Katherine stood watching Alistair as he talked with the cowboys. He appeared to fit right in with them as if they had been friends for years instead of having just met. Everyone but a few hangers-on, who not surprisingly were women, had drifted back up to the house, and Armand was eager to join them.

"Katherine, should we go up to the house now?" Armand asked impatiently.

"You go ahead. Maybe I'll catch up with you later, but if not, don't worry about it," Katherine said absentmindedly, her eyes glued to Alistair.

"Sounds good!" Armand said, sounding pleased to be left to his own devices.

Katherine moved to the shade of a tree and sunk onto a grassy spot of earth as she watched Alistair spend some time with the horse he had ridden before helping the cowboys begin the process of packing up.

Some of the women gave up and wandered away, but eventually, some of the braver ones approached Alistair with a smile and swaying hips. A few slips of paper were handed to him, which Katherine guessed to be phone numbers, and Alistair pocketed them all with his signature grin before tipping the brim of his hat to them.

It was all so effortless for him. He didn't even have to try.

She felt all her old insecurities building up, and instead of pushing them back as she always did, she let them come. What was her real fear? Was it that she wasn't good enough for him?

She knew in her mind that she was, but her heart doubted. She was a model with a television career and enough of her own money never to need his. His family thought she was good enough for him because they kept pushing them together.

Was it the fact that he was part of the English aristocracy? No, it wasn't on her wish list to carry a title, but she had become accustomed to attending formal events and socializing with strangers. Katherine thought of the story Alistair had told her about his mother. She understood why he had told her the story, it was to prove that she was as capable as his mother of carrying the title, and she probably was in the end.

So what was it?

Katherine watched another girl tuck her hair behind her ear and bat her eyelashes at Alistair's grinning face, and it dawned on her. She was afraid that he would get bored with her. Once he caught her, he would no longer want her because the chase would be over. It had happened with George and her mother.

George had never bothered to hide the fact that Dora bored him. She couldn't handle it if all of Alistair's desire and love for her dried up to boredom. It would be worse than a death sentence because she knew she would never grow bored with him. She could watch him for hours.

She didn't think he would become cruel with boredom, but Dora probably never believed George would be cruel.

It all boiled down to one thing, she didn't know or understand him, not really. Other than a few days a few times a year, they had never spent much time together.

Katherine had stopped looking at Alistair as her thoughts turned inward, and she started to recall all the little mean things George had done to Dora. He had always ignored her at parties or made her the punch line of a joke. He never remembered her birthday or celebrated any special occasion with her, and he had been the same with Katherine.

"My new friends think you're too shy to come over and introduce yourself to me," Alistair said as he lowered himself onto the ground next to her and leaned back on his elbows, his long, lean legs clad in tight denim stretched in front of him.

Katherine gave a weak smile. "Maybe a little," she agreed, which caused Alistair to look up at her from under the brim of his hat with a frown.

"Who is the guy with you?" he asked as he looked back toward the corral.

"Are you jealous," Katherine smiled slightly at the ridiculous thought.

"Yes, very," he admitted, focusing on the corral.

"Are you really?" she asked in disbelief, hugging her knees to her chest. It was hard for her to believe.

"It's not something I would lie about, Katherine." His blue eyes met hers, and she melted a little.

"I'm jealous of all the phone numbers you just pocketed. It looked as if there were half a dozen," Katherine looked at her bare toes in their sandals.

"Who's the guy, Katherine," he growled.

"Didn't I say?" she teased, enjoying the fact that he was jealous.

"Are you two dating? Is he your boyfriend?" he demanded.

"Boyfriend." She rolled the word around in her head. "I've never had a boyfriend," Katherine admitted to herself.

"Then what was I?" Alistair asked, looking at her through narrowed eyes.

"A lover, my first and only," she whispered. She laid her cheek on her knees and watched him absorb that.

"How did I not know that!" he sat up and turned toward her with wide eyes.

"I'm good at pretending to know what I'm doing when really I don't. It's my life story. Plus, it was natural and right with you, but I don't think of you as my lover past tense, Alistair." She closed her eyes. "Is that how you see us?"

"No!" he reached for her but dropped his hand at the last minute.

"I still don't understand. There are physical signs." He shook his head.

"I did gymnastics and rode horses. Who knows, it's not unheard of for the physical markers to be erased through childhood endeavors." Katherine swallowed a lump in her throat as she opened her eyes and looked at him. "Do you not believe me?"

"I didn't say that." He shook his head as he looked at the house with a frown.

"I didn't know you could rope or ride so well." She heard the catch in her throat, and she cleared it.

"Katherine, I didn't say I don't believe you." This time when he reached for her, he grabbed her hand, picking up on the fact that she was upset.

"No, you didn't say it, did you." Perhaps they were past tense. Somehow, she felt that the Alistair of old would have believed her without hesitation. Something had changed, but she wasn't sure what it was. "What's changed? There was a time you would never have doubted it," Katherine forced herself to ask the hard question.

"I received a call from your production company last week. They want to film at the house." Alistair stood and crossed his arms.

"They mentioned it at our production meeting last time I was in London." Katherine nodded, confused as to why it was a problem.

"We had this out years ago. I don't want you to film at the house." His voice was tight.

"Then say no, Alistair. It doesn't make a difference to me. In fact, I told them you probably wouldn't allow it." Katherine stood as well, brushing off her skirt.

"It's just convenient, that's all." Alistair turned to walk away from her, but she wasn't going to let him. She felt that the very thing she had just discovered she feared the most was about to happen. Alistair was going to be cruel.

"What's convenient?" It was barely a whisper, but he heard it.

"You suddenly decide to tell me that you gave me your innocence only a week after your production crew asks to film in a house that we have never allowed anyone to film in before." Alistair crossed his arms defensively, and his jaw was tight in displeasure. "Either that or you didn't expect me to be here, and you're trying to distract me from the fact that you brought another, what?  Lover? Or did you bring him to make me jealous?"

Katherine had never seen him so cold before, and she felt her heart shattering in her chest. "His name is Armand, he is one of Laura's clients, and she asked me to bring him so that he could get some press and start meeting the right people," she whispered, then took deep, measured breaths as she tried to calm herself, turning her attention toward the men in the corral. "I told you about being a virgin to reassure you that you've been the only man in my life not to get a production deal." She forced herself to meet his eyes. "I was waiting here to apologize to you."

"Apologize, so it's true?" his eyes grew wide.

"No, Alistair, it's not, and I just told you that you're off base. I wanted to apologize because I realize that I have never taken the time to get to know who you are, and that has made me unsure of you. I realized it today when I saw you roping." She took a deep breath. "I pushed you away because I feared that you would decide, once we were in a full-time relationship, that you wouldn't want me. That you would be as cruel to me as George was to my mother when you realized that fact."

Alistair's expression didn't alter as he watched the emotions chase across Katherine's face.

"But it's clear that you never fully knew me, either, and now you don't want to so you're pushing me away with cruel words. Goodbye, Alistair." Katherine couldn't hold back the tears any longer and turned and fled.

His words of love had meant nothing in the end. Just as she was sure, George's words of love meant nothing to her mother. 

*******

Alistair didn't know how long he stood under that tree watching the rodeo cleanup, but they were long gone by the time he made a move.

He had just made the biggest mistake of his life. How had he not realized she was innocent all those years ago? Why had she never shared that with him? Part of his overreaction was anger that he hadn't realized it.

Alistair was hurt when he got the call about the production company wanting to use the house. He thought that was all over long ago. But why didn't she come to him herself if it was still something she wanted? Why did she have the production crew do it? He was already sensitive about Katherine, and a man could only take so many rejections before he began to believe it was all a game.

It would be like someone playing games to claim innocence when they needed a leg up in the game. The fact that she had teased him about the man she was with and it was a side of her he had never seen before. It could have been her coming out of her shell and gaining some confidence, but it also could have been her evading the truth or slipping up.

It would also be like a woman playing games to bring a date to make him jealous, and he was mad that it had worked. He had flirted a little more than he usually would with the women who approached him, attempting to make her jealous, too.

Didn't that make him the one that was playing games?

Alistair was turned inside out and was all twisted up inside. One thing he was sure of was that he had hurt her in the way she had feared he would, which meant she was in the wind. She wouldn't reach out to him again, so he would have to bring her to him.

He would have to let the production company into the house. It was the only way.