Free Getting It Right This Time by Rachel Brimble Page A

picture as though she was Venus, the goddess of love, and she looked at him with her eyes wide with what could only be described as terror.
    “And this has worried you, why?” Mark demanded. “You’re not in the picture.”
    Kate stepped forward, cleared her throat. “So who is?”
    Ignoring her, Mark kept his gaze on Marcia’s. He couldn’t help but notice her tears had dried and an altogether different gleam shone in her eyes beneath the lobby’s fluorescent lights.
    “I asked you a question, Marcia,” he pressed. “Why does this worry you?”
    She reached forward and clutched his forearm. “Because they’re saying things.”
    “The press? Well, of course they are. So what? You’ve dealt with them for the last two years.
    Enjoyed them even. What’s changed?”

    Rachel Brimble
    39
    Another glance at Kate. “Couldn’t we talk privately?” she asked, looking at him beneath lowered lashes.
    Mark looked at Kate. Her shoulders were pulled back and her chin tilted. Her glare bore into the back of Marcia’s head through narrowed eyes. She was fabulous. And there was no way in hell she was leaving.
    “Kate?”
    A moment passed before she dragged her eyes from Marcia to meet his. “What?”
    “Would you wait for me upstairs?”
    Her beautiful emerald eyes widened, and her eyebrows lifted. “Please tell me you’re joking?”
    Mark felt his jaw tightened. “I’m serious. Come on, you and I both know we have things to talk about. Let’s talk. Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”
    She looked down at the paper in his hand. “It’s me, isn’t it? I’m on the front of that paper, aren’t I?”
    Heat seared his face. She didn’t ask for this, and he didn’t want her to experience what it was like being a tabloid plaything. “Yes.”
    Another long moment passed as she looked first at him, then at Marcia and back again. She stuffed her phone back into her bag, her eyes never leaving his. “I’ll stay, Mark. I’ll stay because I’ve got a lot to say to you. So much, your ears will be ringing by the time I’ve finished.”
    He managed a small smile. “Thank you.”

Affront flashed in her eyes, and her mouth opened to say something before she snapped it shut. Knowing he now had two pissed off women on his hands he thought it best if he separated them as soon as possible. He had a horrible feeling the night was going to go from bad to worse, the longer it went on. Placing his hand at the base of Kate’s spine, he steered her toward the lift.
    He punched in the ninth floor.
    “The lift opens directly to my offices. Go along the corridor, mine’s at the end. I’ll be ten minutes max.”
    Her eyes lingered on his and then moved slowly to his lips. “I’m doing this for me. Not you.
    I want whatever you think is going to happen between us to stop. The woman you knew five years ago is no longer here. And the new me is clearly more than you can handle.”
    She brushed past him into the lift, her body humming with suppressed anger. When she turned around to face him, Mark’s eyes languidly took in every delicious, sexy inch of her. He met her eyes. “Believe me, Kate,” he said quietly, “I can handle anything, anything at all.”
    She sniffed, opened her mouth to say more, but the doors swished closed. Mark squeezed his eyes shut and prayed this wasn’t the final curtain on any chance of a relationship with her.
    He couldn’t understand it. Why would the press turn up here, tonight of all nights? In the entire two years of representing Marcia and the five years of having his own agency, not once had the paparazzi turned up on his doorstep. Restaurants, openings, personal dates even, but never the 40
    Getting It Right This Time
    office because who wants a picture of a building? Or even Mark leaving a building. Not exactly the stuff of a scandal, was it? Something weird was going on and he was determined to find out what. He marched back through the tiled lobby.
    Marcia sat perched on the edge