Someone to Love Me.

Chapter One

Chapter One

Chapter One








It was a glorious day. One of those beautiful late spring mornings full of the promise of summer days to come, Catherine thought, as she walked briskly through the reception area of the office block where she worked and headed for the lift that would take her to her executive office on the next to the top floor. 
         
Dressed in a black two piece suit, the mini skirt showing off her shapely, nylon clad legs perfectly, she looked a picture of elegance and efficiency.  With a bright smile, she called good morning to Jayne on reception before stepping into the lift and pressing the ‘up' button.
         
Over the years she'd worked hard and her reward was her position as P.A. to Clive Jones head of the British branch of Bennett's, a well-known International manufacturing company.  It had taken a great deal of time and heartache but finally the shattered pieces of her life were coming together and she was happy with the way her career and her life in general were progressing.
         
OK, so a few things were still a little awry, but what she'd never really had she wasn't going to miss - was she?  Oh all right then - it was more a case of what she'd had and lost rather than what she'd never had.  Catherine wasn't about to split hairs on the issue.
           
She'd taken some hard knocks in her time but she'd always managed to bounce back and now in spite of everything, Catherine genuinely felt that this was her time.  For once she was reasonably in control of her life and she was going places.
         
The only child of wealthy parents, her father Charles Ford was a prominent barrister who was able to take his pick of many celebrated clients.  Her mother Emily, an elegant woman was the perfect wife and hostess.  In fact it was a match made, well maybe not in heaven but in the drawing room and brokered by their respective parents. 
         
Both came from wealthy families and it was no doubt seen as a way to consolidate all that wealth and keep it in the family. For many it very likely seemed old fashioned but apparently it worked for them, although many times Catherine wondered how. 
She couldn't remember ever seeing them demonstrate any open affection for each other and there was certainly none ever shown to her.  She often wondered how her parents had ever managed to conceive her.  They seemed so cold.  But, here she was, so they'd obviously been intimate at least once in their lives even though Catherine was hard put to imagine it!
         
It was hardly surprising then that she'd grown up with a serious lack of self-confidence. Even now when things were going well, she still found an element of self-doubt creeping into her life.  Many times it caused her to question her own judgment.  Fortunately Clive had always shown a great deal of faith in her.  Thankfully, that was usually enough to bolster her confidence when she felt that it beginning to slip a little.
         
Not a bit conceited, Catherine never regarded herself as exceptionally beautiful but by the same token she knew she wasn't the proverbial ugly duckling either.  She had a shapely figure, slim but nicely rounded rather than voluptuous, great legs that stood her at around five foot six in stocking feet, an abundance of long curly auburn hair and the most amazing green eyes, that looked out from under dark, sweeping lashes. 
         
In truth, no matter how she viewed herself, the fact was that she attracted many an admiring glance from the opposite sex though it never seemed to glean any kind of response from her.  One of her more endearing qualities, her wish to please, was almost certainly born out of a longing to be wanted by parents who seemed to have very little time to spare for their only child.  Even though she'd tried extremely hard to make them happy, in her heart of hearts Catherine knew that most of the time they were either indifferent to her or just considered her another of their possessions to show off, rather like a piece of jewellery or a new car.  If they made her feel unloved and unwanted most of the time then she wasn't about to let the hurt show but tried her best to keep it hidden beneath a sunny disposition. 
         
It was only during the hours of darkness, as she tried to lose herself in sleep that she allowed herself to wallow in the luxury of a few self-pitying tears.  She thanked God that for the most part she was able to hang on to her sense of humour.  A lot of the time she was certain it was the only thing that helped her to keep a firm grip on her sanity. 
         
Her life had been mapped out for her since childhood and that was the way it was going to be whether she liked it or not.  Private schools, finishing school and then expected to marry; become the perfect wife and hostess and produce the perfect two point five children! 
         
Heavens above - she'd even gone along with it to the point of allowing herself to become engaged to James Cavendish, a junior partner in her father's firm.  At the time, she supposed she'd fancied herself in love with him although now, as she looked back, Catherine realised that she had never heard the proverbial ‘bells' ring. 
         
James was handsome and with hindsight, she recognised, conceited.  He was the ‘what she'd had but lost' in her life.  Time had numbed the hurt and buried it deep but every now and then it re-surfaced bringing the past back to haunt her.
         
Standing a little less than six feet tall, well built, with blonde hair and ice blue eyes, most women and at one time that had included Catherine, found James very attractive.  She understood now how easy it had been for her parents to manipulate her into becoming engaged to him.  In order to win their approval she'd readily agreed to all their impeccably laid plans.          She had just turned eighteen and it was her first adult relationship.  Well, to be perfectly honest it wasn't just her first, it was her only relationship ever and she hadn't been sure what to expect.  Attending all girls' schools and a sheltered upbringing which lacked the company of male counterparts meant that Catherine, unlike many of her peers, had never had much of a chance to test her budding femininity. She'd hoped that James at twenty five would have the experience and the love to teach her what she needed to know and do.  What she didn't realize then was, her childlike ideals were about to be trampled callously underfoot and she would be rudely awakened to the harsher facts of life.
         
It had always seemed strange to her that James was content to wait until they married when it came to the question of intimacy in their relationship.  Books and magazines surreptitiously passed around the dorm of her finishing school led her to believe that sex was one of the more significant things that men thought about during courtship.  Their romance had progressed no further than dining out or trips to a concert or the theatre.  James had never ever remotely attempted to seduce her.  Whether she wanted to be seduced or not was neither here nor there, it was just that she had expected him to express some form of need for her.  But for some reason he never did. 
         
Catherine didn't even have the luxury of being able to discuss these things with her mother knowing that she would have probably passed out at the mention of the word ‘sex.'   At first, in her naivety she had appreciated James for the respect he'd shown her but after a while she'd begun to wonder if there could be something wrong with her in a sexual sense. He never came anywhere near to losing his self-control with her.  Catherine never expected the caveman approach from James - he wasn't the caveman type - but the perfunctory kiss at the end of an evening never felt to be quite enough.  Goodness - it was only one step up from shaking her hand. She didn't think she was particularly sensual but at times he'd made her feel as though she was positively sexless.  He treated Catherine more like a sister than a fiancée and she was sure that there should be more to a relationship with someone than this? 
         
Well it seemed that for James there was and Catherine was about to find out about it, in the worst way possible. 
         
Neither expected nor encouraged to work, she'd had precious little to occupy her days.  Her Swiss finishing school had taught her how to cook and how to manage a household but her parents employed staff for the job and they in turn resented any interference from Catherine.  Until she married James and had her own home to run Catherine had little else to do but please herself.  She liked to read, she also played the piano and from the time that her parents had installed the swimming pool she'd loved to swim.  If she needed to get away from the house for a while then she would head for town and the shops.  She'd decided to do just that on the ill-fated day that brought to an end, among other things, her childishly idealistic dreams for the future!
         
Catherine had been into town shopping and decided that instead of getting a bus home as she usually did she would call at her father's office and get a lift home with him.  Although she could drive competently she always found using public transport much easier than trying to park in the city but on this day she'd had quite a spending spree, buying a number of items and she didn't feel like carrying them on and off buses. It was getting late but she'd hoped her father would still be at work.  When she'd arrived at his offices,  unfortunately for her or it might even have been considered fortunately, depending on which way you chose to look at it, he'd left work early.  Eva, her father's secretary had told her that James was still in his office.
         
Pleased that he was still there Catherine had felt sure that he would be only too happy to drive her home.  He knew that he would be invited to stay for dinner by her parents if he did and James wasn't one to turn down a free meal.  Free sex, yes.  Free meal, no! 
If she'd seemed eager to lose her virginity it wasn't strictly true but she was fed up of feeling that she counted for nothing when all she really wanted was to be loved.  Was that too much to ask?
         
Catherine had walked towards James' office happy that he hadn't left for home yet; at least it would save her having to wait ages for a bus. She'd walked up to his office door and without bothering to knock, pushed it open.  She wished many a time since that she hadn't; how she wished she hadn't but it was too late.  She'd done it and there was no going back she'd realised as her mind had struggled to take in the spectacle that greeted her.
         
James had been perched on the edge of his desk giving his secretary mouth to mouth resuscitation.  That- woman, Catherine had realised, was pressing herself intimately between his outstretched legs. Her skirt was hiked up to her waist and her blouse, which was clearly unbuttoned down the front, had been sliding off her shoulders.  James had one hand on her backside pulling her tightly into the vee of his thighs.  God alone knew what the other hand had been doing.  No way was Catherine about to hang around to find out.  Her eyes had opened wide and with her hand covering her mouth she'd uttered a startled ‘oh no' and fled the room.
         
James and his secretary had both seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she was there and as Catherine had hurried down the corridor she'd found her shock being overtaken by a hard, fierce anger.  She was fuming!  Not volatile by nature didn't mean that she didn't have a temper; just that she controlled it pretty well.  With those green eyes and that fiery auburn hair it had to be in there somewhere and the sight of James and his secretary together had had it thrusting its way to the fore. 
         
How the hell could he!  He'd been devouring his bloody secretary whole and all he had ever managed with her was a piddling peck on the cheek.  Her anger had grown by the second and she'd turned around and stormed back down the corridor.  With steel in her step and her courage bolstered by a rush of pure adrenaline Catherine had headed back to James' office. By the time she'd reached it his secretary had just about put her clothes to rights and was standing next to James with a smug look on her face.
         
Ignoring her, Catherine had pulled her engagement ring from her finger and walked over to James; resisting the urge to throw it in his face she'd satisfied herself by shoving it into his top pocket.  Patting the pocket hard, she'd dusted her hands together as if to say ‘well that's that' and, swallowing the desire to kick his shin or anyplace higher for that matter, she'd spun round on her heel and marched out of the room.  As the adrenaline dissipated Catherine had found it difficult to stem the tears that were building up but she was damned if she was going to let them see her cry.  The tears would have to wait until later.
         
James had caught up with her just before she'd reached the street and grabbing her arm had yanked her round to face him.  "Come on Catherine, don't be so stupid.  You know you don't really want to end it," he'd cajoled, "think of what your parents will say; you know that this marriage is what they've always planned for us.  What the hells wrong with a little entertainment on the side?  We can have a modern marriage and no one will be any the wiser or get hurt, as long as we're discreet." 
         
Catherine had been incensed.  She couldn't believe what she had heard. The snake!  Shaking her arm free she'd looked at him, her face skewed with distaste.  "It might be what you want" she'd told him with contempt as she had tried to control the tremor in her voice "but if you think it's the kind of marriage that I want then you're greatly mistaken".  Mustering what strength she could Catherine had pushed herself away from him.
         
"I've wondered many a time why you never wanted anything from me and now I know.  You really are a selfish bastard James and as usual you want things all your own way.  You want me for the illusion of respectability; father's money for the good life and that bloody woman for sex.  Well it's not what I had in mind when I agreed to marry you and I won't be used like this. It's over, finished, kaput," she'd told him, trembling as she'd struggled to keep the hurt and anger out of her voice.

Taking Catherine by surprise James had turned on her.  "You will marry me Cathy and do you know why?  Because I'm the only man who'll have the likes of you and you know it," he'd sneered.  "Give me a call when you're ready to see reason but don't leave it too long. I won't wait forever."  With that he'd stomped back towards his office and Catherine was left to wonder if she'd ever truly known him at all.  This was a side of James Cavendish that she'd never seen before and never wanted to see ever again.  He'd been arrogant and threatening but no way had she been about to be intimidated by him.  It had taken all of her courage to face up to him and shuddering with shock, she'd rushed off to find a taxi. 
         
By the time she had eventually arrived home her resolve had been spent.  She'd ignored a questioning look from Joyce, her parent's housekeeper, as she'd headed upstairs to the sanctuary of her room.  Once there she'd thrown herself onto her bed and dissolved into floods of tears.  She wondered what it was about her that made first her parents and now James find her so completely unlovable. 
         
In a matter of minutes he had completely demolished Catherine's belief in herself as well as any faith she might have had in the male of the species.  His actions had killed off any last remnant of the fragile trust she'd had in him and in men in general. 
         
Her father and James were the two men in her life who ought to have been there for her.  They should have loved her and cherished her but instead they had both failed her miserably and, come to think of it, her mother had not been blameless either.  There was no-one that she could turn to for comfort; she knew that her parents would have no sympathy for her.  In fact they would probably lay the blame for what had happened at her door.  Heartbroken, she'd curled up on the bed and wept until eventually the unrestrained sobs had begun to slowly abate. 
         
With her tears all cried out, Catherine had made her weary way to the bathroom where she'd set to and run herself a hot bath. After splashing cold water over her face to cool her burning eyes she'd undressed and lowered herself into the tub.  As she'd soaked in the fragrant essences she'd realised that she was going to have to take stock of her life and decide for herself the course it was going to take in the future. 
         
One thing she was certain of, there would be no more manipulation.  For too long now other people had contrived to rule her life and make her decisions for her.  In future she was going to go where she wanted to go, and do what she wanted to do.  It wouldn't be easy but she was going to take back control of her life.  As for men, she was done with them.  The ones she knew had brought nothing but sorrow into her short life and from now on she wanted nothing more to do with them.  She wasn't stupid enough to think that she could get through life having no contact at all with men but falling in love was just one big myth and she wasn't going be taken in again by any man.  Anyhow, what she'd never really had she wouldn't miss.  Would she?
         
Catherine knew that the first thing she had to do was to find a place of her own away from the domineering influences of her parents. That wasn't going to be a problem for her financially because she wasn't short of money.  There was only one person who had always given her unconditional love and who she sorely missed in her life and that was her beloved Grandmother.  She'd had the prescience to realise that her daughter and son- in-law had a singular lack of parental concern for Catherine and she had tried her best to fill that gap. 

Unfortunately she had not enjoyed the best of health and a severe stroke had taken its toll.  She'd passed away the year that Catherine had turned seventeen but she'd made certain that she left her granddaughter with enough money to be able to live an independent life.  Hell, she had left enough that Catherine would never need to work if she didn't want to but Catherine couldn't see herself lounging about all day doing nothing.  She'd begun to realise that she was bored to tears just sitting around waiting for her marriage to James to take place and now she had certainly made sure that was never going to happen.
         
She knew she would never be content to live the life of the idle rich and was beginning to recognize that there was so much more that she wanted for herself.  She'd always done well at school in an attempt to please her parents and she'd suddenly realised what she wanted to do with her life. 

Thanks to the independence her Grandmother's legacy had given her she was able to enrol in college.  She was going to study for a business degree. Catherine was confident that she could do it.  She'd stayed on at school long enough to pass her A levels and now she was fired with a firm determination to succeed.  It was never going to be easy and she'd known that she would face opposition from her parents but she had been focused.  It was something that she'd wanted to do before she found herself engaged to James and before they'd all decided that being a wife to him was career enough for her. 
         
As Catherine had supposed, when she'd told her parents what she intended, they had been strongly opposed to her plans. They thought she was making the greatest mistake of her life and had been quick to tell her so.  Well, their reaction had been everything that she'd expected it to be so there was nothing new there.  "You won't find another man as good as James" her father had told her.  It was patently obvious whom they were siding with and so when she hadn't given them a satisfactory explanation for splitting up with James they'd washed their hands of her. 
         
Well she certainly wasn't going to tell them what had caused the break up and she was damned sure that James wouldn't either so that had been that.  Without her parents blessing but heartened by the direction she'd decided to take she'd struck out on her own. They'd never been there for her before so what was new?  She would manage well enough on her own! 
         
Her mother and father, Catherine had decided, should never have become parents.  They were much too absorbed in their lifestyle to have any time left to spare their only child.  As a baby they'd left her with nannies and a governess while they travelled the world and when she was old enough they had packed her off to boarding school.  It had taken Catherine a long while to realise this and she'd known that it was too late to change the way things were so it was about time to give over trying. 
         
During the next few months she'd found herself an apartment and had had no trouble enrolling in the local college.  By the time the new term had begun she'd been up and running.  Catherine was prepared to study hard to the exclusion of all else and so she'd set to with a determination that precluded failure. It took four years to achieve her goals and in that time the majority of her concentration was spent on course work.  She worked studiously and had practically no social life to speak of.  She didn't care if her contemporaries found her standoffish; men had little or no place in her life.  In her experience, slight as it was, they had let her down badly. She'd expected love from her father and from James but neither of them had enough love to give to her. 
         
She had female acquaintances but none who managed to get really close to her.  If they tried she always found it easier to back away from them.  She was insular, she didn't need people to fill her free time, she had her books and her music, both of which she loved.  Always an avid reader, Catherine lived her life vicariously through the writings of others.  As for the music, well, she'd learned to play piano at school but being unable to fit a piano in her new home she'd opted for an electronic keyboard.
         
She had a good singing voice and her taste in music was eclectic, ranging from classical to country and western. She often thought that one-day she would like to visit Nashville, the home of country music.  But all this was for the future, for the time when her studies were finished and she had managed to find her niche in life.
         
Catherine was twenty-two years old when she finally finished College. She left with excellent grades, very few friends and a vast inexperience of the male gender.  It was a situation that she'd shown no inclination to remedy.  She'd come so far on her own and she was still definite that she had no need of a man in her life.  In her own mind she'd felt that her life was, for once, moving in the direction that she wanted it to go.  If her parents and James had left her with hang-ups then she'd buried them as deep as she could in the continuing hope that they would never be resurrected.
         
Catherine began working for Clive or Mr Jones as he was then, straight from college and now six years on and on the back of much hard work she was his P.A.  She'd been so pleased when she was offered a job with Bennett's and she had worked extremely hard over the subsequent years to prove her worth. 
         
At the age of twenty-eight she now had a good job which she enjoyed, her own ground floor apartment in a select part of town near to the local park. She also had her books and her music. What more could she possibly want? 
         
Catherine had furnished her home with things she'd bought from local auctions and antique stores and which she had lovingly restored in her spare time.  It was a long way from the cold mausoleum of a house that she had grown up in.  It was warm and cosy and it cloaked itself around her like a cocoon, especially on cold winter evenings when she arrived home from work frozen to the marrow.
         
The front entrance led into a square, wood panelled hallway from which four inner, panelled doors ran off to her sitting room, study, bedroom and bathroom.  The sitting room, though not big was nicely decorated in shades of pale green.  Two comfy, cream coloured sofas sat, one either side of the old fashioned tiled hearth.  An oak bookcase filled with an eclectic mix of books, her keyboard,  a small television and a music centre, filled the room.  Double glass doors led through to a sunny primrose yellow kitchen.  Light oak wall and floor units with integrated washer, cooker and fridge filled the space along with a dining nook that looked out onto a small garden.  She loved to sit there on bright summer mornings and enjoy her breakfast before heading off to work.
         
Catherine had decorated the rooms herself as and when she'd had the time and the ‘piece de resistance' was her bedroom. The fitted furnishings and décor were in soft shades of peach and ivory.  There was a queen sized bed over which hung a delicate lace canopy.  Lace edged bedding with curtains to match continued the theme and an ivory wool carpet that smothered your feet as you walked on it completed it.  It was the ultimate in feminine luxury. It was a woman's bedroom and no man had ever been inside nor incidentally, was ever likely too as far as Catherine was concerned.  She never stopped to ask herself why someone as dispassionate towards men or romance as she said she was could fashion such a Byronic bedroom.
         
She avoided close contact with her parents.  Not that they would care!  She only phoned them on special occasions, if they happened to be at home.  More often than not it was her parent's housekeeper, Joyce who she talked to.  She knew they were still associated with James of course as he worked with her father but she wasn't about to traverse that avenue again.  Anyway, they were too wrapped up in themselves to be interested in how well she might be doing.
         
Catherine didn't go out very often so she wasn't likely to come across them socially and anyway, she certainly didn't move in the same heady circles they did.  She hadn't seen James for years although she knew that he still worked for her father.  As time had moved on she realised that in all honesty she'd never really missed him.
         
She felt that her life was complete.  She had her work and she had her music. She was a member of the local Music Society which was a great source of enjoyment and she loved helping out with their productions when she had the time.  She probably enjoyed Christmas the best when they visited the children's wards at the local hospital to perform Carol concerts. It gave some meaning to the spirit of Christmas for her and she wasn't left feeling quite so lonely or alone over the festive season.  If she ever felt that something was missing from her life then she didn't probe to deeply as to what it might be but took each day as it came and made the best she knew how to of each one of them. 
         
What Catherine didn't know that morning as she stepped out of the lift and walked through to her office was that big changes were about to take place and it was not going to be quite so easy for her to make the best of things!