arrived safe and sound but she wasn’t going to open the boxes until her bridesmaids arrived.’
‘So Alice hasn’t checked the dresses yet.’
‘What? And spoil the fun of opening the boxes with the gals? It will be like Christmas morning.’
‘Right. All I asked you to do, Kate, was make four very plain dresses. That was simple enough, wasn’t it?’ His gaze focused on the beaded neckline. ‘I didn’t think that you would change the design into something more elaborate.’
‘You’re forgetting something very important.’ She glared at him. ‘People pay me to transform a simple idea into a beautiful design. Otherwise why bother having dresses made-to-measure? Alice could have gone to a department store for a plain dress. She expects me to do something creative with this idea. Don’t you like the idea of being creative?’
Creative? He had grown up with an artist mother whose idea of responsibility was making sure there was always paint and canvas in the house. Everything else was unnecessary. Timetables were for other people to follow, not her. She was talented, celebrated, enchanting and, for a teenage boy desperate for some structure in his life, totally exasperating.
Kate Lovat was clearly cut from the same mould.
Not even an elegant grey and white pinstripe skirt suit could hide the fact that she was just as irresponsible and creative as the girl he remembered from the last time they’d met.
He should have guessed that Kate had not changed that much. Who else would choose to wear quirky red leather ankle boots with her toes sticking out the front on a wet July afternoon?
His gaze scanned her legs—and lingered a little too long on those shapely smooth legs before focusing on the footwear. Her toenails were painted in the exact same shade of red as her boots.
Fire engine red.
A flaming symbol of her attitude to life.
Well, it certainly fitted, because she had just managed to spark a match under the very last scrap of patience he had held on to for emergencies and burnt it to a crisp.
There was one thing he hated above anything else—and that was surprises.
‘Are all four dresses like this one?’ he asked with a rock-stiff jaw.
‘Of course they are. You ordered matching outfits.’
A deep furrow appeared between Heath’s brows and the air practically crackled with electricity as he exploded with a reply. ‘Kate, Alice ordered plain. I don’t know much about fashion, but this is not plain.’
Kate stepped forward so that her entire body was only inches away from his, and the fire in her eyes was the same colour as her toenails.
‘And I know about fashion. Alice. Will love. These dresses. The bridesmaids will love these dresses. Your father will love these dresses. The entire clan gathered for this shindig will love these dresses. And the wedding will be a huge success, Heath. Job done.’
‘Job done? I don’t think so. Have you any idea how important this wedding is? This is the first time in ten years that my father’s asked me to do anything for him. I’m not prepared to see their wedding day ruined by you taking creative licence. These dresses will have to be altered.’
Concern fuelled his anger but Kate’s response threw petrol onto the flames.
Because she did not look away or back down. She stared him out, and the look in her eyes was something new, something he had not seen before.
This was not the same girl he remembered. Little Kate had certainly grown up.
‘Change them? Do you have any idea what you are saying?’ Her words came out in a staccato retort of crisp clear sounds as though she was struggling to contain herself. ‘There is no way that I can alter even one of these dresses before the weekend. So, as far as I am concerned, this is it. No negotiation. No replacements.’
A surge of disbelief swept through him and he was about to launch into a tirade when his cellphone rang. His personal assistant was returning his call.
‘Don’t go anywhere,’ he ordered, pointing the phone at her chest like a baton and turned back to the desk and the sales figures.
* * *
Kate desperately fought to find the words needed to frame some kind of response but was saved when he moved out of earshot.
With a twist of her heels she turned away from him and leapt back up the stairs and tugged open the glass cases that held the books and pretended to be fascinated in the first book she picked up.
Her eyes were too blurry to read the title on the spine or admire the fine end papers.
The one thing that she had been secretly dreading for years had finally happened.
She wasn’t good enough for Heath.
And he had no idea whatsoever of how much pain and humiliation she felt at a few simple words of condemnation.
He was rejecting this dress that she had worked on for hour after hour of painstaking hand-sewing after a few seconds of his so very precious time. How could he not know that when he rejected her work he was rejecting her and everything she stood for and had worked for at the same time?
Time and time again she had come up against the same attitude, the same complaint, and the same demand. Keep it simple. Don’t get clever. Conform to what everyone else is doing. That way we might like you and take you seriously.
Even her own parents thought that she should conform. Sacrifice her creativity and ideas on the altar of the bland and the stale and the conventional.
And just the thought of that made her heart shrink with pain and anguish.
She had always known that Heath would be different, but facing it head-on in a stark announcement like this