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Star was tempted to refuse but instead she heard herself asking, ‘What exactly is it you want me to get?’
‘Oh, just the basics,’ Kyle responded vaguely. ‘You know—milk, bread, that kind of stuff. It’s going to be going on for midnight before I get in. My sister gave me enough home baked stuff to dangerously overload my luggage before she left. Not that I’m complaining; it was good to have her staying; it gave us an opportunity to catch up on one another’s news.’
Star expelled a ragged breath. It had been his sister who had been staying with him and not another woman, a potential lover!
‘If you want to leave it in my flat, Amy has a key.’
He held his breath, hoping she would say that she’d wait up for him, and then released it when she made no response.
Star didn’t make any response because she was wondering why he had seen fit to leave Amy a key and not her, and wondering as well why she should feel so uptight about it.
‘Well, I guess I’d better go and let you get back to sleep,’ she heard Kyle telling her. ‘Congratulations, by the way. Brad was very impressed by your campaign, and with good reason,’ he told her generously. ‘I know you thought I was being deliberately obstructive over your original idea, but I’m behind you all the way on this one. You’ve got a very creative mind, Star, a very special talent, and I predict it won’t be long before you’re making the big agencies very edgy and nervous.’
Star gripped the telephone receiver tightly and stared at her bedroom wall.
Why? Why did it have to be Kyle who acknowledged her success and paid tribute to her skills, and why on earth did she have to feel even more desolate and forlorn because he had?
Quietly and without saying another word she replaced the telephone receiver.
Kyle sighed as he followed suit. No doubt she had thought that he was being both patronising and sexist in congratulating her, but he hadn’t meant it that way. He had no hang ups about a woman being professional and successful—in fact he applauded it.
Star frowned as she placed her bag of groceries on Kyle’s worktop and opened his fridge door.
Inside were two cartons of long-life milk plus all of the other basic items she had assumed he wanted her to get.
Out of curiosity she checked the freezer, her mouth compressing as she saw loaves of bread.
Why had he made an expensive transatlantic call to ask her to shop for items he already had?
Perhaps he had forgotten he had them, she decided as she unpacked and put away her shopping.
The flat had been refurbished now but the plants in the kitchen and sitting room looked desperately thirsty.
Automatically she watered them, making soothing, clucking noises as she saw how rapidly they absorbed the moisture. Plants were, after all, living organisms that needed care and nurturing...just like human beings... She frowned again as her brain assimilated that thought. What was she trying to tell herself—that she needed care and nurturing...? Since when?
Quickly she finished what she was doing, but on her way out of the flat some impulse she couldn’t resist took her not to the front door but to the bedroom. The bed was neatly made, with no sign, no imprint of Kyle’s body on either the bed or his pillow, and yet she still went up to it, smoothing the fabric of the pillowcase with her fingertips, bending her head towards it and then picking it up.
She was still standing with it clasped in her arms when she heard the front door open. For a second she simply stood where she was, completely frozen, and then, in a panic, she dropped the pillow back onto the bed and hurried out into the hall to come face to face with Kyle.
‘You’re early,’ she told him accusingly. ‘You said you wouldn’t be back until midnight...’
‘I caught an earlier flight,’ he told her cheerfully, looking over her head towards the open bedroom door.
‘I...I was just checking to make sure everything was all right before I locked up,’ Star told him quickly. ‘I...I’ve put your shopping away.’
‘Thank you.’
Uncertainly Star looked up at him, her mouth parting in a soft O of surprise as he bent his head and kissed her.
She heard the thud of his case as he dropped it and wrapped both his arms around her, and knew weakly that she really should protest, that such a lingering and almost lover-like kiss was scarcely necessary in acknowledgement of the simple, neighbourly task of getting his shopping. But instead she just stood where she was, letting the tender, persuasive warmth of his mouth dissolve the iciness which seemed to have lodged around her heart.
When Kyle finally removed his mouth from hers she opened her eyes and looked dizzily into his.
‘I...I have to go,’ she told him unsteadily.
‘Yes,’ he agreed gravely, reaching out and tucking an errant lock of her hair behind her ear. ‘I think you do.’ Wordlessly Star watched as he opened the door for her and he waited whilst she walked across the landing to her own flat.
Once inside it, she closed the door and then leaned against it, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. How could a single, simple kiss affect her like that. She felt...she felt...She didn’t want to acknowledge or examine how she felt, she admitted shakily. She was too afraid of what she might learn.
Once Star had gone, Kyle walked into his bedroom. The pillow she had been holding lay in the middle of the bed where she had dropped it. Smiling, he picked it up and restored it to its rightful position.
CHAPTER TEN
‘RIGHT, everyone... Last one now, everyone smile.’
Star could feel the tension in her jaw as her mouth widened in obedience to the photographer’s request. What with the video and the formal photographs as well as the various family members wanting to capture their memories of the ceremony on film, it was a wonder that there had been any time for the actual formalities of the marriage itself, she reflected ironically as the photographer signalled that he was finished with them and the assembled family group started to break up.
Kyle, who had been standing beside her, laughed as one after another of the triplets ran towards him, demanding to be picked up.
‘He’s certainly got a way with children,’ her most recent stepmother commented tiredly as she watched her offspring clamouring for Kyle’s attention. ‘Of course,’ she added, ‘they do really miss the input they would get from a younger and more physically energetic father. Has Kyle any children?’ she asked Star inquisitively.
‘I have no idea,’ Star returne
d shortly, before turning her back on her. She had already seen the assessing and unmistakably feline look of interest that Lucinda had given Kyle. Perhaps it wasn’t just the triplets who were missing out on input from a younger and more physically energetic man, she reflected, watching Lucinda’s unsubtle attempts to get Kyle’s attention.
Oh, yes, Kyle was certainly a hit with her family, she admitted, even her father was impressed. Wearily she massaged her temples; the tension headache that she had woken up with this morning had gradually become more unbearable as the day progressed.
Kyle had suggested that they travel down to the wedding the day before and stay over an extra night, but Star had rejected that idea, claiming that she was too busy to take the extra time off work. Now, though, she was paying the price for her stubbornness with an aching head and a fraying temper.
It had shocked her to discover how much her father seemed to have aged and actually physically shrunk since she had last seen him. Standing next to Kyle, he seemed so much shorter than the younger man and yet her childhood memories of her father were of an impressively tall, powerful-looking man.
He still retained his vanity and egotism, though, Star had decided cynically when he had insisted on being photographed surrounded by his progeny and his wives, both past and present, only her own mother missing from the line-up. Star realised now that he had not asked after her mother, and made a point of going over to him to inform him that she was to marry Brian. His reaction was brusquely dismissive.
‘He just doesn’t care,’ she fumed after he had walked away and she had gone back to Kyle, who had witnessed the exchange from a short distance away. ‘He never cared about either of us.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Kyle corrected her decisively. ‘I’d say he’s actually rather jealous...’
‘Jealous? No way. He was the one who wanted the divorce.’
