Driving Miss Catherine

Albert's Return

‘We’ll talk about this when I get home. But if you must know, it wasn’t hard to figure out where you were. You’re not as good at sneaking out as you thought….and it was obvious where you were going. It was Heikki’s last night in New York, and I know where he’s staying, so it really wasn’t hard to figure out where you were. And yes, I was paying for his hotel room, but only because he couldn’t afford to stay somewhere decent, and I know how much you liked having him around. I hope Sebastian brought you to the country house like I asked; I thought you might like that. We’ll discuss this more when I return.

Love, Dad’

 

Cat angrily slammed her laptop shut after reading her dad’s email the next morning. It confirmed some of her suspicions, yet left many questions unanswered. How much did her dad really know about Heikki’s intensions? It was starting to seem like she had been a part of some deal Albert had negotiated with Heikki’s mother, the ‘Finnish diplomat’, whatever that meant. ‘If the Finnish government can ignore my illegal trading with Russia, your son can marry my daughter and have access to all of her inheritance, but first he has to trick her into getting pregnant so she’ll be sure to marry him,’ or something like that. Obviously that’s not what happened. But it was probably similar. As far as Cat knew, her father did not trade illegally with Russia, and she had no idea who Heikki’s mother was or what her position in government was. But the rest…?

And then there was the fact that she had fallen asleep on her driver’s shoulder last night while watching a movie, and now she was hiding in her room because she couldn’t face him. With the help of a bottle of wine, she saw everything she had been missing in Seb. He was as real as Heikki was fake, and all the subtle ways he had tried to show his affection now stood out like a neon light. She couldn’t believe how blind she’d been, and now that she knew, she didn’t really know what to do about it.

By noon she was starving, so she quietly walked to the kitchen and looked for something to eat. She heard Seb returning and ran upstairs to put on something other than her pajamas.

“I got us some breakfast,” Seb announced as Cat came downstairs. “There isn’t much food in the house, I thought I’d pick up something to eat so you don’t end up drinking another bottle of wine for dinner.” He laughed quietly, and Cat blushed at the distant memories from the night before.

“After breakfast…or lunch, rather,” Cat said as she glanced at the clock, “I was thinking of heading out to the stables. Do you ride?”

“No, I don’t, sorry.”

“Then I can teach you,” Cat smiled proudly. Over the next week, she and Seb spent hours with the horses, and eventually she taught him how to ride. She was slowly forgetting Heikki, yet she knew that when her dad returned she’d have to face everything again.

“When do you head back to school?” Seb asked as they dismounted their horses. The trail they were riding came out in a clearing near a stream. They tied the horses up and let them graze near the water while they ate lunch.

“Soon, but a little later than usual, about mid-September,” Cat replied. “I’m studying abroad for a semester.”

Seb looked slightly disappointed. “That sounds fun, where are you going?”