Kate looked at the back of his head in despair. `I'm not Catherine, I'm Kate. If you can dismiss the Kate you've known after the last few weeks that easily I don't want to marry you! Can you dismiss last night too? Did it seem to you that we had any secrets that mattered then?' Luke stiffened but didn't turn round. `There are lots of things I don't know about you,' she went on. `For all I know, you have been seducing secretaries for the last ten years, but if you'd asked me to set that against what I learnt of you last night I'd have said it didn't matter.'
Angry tears were very close, and she scrabbled frantically for her bag. `Still, I'm sure you'll find another special secretary soon to console you. Make sure you check her birth certificate before you employ her!' Determined not to cry in front of him, she snatched up her coat as Luke spun round.
`Where do you think you're going?'
`I'm leaving.' Kate stormed over to the door. `You can deal with your own rotten contract and learn to speak French yourself!'
Slamming the door behind her, she jabbed at the lift button. It would be on the ground floor! `Come on, come on!' she prayed as it inched its way upwards with an infuriating lack of haste.
`Kate!' Luke called from the office doorway.
`It's Kate now, is it? It was Catherine a minute ago!' Kate shouted, oblivious of the fact that their voices were echoing down the corridor and would be heard in all the offices.
`You needn't think you can just storm off like this,' Luke yelled back. `You're under contract.'
`You know what you can do with your precious contract!' Kate hit the lift button with her fist, glancing over her shoulder in panic as she saw Luke advancing towards her. If he touched her she was lost. `Come on!'
At last there was a ping, and the lift doors slid open laboriously. Kate practically fell inside and jammed the `close doors' button, missing the fact that Luke veered off and ran for the stairs.
As the doors closed behind her Kate's knees began to shake, and she leant back against the mirrored wall, pressing her hand against her face to hold back the sobs that threatened to tear her apart.
It was a slow lift at the best of times, stopping at every floor. Somebody must have pressed all the buttons as a practical joke. Kate was glad that no one wanted to share the lift, and she tried desperately to pull herself together as the doors opened at the ground floor.
To her horror, Luke stood there in front of a cluster of people waiting for the lift. He was out of breath and panting, barring her escape.
Kate tried to push past him, but he caught her and dragged her back into the lift, pushing her against the mirror and kissing her fiercely. She put her hands up to resist and jammed them against his chest, but he was too strong for her. He held her head between his hands, ignoring her struggles, and kissed her, deep, desperate kisses that crumbled her resistance and woke a fire of response where anger and bitter unhappiness melted into the absolute certainty of love.
He could feel the change in her, for his hands left her face, sliding down her back to wrap her closely to him. Kate's arms were about his neck as she kissed him back. Without a word's being said, all was explained and understood and forgiven.
`Let's go back upstairs,' Luke said, raising his head at last. He turned round to press the button for the fourth floor and to face an interested audience in the reception area.
`You'll have to wait,' he said, taking Kate back into his arms. `This one's full.'
Back on the fourth floor, there were little knots of people in the office doorways, all clearly discussing the scene that had taken place, for they fell silent abruptly as Luke and Kate reappeared.
`Why aren't you all working?' Luke demanded. `I don't pay you to stand around gossiping all day!'
Everyone moved hastily, but Kate could just imagine the raised eyebrows as he took her hand and dragged her down to their office so fast that she had to trot to keep up.
Pushing her into his inner office, he shut the door firmly behind him and looked at her.
`Now, what do you mean by storming off like that?’
'What do you mean by dragging me back like that?' Kate retorted, thoroughly ruffled an unsure of whether she felt deliriously happy or cross.
Luke took her hands and held them tightly a he looked into her eyes. `I mean that I'm sorry he said simply. `I mean that I love you. I mean that I'm not letting you go again. Is that clear enough?'
Kate couldn't speak. She could only nod, he eyes golden and starry with relief.
`I really am sorry, Kate,' Luke went o seriously. `When I saw you get into that lift suddenly realised what a fool I'd been and that if I let you go like that it would be the worst thing I'd ever done. I've never run so fast as I did down those stairs; I was terrified you'd leave before I caught you, so I called the lift at ever floor in the hope of slowing you down. I only just made it in time.'
He paused. `I don't know why I blew my top like that. After last night I was sure of what I'd suspected for a long time-that you were the only woman for me. It was just such a shock to suddenly find that you were someone completely different.'
`I'm sorry too,' Kate said. `I should have told you, but I didn't want to spoil things. I wanted you to think of me as the woman I am now, not the girl I was then. I didn't think you'd want to remember kissing that plain, scrawny girl.'
`I didn't, but not for the reason you think,' Luke said slowly. `I wished I hadn't taken my anger with Helen out on you. Afterwards it was hard to forget the look in your eyes when I let you go. In later years, whenever I did something I wasn't very proud of I'd remember that look.'
Kate smiled. `I'm glad you remembered. That was my first kiss, Luke. Nobody ever kissed me like that. I think I've been in love with you ever since.'
`Do you love me now, even after the way I've shouted at you and bullied you?’
'More than ever,' she said, and he caught her to him for a kiss that went on and on in the giddy exhilaration of knowing that everything was going to be all right.
`Luke?' Kate said later. She was sitting on his lap on one of the squashy leather chairs she had avoided during her interview, and her fingers were curling round his. `Why did you take up with Helen again? She was so cruel to you before.'
Luke stroked her face with such tenderness that her heart ached. `Why? I think I had some vague thought of getting my own back on her. She's not nearly as cool as she likes to make out, and she wants marriage just as much as anyone else. I have to admit I took some amusement from beating her at her own game, stringing her along and then suddenly taking up with someone else. Besides, you were right, I have had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for a long time, and Helen is… well, she's very beautiful. She was good for my image.'
`I told her not to come back while I was still your secretary,' Kate confessed.
`I know. She told me. She was furious with you when she met me in the corridor and dropped the bombshell about who you were. I think she must have realised how much you meant to me, because she told me what she said to you about my previous secretaries-all nonsense, of course. There's only one secretary who's ever made me realise that all the attempts I'd made to stay cynical and detached were just a pretence.'
`What happened to her?' Kate asked innocently.
`Oh, I sacked her.'
`You what?' Kate sat up, indignant, but Luke pulled her back against him. `I decided she was just too distracting at the office. In any case, her talents could be put to better use elsewhere.'
She eyed him speculatively. `Where?’
'In my home and in my heart,' Luke said, and tightened his arms about her. `Marry me, Kate,' he demanded, suddenly urgent, and then, with a smile that sent shivers of anticipation down her spine, `please?'