And then there was the fact that he stood nearly a head above her. She had no need to slouch or try and make herself smaller. She could pull her shoulders back and hold herself straight and amazingly she still only just reached his chin. She might tower over everyone else but at Theo’s side, for the first time ever, she felt normal. So normal, in fact, that next time they went out she might even wear a pair of the heels she hadn’t been able to resist adding to the pile of new clothing she’d accumulated this morning.
Of course there’d also been some negatives, because unfortunately her body still hadn’t got the memo about what a despicable human being Theo was. Her body kept wanting to take advantage of the fake engagement and, well, snuggle. So much so that she found herself actually regretting the no kissing and no contact condition of hers, which was wrong on practically every level there was.
At least the evening was coming to an end. She couldn’t wait to get home and collapse into bed. She had the feeling that the continued attraction she felt, so obviously now one-sided, was going to become increasingly hard to handle, and she could only hope that Daniel Bridgeman got wind of the ‘engagement’, was fooled into thinking Theo’s unfortunate personality had undergone a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree change, and announced his plan to go ahead with the deal just as soon as was humanly possible.
What she couldn’t do was stay in here, much as she wouldn’t mind taking a quick nap, because the door to the bathroom had just opened and people had come in, no doubt wishing to use the stall she was occupying.
Fighting a yawn and rolling her head to ease the kinks in her neck, Kate pulled herself together. She stood up and smoothed her dress, and was just about to slide the lock when something about the conversation on the other side of the door made her go very still.
‘Yes, but who is she?’ she heard one woman ask, the incredulity in her voice as clear as a bell.
‘Apparently she works for him.’
‘Theo Knox dipping his nib in the company ink? That doesn’t sound like him.’
‘I agree. But, well, it wouldn’t be the first time a woman has trapped a man into marriage by getting pregnant, would it?’
‘I guess not.’
‘So, Miss Cassidy, what was it about gorgeous billionaire Theo Knox that first caught your eye?’
‘Why, his sparkling personality, of course.’
Catty laughter.
A pause.
What sounded like a rummage in a handbag.
Then, ‘No ring, I noticed.’
‘I noticed that, too.’
‘And he’s not exactly doting, is he?’
‘Well, would you be? Have you seen the size of her? She’s huge.’
‘I know.’
‘Do you really think the baby’s his?’
‘No idea. Pass me a tissue, would you?’
The conversation stopped and then came the vague sounds of make-up being reapplied but Kate barely registered any of it. Her head was spinning, her heart was racing and she was trembling from head to toe. Every word had slammed into her, leaving her battered and bruised and sore. She didn’t know why. Logically, they should not affect her. Her engagement to Theo was fake. She wasn’t a gold-digger. She most certainly didn’t want him to dote.
But they did. For some reason, they did. They sliced right through her and ripped her open, brutally exposing her innermost vulnerabilities and stabbing straight at them. When would she stop being a freak show? When would someone want her for real? What had she ever done to deserve any of this?
Her eyes stung and her throat tightened—blasted hormones—but she summoned up strength from somewhere deep inside and took a long, steadying breath, because she knew the truth. The gossip and these women meant nothing. And yes, she was abnormally tall, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it, so she could either crumple in a heap of self-pity or let it go, and, frankly, this dress was too gorgeous to ruin.
Mind made up, she briefly looked up at the ceiling and blinked rapidly to dispel the threat of tears, then pulled her shoulders back and set her jaw. Clinging onto her courage as if her life depended on it, she opened the door, walked to a basin to wash her hands and, with a wide beam at the two bitchy women who stared at her in dawning shock and horror, sailed out.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BACK AT THE table that Kate had left fifteen minutes ago, Theo rolled a tumbler of thirty-year-old single malt between his fingers and tuned out of the conversation going on around him to run a quick assessment of the evening. Socialising was not his forte. He loathed small talk and sycophancy as much as he abhorred the idea of the press poking into his background and his personal life. However, things had gone well tonight, and he had no doubt that the news of his newly altered civil status would soon reach the right ears.
Despite her vague threat to sabotage his plans, Kate had embraced the role of fiancée admirably, although he could have done with fewer of her dazzling smiles and the occasional touches to his arm. Each of the former momentarily blinded him and each of the latter sent stabs of electricity shooting through him.
His irritatingly intense response to her was the only fly in tonight’s ointment, and would have been a whole lot easier to ignore if he weren’t so constantly aware of her. When she’d emerged from her building earlier, wrapped in green satin and looking so spectacularly sexy he’d gone as hard as granite, his gut instinct had been to grab her hand and take her back upstairs. In the car, which he’d always considered roomy, he’d had to fight for air. Her understandable spikiness, which ought to have doused the desire rocketing through him, had only intensified it.