To Claim His Mistress. Sara Craven

made her gag. She half stumbled into the street, drawing deep breaths of stale air as she tried to recover her equilibrium.

      She had to put the events of the weekend behind her, before they drove her crazy, and she knew it. But if only someone would tell her how.

      She couldn’t face the struggle with the Underground, she thought, hailing a cab. She got out at her neighbourhood supermarket and wandered the aisles with her trolley, trying to summon up some interest in feeding herself over the coming week. In the end she settled for the usual staples, adding a cold roast chicken, pâté and salad, as well as dried pasta.

      Spaghetti carbonara would be quick and easy tonight, she thought as she turned the corner towards her block of flats.

      She was just fitting her key into the door when her neighbour emerged from the flat opposite, smiling over a dozen cellophane-wrapped red roses.

      ‘For you, dear. You’ve got an admirer,’ she added roguishly. And not before time was clearly the silent coda to that.

      At any other time Cat would have found it amusing, but she was too stunned to do anything other than mutter a word of thanks through dry lips, and carry the flowers into the flat.

      ‘Have dinner with me,’ begged the message on the card in a florist’s rounded script. ‘Thursday 8 p.m. at Mignonette.’

      There was no signature, but they had to be from Liam, she thought, her heart thudding wildly. Somehow, once his anger had cooled, he’d found out where she lived and was making contact—and far sooner than she could ever have dreamed. Her throat was constricted with excitement mixed with incredulity as she put her shopping in the kitchen and took a tall vase from a cupboard with hands that shook a little.

      At the same time she had to suppress a tiny pang of disappointment that he’d fallen into the red rose cliché trap. And he was also assuming that she’d automatically be free on Thursday.

      Which I am, she thought, but that’s not the point.

      Because he’d not offered her any way to communicate with him in turn, she realised. So she would have to choose whether to arrive meekly at the rendezvous—and she didn’t do meek—or to stand him up, which she guessed would sever any connection between them for ever.

      Well, I don’t have to decide at once, she told herself as she arranged her flowers, and carried them back into the living room.

      But in her heart she already knew what her decision would be, and she threw her head back and laughed with jubilant anticipation.

      It seemed, of course, as if Thursday would never come. During the days, Cat was positive and dynamic, throwing herself into her work with renewed energy, her expectations carrying her along. But her nights were very different. She slept fitfully, her dreams wild and disturbing with an undercurrent of sensuality that often woke her, her body on fire, and a moan of sheer yearning on her lips.

      ‘Mignonette, eh?’ said Dorita, the company’s restaurant guru, responding to Cat’s studiedly casual query. She whistled. ‘It must be a heavy date, Cat, because it’s the top place for couples right now.’ She observed Cat’s flushed face with benevolent interest. ‘Going there tonight?’

      Cat shook her head. ‘Tomorrow.’

      Tonight, she thought ruefully, was her twosome with her mother at the Savoy—something she would have happily foregone.

      But Vanessa greeted her with a radiant smile and champagne cocktails.

      ‘Darling.’ She kissed Cat on both cheeks, then stood back to scrutinise her plain grey shift dress with its matching jacket. She nodded. ‘You look wonderful,’ she approved.

      ‘And so do you,’ Cat returned with total sincerity, returning her embrace. Her mother seemed to have shed years since the weekend. The almost palpable tensions had disappeared, and she had that magical look of being lit with inner happiness that had been missing for so long.

      If this was Gil’s doing then Cat could only be grateful, in spite of her reservations about him.

      Or did she simply recognise it because she shared it?

      ‘I went down to see Susan yesterday,’ Vanessa said when they were seated at their table, with their first course of seafood ravioli in front of them. ‘She’s planning to sell the house and move to France when everything’s settled.’

      Cat put down her fork, her eyes widening. ‘She’s really divorcing Uncle Robert? That’s rather quick, isn’t it?’

      Vanessa shrugged. ‘She says that when it’s over, it’s over, and she doesn’t want to waste a moment of the rest of her life. She taught French before her marriage, and has always wanted a place there, only Robert wouldn’t consider it.’

      Cat shook her head. ‘I had no idea.’

      ‘Obviously there’s more than one actress in the family,’ Vanessa said drily, and applied herself to her food.

      ‘But won’t she be lonely?’ Cat persisted.

      ‘I wouldn’t think so for a minute,’ her mother said with a touch of asperity. ‘She’s still a very attractive woman. Once she’s got Robert out of her system I can see her having a whale of a time.’

      Cat raised her eyebrows. ‘With you, no doubt, acting as her mentor?’ she suggested.

      Vanessa laughed. ‘Not I, darling. At long last I’m planning to settle down for good, and I refuse to be distracted from that.’ She gave Cat a long look. ‘Well—I didn’t expect you to turn cartwheels in the Savoy, but I thought you’d be a little pleased to hear I was aiming for respectability.’

      With Gil, Cat thought, aghast. With a muscle-bound toyboy? Oh, God, is this what she wants to tell me? Why she brought me here tonight for a girlie chat? And I was scared she just wanted to have another go about my father.

      She felt infinitely depressed, but managed to summon a smile. ‘If that’s really what you want,’ she said quietly, ‘I wish you every happiness.’

      Vanessa stretched a manicured hand across the table and laid it on Cat’s. ‘And I wish the same for you, dearest.’ Her voice was oddly gentle. She paused. ‘Just don’t take as long as I’ve done to find it.’

      Cat looked down at her plate. ‘I’m perfectly content with my life, Ma.’ And in twenty-four hours’ time I could be on the edge of bliss, she added, silently and exultantly.

      But less than twenty-four hours later much of her exhilaration had evaporated as she searched despairingly through her wardrobe, trying to find something which would look good without seeming as if she was trying too hard.

      Eventually she decided on a cream georgette skirt, cut on the bias, with a matching jersey top, short-sleeved and round-necked, and a plain jacket the colour of sapphire. She put gold studs in her ears, and a tiny sapphire pendant in the shape of a star nestled at the base of her throat. She wore her favourite pale rose lipstick, and her nails were varnished in a similar shade.

      She drew a deep breath as she looked at herself in the bedroom mirror.

      ‘You’ll do,’ she said aloud.

      It would have been far more cool to arrive late, she knew, but her taxi delivered her at Mignonette punctual to the second.

      She paid off the driver and walked slowly into the restaurant.

      She saw him at once, standing at the bar with a drink in his hand, and this time her eyes did not deceive her. He was wearing casual dark grey pants, and an open necked shirt that was almost silver. His jacket was slung across one shoulder. He was talking to the barman, and not looking at the door, so she could feast her eyes on him as greedily as she wished.

      For a moment she indulged herself to the hilt, then started towards him, her stomach churning and a tight knot of excitement in her chest.

      ‘Cat—you