Читать онлайн книгу «A Daughter′s Dilemma» автора Miranda Lee

A Daughter's Dilemma
Miranda Lee
FORBIDDEN! Look - but don't touch! Carolyn was delighted when her mother married Julian. She waved off the happy couple on their honeymoon and prepared to oversee the renovation of their new home… only to discover that the architect her stepfather had commissioned was Vaughan Slater, the man who'd turned her life upside down ten years ago.It seemed that Vaughan wasn't deterred by Carolyn's hostility. To him, those past events were hardly his fault; now he wanted Carolyn in a way he'd never wanted a woman before. Did he mean that this time he would seduce her, make her fall in love with him - and stay?


Excerpt (#u3e4d20a0-55a9-5396-a8a5-764205ac7db4)About the Author (#ub7df453a-18e7-5cee-a217-23bb99b182cc)Title Page (#u87ac858c-c0b1-5974-aaea-70d7ec4c95d4)CHAPTER ONE (#uca858bf8-5840-57b3-9924-f078e556d614)CHAPTER TWO (#u76ecc850-b8c9-5fcd-a7fd-28fcec23893b)CHAPTER THREE (#u67dc2eb6-cc9c-5ba6-87f9-5f5ac11ac8c2)CHAPTER FOUR (#ucb67b2ab-4811-5f9f-a34d-d25b491039f8)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“You still think I’m some kind of ogre.”
“Not at all,” she returned with admirable coolness. “I don’t think of you as anything anymore. You’re just my stepfather’s architect.”
“Is that so?” His gaze turned hard as it locked with hers. “And how should I think of you, Carolyn? As my client’s stepdaughter, here to help finish his house to everyone’s satisfaction? Or as a female harboring an irrational grudge against me and who might be thinking of sabotaging my work out of revenge?”
MIRANDA LEE is Australian, living near Sydney. Born and raised in the bush, she was boardingschool educated and briefly pursued a classicalmusic career before moving to Sydney and embracing the world of computers. Happily married, with three daughters, she began writing when family commitments kept her at home. She likes to create stories that are believable, modern, fast-paced and sexy. Her interests include reading meaty sagas, doing word puzzles, gambling and going to the movies.
Miranda Lee has written a sequel to A Daughter’s Dilemma. Look out next month for Maddie’s story in Maddie’s Love-Child (Harlequin Presents #1884). Maddie adores men, and has no intention of marrying one, but she does so want children—especially after she meets Miles MacMillan, a British aristocrat who has all the qualities Maddie wants in the father of her child!
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A Daughter’s Dilemma
Miranda Lee


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
‘WOULD all visitors please leave the ship immediately,’ came the call along the corridors of the SS Sea Countess. ‘We will be departing in five minutes.’
‘That means me, I guess.’ Carolyn sighed and stood up from where she’d been sitting in one of the cabin’s luxurious armchairs. She walked across the deep-pile blue carpet and bent to kiss the cheek of the very attractive blonde woman sitting on the side of the bed.
‘Have a wonderful honeymoon, Mum,’ she said softly. ‘You deserve it.’
‘Thank you, darling,’ Isabel murmured in return, and cast a shy, almost blushing glance at her husband of three hours.
Carolyn smiled with approval as she turned to face her stepfather, who had also risen from his chair. Fifty-two and going bald, Julian Thornton was not a particularly handsome man. But he had a fine build and intelligent grey eyes, as well as a kind and patient nature. He was, in Carolyn’s opinion, just the sort of man to make her mother happy.
‘As for you, Step-papa,’ she said, giving him a kiss also, ‘I think you’re very naughty depriving me of my mother’s company for two whole months. Just as well you’re leaving me your lovely car to drive around in or I might have been cross.’
He chuckled. ‘Mind you look after it.’
‘Carolyn?’
The plaintive note in her mother’s voice had her swinging sharply around. ‘Yes, Mum?’ Hard to keep the worry out of her voice. Surely nothing was going to go wrong now!
‘Did... did I pack that new hairdryer we had to buy? I just can’t remember...’
Carolyn tried to ignore the instant jab of dismay. She knew her mother’s memory could still be faulty, but she’d been so much better lately and Carolyn had hoped...
Suppressing a sigh, she said brightly, ‘It’s safely packed. We put all your toiletries and accoutrements in here.’ Moving briskly, she picked up the smallest of the green leather suitcases lying against the wall and carried it over to place it gently on the bed beside her mother.
Julian stepped up to the foot of the bed. ‘Why don’t you start unpacking, love,’ he suggested to his bride, ‘while I see my charming stepdaughter off the ship?’
‘All right.’ Isabel’s voice carried that vaguely resigned compliance Carolyn always hated hearing in her once strong-minded mother.
Biting her bottom lip, she was unsure all of a sudden if her mother was in a fit state to be anybody’s wife, even a man as understanding as Julian.
‘Come along, Carolyn.’ His voice was firm. ‘We don’t want you sailing with us, do we? Honeymoons are meant for two, not three.’
She glanced up and saw the bittersweet understanding in his face. ‘Coming. Bye, Mum.’ She gave her mother another parting peck, picked up her bag from the small table near the door and dashed from the room before she did anything stupid like cry.
‘Don’t worry about her so much,’ Julian urged as they walked along the corridor and up the narrow stairway. ‘She’s tired, that’s all. It’s been a long day.’
Carolyn shook her head. ‘You’re so patient with her. So...good.’
‘I love her.’
‘Yes...’ Carolyn swallowed and tried not to think of her mother’s words when Julian had first asked her to marry him six months ago.
‘But I...I don’t love him. I mean, I like him a lot and he’s very kind, but...’
Isabel had turned him down, but Julian was persistent, and Carolyn had to admit that her mother had sincerely warmed to him over the next three months, so much so that, when Julian had asked her again, she had said yes. Nevertheless, Carolyn was sure that their relationship had not yet become a sexual one; a fact which worried her slightly, in the circumstances...
‘Carolyn.’ Julian stopped beside the gangway and turned to take her hands in his. His grey eyes were steely as they peered down into her own frowning blue ones. ‘Let me give you a bit of advice. You’re only twenty-four years old, yet you’ve spent almost ten years being a mother to your own mother. And, while I admire what you’ve done enormously, it’s time you got on with your own life. Your mother’s my responsibility now. You have to let go of the apron strings, cut them or you’ll ruin your own life, as surely as Isabel once almost ruined hers with her exaggerated sense of responsibility.’
Carolyn was taken aback by this last remark till she recalled that Julian believed Isabel’s breakdown had been due to the stress of raising an illegitimate child on her own. Carolyn herself trotted out the same excuse whenever one of her friends questioned her mother’s odd timidity and vagueness.
Julian had eventually been privy to a more detailed version when he’d started taking Isabel out, and he’d been moved by the story of the innocent young Isabel, falling madly in love with her history professor at college—and vice versa; of her becoming pregnant to this much older professor; of his abandoning his childless and unhappy marriage to live with Isabel and await a divorce and his baby; of his dying of a heart attack before either arrived, leaving the devastated nineteen-year-old mother to cope on her own, which she did very bravely and valiantly, till suddenly, when the child was fourteen, she’d unexpectedly cracked up.
It was a touching story. And quite true. Up to a point. Carolyn suspected her mother had by now convinced herself it was the total and real truth. And she’d never contradicted her. How could she? Isabel McKensie had no idea her daughter knew the real reason for her breakdown. And Carolyn had never dared reveal her knowledge for fear of causing a relapse.
‘But she’s fine now,’ Julian was insisting. ‘Much better than you give her credit for. The fact is, you’ve been molly-coddling your mother, Carolyn. Doing far too much, making too many decisions for her.’
Resentment burned inside Carolyn for a moment. ‘How can you say that after what you yourself asked me to do earlier in the week? Doesn’t that entail my making more decisions for her?’
Julian sighed. ‘I agree your mother still has some limitations, but my request was more to keep my project a secret, rather than because Isabel is incapable of making some simple decisions. I want to present a brand new home to her, fully furnished and decorated, as a surprise when we get home. Perhaps I put it badly when I asked you to oversee the finishing touches for me, to veto anything you thought your mother might not like. If I did, I’m sorry. Look, if you feel it’s too much of an imposition on your time—’
‘No, no,’ Carolyn cut in, overwhelmed by guilt that Julian might think her unwilling to help out when he’d been so good to her and her mother. Impossible to explain that it would take more than a few stern words to make her stop worrying about Isabel. He hadn’t been around ten years ago when she’d had her nervous breakdown. He’d never witnessed the sort of woman she’d been beforehand, as compared to afterwards. The difference had been staggering. She shuddered inside at the memory, but kept her face unreadable. No point in worrying Julian at this late stage.
‘I’d like to do it. Really,’ she reassured. Then smiled. ‘And you’re quite right. I’m going to stop fussing over Mum and leave that up to you.’
Julian beamed. ‘Good.’ He fished two business cards out of his jacket pocket and pressed them into her right hand. ‘Now here’s the names, business addresses and phone numbers of the architect and interior decorator I’m using. Both of them are going to be really famous one day, you mark my words. They have adjoining offices in Wollongong and, though they’re not actually partners, there’s an unwritten agreement that, if you hire this architect to design a house, you hire this decorator as well. Having met the man, I can understand why. He’s a fanatic about his houses. Apparently has nightmares over acquiring some scatter-brained client with lots of money and no taste ruining one of his masterpieces with ghastly decor.
‘His words, not mine,’ Julian added with a chuckle. ‘Anyway, since you have excellent taste, Carolyn, you shouldn’t have any trouble with him. But watch yourself. He’s in his early thirties and extremely good-looking, but apparently not into marriage. Or so he implied one day when I was talking about the subject. I wouldn’t like my stepdaughter getting mixed up with an inveterate womaniser. I want her finding herself a husband, not a lover. Why are you looking so surprised? You did tell me you wanted half a dozen children, didn’t you?’
‘Julian,’ she laughed. ‘I said one day I’d like half a dozen children, not this week, or even this year! And let me assure you that, from the sound of him, your architect is certainly not my type, either for a husband or a lover!’
‘Believe me, love,’ Julian said drily, ‘Vaughan’s every woman’s type.’
‘Not mine. I can’t stand men who...’ Carolyn broke off, doing a double take when the architect’s Christian name really sank in.
Vaughan?
She resisted succumbing to an irrational burst of panic. It was an unusual name, but not that unusual, she reasoned. It couldn’t be the same Vaughan. It just couldn’t... could it?
‘Don’t worry, you should be pretty safe,’ Julian prattled on, ‘since I’m fairly sure our architectural Casanova and the interior decorator have a thing going. Miss Powers is very attractive in an offbeat sort of way, and they’re very intimate in their manner towards each other. But better safe than sorry, so make sure you put that gorgeous hair of yours back up into its usual plait thing when you meet him. And dress like you do for the office. That creation you’ve got on today is a definite no-no!’
Carolyn glanced down at the scarlet crepe sheath she’d worn for her mother’s wedding. Isabel’s choice, not hers. As was her wearing her waistlength honey-blonde hair loose.
‘Whatever you say, Julian,’ she agreed lightly, but her right hand was tightly closed around the business cards lying within her palm. One quick look and she’d be absolutely sure if Julian’s Vaughan and her Vaughan were one and the same. One quick look...
Why, then, wasn’t she taking it?
The answer was quite simple. She already knew the ghastly truth.
The picture Julian was painting of this particular Vaughan coincided too well with the picture that was burnt indelibly in her brain. As well as the two men’s both being architects, there could be no mistaking the other similarities. The man’s age... his magnetic sex appeal... his self-centred ambition... his ego...
Carolyn felt all the blood begin to drain from her face.
‘Go looking like the secretary in the Beverly Hillbillies,’ Julian laughed, not noticing her pallor under her make-up. ‘That should do it! Now, you’re to ring Vaughan’s office to make an appointment to see both parties this coming weekend. They’re already au fait with your role in this and my wish to keep the house a secret from Isabel. Here’s my petrol card as well...’
He extended a plastic card from his wallet and handed it over as well. ‘That car of mine is a real gas-guzzler, so don’t hesitate to use this to fill up. No, don’t argue with me. I insist. I’m the one who’s asking you to travel over fifty miles down the south coast every other weekend, so I’m the one who should provide the transport, free of charge. It’s all tax deductible anyway.’ He smiled.
How she managed to smile back remained a mystery to Carolyn. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. God, what was she going to do?
Nothing at the moment, she realised as Julian bent to kiss her goodbye. ‘Thanks again,’ he said. ‘Keep well, and don’t worry about your mother.’
Don’t worry about your mother...
Carolyn was still shaking her head over the irony of those words as she watched the liner pull away from the pier and slowly make its way across Sydney harbour towards the bridge. If the surname on the architect’s card in her hand was the surname she believed it was, she would do nothing else but worry about her mother over the next two months.
Slowly, as though her palm contained a deadly funnel-web spider, Carolyn lifted her hand and opened the fingers. The card in question was the first on the pile. Plain white, with black lettering. Its wording was simple.
Vaughan Slater - Architect.
Nothing too large or too small.
Carolyn didn’t know whether to laugh, or cry, or be sick.
In the end, she was simply furious at fate, and stuffed the card in her bag with the others before she ripped it into a million pieces.
‘Vaughan Slater,’ she muttered aloud through gritted teeth.
Vaughan Slater, who ten years ago was a student in architecture at Sydney University and living in their home as a boarder during his final year.
Vaughan Slater, nine years younger than her mother back then. Only twenty-four to her thirtythree. But old enough to take advantage of a woman alone. Old enough to seduce her, sleep with her, make her fall in love with him, then tell her it was ‘only sex’ to her face and just walk away.
Vaughan Slater... the single and sole reason for her mother’s breakdown all those years ago.
CHAPTER TWO
CAROLYN glanced at her watch as she drove into Wollongong. Nearly ten-forty. Her appointment with Vaughan wasn’t till eleven, with the interior decorator following at eleven-thirty. Much as she wasn’t looking forward to meeting Vaughan again, she didn’t want to be late.
She hadn’t actually spoken to the man himself when she’d rung his office earlier in the week, his secretary making both appointments for her for this Saturday morning. So he had no idea of her true identity. The secretary had started calling her Miss Thornton straight away and Carolyn hadn’t corrected her mistake. At the time, she wasn’t sure why she’d kept her real name a secret, but she suspected one never gave an enemy any advantage in advance.
For he was an enemy, she accepted, a bitter taste coming into her mouth. An enemy to her mother’s future happiness. Carolyn knew that, when Julian presented his new bride with a designer-built and fully furnished home, Isabel was sure to want to meet and thank the people responsible.
Carolyn grimaced as she tried to picture how her mother would react to meeting Vaughan again, to having the man she’d loved so obsessively come back into her life. She wouldn’t be able to cope. Of that Carolyn was sure.
I can’t let them meet again, she vowed fiercely. I won’t!
The street that housed Vaughan’s office appeared on the right with Carolyn negotiating the turn across the on-coming traffic with great care. The last thing she wanted was to prang Julian’s beautiful blue BMW. Actually, she’d have driven her old bomb of a Datsun if she’d thought it would make the trip. As it was, she sighed with relief once she slid the car safely into a parking spot and turned off the engine.
Her watch showed ten forty-four by the time she alighted and locked the car then set out to find number sixteen. But as she walked swiftly along, the imminence of her encounter with Vaughan began sending a thousand nervous flutterings into her stomach, and her earlier steely resolve threatened to desert her.
Carolyn ground to a halt and scooped in several steadying breaths. Truly, she just had to get a grip on herself or risk making a hash of this meeting. A cool head was required. Vaughan was a successful and professional man now, who wasn’t going to like being put on the spot, or having old skeletons dragged out of the closet. He certainly wasn’t going to appreciate being told he had to avoid meeting a client’s wife, even if it meant lying to that client. For that was the only way Carolyn could think of to tackle the situation, by virtually throwing herself on his mercy. If the devil had any, that was!
At least she had a few weapons to fall back on to persuade Vaughan into compliance. No doubt Julian hadn’t paid him the full balance of his fat architectural fee for designing the house as yet. The Vaughan Slater she knew and despised would not do anything to make waves and lose out on that, Carolyn thought with bitter cynicism.
Money meant a great deal to him. Hadn’t she subsequently found out, when she’d checked the bankbooks after her mother’s breakdown, that he had not paid one cent in board for the last few months he’d stayed in their home? One didn’t have to have too much of an imagination to work out what happened. Once he’d secured his landlady’s love through pretending a return of affection with some very convincing words and lovemaking, he’d simply not paid any more.
Thinking about this little snippet of damning evidence made Carolyn even more determined not to take any nonsense from this man. He’d do what she asked or reap the rewards of his folly. Julian loved Isabel to distraction. He was also a very wealthy and influential businessman around Sydney and the south coast, being the owner and managing director of a large construction company that built shopping centres. Carolyn didn’t think he’d take too kindly to finding out the unabridged and disgusting truth of the way his womanising architect had once treated his wife.
Carolyn’s blue eyes darkened with fury and her teeth clenched down hard in her jaw.
Amazing, she thought. She’d had no idea she possessed such a capacity for hatred and revenge. People always described her as being mild-tempered. She certainly didn’t feel mild-tempered whenever she thought of a certain individual.
Steeling herself again, she walked more confidently along the pavement, looking for the dreaded address.
It wasn’t far, a modern three-storeyed steel and glass building with huge bluish windows facing the ocean, the kind of glass that one could look out of but couldn’t see into from outside.
Carolyn took one last steadying breath and pushed through the revolving glass doors into a grey marbled air-conditioned lobby. There was no reception desk, only a huge noticeboard on the wall which told her her quarry resided on the top floor. So did the interior decorator—Madeline Powers. Suites Three and Four respectively. A flight of stairs and two lifts serviced these upper floors.
Carolyn chose the stairs. She still had a few minutes to kill.
Would he recognise her straight away? she wondered as she made her way slowly up the carpeted staircase.
It was possible, her basic features not having changed much over the years. She still wore her straight hair in a single plait most of the time, though nowadays she wound it round the top of her head in a coronet. She also never wore make-up during the day, her natural peaches and cream complexion and thickly lashed blue eyes holding up quite well au naturel.
He wouldn’t have changed much, she fancied. Men didn’t from their mid-twenties to early thirties. Unless, of course, they put on weight or went bald, which she doubted he had from Julian’s description.
Carolyn still had a rather vivid mental picture of Vaughan at twenty-four, despite the intervening years. A strong angular face with straight brown brows and deeply set brown eyes; thick, wavy chestnut hair that always seemed to need a cut; a sensual-looking mouth that rarely smiled; and a body that had brought her girlfriends running from miles around, especially when he mowed the lawn with his shirt off.
Carolyn cringed as she recalled some of the comments her classmates had made about his various physical attributes. Maybe she’d been a bit of a prude back then, for she certainly hadn’t shared her friends’ preoccupation with sex. Admittedly, she’d been a young fourteen at the time, but even now she wasn’t impressed by the type of man who flaunted his sexual equipment in overtight clothes, any more than she liked girls who went round half-naked!
Maybe I’m still a prude, came the agitated thought. Twenty-four-year-old virgins aren’t exactly thick on the ground these days.
Carolyn became uncomfortably aware that her forehead had broken out in a fine layer of sweat. Extracting a tissue from her bag, she dabbed herself dry, conceding that perhaps she was dressed a little too warmly for a hot February day, Julian’s warning over her dress having induced her to wear a grey suit that the girls at work labelled the most effective in her ‘anti Maurice Jenkins’ armoury.
Carolyn smiled ruefully at the accuracy of this description, since the suit was rather shapeless with a blazer-style jacket and a pleated skirt. It certainly hadn’t caught the eye of the aforementioned Dr Jenkins, an obstetrician at the private hospital where Carolyn worked, who had steadily seduced every attractive nurse in the place and was currently directing his attention towards the administration staff.
Maurice Jenkins might be a handsome and successful man, but no male was welcome in her life on a ‘just sex’ basis; never had been and never would be. Which perhaps was why she hadn’t had a steady boyfriend as yet. All men seemed to want from a girl these days was sex. Carolyn resented being...
Good grief, where was her mind taking her? This was hardly the moment to start analysing and defending her attitude to men and sex. She was here on a mission concerning her mother’s future, not her own.
Carolyn finally reached the top of the stairs where an arrow indicated that Suites Three and Four were along the corridor to the right. Gathering herself, she made sure all the buttons on her jacket were done up before making a right-hand turn on the motley brown carpet.
No sooner had she begun walking down the corridor than a door opened a little way along and a tall, broad-shouldered man strode out, swiftly followed by a flashy-looking brunette dressed in a purple trouser-suit.
‘But Vaughan, darling,’ she was saying, the name bringing Carolyn up with a jerk. Her startled gaze snapped back to the man, who had spun round to be half-turned away from her.
This was the present-day Vaughan Slater? she gaped. This conservative male person with short back and sides and dressed in a crisp pale blue shirt and casual cream tailored trousers? Admittedly, the back of the shirt collar was turned up as though he’d dressed in a hurry, but on the whole he presented a smart, well-groomed image—a far cry from the bronzed, shirtless, bejeaned figure all her girlfriends had drooled over.
Quite without warning, he twisted to glance over his shoulder at her, eyes narrowing, straight dark brows bunching into a frown.
Carolyn steadfastly ignored the way her heart started pounding. Nerves, she realised, and steeled herself for the fray. At least his almost sullen expression was still the same, she grumbled to herself. Pity he’d cut his hair, though. She would have liked to have more to remind her of the Vaughan of old. But there wasn’t much evidence of those once wild chestnut waves in the dark, damp-looking, semispiked hair that covered the top of his head.
When he kept on staring at her, a breathless anticipation seized Carolyn. Any second now the penny was sure to drop.
But it didn’t! Oh, yes, there was a split second when something hovered behind his eyes, but he lost it, and, shrugging, returned his attention to the brunette.
‘Anthea,’ he said in a deep male voice, ‘I can’t talk to you now. I have a client due at eleven...’
The brunette tossed a glance of her own down the corridor to where Carolyn had frozen on the spot.
‘Look, I’ll ring you later and let you know,’ he went on impatiently.
‘And turn me down, no doubt,’ the brunette huffed. ‘Truly, Vaughan, what have you got against parties? Oh, please do say you’ll come this time, darling. I’m only putting it on for you. I want to show you off to my friends.’
Carolyn actually saw him shudder. ‘Good God, I’m not one of your prized poodles, you know. As for the crowd you mix with being your friends—huh! They’re more your husband’s friends than yours, dear heart,’ he finished with a snort. ‘Especially the women.’
The woman laughed and made the tellingly intimate gesture of straightening his collar. ‘True,’ she murmured, and traced a fingernail along his jawline. ‘That’s just the point. I want all those bitches to see what I’ve finally snared for myself. They’ll be as jealous as sin.’
Carolyn’s whole insides contracted with distaste. He hadn’t changed. Not one iota. She’d had a fleeting worry the other night that she might have misjudged the situation with her mother. But no...he was going along in his usual despicable fashion. At least now he wasn’t seducing lonely, vulnerable single women. He’d moved on to tacky, wealthy married ones. Though if what Julian suspected was right, this Anthea was not the only string to his sexual bow. There was the interior decorator as well. My, but he was a busy boy!
Her lips curled with contempt as she walked right up to them.
‘Mr Slater?’ she said archly.
His companion looked irritated at being interrupted. Vaughan turned and stared hard at her again, as though still trying to place her. Once more his memory failed him, shown by a flicker of frustration in his expressive brown eyes.
You’ll know who I am soon enough, she thought tartly. Then you’ll wish you didn’t, you immoral bastard!
‘Yes?’ he said, a faint frown remaining on his undeniably handsome face.
Carolyn was rather startled at finding herself admitting to this. When she was fourteen, she’d never thought him all that handsome. Attractive, yes. But only in a sexily brooding fashion. Either his facial features had matured favourably in the intervening years, or she’d changed her ideas on what was handsome and what was not. She certainly couldn’t find any fault in the way his face was assembled, from his wide clear forehead to his strong straight nose to his classically chiselled jawline. His eyes, she conceded, had always held some appeal, but she was perturbed to find her own locking with those rich brown depths for an uncomfortable period of time.
‘I’m Julian Thornton’s stepdaughter,’ she said somewhat stiffly at last. ‘I believe you’re expecting me?’
He glanced at his watch which showed right on eleven. As he raised his eyes, Carolyn was subjected to a fleeting but decidedly dismissive sexual scrutiny.
‘I’ll be with you in a few minutes, Miss Thornton,’ he said coolly. ‘If you’ll just go into my office, my secretary will show you a seat.’
Piqued at being made to wait—or was it because he’d found her not worth a second glance?—Carolyn swept on into Suite Three, her face burning. What on earth was wrong with her? Fancy even caring what he thought of her looks! So he was drop-dead handsome. So what? Handsome is as handsome does, she believed. And she knew exactly what Mr Casanova Slater did with the women in his life!
The middle-aged lady behind the reception desk looked up with a ready smile. ‘Miss Thornton?’
Carolyn’s returning smile felt decidedly false within her flushed cheeks. ‘Mr Slater said for you to show me into his office. He’ll be joining me shortly. He’s just saying goodbye to his—er...’ She bit her bottom lip, aware she’d been about to make an uncharacteristically catty remark. ‘I didn’t quite catch the lady’s name,’ she finished lamely.
‘Mrs Maxwell,’ the secretary supplied, and stood up. ‘She’s one of Mr Slater’s best clients.’
Oh, how typical, Carolyn thought, and almost laughed. Well he certainly hadn’t lost his touch when it came to seducing the right women, the ones who were to his financial advantage.
‘Are you sure Mr Slater said you were to wait for him in his office, Miss Thornton?’ the secretary enquired on a puzzled note.
Carolyn blinked her confusion. ‘Yes... I... I’m certain that’s what he said.’
The woman shrugged resignedly. ‘Very well, but I must warn you not to touch anything. Oh, and—er—don’t mind the mess. Mr Slater was working most of the night on a new project, and when he does that he’s inclined to be...um...untidy. He went home a short while back to shower and change and was about to clear everything away in readiness for your visit when Mrs Maxwell arrived unexpectedly. He hasn’t had time since.’
I can imagine, came the caustic thought. ‘I don’t mind a little mess,’ Carolyn lied.
Even so, when she was shown into the room, she was shocked into a wide-eyed silence. Papers and sketches and plans covered every available surface, which included several desks and cabinets, not to mention every chair and sections of the floor. One of the corners contained a pile of screwed-up paper. Several empty coffee-mugs seemed to be being used as paperweights at strategic points. The litter from a couple of visits to McDonald’s was sitting on an old plastic chair beside the main desk.
The secretary picked this latter up with a disapproving ‘tch-tch’. ‘Truly, it’s a wonder that man doesn’t have a weight problem,’ she muttered. ‘The rubbish he stuffs into himself. You’ll have to sit here,’ she added with an apologetic grimace, and indicated the now empty plastic chair. ‘I don’t dare touch any of the rest of it. It might cost me my job if I disturb any of Mr Slater’s papers.’
Carolyn, who was the neatest, most organised person both at work and at home, could only sink down into the seat and stare at the shambles in bewilderment. The whole place was made to look worse by the clarity and peace of the panoramic view provided by the wall of glass beyond it. Carolyn stared out at the crystalline blue waters of the Pacific Ocean and the perfection of clean white sands, then back at the littered room, shaking her head in amazement.
‘But how can he work in this mess?’ she asked.
‘Very well indeed,’ the man himself ground out, making Carolyn flinch as he came in with aggressive strides. ‘Why on earth did you bring her in here, Nora? You know I——’
‘It’s my fault,’ Carolyn broke in hurriedly, bringing a look of relief to the secretary’s instantly stricken face. ‘You told me to wait for you in your office and I naturally assumed...’
Her voice died when she noticed he was frowning at her again. After several excruciating seconds, he tore his eyes away and threw his secretary a withering look. ‘Never bring anyone in here unless I’m present, Nora,’ he snapped. ‘Do I make myself clear?’
The secretary practically quivered in her sensible brogues. ‘Yes, Mr Slater,’ she said, and fled.
‘She’s fairly new,’ he muttered once she’d closed the door. ‘Doesn’t know the ropes yet.’
Maybe you should give her one to hang herself with, Carolyn thought crossly, infuriated at the way he’d spoken to the poor woman.
He strode round behind his desk and began shuffling the papers on it into a still untidy bundle. All of a sudden he sighed and looked up, shocking Carolyn when an amazingly engaging smile spread across his previously scowling face.
‘I guess I was a bit rough on the old dear,’ he said with a rueful chuckle. ‘Do you think she’ll quit on me?’
Not if you smile at her like that every once in a while, came her treacherous and shattering thought.
Carolyn’s stomach fluttered then tightened, the implications of which did not escape her. ‘I have no idea,’ she said stiffly, wanting to look away but unable to.
I’m physically attracted to him, she was thinking with appalled horror.
He nodded, his smile turning wry. ‘It’s just that on one occasion I had a whole month’s work ruined by having something spilt on them. Then a previous secretary of mine let a slick smooth-talking salesman type come in to supposedly wait for me, and while he was in here he photographed a whole heap of my house plans and sold them to some very unscrupulous builders.’
‘How very upsetting for you,’ Carolyn said with a betraying lack of sympathy.
His quite beautiful brown eyes narrowed perceptibly. ‘Tell me, Miss Thornton, I get the feeling we’ve met before. Am I right?’
Carolyn swallowed the enormous lump that was filling her throat.
‘Yes,’ she said simply, merely because she was incapable of elaboration at that point in time.
‘I thought so.’ A brief look of satisfaction passed over his face before it turned into a frown. ‘Yet the name Thornton means nothing to me. Your father is the first Thornton I’ve ever met.’
‘Stepfather,’ she corrected in a strangled tone. ‘My name isn’t Thornton.’
‘Aah, yes... My mistake. But... wasn’t Miss Thornton the name you gave Nora?’
Puzzled brown eyes narrowed some more and a small shiver ran through her. He walked round the desk and cleared a spot on the edge, perching there barely an arm’s length from her. He put an elbow on one knee and leant forward, chin resting in his hand. It brought his face much closer to hers. Suddenly, her eyes were on his mouth and she began thinking how sensually full his bottom lip was.
‘Care to explain the reason for the deception?’ he probed softly.
Her eyes must have revealed something of her inner turmoil, or perhaps it was the way she physically shrank back into the chair to remove herself from his suffocating nearness, for he stiffened and straightened, his expression worried now. ‘I’m not going to like your reason, am I?’ he announced with dry intuition.
‘No,’ she rasped.
‘Out with it, then,’ he said brusquely, sliding off the desk and returning to stand behind his desk, hands on hips. ‘I like to take bad medicine in quick doses.’
‘Very well.’ She had herself under control again now, disgust at her sexual response to this man finding inner steel with a vengeance. How could you? her conscience kept screaming at her. How could you?
‘My name’s McKensie,’ she said with an icily controlled fury. ‘Carolyn McKensie... If you don’t remember me, I’m sure you must remember my mother. Her name’s Isabel McKensie, though it changed last Thursday to Isabel Thornton.’
CHAPTER THREE
IF SHE’D been expecting him to blush guiltily, or show shock, she would have been bitterly disappointed. As it was, Carolyn did expect a little more reaction than she got.
He merely kept looking at her for a few seconds, that faint frown back on his face. Then he bent to scoop his chair under his knees, sinking into it with a sigh. ‘Awkward,’ he murmured, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ she flung at him in simmering outrage. ‘Just awkward?’
He eyed her closely till she shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘What else would you like me to say?’
She dragged in a deep breath and took the plunge. ‘I’m not going to beat around the bush, Vaughan. I know what really happened between you and Mum. Not that Mum told me. She never speaks of that time in her life any more. But I saw you both... together... the night before you left. I came home early from ballet rehearsals because there was a bomb scare in the hall. You were...’
She gulped, then raced on, her voice a few decibels higher. ‘Well, let’s just say neither of you noticed me standing in the doorway of the living room. I left again in a hurry. I also overheard part of the argument you had with Mum the next day after she told you she loved you. No, please don’t say anything. I don’t wish to discuss the past or to apportion blame or pass judgements. But you must appreciate that I don’t want you seeing my mother again, under any circumstances. I want your word that when Julian and my mother come back from their trip in two months’ time you’ll avoid meeting her at all costs, because I——’
‘Oh don’t be so bloody melodramatic!’ he cut in forcibly. ‘This all happened ten years ago, for God’s sake. An eternity! I’m not going to do any such thing as run and hide from Isabel. OK, so I agree our first meeting might be a little embarrassing, but let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill.’
Carolyn could only sit and stare at him.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘Is there something here I don’t know?’
It finally dawned on her that he just didn’t feel any guilt at all over her mother. To him, having love affairs was as natural as breathing. Women came and women went. Clearly he never lost a night’s sleep over their demise and he expected them to be the same. Vaughan Slater was on a different moral wavelength from her and nothing would ever change that.
But she had to try to make him see her point of view.
‘My mother loved you,’ she said shakily.
‘No,’ he denied. ‘She didn’t.’
Carolyn’s frustration was acute. ‘How can you say that?’ Good God, she had heard her mother quite clearly, telling the wretched creature, begging him not to leave her. Her broken voice had torn Carolyn so much that she had run away and hidden in her bedroom, not coming out till she’d heard Vaughan leave a couple of hours later.
‘Because it’s true,’ he insisted harshly. ‘And your mother damn well knew it too. She wanted sex, that’s all, then afterwards she tried calling it love to soothe her conscience.’
‘Her conscience!’
‘That’s right. If you think it was me who was doing the seducing, then think again, my girl.’
‘But...but...’ Her confusion was total, her shock shattering. For there was an undeniable ring of truth in this callous man’s hard voice. Besides, why should he lie? What reason could he have?
Her distressed eyes dropped to the floor and she shook her head in anguished bewilderment.
‘Carolyn, look at me...’
His voice was so unexpectedly gentle that she was impelled to look up, only to be lanced by a look of such incredible warmth and apology that she was stunned. His regretful gaze washed over her, totally defusing her anger, making her melt inside.
Panic clutched at her stomach. Dear heaven... she would have to be very very careful with this man.
‘I shouldn’t have said that quite so bluntly,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sorry. Look, your mother was a lovely woman. Very lovely. But very, very lonely. She needed a man in her life. I was just... there. I never led her on and I never told her I loved her. She came to me, not the other way around. I don’t blame her and neither should you.’
‘I don’t,’ she bit out, shaking inside with indignation. ‘Look, I don’t know if you’re telling the truth or not about who started what, but you’re lying about not having told Mum you loved her. You did. I know that for a fact!’
An electric silence descended on the pair of them with her vehement accusation.
‘Then I suggest you check your facts,’ he said at last in a low, tightly controlled voice. ‘If your mother thought I loved her then it was all in her mind, certainly not because of anything I ever said or did. I would quite willingly swear to that on a stack of bibles!’
Her belief in his treachery wavered under this intense denial. Could he be telling the truth about everything? Had her mother’s mind already been affected so much that she’d started imagining he’d said words he hadn’t? Carolyn supposed it was possible, given the obsessive nature of her mother’s feelings for him.
What was the truth? she agonised. He claimed Isabel had been lonely... frustrated...
Carolyn supposed that could have been true. For not in all her growing-up years could she recall her mother going out with a man, or having a man in the house. Isabel had always insisted she’d loved Carolyn’s father far too much to ever look at another man. As an innocent child, she had accepted this as a wonderful, romantic concept. Now she could see that such loyalty to a dead man must have been hard on a normal healthy woman in the prime of her life.
But none of that changed the fact that her mother had believed Vaughan loved her. No one could doubt that if they’d heard her piteous ravings that day. Besides, it was the only reason that made sense of her breakdown. Isabel had been a strong woman, not a dreamer. So why had she believed Vaughan loved her if he’d not actually said so?
Carolyn lifted her pale face to stare at him across the desk. The answers had to lie in this man’s sexual power and prowess, in his ability to bewitch women and make them mad for him without having to say the words women always wanted to hear.
I love you... I love you...
The words seemed to ring aloud inside her head again and again and she wanted to clasp her hands over her ears to stop them. As it was, the blood drained from her face as an appalling thought hit her. What if he bewitches me too? What if...?
‘You look upset, Carolyn,’ he said abruptly, and stood up. ‘I’ll get Nora to make us both a cup of coffee. Then we’ll try to sort this out, come to a compromise that will ease your mind. Perhaps I could telephone your mother when she gets back and——’
‘Don’t you dare!’ she burst out, so savagely that he sat down again, looking stunned.
‘You... you don’t understand,’ she added, her voice trembling. Oh this was dreadful. Simply dreadful. She had to get a hold of herself.
‘Then perhaps you could enlighten me?’ he asked quietly.
‘I... my mother had a nervous breakdown,’ she blurted out. ‘The day after you left. Her doctor put her in a hospital for a while. Even when she was allowed out, she took a long time to get better. In fact she’s still very... fragile.’
Vaughan was looking at her as though she were mad. ‘Isabel had a nervous breakdown? Isabel? Over me?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t believe it!’
‘It’s only too true,’ she insisted wretchedly, thinking that she would never forget the pitiful scene she’d encountered soon after Vaughan had left. She’d found her mother curled up in a little ball in a corner of the kitchen, talking to herself, totally unaware of Carolyn’s presence.
‘He swore he really loved me,’ she’d raved over and over. ‘Why else did he think I started sleeping with him, even though I knew it was wrong? And what did he do in the end? Told me it was only sex, said he was leaving me. All lies... Nothing but lies... Lies, lies, lies! I can’t bear it any more... I can’t!’
And she hadn’t been able to bear it. The rantings had finally dissolved into tears and she hadn’t been able to stop. Uncontrollable hysterical tears. Racking her. Tearing her apart.
In tears herself, Carolyn had rung their local doctor and the nightmare had begun...
Remembering what had really happened brought fresh doubts. Could Vaughan be still lying? Had he, in fact, both seduced Isabel and told her he loved her? She only had his word for it that he hadn’t. Carolyn lifted her eyes to those seemingly sincere brown ones and didn’t know what to believe any more.
‘Perhaps some of it was in her mind,’ she conceded in confusion. ‘The bit about you having said you loved her. But she believed it enough to crack up over your leaving. Ten years ago or not, I don’t intend risking my mother’s mental health by your seeing her again. If you’ve got a shred of decency in you, Vaughan, you’ll keep as far away from her as you can.’
He said nothing for several seconds, his face undeniably disturbed. ‘I can’t say I appreciate the way you put that, but in the circumstances I suppose I’ll have to do as you ask.’
He rubbed his chin again in what was obviously an habitual expression of agitation. ‘Hell... it’s all so damned incredible. I still can’t take it in. Isabel was always such a together lady. I admit I was taken aback when she started saying she loved me that day. But I talked to her about it and she seemed to agree with me in the end that it was only a physical thing that had unfortunately got out of hand. I thought it was a mutual decision that I leave straight away. I would have been leaving in another week or so anyway, since I’d finished my exams the day before. She must have been only pretending she didn’t mind. She was rather unusually quiet...
‘Poor Isabel,’ he sighed, grimacing before looking up again. ‘And poor little Carolyn... I know you didn’t have any family in Sydney. How on earth did you cope?’
‘I managed,’ she said, her susceptibility to this unexpectedly sympathetic Vaughan making her curt. But he’d certainly been very convincing with his version of the story.
‘But where did you go? What did you do?’
‘After Mum came out of hospital a cousin let us live with him for a couple of years on his farm in the country. But he couldn’t let us stay forever. Things were very bad for farmers at the time, what with the recent floods and the economy. When his wife became pregnant with her fourth child, I took Mum back to Sydney to live. She had an invalid pension and I left school and got a job.’
‘But you must have been only about sixteen!’ He seemed appalled. ‘Good God, Carolyn, you were always such a bright kid. You should have finished school and gone to college! Damn it, if only I’d known. Perhaps I could have done something.’
What? she thought bitterly. Paid us back the board money?
‘We managed perfectly well, thank you,’ she retorted, not wanting this man’s pity, or anything else! ‘I have a very good job now. I’ve never regretted not going to college. I’m happy and Mum’s happy. I just want to make sure things stay that way.’
She glared at him, but down deep in her heart Carolyn suspected that already her own happiness was on the line. She’d been attracted to quite a few men since growing up. But never had she experienced the sort of inner upheaval she felt whenever Vaughan looked at her.
‘Have you considered the possibility,’ he said finally, ‘that Julian might mention my name to Isabel?’
Carolyn dragged in a deep steadying breath. ‘He won’t mention you to her till after he’s presented her with the house, since he wants it to be a surprise. I should be able to get him alone before then and make up some plausible story about you without going into too much detail. You leave that up to me.’
‘Very well, though I don’t really agree with you. I think the open and honest approach would be best. Your mother must be well and truly over me by now. After all, she’s just married another man.’
But she doesn’t love him, Carolyn was reminded. If she sees you again, especially as you are today, so handsome, so successful, so damned sexy... all those old futile desires could be revived. It wouldn’t take much to tip the more fragile Isabel over the edge again.
‘Please allow me to be the best judge of that,’ Carolyn said stiffly.
‘Very well,’ he replied just as stiffly. ‘But that particular problem’s two months away. Right now I would like to address a more immediate problem. Julian’s house.’
‘Oh? Is there a problem with it?’
His eyes narrowed as they travelled over her tensely held body. ‘Not unless you give me one. Are you going to?’
He kept watching her almost warily and Carolyn wondered what he was getting at. ‘I have no idea,’ she hedged. ‘I haven’t seen it yet.’
‘I doubt that’ll make a damned bit of difference,’ he muttered, confusing her all the more. ‘Well? When do you want to see it? This afternoon some time?’
A quick glance at her watch showed eleven twenty-eight. ‘I have a half-hour appointment to see Miss Powers at eleven-thirty,’ she stated, hoping a businesslike manner would hide the emotional distress this encounter had evoked. ‘Perhaps the three of us could go and see the house together after that. Do you think that would be possible?’
Vaughan shook his head. ‘Unfortunately Maddie has another client at twelve whom she can’t put off and who’ll take at least an hour. I tell you what. After you’ve finished with her I’ll take you to lunch, then the three of us can meet up at the house around two.’
Carolyn only just managed to control the look of horror that threatened to spread across her face. She didn’t want to do anything as intimate as have lunch with him. Bad enough to have to put up with the occasional conducted tour around the house over the next couple of months.
‘Thank you for the offer,’ she said crisply, ‘but I’m afraid I’m not very hungry.’ She stood up. ‘Perhaps you could drop me off at the house and I can have a look around by myself while you go and have lunch.’
This suggestion brought a sharp glance. Vaughan stood up slowly, his eyes remaining hard as he came round the desk to join her. ‘I couldn’t do that. The place is a bit rough and you might hurt yourself. Look, there’s no point in your avoiding my company, Carolyn. It’s rather silly and schoolgirlish.’
Her blue eyes flashed with automatic pique. If there was anything she wasn’t, it was silly and schoolgirlish. My God, she’d had to assume the mantle of adulthood from a very early age, bypassing the life of a normal teenager, never having the sort of mindless fun adolescent girls indulged in. And all because of this man and his compulsion to bed every woman who came across his path. Her mother... Madeline Powers... Anthea Maxwell... And how many countless others?
Just as well that she had unwittingly taken Justin’s advice and made herself as unattractive as possible, otherwise he might even now be attempting to seduce her! Given this unwanted though undeniable sexual attraction she was feeling for him, who knew what disaster might have come of it?
‘I wasn’t avoiding your company,’ she lied frostily.
His sardonic smile showed he didn’t believe her for a moment. ‘In that case you can come with me and nurse a drink while I eat.’
Before she could stop him he took her elbow and began to usher her from the room. ‘You can tell me all about what you’re doing these days. Oddly enough, I’ve often thought of you over the years,’ came the wry remark. ‘Hard to dismiss the pretty blue-eyed little thing who used to glare at me with such obvious disapproval. Something which hasn’t changed much, has it?’ he added drily when she pulled away from him at the door. ‘You still think I’m some kind of ogre.’
‘Not at all,’ she returned with admirable coolness. ‘I don’t think of you as anything any more. You’re just my stepfather’s architect.’
‘Is that so?’ His gaze turned hard as it locked with hers. ‘And how should I think of you, Carolyn? As my client’s stepdaughter, here to help finish his house to everyone’s satisfaction? Or as a female harbouring an irrational grudge against me and who might be thinking of sabotaging my work out of revenge?’
She gasped with true shock.
‘I think any suspicion on my part is well warranted,’ he went on coldly. ‘After all, you did give a false name to my secretary, then you wangled your way into my office. If I hadn’t come in when I did, you would have been left alone with my plans to do God knows what to them. And just now, you seemed eager to be left alone at the house. I wonder what might have been missing or damaged when I returned?’
Her eyes widened even more. ‘I would never do such a low thing!’ she protested, trying not to colour guiltily over her earlier vengeful thoughts. ‘Never! I have a high regard for achievement and hard work, regardless of what my opinion is of the person behind them.’
‘And what is that, if you don’t mind my asking?’
‘Well, I...I...’
‘Go on, tell me exactly what you have against me, except a bit of ancient history that was hardly my fault, regardless of the consequences.’ He folded his arms and glared at her. ‘Well? Haven’t you anything to say? Don’t you think I deserve an explanation for this exaggerated hostility?’
Carolyn’s mind was going round and round. All she could think of was that fury became him, making him draw his body up tall and straight and proud, making his eyes darken and flash with a wicked appeal, his jaw jutting strongly forward, highlighting the splendid bones in his face.
Only later did she remember that she could have thrown his relationship with Anthea Maxwell in his face. Mrs Maxwell was, after all, a married woman, unlike Miss Powers who was clearly single. But at the time, she merely blushed furiously, giving him a dangerous glimpse of her vulnerability. ‘I...I don’t know,’ she said shakily, before pulling herself together and lifting an equally proud chin. ‘You seem to bring out the worst in me. You always have done. I just don’t like you, Vaughan. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.’
Her blunt remarks surprised him. They rather surprised her too. But after the surprise came selfsatisfaction.
At least I’m taking this ridiculous attraction by the scruff of the neck and killing its chances of going anywhere stone dead. Nothing puts a man off more than saying you don’t like him.
Not that I really needed to put him off, she thought with a certain irony. He hasn’t shown one ounce of interest in me in a sexual sense. Quite understandable, looking as I do today.
‘Well, I’m sorry about that too,’ he returned brusquely. ‘I always rather liked you. Even as a child you had character. You weren’t a ditherheaded little nincompoop like most of your girlfriends.’
‘Oh? You mean because I didn’t drool over the gorgeous Vaughan Slater?’ she said acidly before she could bite the words back.
His eyes narrowed slightly and Carolyn hoped she hadn’t just made a big mistake. Too much hostility was more revealing than none at all. With a supreme effort she dragged up a covering smile. ‘See?’ she laughed drily. ‘You’re still bringing out the worst in me. I’m not usually such a bitch.’
Those thoughtful eyes travelled over her so intently that her arms broke out in goose-bumps under her jacket sleeves. ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were. Frankly, I think that if you could put aside this irrational antagonism of yours you’d probably turn into quite the nicest, most sincere person I’ve ever met.’
Her stomach clenched down hard. First sympathy, and now flattery. Oh, he had all the best weapons where women were concerned, didn’t he? Thank God he didn’t seem to fancy her or she’d be in real danger.
‘You know it will be hard working together, if you’re going to be glaring and sniping at me all the time,’ he went on quite reasonably. ‘Do you think, for the house’s sake, you could put your dislike of me on hold for two months? Or is that too long for you to control your—er—feelings?’
Carolyn swallowed. She certainly hoped not. ‘I think I could just about manage two months.’
He laughed. ‘Good lord, you don’t pull any punches do you? But who knows? Once you get to know me better, you might find I’m not quite the heartless cad you’ve obviously believed I was all these years.’
I doubt that very much, she thought with private irony.
Vaughan’s mouth curved back into a rueful smile as he surveyed her unrelenting face. ‘Come on. Maddie will be wondering where you are.’ And with that he took her elbow again, opened the door, and marched her from the room.
She was jerked to a halt in front of the secretary’s desk.
‘I’m walking Carolyn here along to Maddie’s office, Nora,’ Vaughan pronounced. ‘I’ll be back in five minutes and you’ll be able to go home. The big bad ogre is giving you an early mark for putting up with his rudeness.’
‘Oh, Mr Slater,’ the woman simpered in return. ‘You’re never really rude.’
His chuckle was dry. ‘That’s an opinion not shared by several building contractors I know.’
‘Some of them deserve a blast,’ the secretary defended loyally.
‘We had all sorts of trouble with the plumbers at Julian’s house,’ Vaughan confessed as they made their way along to Suite Four, that insidious male hand still glued to her arm. ‘Most of the time they just didn’t turn up when they said they would. It’s no wonder one can’t get a house built in the time scheduled if the tradesmen don’t even make an appearance some days.’
‘But what excuse do they give?’ Carolyn asked, curious, despite her discomfort. She was still shaking inside from their highly strung encounter, and quite rattled by her unexpected response to her once vowed enemy. If only he wouldn’t keep on touching her...
Vaughan shrugged his broad shoulders in reply. ‘Occasionally the weather. It was either too hot or too cold or too wet, which was crazy since the walls and roof were intact at the time. Mostly they just said they hadn’t finished the previous job, but when I contacted the project in question I found out that hadn’t been finished because they consistently hadn’t turned up there either! It’s a vicious circle of apathy and laziness. No wonder this country’s building industry is in a mess!’
‘You really care about your work, don’t you?’ she remarked.
His sidewards glance was puzzled. ‘You sound surprised. Oh, I see...’ His eyes darkened, flashing with anger. ‘I’m a man without conscience, without... what was it? Without a shred of decency.’ He made a dry, scoffing sound. ‘As a man without morals, I’m not supposed to have any integrity, even regarding my work, am I? Might I remind you, Carolyn,’ he added caustically, ‘that some of the most immoral men in history have been high achievers. Look at Napoleon or Hitler!’
She flinched under his outburst. ‘I would hardly put you in the same category as Hitler.’
His laughter did not sound amused. He reached out to the doorknob of Suite Four and lanced her with a cynical look. ‘Methinks our temporary truce is already fraying at the edges, but I suggest we regroup our defences for Maddie. We don’t want her asking any awkward questions, do we?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Smile, then, Carolyn. We’re about to put your acting ability to the supreme test. Maddie has the most devilish female intuition that sees all, hears all and knows all, if given half a chance. She will not be fooled except by a most convincing performance. How are you at acting?’
‘Very good, actually,’ she returned with a measure of black humour. And gave him an Academy Award-winning smile. If she weren’t a good actress, he’d already know she found him the most disturbingly attractive man she’d ever met.
‘Excellent. And I presume you want to pretend we’ve just met for the first time?’
‘Definitely.’
‘I thought as much,’ he muttered, and with a savage twist of his hand flung the door to Suite Four open and waved her inside.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘MADDIE, sweetheart,’ he called out once they were in the conspicuously empty reception area, ‘in which one of your rooms are you hiding?’
A door on the left opened and the most strikinglooking woman Carolyn had ever seen appeared. She was very tall—almost as tall as Vaughan—and very slim, with the whitest of white skin. Yet everything else about her was black. Black hair, long and curly, bundled up in a most irregular pony-tail. Black eyes, flashing at the moment with apparent exasperation. Black eyebrows, thick and sardonically arched. Skin-tight black mini dress, black lacy stockings and black high heels. Only her ear-rings were coloured, huge discs in red, pink and orange hanging in interlocking circles from her lobes to her shoulders.
‘You’re late again!’ she accused, giving Vaughan a black look from those striking black eyes.
Carolyn tensed.
‘Only by a few minutes,’ Vaughan said, and smiled wryly. ‘Something not going right for you, sweetheart?’ He strode forward and gave the woman a bear-hug. ‘You always get testy like this when your colours aren’t blending properly.’
‘Don’t think you can get around me that easily, you bad man,’ the interior decorator scorned, but didn’t retreat from the hug. ‘Save it all for your lady-loves.’ And suddenly she winked at Carolyn over his shoulder.
Her heart gave a little jump. Did that mean Vaughan wasn’t sleeping with this woman?
Dismay was hot on the heels of her avid curiosity. What did it matter who he was sleeping with these days? It should mean nothing to her. Nothing!
Self-disgust must have sent a hard look into her face, for those black eyes—which a second before had winked at her—abruptly changed from an expression of amusement to a surprised thoughtfulness. Their owner drew back from Vaughan’s embrace to cast a sharp look his way.
‘You haven’t been bullying this sweet girl, have you?’ she asked.
‘No. Only Nora.’
‘Oh, Vaughan. Truly? The poor woman...’
‘Poor, my foot. I pay her damn well to sit there and answer the telephone. Anyway it’s all smoothed over now. Carolyn glared at me reproachfully and made me feel guilty, didn’t you?’ He threw an ironic look her way. ‘And it’s not Carolyn Thornton, by the way. Her surname is McKensie. She hasn’t taken Julian’s name.’
‘Really? But I thought...’
‘So did I. Seems Nora just jumped to that conclusion. Anyway, it’s Carolyn McKensie. Carolyn... come over here and meet Maddie.’
Carolyn walked forward and extended her hand. ‘How do you do?’
Maddie smiled and took her hand, all the while those penetrating black eyes surveying her closely, seemingly stripping her of her disguising clothes and making Carolyn feel most peculiarly naked. She had never had a woman look at her like that before and a most uncomfortable suspicion sprang into her mind.
‘My, you’re a very sensual-looking girl, aren’t you?’ the other woman said. ‘I’d love to paint you. In the nude, preferably.’
Carolyn tried not to choke on the spot.
‘For God’s sake, Maddie!’ Vaughan exploded with ill-concealed exasperation. ‘What will she start thinking if you say things like that without explaining yourself? Maddie’s a well-known portrait artist, Carolyn,’ he elaborated wearily, ‘specialising in nudes and semi-nudes. She’s been commissioned to do some quite famous women. And men. Believe me when I say she prefers painting the men to the women,’ he finished in a dry tone.
‘Now you make me sound promiscuous!’ Maddie wailed, but without seeming at all put out.
‘If the cap fits...’
‘Well, if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black,’ she countered with a pretend pout.
Carolyn stared from one to the other. This was not the camaraderie of lovers but of old friends. Friends who knew and liked each other, warts and all.

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