Читать книгу The Marriage Solution - HELEN BROOKS, Helen Brooks - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

‘I NEED to speak to David White now.’

Katie raised an eyebrow at the phone as she moved it back an inch or two from her ear before answering the hard male voice in a polite but firm tone. ‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid my father can’t be disturbed at the moment. Can I take—?’

‘The hell he can’t!’ Now the voice was patently insulting with a thread of undeniable steel in its dark depths. ‘Put me through, Miss White.’

‘I can’t do that.’ She had straightened, her slim body held tight and still and her voice cool. ‘I’ve told you, he can’t be disturbed—’

‘He’ll be more than disturbed when I’ve finished with him.’ She flinched visibly even as she wondered what on earth her father had done to make someone so mad. ‘And I’m not asking, Miss White, I’m telling you. Put me through—’

‘No.’ There was a split second of icy silence before she followed through. ‘My father isn’t well; the doctor is with him now.’

‘The doctor?’ She heard him swear under his breath, a particularly explicit oath which would have been quite at place in a rugby club changing-room, before he spoke again in clipped, measured tones that suggested barely controlled rage. ‘Then when he has finished with the doctor I expect a call immediately. Is that clear?’

‘Now look, Mr...?’

‘Reef. Carlton Reef.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, Mr Reef,’ she said stiffly, ‘but I have no intention of bothering my father with mundane business matters today. I presume it is business you wish to discuss with him?’ she added icily.

‘Dead right, Miss White,’ he shot back tightly. ‘And, for your information, the loss of a great deal of money due to your father’s stupidity and crass ineptitude I do not consider mundane. I can be reached in my office for the next hour, after which the matter goes into the hands of my solicitors and I won’t be accepting any calls from that point from either your father or his lackeys. Is that clear enough for you or shall I repeat it?’

‘Mr Reef—’

‘Which daughter are you anyway?’ he interrupted her abruptly. ‘Katie or Jennifer?’

‘Katie.’ She took a deep breath as she leant limply against the wall and prayed that the shaking which had begun in her stomach wouldn’t transfer itself to her voice. This was incredible, monstrous—there had to be a perfectly simple explanation. ‘Mr Reef, I’m sure there’s a mistake here somewhere.’

‘So am I,’ he agreed coldly, ‘and your father is the one who made it. I won’t be made a fool of, Miss White, and I thought your father had the sense to realise that. One hour—doctor or no doctor.’ And the phone went dead.

She remained staring at the receiver in her hand for a good thirty seconds before she recovered sufficiently to replace it and sink down on the nearest seat in the massive wide hall. This would have to happen today, with her father so ill.

The pains that had started in his chest during breakfast as he had read his paper had culminated within minutes in his writhing on the floor in agony, with Katie kneeling at his side as their housekeeper had frantically called the family doctor, who was also Katie’s father’s close friend, and fortunately lived in the same exclusive avenue of large detached houses. He had arrived within two or three minutes, just as the housekeeper, Mrs Jenkins, had taken the call from this Reef man, who had insisted on speaking to one of the family when Mrs Jenkins had told him that her employer wasn’t available.

She had to get back to her father. She took a long, shuddering breath and levered herself off the seat before she hurried back to the breakfast-room, opening the door gingerly as she peered anxiously at him, now seated in an easy-seat to one side of the large bay window. ‘What’s wrong?’ She spoke directly to Dr Lambeth as he turned to face her. ‘Is he all right?’

‘No.’ Her father’s friend’s voice was flat. ‘No, he isn’t, I’m afraid, Katie. I’ve been warning him for months to get checked out but due to his own particular brand of bullheadedness he refused to listen to me. I’m going to call an ambulance.’

‘No way.’ Her father was as white as a sheet and his voice was a mere whisper of its normal, steel-like quality but his face was as determined as ever. ‘If I have to go to that damn hospital, I’ll go in your car, Mark.’

‘You won’t.’ Even as her father spoke Mark Lambeth lifted the extension at his elbow. ‘I’m not being responsible for your having another attack on the way, David, and that’s final. There is equipment in the ambulance that you might need. Now don’t be such a damn fool. If you are too stubborn to think of yourself, think of your daughters, man.’

‘Dad?’ Katie’s eyes were wide as she stared down at the man whom she had always considered as unmovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. Her father was never ill; she couldn’t remember him ever being less than one hundred per cent fit in the whole of her life. In fact, he looked on even the most severe illness as a weakness that was easily banished through sheer self-will, and was scathing with those lesser mortals about him when they couldn’t accomplish what he apparently found easy to do. ‘Dad, what’s wrong?’

‘It’s his heart, Katie.’ Mark Lambeth answered again, and it was in that instant that Katie realised how serious things were. Her father wouldn’t have tolerated being sidestepped in the normal run of things and Mark, old friend that he was, wouldn’t have attempted it. ‘He’s had several warnings and now—’ He stopped abruptly at the look of horror on Katie’s face. ‘Now he will have to come into hospital,’ he finished flatly.

The ambulance was on the doorstep within four minutes and her father totally refused to let anyone but Mark accompany him to the hospital. It hurt, but he had been hurting her all his life and, if Katie hadn’t exactly got used to it, she had learnt how to endure it without letting her feelings show.

She stared for some minutes down the long, wind-swept drive after the ambulance had departed, her thoughts in turmoil, before turning and re-entering the house where Mrs Jenkins was hovering anxiously in the hall. ‘Oh, Katie, I can’t believe it.’ The small woman was nearly crying as she wrung her hands helplessly. ‘Not Mr David.’

‘He’ll be all right, Mrs Jenkins.’ Katie reached out and hugged the woman she had known most of her life and who had been something of a substitute mother since Katie’s own mother had died when she was ten. ‘You know Dad; he’s as strong as an ox.’

‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’ Mrs Jenkins swallowed deeply and made for the kitchen. ‘I’ll fix us both a strong cup of coffee and then we’d better try to contact Jennifer. Do you know where she is?’

‘On an assignment in Monte Carlo, I think, but the paper will have her number,’ Katie said flatly as Mrs Jenkins’ words reminded her of the telephone call of ten minutes ago. Carlton Reef. She’d have to phone him and explain somehow. He surely wouldn’t expect her father to phone him from the hospital, would he? She recalled the hard, cold male voice and the barely controlled rage evident in every word, and shivered helplessly. But then again...

It took her nearly ten minutes to find his number in her father’s address book on his desk in his study due to the fact that it was under a firm’s name rather than his own. ‘Tone Organisation. Chairman and Managing Director, Carlton Reef,’ she said thoughtfully as she read the scrawly handwriting.

She had been sipping Mrs Jenkins’ scalding hot coffee as she hunted and it had had the effect of stilling the trembling in her limbs and calming her racing heartbeat a little. In spite of her brave words to the housekeeper she was desperately afraid for her father, and the suddenness of it all still made her faintly nauseous as she made the call.

‘Tone Organisation. Can I help you?’ As the uninterested voice of the telephonist came on the line Katie took a deep breath and forced herself to speak quietly and coolly.

‘Can I speak to Mr Reef, please?’ she said politely. ‘He is expecting the call.’

‘I’ll put you through to his secretary.’

A few more seconds elapsed and then a cultured, beautifully modulated female voice spoke silkily. ‘Mr Reef’s office. Can I help you?’

As Katie gave her name and a brief explanation to the disembodied voice she felt her stomach tighten in anticipation of what was to come, and it was with a sense of anticlimax that she beard the secretary’s voice speak again a minute or so later. ‘I’m sorry, Miss White, I understand that Mr Reef was expecting your father to call.’ It was said pleasantly enough but with just the faintest condemnation in the soft tones. ‘He really can’t spare the time—’

‘My father has been taken into hospital,’ Katie said tightly as she felt her face begin to burn with impotent anger. ‘I’m fully aware of what Mr Reef was expecting but he’ll have to make do with me, I’m afraid.’

‘Just a moment.’ There were a few more seconds of silence and then the secretary spoke again, her voice faintly embarrassed now. ‘I’m sorry, Miss White, but Mr Reef said he did make it plain to you that it is your father he needs to contact. He doesn’t think there is any point in talking to you.’

‘Now just a darn minute.’ Katie fairly spat the words down the phone. ‘My father has been rushed to hospital with a heart attack and that creep you work for hasn’t even got the decency to talk to me? Whatever he is paying you, it isn’t enough for working for a low-life like him.’

‘Miss White—’

‘Look, this isn’t your fault but I see no purpose in continuing this conversation,’ Katie said stiffly before slamming the phone down so hard that the small table quivered under the force of it.

The pig! The arrogant, cold, supercilious pig! She tried to take a sip of coffee but her hands were shaking so much that she couldn’t lift the cup, which made her still angrier. A combination of shock at her father’s sudden collapse and rage at Carlton Reefs total lack of sympathy brought the tears she had kept at bay so far burning hot into the back of her eyes. She sat for long minutes trembling with the strength of her emotions before she wiped her wet eyes with a resolute hand and dialled the number of the local hospital with her heart in her mouth.

She was put through almost immediately to Mark whose calm, unflappable voice reassured her somewhat. ‘It’s as I expected, Katie,’ the doctor said gently. ‘His heart is struggling a little—I’ve recognised it for some time—but with certain medication or perhaps even an operation he can carry on more or less as normal.’

‘Did he have a heart attack?’ she asked nervously.

‘I won’t lie to you, Katie; you’re over twenty-one and well able to take the rough with the smooth from what I’ve seen of you. Yes, it was a heart attack. He’s all wired up at the moment and the results aren’t too good but they’re far from fatal, so don’t let your imagination run riot. He’s been working too hard of late but you can’t tell him. At sixty he’s no spring chicken.’

‘No...’ She smiled shakily. ‘Can I come and see him?’

‘Leave it for now,’ he said gently. ‘He’d hate you to see him at the moment; you know how he is.’

Yes, she knew how he was, Katie thought painfully as the shaft of agony that whipped through her body made her gasp. If it had been Jennifer here he would have allowed her to see him, but the simple fact was that he didn’t rate his younger daughter at all. She shut her eyes tight and forced her voice to remain normal. ‘But he’s in no danger?’ she asked quietly.

‘Not now.’ Mark’s voice was soothing. ‘I only wish I could have got him in here months ago.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’ She could feel the tears bubbling to the surface and knew she had to finish the call quickly. ‘I’ll phone later, if I may?’

‘Of course. Goodbye, Katie.’

‘Goodbye, and thank you.’

She sat for long minutes in the overwhelmingly male study before wiping her eyes for the second time, phoning a local taxi firm and checking the address of the Tone Organisation in her father’s smart address book. Somehow, during that telephone call with Dr Lambeth, something that had been forming slowly through the last few years of her life crystallised in her mind.

She was aware that her father treated her with an offhand, almost casual and often slightly caustic tolerance that was totally absent from his dealing with her older sister. Jennifer had chosen a career in the cut-and-thrust, dog-eat-dog world of journalism and was doing wonderfully well. This her father could both understand and respect. Whereas she...

She blinked as she laid the book down on the desk. She had chosen to work with physically handicapped children in a local school after finishing her degree at university, despite better, more up-market job offers. The hours were long, the salary low and the mental and physical exhaustion that were part of the job sometimes seemed too much to bear but the rewards... She straightened her back as she stood up. The rewards as the children under her care learnt to live to their potential were enormous and something that her father would never understand, she thought painfully.

‘Where are you going, Katie—the hospital?’ Mrs Jenkins met her in the hall as the taxi driver rang the bell. Katie’s neat red Fiesta was sitting in the drive but she knew she was in no fit state to drive herself.

‘No.’ She smiled as she answered although it was an effort. ‘Dad doesn’t want any visitors although Dr Lambeth said he isn’t in any danger.’

‘Thank goodness.’ Mrs Jenkins shut her eyes for a moment and then smiled mistily at her. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

‘Of course you did.’ Katie smiled back at the homely face she had come to love over the years. ‘I have to sort out some business affair of Dad’s—you know, that other phone call? It’s urgent and I can’t really leave it but if anyone should phone you know nothing about it. OK?’

‘Of course, my dear.’ Mrs Jenkins understood her perfectly. ‘Anyone’ meant one person and one person only. ‘I wouldn’t say a word. We just want him to get better, don’t we?’

Their house was situated on the outskirts of London, in a pleasant suburb with gracious tree-lined avenues and large houses in their own immaculate grounds. As the taxi ate up the miles into the capital the general vista changed to miles and miles of identical terraced dwellings, rows of shops broken only by the odd garage and, eventually, blocks of office buildings, neutral and blank in the cool March air.

The taxi stopped at a particularly imposing high-rise monstrosity and she saw the sign, ‘Tone Organisation’, with a little quiver of her nerves. But she wasn’t backing out now. Her father might not think much of her but that didn’t matter. This was something that needed to be done; Carlton Reef had made that plain. It wouldn’t just go away—or, rather, he wouldn’t just go away, she corrected grimly as she stared up at the tall building.

She needed to buy her father some time. She stuck out her small chin aggressively and leant forward to the driver. ‘Could you wait?’ she asked firmly. ‘I shan’t be long.’

‘No problem, miss.’ She received a toothy grin. ‘You’re paying.’

The offices were busy and full but by the time the smart lift had carried her up to the top floor all was hushed opulence and quiet elegance. She found the secretary’s office with no trouble and prepared for battle as she opened the door, but the office was empty, the interconnecting door with the office on the left partly open.

‘I don’t care what it takes.’ She knew that voice, she thought blindly as her stomach dropped into her feet. ‘This is one hell of a mess, Robert, and you do what you can to get us out of it. Get back to me.’ The sound of a receiver being banged down made her flinch but in the next instant the doorway was full of a big male body and a hard square face was staring at her with something akin to amazement in the narrowed eyes. ‘Who the hell are you?’

She realised that she wasn’t dressed in office mode, but the worn denims and thick jumper that she had donned that morning were ideal for her work, as was the no-nonsense hairstyle that held her long honey-blonde hair in a severe French plait at the back of her head. But in this world of pencil-slim skirts and the latest designer suits she was sadly out of place.

She lifted her chin a fraction higher and stared straight into the piercing grey eyes that were watching her so intently. ‘I’m Katie White, Mr Reef, and I want a word with you.’ She was glad her voice didn’t betray her—inside she was a mass of quivering jelly. ‘I have to say you are, without exception, the rudest, most objectionable man I have ever had the misfortune to come into contact with. My father is in Intensive Care at the moment with a heart attack—not that I expect you to be interested in that—and other than wheel the bed down here I had no alternative but to come here myself, as you wouldn’t accept my call.’

‘How did you get past Reception and my secretary?’ he asked grimly, without the flicker of an eyelash.

There was something in the complete lack of response to her tirade that was more daunting than any show of rage but she forced herself not to wilt as she continued to face him. ‘Reception was busy; a party of Japanese businessmen had just arrived,’ she answered shortly. ‘So I just slipped into the lift once I’d found your name and floor on the notice-board. And your secretary—’ she glanced round the large room with her eyebrows raised ‘—is your problem, not mine.’

‘I see.’ He continued to survey her from the doorway and she was forced to acknowledge, albeit silently, that he really was the most formidable man she had seen for a long, long time. He was tall, very tall, with a severe haircut that held his black hair close to his head and accentuated the hard, aggressive male features even more. He could have been any age from thirty to forty—the big lean body was certainly giving nothing away—but the overall air of control and authority suggested that he had learnt plenty in the school of life.

‘Well, Miss White, now you’re here I suggest you come and sit down so we can discuss this thing rationally,’ he said smoothly, after several seconds had passed in complete silence. ‘You’re obviously upset and I would prefer the dirty linen to be kept under wraps, as it were.’

‘I couldn’t care less about your dirty linen,’ she shot back furiously, incensed beyond measure as he shook his dark head lazily, a mocking smile curving the full, sensual lips for a brief moment.

‘I was referring to yours, not mine,’ he said laconically. ‘Or, to be more precise, your father’s.’

‘Now look here—’

‘No, you look here, Miss White.’ Suddenly the relaxed façade was gone and the man standing in front of her was frightening. ‘You force your way into my office unannounced, breathing fire and damnation, when, by rights, it should be me squealing like a stuck pig.’ He eyed her furiously. ‘I’m sorry to hear that your father has had a heart attack, if in fact that is the case,’ he added cynically, ‘but that is absolutely nothing to do with me. The loss of a good deal of money and, more importantly, Miss White, my business credibility is, however, everything to do with him.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She had taken a step backwards without realising it and now, as he stared into the big hazel eyes watching him so fearfully, Carlton Reef forced himself to draw on his considerable store of self-control before he spoke again.

‘Then let me explain it to you. Shall we?’ He indicated his office with a wave of his hand, standing back from the doorway and allowing her to precede him into the room.

‘How much do you know of your father’s business affairs, Miss White?’ he asked her quietly, once she was seated in the chair facing the massive polished desk behind which he sat.

‘Nothing,’ she answered honestly. ‘My father—’ She stopped abruptly. ‘He isn’t the sort of man to talk about business at home,’ she finished flatly. Or, at least, not to her, she amended silently. Never to her.

‘And this heart attack?’ He eyed her expressionlessly. ‘It’s genuine?’

‘Of course it’s genuine,’ she answered in horror. ‘What on earth do you think—?’ She shook her head blindly as words failed her. ‘No one would make something like that up,’ she finished hotly.

‘You’d be surprised,’ he said sardonically. ‘When the chips are down most people would do just about anything.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t.’ She glared at him fiercely. ‘You can ring the hospital if you like and speak to Dr Lambeth, my father’s friend. I presume you would trust a doctor at least?’ she finished scathingly.

‘I trust very few people, Miss White.’ He shifted slightly in the big leather chair, leaning back and surveying her through narrowed grey eyes.

‘Like my father.’ The words were condemning and he recognised them as such.

‘You don’t approve?’ he said mildly. ‘You’re an optimist, Miss White—a very dangerous thing to be in the business world.’

‘Well, as I’m not in the business world I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it,’ she replied carefully. ‘And I wouldn’t describe myself as an optimist anyway; I just think most people verge on kindness given a chance.’

He shut his eyes for a split-second as he shook his dark head slowly, the gesture more eloquent than any words, and then opened them to stare directly into the greeny-brown of hers. ‘What world are you in?’ he asked quietly, his eyes wandering over the pale creamy skin of her face and stopping for an infinitesimal moment on her wide, generous mouth. ‘You do work for a living?’

‘Yes.’ She straightened a little in the chair as she rebelled against the questioning. ‘But I don’t see how that affects why I’m here today, Mr Reef. You said on the phone that my father had lost you some money...?’

‘Lost me some money?’ he repeated sarcastically. ‘Well, that’s one way of putting it, I guess. A little oversimplified but nevertheless... Have you read the morning papers?’ he asked abruptly.

‘The morning—?’ She hesitated at the change of direction. ‘No—no, I haven’t. My father was reading them when he—’ She stopped again. ‘When he collapsed,’ she finished flatly.

‘They nearly had the same effect on me,’ he said drily, and then shook his head at her outraged expression. ‘And I wasn’t belittling your father’s condition, Miss White. Here—’ He thrust a newspaper at her abruptly. ‘Read that.’

She glanced at where he was pointing but the black letters were dancing all over the page as she tried to read them and she looked up after a moment, her eyes enormous in her white face. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t take anything in.’

‘It’s the total collapse of a certain economy that your father assured me was one hundred per cent solid,’ he said coolly. ‘I have invested a vast amount of money at his persuasion and within the last few months, too. I’ve been made to look ridiculous, Miss White, and I can’t say it appeals.’

‘But—’ she stared at him desperately ‘—he wouldn’t have done it on purpose, would he? No one’s perfect.’

‘“No one’s”—?’ He held her eyes for several seconds before shaking his head again. ‘This whole morning is fast beginning to resemble Alice Through the Looking Glass.’

A movement in the outer office caught his eye and he pressed the buzzer on his desk as he glanced towards the door. A second or two later, one beautifully coiffured head appeared round the door. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Reef, I had to...’ The well-bred voice died as the woman glanced in Katie’s direction.

‘Two coffees, please, Jacqueline, and hold all calls,’ Carlton Reef said quietly.

‘Oh, but I can’t—’ Katie glanced at him as he raised enquiring eyebrows. ‘I’ve got a taxi waiting for me in the street. I can‘t—’

‘Pay it off, Jacqueline.’ He settled further into his seat as he raised one hand thoughtfully under his chin. ‘And phone... What hospital is your father in?’ he asked Katie abruptly. She told him quietly as her cheeks burnt scarlet. He thought she was lying; how could he think that? ‘Tell them I want to speak to a Dr Lambeth,’ he instructed his secretary quietly, ‘and do it discreetly, there’s a good girl.’

It was the first time that Katie had been able to examine him without having his piercing grey eyes trained on her and as she looked at him, really looked at him for the first time, she had to admit in a tiny, detached part of her brain that he really was devastatingly good-looking in a hard, macho sort of way.

His skin was dark, with the sort of even tan that suggested a recent holiday somewhere very hot and very expensive, and the dark grey eyes were fringed with short jetblack lashes under heavy dark brows. Big, broad shoulders suggested an impressive body under the beautifully cut suit and she had already seen that he was tall—well over six feet. And he was as hard as iron. She stiffened as the razor-sharp eyes switched back to her. He was the sort of man her father would respect and admire and whom she loathed.

‘Now—’ he didn’t smile as the secretary shut the door without a sound and they were left alone ‘—why exactly did you feel it necessary to come here?’

‘You phoned.’ She stared at him with a mixture of bewilderment and anger. ‘You made it clear that my father would be in some sort of trouble if he didn’t—’

‘He’s in deep trouble already, Miss White, and I’m afraid there is nothing you can do about it.’ There wasn’t a trace of compassion in the deep voice and she knew, as she stared into the implacable, cold features, actual hate for another human being for the first time in her life. ‘I am not sure of my facts yet, so I do not intend to say much more, but from the little I do know about this unfortunate episode it would seem to suggest that your father did not do the homework he was paid to do. Supposition is not an option in the market-place and for this to happen without any prior warning...’ He shrugged eloquently. ‘Something smells.’

‘Are you saying that my father was dishonest?’ she asked hotly. ‘Because if you are—’

The buzzer on his desk interrupted further conversation and, as he took the call his secretary had put through, his face was blank and composed. It was obviously from Dr Lambeth and by the time he replaced the receiver, some minutes later, the dark face was thoughtful, although she had been unable to comprehend anything from his side of the conversation. As he finished the call his secretary knocked quietly and entered with the coffee, her face smooth and expressionless.

‘Thank you, Jacqueline.’ He glanced up once, busying himself with the tray. ‘Can you arrange for the car to be brought to the main entrance in ten minutes, please?’

‘Yes, Mr Reef.’

Something had been said during that phone call, something disturbing and relevant to her, Katie thought suddenly as she stared into the cool poker face opposite. ‘Is my father all right?’ she asked quietly. ‘He isn’t worse?’

‘No.’ He handed her a cup of coffee and gestured towards the milk and sugar. ‘Help yourself.’

‘What did Dr Lambeth say?’ she persisted, the trickle of unease gathering steam by the second. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me, I know it.’

He stared at her for a good fifteen seconds before replying and she knew she was right. There was something—she could read it in the opaque blankness of his eyes. ‘This is really nothing to do with me,’ he said quietly. ‘I feel it would be better if your father’s friend explained in the circumstances, Miss White.’

‘What circumstances?’ She could feel her voice rising but there was nothing she could do about it as sheer undiluted panic gripped her insides. ‘He’s worse? He’s not...’ She stared at him with huge eyes.

‘No, nothing like that.’ He waved his hand at her almost irritably. ‘I’m satisfied that whatever your father did he did out of ignorance, incidentally. Not that that makes the results any different but—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Why the hell did you have to come here today anyway?’ he growled savagely.

‘Why?’ She glared at him, more angry than she could remember being in her whole life. ‘Because you threatened me, that’s why. You said—’

‘I know what I said.’ He stood up in one sharp movement and walked over to the huge plate-glass window where he stood with his back to her, looking down on the ant-like creatures below in the busy London street. ‘I just didn’t expect you to come here hotfoot like some guardian angel, that’s all.’

‘Well, all that could have been averted if you’d taken my call,’ she said stiffly as her face burned still more. He was a monster, she thought, an absolute monster.

‘Possibly.’ He still didn’t turn round. ‘Well, perhaps the news would be better coming from a stranger, after all. I don’t know. At least you would have some time to prepare yourself.’

‘Mr Reef, you’re frightening me,’ she said in a very small voice and, at that, he did turn, swinging round to see her sitting on the edge of her chair, hands clasped together and face as white as a sheet. ‘Whatever it is—could you just tell me?’ she asked slowly.

‘Your father is bankrupt.’ He had taken a deep breath before he spoke but the smoky grey eyes didn’t leave her face. ‘He’s lost the business, the house, the cars, every penny he owns in this deal. He’s just unburdened himself to Dr Lambeth and asked him to let all interested parties know.’

All interested parties? Somehow that hurt more than anything else could have done. She lived at home, spoke to him every day, shared little moments of his life and he hadn’t even hinted that things were bad. What had she ever done that her own father disliked her so much, trusted her so little? What sort of person did he think she was?

‘Miss White, did you hear me?’ He moved round the desk to stand in front of her, before kneeling and bringing his face into line with hers. ‘He had suspected the worst for days but seeing it in black and white in the newspaper brought the heart attack on, so I understand. The house is mortgaged up to the hilt, there are debts mounting skyhigh—’

‘I understand.’ She stopped him with a tiny wave of her hand as she spoke through stiff lips. ‘And he bore all this alone; he didn’t say a word to anyone.’

‘He’s a businessman, Katie.’ She wasn’t aware that he had spoken her name as her mind struggled to comprehend what he had told her. Their beautiful home that had been in her father’s family for generations... The loss of that alone would kill him, she knew it. ‘He has to make decisions that are sometimes difficult—’

‘He’s my father.’ She raised her head to stare at him, her eyes drowning in the whiteness of her face. ‘He should have been able to talk about it with me. What else are families for if not to share the hard times? If he could have told me, trusted me, he might not be in hospital now connected to a mass of wires and tubes—’

She wasn’t aware that her voice had risen into a shrill shriek, but when the outer door burst open and the secretary rushed in she was conscious of a stinging slap across her face as Carlton Reef pulled her back from hysteria before lifting her body into his arms and signalling for the woman to leave with a sharp movement of his head.

‘It’s all right; shush now, shush...’ He was sitting in the chair she had been occupying with her cradled on his lap as she moaned her anguish out loud, the hopelessness of endless years of trying to win her father’s love and approval culminating in the devastating knowledge that he could have died and she wouldn’t have known why. He hadn’t wanted her, hadn’t reached out, hadn’t needed even a word of comfort from the daughter he seemed to despise so much.

‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ she asked again, her head buried in the folds of his jacket. ‘He should have told me.’

‘He didn’t want to worry you,’ Carlton said comfortingly, somewhere over her head. ‘That’s natural in a father.’

‘No.’ She struggled away from him as she desperately tried to compose herself, suddenly horrified at the position she had put herself in. There was nothing natural about her father but she couldn’t tell this man that—he wouldn’t understand. She had never known her father share the smallest thing with her, never felt a fatherly hug, never had anyone to dry her tears as all her friends had. ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she said weakly. ‘I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have come. I didn’t know—’

‘Look, sit down and have your coffee.’ He had risen as she had moved away and now took her arm gently, pushing her back down in the seat as he passed a cup to her. ‘Drink that and then I’ll run you home. It’s been a tremendous shock for you.’

‘I don’t want it.’ She stood up again and faced him, her face drawn and pale. ‘And I’ll make my own way home, Mr Reef.’ She felt as if she could die of embarrassment at the ridiculous picture she made. Here she was, in the very centre of the hive that made up London’s busy business world, behaving like some brainless schoolgirl. What on earth was he thinking and why, oh, why, had she come? She must have been mad, quite mad, but she hadn’t been thinking straight. In fact, she hadn’t been thinking at all!

She bit her lower lip hard. She’d made a bad situation well nigh impossible. ‘I’m sorry about all this,’ she said stiffly to the hard, handsome face watching her so intently. ‘I thought that if I came to see you and explained that my father was ill you would be able to wait a few days, that things could be sorted...’ Her voice trailed away at the expression on his face. If cynical mockery could go hand in hand with reluctant sympathy then that was what she was seeing.

‘And instead you found the very roof over your head was threatened,’ he intervened softly. ‘I do understand your predicament, Miss White. I’m not quite such an ogre as you seem to think.’

‘No?’ She faced him square-an now, a combination of shock and crucifyingly painful hurt making her speak her mind in a way she would never have done normally. ‘Well, as you’ve pointed out, our worlds are very different, Mr Reef, and your standards and those of my father are not mine. The lust for power and wealth that masquerades as ambition is not for me.’

‘I see.’ His face had closed against her as she had spoken and now his mouth was grim. ‘But, unless I am very much mistaken, you have enjoyed the benefits of this world that you seem to despise so much for a good many years without your conscience being too troubled?’ His eyebrows rose mockingly. ‘Or perhaps you live in a little wooden hut at the end of your father’s property and indulge in hair-shirts and a monastic form of life?’

‘Of course I don’t.’ Amazingly the confrontation was making her feel better, quelling the panic and fear that had gripped her since he had told her of their changed circumstances as fierce anger at his mockery left no room for any other emotion. ‘And I am grateful to my father for all he’s done for me—my education, our home, all the “benefits” you could no doubt list as well as I could. But—’ she raised her chin and the large, clear hazel eyes that stared into his were steady ‘—I can manage without them without it being the end of the world. I don’t need them in the same way that you do, Mr Reef.’

‘Don’t you indeed?’ His face was dark with an emotion she’d rather not dwell on now, and he crossed his arms as he leant back against the window, almost as though he needed to keep them anchored to his body rather than round her neck, she reflected silently. ‘And how do you know what I need, Miss White? To my knowledge we have never - met before today.’

‘I know your type.’

‘My “type”?’ be barked angrily. ‘My—’ He broke off as he fought visibly for control before taking a deep breath and laughing harshly, the sound grating in the quiet air. ‘You really do take the biscuit! You barge your way in here, flinging insults around as though they were confetti and then accuse me—’

He broke off again and shook his head before turning from her so that his hard features were in profile. ‘You’ve had a bad day and I would guess that it’s going to get worse. Let’s leave it at that, and despite the low opinion you obviously have of me, I would not dream of letting you find your own way home after the news I’ve just given you. The car will be outside now. Shall we?’

He turned and extended his hand to the door. She remained staring at him for one long moment before she moved forward. He was angry, very angry; that much she could see and she really couldn’t take on any more now. It was simpler to accept this favour, however much it grated.

‘Mr Reef?’ His secretary’s voice held a note of panic as he walked with Katie through the outer office, shrugging his big grey overcoat over his shoulders as he did so. ‘You haven’t forgotten the management meeting you called earlier? They’re already assembling in the small boardroom—’

‘Cancel it.’ Her employer turned at the door to fix her with that cool gaze. ’Re-schedule for two this afternoon.’

‘Is there a number where you can be reached?’

‘No—’ he was already shutting the door as he replied to the slightly dazed voice ‘—but I won’t be long.’

‘You don’t have to do this.’ As the silent lift sped swiftly downwards she ventured a glance at him through her eyelashes and then wished she hadn’t. He looked mad—more than mad, she thought weakly, and she hadn’t fully realised just how big and powerful that tall, lean body was until the close confines of the lift had emphasised it so threateningly. And his aftershave was gorgeous...

What was she doing, thinking such things at a time like this? she asked herself faintly, and about a man like him, too—the sort that populated her father’s world in droves and the kind she had always abhorred. She was in shock. She leant limply against the wall of the lift and took a long, silent breath. That was it. That had to be it. Either that or she’d lost it completely.

He had ignored her hesitant voice as though he hadn’t heard it but now the cold grey eyes pierced her, the expression in them anything but friendly. ‘You aren’t going to faint on me, are you,’ he asked grimly, ‘on top of everything else?’

‘No, I’m not.’ The adrenalin that sent fierce colour into her cheeks and an angry sparkle into her eyes also brought her jerking off the lift wall to stand rigid and stiff as they reached the ground floor. ‘I’ve never fainted in my life.’

‘Quite a formidable lady.’ The thread of laughter in the mocking voice was unforgivable in the circumstances, and sheer anger kept her head up and her back straight as they walked through the reception area.

Out of the corner of her eye she was aware of one or two interested but veiled glances in their direction, but just keeping up with his large strides was more than enough to contend with for the moment. She had absolutely no intention of following in his wake like a whipped puppy, she thought tightly as they reached the massive automatic doors together. He was the epitome of the arrogant, dominant male but the Tarzan-Jane concept of male and female had never appealed less than at this moment.

The icy March wind was carrying chips of sleet on its breath as they left the hothouse warmth of the big building and she pulled her knee-length anorak more tightly round her as a big dark blue Mercedes purred to a halt in front of them, complete with chauffeur in matching uniform.

‘In you get.’ He opened the door for her and then followed her into the immaculate interior in one movement. ‘Your address?’ She gave it in a small voice that tried to be cool and assured but was merely... small.

‘Are you going to the hospital?’ They had travelled some minutes in complete silence but she had never been more aware of another human being in her life.

‘Later perhaps.’ Why couldn’t he have been old and bald? she asked herself as she turned her head to meet his gaze. A sympathetic uncle-figure who would have met her halfway? ‘My father doesn’t—‘ She corrected herself quickly. ‘The doctor thought it better to keep him quiet for the moment.’

‘Right.’ The intuitive grey eyes had narrowed at the slip but he made no comment, his face bland, and he turned to look out of the window into the grey world outside as the big car moved swiftly through the mid-morning traffic.

The journey home was accomplished in about half the time the taxi had taken earlier and as they drew into the smart pebbled drive she found herself looking, as though for the first time, at the house she had been born in. Mellow, honey-coloured stone, leaded windows and a massive thatched roof stared impassively back; the huge oak tree that stood in the middle of the bowling-green-smooth lawn at the front of the house was as yet bare and naked against the winter sky.

‘You have a beautiful home.’ She jumped visibly as he spoke, and dragged her eyes away from the sight that had suddenly become so poignant with a tremendous effort.

‘Not for much longer, it would seem,’ she said flatly as she held out one small, slim hand for him to shake. ‘Thank you for bringing me home, Mr Reef. No doubt my father’s solicitors will be hearing from yours in due course.’

‘No doubt.’ He hesitated for the merest second and then, instead of giving the handshake she had expected, leant forward and brushed her lips with his own. As she leapt backwards like a scalded cat he climbed out of the car and offered his hand, his eyebrows raised in a distinctly sardonic tilt. ‘Allow me.’

She gave him her hand reluctantly—a fact which the dark eyebrows took full note of—and slid out of the car with as much dignity as she could muster, considering her cheeks were glowing bright red and her mouth was burning from the brief contact with his.

‘Goodbye,’ she said again, a little breathlessly this time, as she stepped backwards a few paces from his large bulk and edged towards the house.

‘Goodbye.’ He didn’t smile or move and after a split-second of indecision she turned and ran up the steps to the front door, her only desire being to get into the safety of the house.

Mrs Jenkins must have heard the car because even as she fumbled in her bag for her key the door opened and she almost fell into the hall in her eagerness to get inside. ‘Katie?’ Mrs Jenkins peered out into the drive before slowly shutting the door and hurrying to her side. ‘Who was that man?’ she asked worriedly. ‘And why was he looking at the house like that?’

‘Like what?’ Katie asked weakly, the relief at being home overwhelming. She didn’t know why but during the last few seconds in the car she had felt undeniably threatened—tenifyingly so.

‘Like...’ Mrs Jenkins’ voice faded away as she shook her grey head bewilderedly. ‘I don’t rightly know, but it wasn’t normal.’

‘He’s not a normal man, Mrs Jenkins,’ Katie said unsteadily just as the phone began to ring. It was the first of many calls that day from her father’s colleagues and business contacts who were already beginning to demand their pound of flesh.