Dangerous Temptation (5 page)

Caitlin wondered if Nathan had really been to see his father. She knew pathetically little about his background, and what she did know was hardly up to date. She knew his mother was dead and that his father was virtually a recluse—at least, that was the excuse he'd given her for Jacob Wolfe not attending their wedding. And it must have been true, she supposed, or her father wouldn't have encouraged the match.

Weariness descended like a cloud upon her. What was she really doing here? she wondered disconsolately. Why had she let her father persuade her to make this trip? Whatever had happened, Nathan wouldn't want to see her. She should have told her father the truth and made him send someone else.

Marshall O'Brien could have done it. Her father's personal assistant—secretary—
henchman—
would have handled the less attractive details far better than she. He wouldn't have felt as helpless as she did staring round this vast foyer, with no earthly idea where her husband might be. And no helpful nurse to direct her. She sighed heavily. Just a cacophony of voices, and squealing gurneys, and—noise!

Yet it was she who hadn't allowed Marshall to accompany her, even though her father had suggested it. After living a lie for almost three years, she was not about to expose the travesty of their marriage just because Nathan had been involved in a plane crash. Dear God, when she'd first heard the news, for a second—for the minutest, most shameful second of her life—she had actually believed that it was over. In spite of all the guilt and recrimination she had felt later, for that one fleeting second she'd thought she was free…

A harassed receptionist eventually informed her that her husband was in a ward on the twelfth floor. "Just take the elevator, take the elevator," the woman exclaimed when Caitlin asked for directions. Then turned away almost immediately to answer another query.

She could have been a serial killer and she'd have received the same instructions, Caitlin thought wryly. Any security there had ever been had been eclipsed by the very real demands of the situation. It was no one's fault; there simply weren't enough staff to handle it. In circumstances like these, the most you could hope for was a civil tone.

The lifts, when she found them, were jammed with stretchers and still more people. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, and the mix of sounds and dialects was deafening in the ponderous, clanking cubicle. But they ascended, albeit ponderously, to the upper reaches of the hospital, stopping at every floor to disgorge and take on more passengers.

Caitlin inevitably found herself pushed towards the back of the lift, with the iron rails of a gurney crushed against her stomach. She had never felt claustrophobic before, but the panic of confinement rose sharp and unfamiliar inside her. Only the awareness of the injured child on the gurney kept her silent, the bottle of plasma held high by an orderly providing a steadying focus on which to fix her gaze.

They reached the twelfth floor at last, and Caitlin forced herself to step out onto the vinyl landing. The gurney had swished away to her left, and her fellow passengers rushed off to find the nearest nursing station. But Caitlin took a moment to compose herself, as the smells of the hospital washed around her. Nathan would not expect her to rush to his bedside. In the circumstances, her being here at all seemed out of place.

She should never have married him, she thought again, with a sense of vulnerability. It was a feeling she'd had many times before. But it had been what her father had wanted, and after resisting him for so long, it had seemed the most logical thing to do.

How wrong she'd been…

Another lift stopped beside her, and realising she was causing an obstruction, Caitlin began to walk towards the busy nurses' station. Around her, the tide of humanity continually ebbed and flowed, and listening to the unmistakeable sounds of grief, she wondered how she could be feeling sorry for herself when many of these people had lost friends and loved ones. At least Nathan was alive, and God willing, he'd make a full recovery. She should be glad he'd survived. Not bemoaning her fate…

She waited her turn silently, relieved that she was not obliged to make trivial conversation. It was a huge hospital, with the corridors stretching away to left and right evidently accommodating many wards. The sign, hanging above their heads, announced Neurosurgery and Neurology, and she was just absorbing the significance of this when the busy nurse asked her name.

"Um…" Caitlin looked at her a little blankly. "I—Wolfe. Caitlin Wolfe."

"We don't have any Caitlin Wolfe on this floor," the nurse declared impatiently.

She was already turning to the next inquirer when Caitlin exclaimed, "It's Nathan. Nathan Wolfe." She flushed unhappily. "I misunderstood. I thought you wanted my name."

She glanced at the couple behind her, hoping for their support, but the woman seemed dull-eyed and lifeless and the man looked right through her. Evidently the news they'd received had left them in a state of shock, and once again Caitlin felt guilty for her lack of grief.

"You're Mrs Wolfe, is that right?" the nurse asked with more compassion, and Caitlin nodded quickly. For the first time, she felt a prickle of alarm. The nurse was eyeing her with some sympathy now. How serious could Nathan's condition be?

"I'm going to have to ask you to take a seat, Mrs Wolfe," the nurse declared at last, compounding her fears. "The doctor would like to speak to you before you see your husband. If you'd just wait over there…"

"He's not dead, is he?"

Caitlin blurted the words urgently, and this time even the man and woman behind her in the queue showed some response. But the nurse was professionally reassuring. "He's doing very well," she declared, shuffling the folders on the desk. "The doctor just wants to talk to you. It's nothing too serious." She lifted her hand as if taking an oath. "I promise."

Caitlin wasn't sure how sincere the nurse's promise might be. She was still troubled by those two words: Neurosurgery and Neurology. It must mean that Nathan had injured his head. Oh, God, he wasn't brain damaged, was he? That would be the cruellest blow of all.

But she wouldn't think about things like that, she decided, taking a seat on one of the steel-framed vinyl chairs. She had to be confident, and optimistic. Someone would surely have told her if Nathan was in a coma.

A little girl of perhaps two or three was waiting with her mother a couple of seats away. Although she was obviously too old to do so, she was sucking her thumb, and Caitlin wondered what anxieties she was suffering in her own small way. She had to know something was wrong. Her mother had been crying. Was that why she was seeking comfort in the only way she knew?

Caitlin attempted a smile, but it wasn't returned, and even that effort was too great to sustain. Dear God, she thought, let Nathan be all right. Whatever he'd done, he didn't deserve to be here.

The little girl continued to stare at her, and Caitlin wondered if things would have been different if she and Nathan had had a child of their own. It might not have changed his character, but he might have loved their child.

Her mind drifted back to her own childhood. When had she become aware that her own father had wished
she
had been a son? Was it when he'd realised her mother could have no more children after Caitlin? When he'd learned the dynasty he'd hoped to found was never to be?

To begin with, it hadn't seemed that important—at least not to Caitlin. All through her childhood, all the time she was growing into adolescence, she had never felt she was a disappointment to either of her parents. She had been given everything a child could wish for, and they had had her love in return.

But she had always been a fairly serious child, never happier than when her nose was immersed in a book. She had satisfied every academic hope her parents could have had for her, and following a successful career at school, she had gone on to gain a brilliant degree besides.

Her aim had always been to work for her father's company. Naively, she supposed now, she had seen herself taking over from him one day and running Webster Development. It was an ambition she had formed when he had first taken her to visit the Webster Building, and it was not until she'd gained her degree that she'd realised how unrealistic her hopes had been. Her father was from the old school, to whom the idea of a woman in a position of total authority was something of an anathema. He was prepared to make her an associate director, if that was what she really wanted. But as far as taking over when he retired…

A man in a white coat was approaching, and Caitlin felt her mouth go dry. Oh, God, she thought, please let it be good news. But the man didn't even look at her. He just walked by, intent on some objective of his own.

Her thoughts returned to Matthew Webster. Not that she could blame her father for her present predicament, she reflected bleakly. Although his attitude might have caused her to rebel, ultimately she had been the one who'd made the mistakes.

And so, much to her father's dismay and her mother's quiet amusement, she had found herself a flat in London. Instead of commuting to the office from her parents' home in Buckinghamshire, as Matthew Webster had expected, she had abandoned her ideas of working for the company and accepted a temporary position in a friend's art gallery instead.

Of course, from her father's point of view, she couldn't have made a more unsuitable decision. The men she met in the course of her work at the gallery were not the sort of men he admired. Mostly, he regarded artists, of any per-suasion, as wimps and losers, and he lost no opportunity to ridicule her chosen career.

But, once her mind was made up, Caitlin had proved to be as obdurate as her father. She liked the idea that people listened to her opinion; that she was treated as an equal instead of being ignored. And the work was easy. She could have done it standing on her head. It was pleasant, it was civilised, and she'd managed to convince herself it was what she wanted to do.

In addition to which, she had a social life at last. Instead of burying her head in a book every evening, she'd started accepting invitations to the theatre, and to parties, and to various exhibitions. She still had no illusions about her popularity, of course. Growing up as Matthew Webster's daughter had made her cynical, and she couldn't throw that cynicism off overnight. She knew she was neither incredibly sexy nor incredibly beautiful, and for all her independence, she was still too willing to accept that her father's wealth was pulling strings.

"Mrs Wolfe?"

A nurse was standing in front of her, and Caitlin jerked her head up so quickly she went dizzy for a moment. "Yes?"

"Dr Harper says he's sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs Wolfe," the nurse explained, urging Caitlin back into her seat when she would have stood up. "He'll be with you very shortly." She paused. "There's a dispenser over there if you'd like to help yourself to some coffee."

Caitlin made a negative gesture, the dizziness receding. Machine-made coffee was usually unpalatable in her experience, and although she'd come to the hospital straight from the airport, her stomach was not yet attuned to the fact that it was only midday here in New York. It was already five o'clock in London, and on any other day she would have been either at the flat, or working.

"It's the pits, waiting," remarked the little girl's mother suddenly, in an accent that Caitlin found harder to understand than that of the nurse. She sniffed. "I guess you're here for the same reason I am. You got someone injured in the crash?"

Caitlin nodded. "My husband." She hesitated. "Did you…?"

"Yeah. Emmy's father was on the same flight," agreed the woman, pulling a used tissue out of her sleeve and blowing her nose hard. "He was on his way to England to see his sick mother. Leastwise, that's what he told me." She grimaced. "Who knows about men?"

Well, not me, thought Caitlin ruefully. She exchanged a wistful smile with the little girl. When David Griffiths had come along, she'd been vulnerable and far too willing to believe what he said.

David was the brother of the friend who'd invited her to work at the gallery, and, for some unknown reason, he had been instantly attracted to her. Had he seen how naive she was? How inexperienced? Or had he sensed what a pushover she'd be?

Whatever, he had certainly made her feel special. The tall, shy young woman, who had come to help his sister sell her paintings, had been transformed into a glowing creature who believed everything he said. She'd sometimes wondered if he'd ever cared about her. Or if she was the kind of person who only saw what she wanted to see.

His sister, Felicity—Fliss—had approved of the alliance. She'd assured Caitlin that she was good for her brother and that he'd never been so happy before.

Sometimes, Caitlin had found him a little impractical. She was still her father's daughter after all, and his attitude to-wards money gave her pause. But he taught her that life was not just a series of balance sheets and that personal fulfilment meant more than being a success.

Their affair had not been a passionate one. In lovemaking, as in everything else, David preferred to take it very much at his own pace. Caitlin doubted he had ever felt strongly about anything that didn't directly affect his own wellbeing. He was selfish and self-indulgent—but he was fun.

The only aspect of their relationship that did trouble her was his moodiness. For all his happy-go-lucky ways, there were days when he was not approachable at all. And because in all the time she'd known him he had never had a job, Caitlin had got it into her head that he had financial problems; that although he seemed quite content to borrow money from either her or his sister, secretly he worried about the future.

She remembered she'd even mentioned her fears to Fliss quite early in their relationship. But Fliss had just dismissed them out of hand. David had always had these cranky days, she assured her carelessly. If she had any sense, she'd just leave him alone and he'd come round.

And she had, until that fateful day when she'd entered the small flat he'd occupied above the gallery and discovered him unconscious on the floor…