Marrying The Boss (29 page)

She felt like bursting into tears.
Everything inside her intensified. She found a much-needed release
in telling Edith the tragic news. "Spencer Preston died this
morning."

"
Oh, Kate, I'm sorry." Edith shook her
head. "How did he die?"

"
We don't know. There will have to be an
autopsy."

Edith took her arm. "Come and have a
coffee. You look like you could use a strong, black."

Kate allowed the other woman to tow her into
the kitchen. Edith made her sit down at the table as she made the
coffee.

She placed a steaming mug before Kate and
sat down opposite her. "I know this may sound hard, but Spencer
wouldn't want you to feel sorry for him."

Kate looked up. "That's what Spencer
said."

"
Well, he's right." Edith nodded. "Spencer
made his own rules." Her brown eyes studied Kate's face closely.
"But it's not old Spencer you're crying for now, is it?"

"
No, it isn't." Kate sighed, unable to keep
the denial inside anymore. "I don't know what to do for the
best."

"
So it is Spencer," Edith said with
undeniable certainty. "I just knew it. The way the pair of you have
been looking so down recently. Like you're both carrying the weight
of the world on your shoulders. So, how does he feel about you?
Like, has he said anything to give you any kind of hint? Has he
said the three magic words?"

"
No, I have no true idea." Kate shook her
head. "I…it's complicated, a real mess. Sometimes I even think he
feels sorry for me."

"
Pity, ah huh." Edith grimaced. "Men,
sometimes they can't see what's right in front of them. That boy of
his needs a mother and Spencer needs a wife. A real woman, not some
fancy cut-out woman with more make-up than brains and a mercenary
heart to boot. Don't think I don't know what's going on. And you'd
be so perfect for those two."

"
So I once thought too." Kate shook her
head. "You can't tell him you know anything, Edith. You mustn't
breathe a word. He would hate it if he thought anyone knew when
everything is in such a mess."

"
Ah, I see." Edith studied her in frowning
silence for a long moment. "The man did ask you to marry him,
didn't he? Don't try and deny it, I can see it in your face. You
did say yes, didn't you?"

"
Oh, Lord, please, none of that was
supposed to come out," Kate implored softly. "It's something we
still have to work out. It's not what you think. It's too
complicated and I don't know what I can tell you. I don't think I
could take anything more right now."

Edith nodded. "Okay, not a word. But you
can't stop me from thinking about it. About how great you two could
be together. If Spencer would only loosen up a little and talk to
you. The man needs you, any fool can see that. He needs to marry
you and make an honest woman out of you. Before it's too
late."

"
It may already be too late," Kate said
unhappily. "I must go. I have patients waiting." She hurried away
before she said anything more. Or broke down and cried.

The long day ground on. Spencer
watched Kate from across the reception area.
He'd been avoiding speaking to
her all day. He saw her push a curl behind her ear as she listened
to what the receptionist was saying. His lower body cramped
painfully.

He couldn't stop remembering how soft her
hair had felt beneath his lips as he had taken her with him over
the edge. The look in her startled blue eyes had almost been one of
surprise, as if she'd never experienced such fulfillment
before.

Spencer thought of the absent Eric Waters
and his hands flexed into fists. He wanted to reach out and
throttle the man, not a good impulse for a doctor, but the
green-eyed monster raging inside him didn't care about the ethics
of the medical profession.

Spencer replayed the thought and ducked
his head in shocked surprise. Where on earth had that come from?
Last night had been a big mistake—a huge error in judgment on his
part. He should have been stronger. Said no and meant it. He'd been
forced down this torturous path of needing a wife, a warm and
caring mother for his son, but he didn't need a woman in his life
any other way.

But the look of helpless confusion in
Kate's eyes when she'd begged him to make love with her had been
his undoing. Eric must have really done a number on her. He
couldn't refuse, couldn't compound every wrong thing her ex-fiancé
had said and done to Kate and live with himself
afterwards.

She got to him in ways he couldn't begin
to explain. But it wasn't just Kate's feelings he was playing with,
there were his own as well. Every minute he spent in her company
was going to make it much harder for him to stick to the terms of
his proposal.

Last night could never be repeated. It was
for the best, for both of them. He had his life, he'd constructed a
place where he was comfortable and could function. If they could
get around the complications that one night had created, maybe
there was still a future for them together. His brain kept circling
back to that fact, but in his heart he knew it was all falling
apart and he was helpless to keep it together.

Spencer grimaced. He studied the rigid
cast of Kate's back as she walked away and he wondered how long it
would've been before he weakened and took her into his bed again.
Before he begged her to stay, on whatever terms she wanted. Broke
down and told her everything that was in his heart. That he loved
her so much he could no longer think straight. He would only feel
half-alive if he had to live without her beside every
day.

But that truth could only be buried
beneath the other secret he couldn't bring himself to share with
her. A secret that would shatter everything wonderful they could
ever have together. And now he'd left it far too late for
confession time.

Not when Katerina was already on her way
back to town.

Spencer lifted his face to the ceiling and
blew a sharp breath. She'd telephoned him last night, just before
Kate had appeared on his doorstep. His ex-wife told him that her
fiancé had thrown her out. Nic had accused her of having an affair
when she told him she was pregnant.

His lips stretched into a taut line. He
would be forced to deal with the consequences of his actions the
moment his ex-wife and Kate came face to face. Kate would feel
betrayed all over again and she would demand to know why he didn't
tell her about her striking likeness to his ex-wife and why he
didn't have the courage to tell her in the first place before they
became intimately involved.

She would accuse him of all sorts of
things he couldn't deny.

He knew he would never be able to reply to
her question because he didn't know the answer himself. He just
knew there was no way out, no way to explain that would make any
difference to the certainty that Kate would walk away from him the
moment she knew he hadn't been honest enough to tell her the whole
truth in the beginning.

And he was well aware Kate needed honesty
above everything else.

On Saturday afternoon, Kate went into town
to do some much needed shopping. Most of her clothes weren't
suitable for the long spell of hot weather, so she spent a pleasant
hour mooching around the shops and buying a few
necessities.

It was when she was coming out of the
clothing store that she saw them. Across the street Spencer was
sitting with a woman at an outside cafe table. They appeared deep
in conversation. As Kate watched the woman leaned sideways,
impulsively reaching up to kiss Spencer's cheek, her burst of
laughter carrying clearly on the hot still air.

Kate felt stunned into immobility. It was
the other woman's facial features that shocked her the most. It was
deeply unsettling to see your own face on another
person.

Spencer's
table companion wore her long
copper hair in an elegant chignon and Kate could never hope to
match her confident air of cool self-possession and chic
sophistication. But the woman's face echoed her own so closely she
could have been looking into a mirror.

Snapping out of her trance, she slipped
away before Spencer looked up and saw her, but Kate's heart
squeezed with worry and fear. Who was the woman with him, sitting
so close with her hands wrapped tightly around his as if she was
staking her claim for everyone to see?

On Monday morning Kate logged onto her
computer. As yet there was no sign of Spencer. He'd obviously been
enjoying the attentions of his glamorous table companion, she
decided, prey to a strangely restless mood. He'd definitely been
avoiding her over the last few days, so maybe she would never know
the answer. Her heart contracted. Did she want to know the whole
truth?

Now she was being silly. Whoever the woman
was with him in the cafe, Kate couldn't hope to compete. She was
grateful to Spencer for changing her phone number at the cottage.
To her relief Eric had made no further attempts to contact her. She
couldn't have handled another acrimonious confrontation on top of
everything else. But she still jumped a little whenever the phone
rang.

She was sitting at her computer, staring
at the screen, when Cheryl popped her head around the door. "That
medical catalogue you were looking for, Kris says it's on Spencer's
desk. I can get it for you if you're too busy."

Kate shook her head. "No, it's all right, I'll go
and get it."

She needed something to distract her mind.
Crossing the reception area and knocked on Spencer's closed door,
waited a moment, before letting herself in. She saw the catalogue
immediately, beneath a large brown envelope.

She picked it up. The envelope, which bore
Australian postage stamps, had been opened, and the contents
spilled out as Kate shifted it to one side. Her eyes dropped
automatically to the photograph on top of the pile. For a brief
moment her heart seemed to stop. It was the woman from the previous
day outside cafe. With Spencer; sitting together as if they were a
committed couple.

Was the woman in the photo his ex-wife? A
multi page report was attached to the photograph. Seeing the name
of a Sydney firm of private investigators brought a hand creeping
to her throat. She flicked the pages in quick succession, seeing
both her own name and that of Spencer's ex-wife. The report was
comprehensive and thorough. It outlined everything about her past
in graphic detail, leaving nothing to chance. Even Eric's abuse of
her was mentioned.

Her heart began to pound with
dismay.
How
could he
? To
do something so cruel and heartless, without her permission. When
he knew how she felt. It was something she expected from her
ex-fiancé, not Spencer.

She looked back to Katerina's photograph.
Suddenly everything fell neatly into place about why Spencer wanted
her to marry him. She picked the photograph and stared at the woman
who looked so much like her it was uncanny. This woman was older
and far more sophisticated, but there was a striking
resemblance.

Was this what Spencer and the others saw
in her face? This strange likeness to his ex-wife. And what did it
all mean? Was he simply replacing one woman with another more
convenient? Someone who said she wouldn't walk out on him and his
son. It didn't sound like the Spencer she had come to care about so
deeply, but there seemed no other rational explanation.

A personal email fluttered from the file,
to land face up on the desk. She tried to avoid reading it, but the
words—'I'm coming over in a couple of days. We need to get together
and talk about the case. Talk about us. You know you still want me,
you just won't admit it'—caught her attention. Kate quickly pushed
everything back into the envelope and turned away, her throat
closing against the desire to be violently ill.

"
Did you want to see me?" Spencer's cool
voice asked from the open doorway.

"
No, I was just looking for this
catalogue." Kate held it up, amazed her tone was so calm and
dismissive.

She stared at him. His expression looked
remote and forbidding. He came into the room to snatch up the
envelope and its contents, shoving then together. He held it out,
his face hardening, becoming shuttered and bleak. "Take it and read
it, if you want. But, what if I say, it isn't what you're thinking,
Kate? I needed to know the truth, that's all."

"
Are you asking me to believe I don't
remind you of your wife?" Kate questioned in a choked voice. "The
fact that everyone stares at me and won't tell me why. I should've
guessed. How convenient for you to find a great substitute until
the real woman returns. You don't really want me, do you
Spencer?"

"
Ex-wife." Spencer put down the envelope.
"Are you saying you'll believe me if I say the words? I love you,
Kate. I always will."

"
No." Kate shook her head. "No, you're
right, Dr. Stelanos, I wouldn't believe you. I simply can't afford
to. If you cared about what I thought, for my feelings, you
would've told me about this in the very beginning. About your
little investigation into my sordid past. Before I made a complete
fool of myself with you."