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“Are you okay on your own with him?” Andrew spoke directly to Katie in a way that made Marcus want to punch his sibling in the face.
“I’m fine.” She nodded, and waited until Andrew left the room before turning her attention to Marcus.
Through his sluggish brain, he realized that she still looked like an angel. He felt like death warmed up and she was as ethereally beautiful as ever. He shrugged out of his coat, noticing the way her nose wrinkled as the cigarette smoke, booze and perfume infiltrated the room.
“You’re a mess,” she whispered. “I can’t believe I ever thought…”
“Thought what, Katie? What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know anymore.
” She let out a small laugh. “I came to confront you. I think I was hoping you’d be able to say something that would make it all okay.”
He grunted. “Sorry, not today.”
“I just can’t fathom why you did it?”
“Lied to a beautiful woman? I knew you’d turn your back on me if you knew who I was.”
“So you pretended to be a school teacher and seduced me, made me love you, made my son think you were the best thing since sliced bread, and then disappeared without a thought of how low that was?”
He shook his head. It wasn’t like that, but his alcohol addled brain couldn’t grasp the explanation. “I really need that coffee. I can hardly think straight.”
“Tough! I don’t have long and I’m running out of patience. Tell me now. Was this all about Wadeford House?”
He whipped his head up to face her, causing his eyes to dance with lights. “In the beginning.”
“I’m a bigger fool than I thought.” She shook her head slowly from side to side.
She pictured the woman who’d been downstairs. The blonde, with impossibly long legs and a supermodel’s figure. “And you’ve moved on. You’ve been seeing…” she swallowed down the euphemism, “Sleeping with other women? How many? Just blondie down there? Or others, too?”
He opened his mouth to speak.
“Don’t answer that,” she interrupted on a sob, putting her hands in front of her face. She tried to hold it together but her heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. All of the dreams she’d held were bursting into flames. “I don’t want to know. Actually. Damn it, I do. Well? If we hadn’t shown up on your doorstep, would you be inside her now?”
He dipped his head. “That was the plan.” Guilt, unfamiliar and unpalatable, made him color.
“Oh, God.” She shook her head slowly. “And there’ve been others.”
He’d tried, but every time he’d got to the point of asking them home, he’d bottled it. “I wanted to forget you…”
“Oh, how charming. I think that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard! How many women until you did just that?” Her voice sounded deranged. Little wonder. She was barely holding it together.
His head was swimming, his brain felt like it was about to explode. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? I’m not doing this right.”
“Tomorrow?” She laughed, a high-pitched sound that made his stomach feel funny. “Hell, no. This is it for us, David. Marcus. Whoever the hell you are. Finally. I get it. We’re done.”
He shook his head. “How’d you find out?”
“Does that matter?”
“Not really. I just know I’ll wish I asked when I remember this conversation tomorrow.”
She bit down on her lower lip, which was wobbling. “I went to your house. The house you’d put on the paperwork. And met the real David Trent.”
“Ah-ha.”
“Yeah. That’s just what I said.” She swallowed down the lump of tears in her throat. “Amongst other things.”
