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‘There’s a medical charity event this weekend...’ she began, as Catherine nodded in recognition.
‘Kaspar’s the patron, I know. You want to know if I recommend going?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t see why not, depending on how you feel on the day. As long as you take it easy, aren’t planning on running around madly getting ready or dancing a jive.’
‘Definitely not.’ Archie laughed, although maybe it was time for her to show Kaspar a flash of the old, confident Archie.
The one she’d felt returning over recent months. Thanks, ironically, to Kaspar. She’d spent so many years putting him on a pedestal and thinking, somehow, that his lack of interest in her had been because she wasn’t pretty, feminine, sexy enough. Especially given Shady Sadie’s maturing fifteen-year-old body compared to her thirteen-year-old one. But from that first charity wrap party when he’d homed in on her to the golf course the other day when he hadn’t been able to keep from kissing her, Archie was beginning to realise that she had more allure, more dynamism, more power than she’d realised.
If Kaspar could resist her then perhaps it was simply because she wasn’t trying hard enough to be his undoing. And that sounded like the kind of fun challenge she was more than willing to take up. Perhaps tonight she could remind him what he was missing. That she wasn’t just the mother of his baby but a woman in her own right, too.
‘Then I’ll probably see you there,’ said Catherine with a smile.
Archie adopted her most beatific smile, not willing to give Kaspar any forewarning of what was to come.
‘I look forward to it.’
* * *
Leaning on the bar, an untouched tumbler of some of the most expensive brandy money could buy in hand, Kaspar leaned back against the bar and watched Archie from across the room.
It was a scene that seemed all too familiar to him. An echo of the charity wrap party that had started all of this.
Only this time, instead of having to watch her fend off a couple of admirers on the dance floor and being able to glower in peace, he was forced to pin a smile on his face as she sparkled and floated, as though she was on some kind of mission.
She charmed every single person who stopped to talk to her, particularly the men despite, or perhaps because of, her pregnancy radiance.
And all the while she made sure she was absolutely anywhere but by his side.
It was his own fault, of course. He had no idea what had happened the other day in Catherine’s office but Archie had walked out a very different woman. And yet, in many ways, altogether too familiar. More confident, more vivacious, a grown-up version of the Little Ant he’d known. She’d been adamant about accompanying him to this party, and hadn’t let any of his, albeit half-hearted, objections deter her.
He was letting her dictate to him. Worse, he was comfortable with it.
To a degree anyway.
Kaspar refused to accept it was because a part of him secretly wanted the world to know the truth. That he was about to become a father. That he, the feckless Surgeon Prince, was quietly content being married to the mother of his baby.
It made no sense.
Archie had even begun to tease him and galled by his constant inability to master his desire around her, he’d determined that tonight he would keep his distance. Allow her to weave her magic of the people in his social circle and the press alike, without his physical presence, which inevitably meant him placing a guarding hand on her here and there. And he knew exactly where that always led to.
Perhaps a part of him had expected her to fail, even hoped she would. Just so that he could finally have a reason to tell himself that this perfect image he’d had of Archie was flawed. That she couldn’t possibly be as perfect for him as his mind—and body—seemed to want to believe, and thus she might stop invading his dreams every night. Stop making his body react in ways it had no business reacting when he saw her.
So there she was, working the room and channelling more and more the spirit and boldness he’d begun to remember. And he, for his part, was standing here staring at her like some lovesick puppy.
It would not do.
In a minute he would turn around. He would find a decent medical conversation and he would throw himself into it, as he always did.
In a minute.
The only thing tempering his immense frustration was that at least the distance afforded him the pleasure of observing, and appreciating, Archie at his leisure. And there was certainly plenty to appreciate in her stunning blue, floor-length ballgown with silver straps that hooked over silky smooth shoulders to cross over beneath her breasts and frame her burgeoning baby bump. Radiant and beautiful. And his.
But she couldn’t be.
He could only bring her trouble. His parents’ miserable marriage wasn’t something he ever wanted to risk inflicting on any woman, but certainly not Archie. And not their child. He had spent too many years terrified, lonely, numb, before he’d met Robbie. Before the Coates family had welcomed him into their safe fold.
