Page 37 of Cipriani's Innocent Captive
There would be a little untidiness when it came to the engagement that had lasted five seconds before imploding, and the press would have a field day for a week or so, but that hadn’t bothered him. Ken Huang would doubtless be disappointed, but he would already be moving on to enjoy his family life without the stress of a company he had been keen to sell to the right bidder, and would not lose sleep over it because it was a done deal.
Life as Lucas knew it could be returned to its state of normality.
Everything was positive, but Katy had left him and, stubborn, blind idiot that he was, it was only when that door had shut behind her that he had realised how much of his heart she was taking with her.
He had spent two days trying to convince himself that he shouldn’t follow her, before caving in, because he just hadn’t been able to envisage life without her in it, at which point he had abandoned all hope of being able to control his destiny. Along with his heart, that was something else she had taken with her.
And now here he was, desperately hoping that he hadn’t left everything too late.
His satnav was telling him to veer off onto a country lane that promised a dead end, but he obeyed the instructions and, five minutes later, with the sun fading fast, the vicarage she had told him about came into view, as picturesque as something lifted from the lid of a box of chocolates.
Wisteria clambered over faded yellow stone. The vicarage was a solid, substantial building behind which stretched endless acres of fields, on which grazing sheep were blobs of white, barely moving against the backdrop of a pink-and-orange twilit sky. The drive leading to the vicarage was long, straight and bordered by neat lawns and flower beds that had obviously taken thought in the planting stage.
For the first time in his life, Lucas was in a position of not knowing what would happen next. He’d never had to beg for anyone before and he felt that he might have to beg now. He wondered whether she had decided that replacing him immediately would be a cure for the pain of confessing her love to a guy who had sent her on her way with the very considerate offer of financial compensation for any inconvenience. When Lucas thought about the way he had responded to her, he shuddered in horror.
He honestly wouldn’t blame her if she refused to set eyes on him.
He drove slowly up the drive and curled his car to the side of the vicarage, then killed the engine, quietly opened the door and got out.
* * *
‘Darling, will you get that?’
Propped in front of the newspaper where she had been scouring ads for local jobs for the past hour and a half, Katy looked up. Sarah Brennan was at the range stirring something. Conversation was thin on the ground because her parents were both so busy tiptoeing around her, making sure they didn’t say the wrong thing.
Her father was sitting opposite her with a glass of wine in his hand, and every so often Katy would purposefully ignore the look of concern he gave her, because he was worried about her.
She had shown up, burst into tears and confessed everything. She had wanted lots of tea and sympathy, and she had got it from her parents, who had put on a brave face and said all the right things about time being a great healer, rainbows round corners and silver linings on clouds, but they had been distraught on her behalf. She had seen it in the worried looks they gave one another when they didn’t think she was looking, and it was there in the silences, where before there would have been lots and lots of chat and laughter.
‘I should have known better,’ Katy had conceded the evening before when she had finally stopped crying. ‘He was very honest. He wasn’t into marriage, and the engagement was just something that served a purpose.’
‘To spare us thinking you were...were...’ Her mother had stumbled as she had tried to find a polite way of sayingeasy.‘Do you honestly think we would have thought that, when we know you so very well, my darling?’
Katy could have told them that sparing them had only been part of the story. The other part had been her concern for Lucas’s reputation. Even then, she must have been madly in love with him, because she had cared more about his reputation than he had.
She also didn’t mention the money he had offered her. She felt cheapened just thinking about that and her parents would have been horrified. Even with Lucas firmly behind her, she still loved him so much that she couldn’t bear to have her parents drill that final nail in his coffin.
The doorbell rang again and Katy blinked, focused and realised that her mother was looking at her oddly, waiting for her actually to do something about getting the door.
Her father was already rising to his feet and Katy waved him down with an apologetic smile. She wondered who would be calling at this time but then, for a small place it was remarkably full of people who urgently needed to talk to her parents about something or other. Just as soon as the cat was out of the bag, the hot topic of conversation would actually beher, and she grimaced when she thought about that.
She was distracted as she opened the door. The biggest bunch of red roses was staring her in the face. Someone would have to have wreaked havoc in a rose garden to have gathered so many. Katy stared down, mind blank, her thoughts only beginning to sift through possibilities and come up with the right answer when she noted the expensive leather shoes.
Face drained of colour, she raised her eyes slowly, and there he was, the man whose image had not been out of her head for the past two agonising days since they had gone their separate ways.
‘Can I come in?’ Unfamiliar nerves turned the question into an aggressive statement of fact. Lucas wasn’t sure whether flowers were the right gesture. Should he have gone for something more substantial? But then, Katy hated ostentatious displays of wealth. Uncertainty gripped him, and he was so unfamiliar with the sensation that he barely recognised it for what it was.
‘What are you doing here?’ Katy was too shocked to expand on that but she folded her arms, stiffened her spine and recollected what it had felt like when he hadoffered to pay her off.That was enough to ignite her anger, and she planted herself squarely in front of him, because there was no way she was going to let him into the house.
‘I’ve come to see you.’
‘What for?’ she asked coldly.
‘Please let me in, Katy. I don’t want to have this conversation with you on your doorstep.’
‘My parents are inside.’
‘Yes, I thought they might be here.’
