CATHY WILLIAMS: Bittersweet Love

Cover Page

Epigraph

Dear Reader Dear Reader, What a good opportunity to write a few words to thank you all for your support over the years. I have been writing for Harlequin for nine years and it still gives me great pleasure to think that my books are enjoyed by you, I hope, as much as I enjoy writing them. It’s wonderful to know that contemporary romance fiction is still alive and well! Happy twenty-fifth anniversary, Harlequin Presents®—may we continue to have a long and enjoyable relationship! Best regards, Cathy Williams

Title Page Bittersweet Love Cathy Williams www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

Dear Reader,

What a good opportunity to write a few words to thank you all for your support over the years. I have been writing for Harlequin for nine years and it still gives me great pleasure to think that my books are enjoyed by you, I hope, as much as I enjoy writing them.

It’s wonderful to know that contemporary romance fiction is still alive and well!

Happy twenty-fifth anniversary, Harlequin Presents®—may we continue to have a long and enjoyable relationship!

Best regards,

Cathy Williams

NATALIE could feel the spring in her step become heavier and heavier the closer she got to the awesome glass edifice that housed the Marshall Corporation.

Why not admit it? she told herself. I don’t want to see Kane Marshall. I don’t want to see his face, I don’t want to hear his voice, I don’t want to feel that awful, sickening rollercoaster of emotions every time he glances in my direction.

Not that he had the slightest idea what went on underneath that bright, efficient smile of hers. If he had, she would have left his employment immediately.

She stuck her hands into her jacket pocket and stood still for a moment outside the building, letting the cool summer breeze whip her hair across her face, glaring at the squares of glass, already hating him for what he did to her.

She was twenty-seven years old, and she had spent the last five of those years hopelessly in love with a man who wouldn’t have noticed her if she had stood naked on top of his desk with a rose between her teeth.

He was the boss, and she was his personal assistant. He discussed work with her, trusted her completely in that respect. In fact, he had jokingly told her once before that the office would seize up should she ever decide to take her talents elsewhere. She had smiled politely at the compliment, wondering how it was that some compliments could sound very much like insults.

But she knew how he saw her. Plain, slightly overweight, owlish behind her spectacles, brimming over with crisp efficiency. Neat navy suits and sensible shoes. Reliable little Natalie Robins.

Even when, six month ago, he had taken her out to dinner, and announced that he would be leaving the country to set up a new and important subsidiary in the Far East, he had had no qualms in handing her the reins of responsibility. He would be accessible by telephone and on the fax machine. The rest he was quite confident that she could handle.

Six months without being subjected to the force of his aggressive, dominant personality, was a long time. Long enough to think very carefully indeed about where her life was going. Long enough to lose quite a bit of weight, to get rid of those awful spectacles that did nothing for her eyes, to style her hair into something more resembling a tousled mane than the lank bun which she had been wont to wear to work every day.

Long enough to make up her mind once and for all that loving Kane Marshall was a disease which she would overcome if she died in the process.

Even so, standing here in front of the building and knowing that she would be seeing him for the first time in six months made her skin prickle with alarm. She was realistic enough to realise that her idiotic love for him was responsible for that clutching knot in the pit of her stomach, but that didn’t mean that she had to like it.

She took a deep breath and quickly covered the ground towards the building, her feet automatically taking her to the private lift which would carry her straight up to his office. The knot in her stomach seemed to have grown, making it difficult for her to breathe, and her hands were balled into nervous fists in her pockets. Thank heavens her cool, slightly aloof face betrayed none of this inner turmoil. The outward package might have undergone a few renovations here and there, but basically she was the same collected person as she always had been. She had spent years perfecting the ability to express on her face only what she wanted the world to see, and as she stepped into the office now, quietly hanging her jacket on the coat-stand next to her large L-shaped desk, she thanked God for that.

She knocked perfunctorily and pushed open the connecting door between her outer office and Kane’s main one, unable to prevent her quick intake of breath as her eyes rested on his tall, powerful frame. He was standing half turned from her, staring out of the window, his thoughts miles away. He couldn’t have heard her soft knock.

She had thought her memory to be quite vivid, but now, seeing him for the first time in months, he seemed so much more overpowering than she had remembered. The black, springy hair was slightly shorter than when he had left, his frame a little leaner, as though he had spent a great deal of time working out. Or maybe it was simply that his tan created that illusion, because he was certainly more bronzed now than she could ever remember him being.

‘It’s good to have you back, Mr Marshall,’ Natalie forced herself to speak into the silence, afraid that she would be unable to tear her eyes away from him until he turned around and caught her in the act of watching him.

He turned to face her, and whatever he had been about to say remained unspoken as his eyes swept over her. She could see the surprise written there, and she met his gaze blankly, steeling herself for the inevitable sarcasm.

‘Natalie?’ he finally asked, moving towards her, his hands in his pockets. He circled her, his green eyes amused as he inspected her with the thoroughness of a racehorse owner inspecting a horse. ‘You’ve changed.’ He continued to look at her, his brilliant eyes missing nothing, and she had the intensely uncomfortable feeling that she was being leisurely stripped by someone who was quite an expert at the procedure.

‘People tend to,’ Natalie said crisply, moving away from him and positioning herself closer to the door. ‘From time to time.’

‘Do they?’ He sounded as though this was a novel concept, but she could still see the amusement lurking there in the depths of his eyes and it irritated her. She had forgotten just how quickly he could get under her skin. ‘I haven’t,’ he pointed out, returning to his desk and gesturing for her to sit in the chair facing his.