Grant met her at Nice airport. A tall, slimly built man, who kept himself in the physical peak of condition, he had sun-streaked blond hair and the same cheekbones that lent such definition to his daughter’s face. Kitty experienced a split second of joyous recognition and then it all went wrong.
They were mobbed by his faithful fans and an aggressive contingent of paparazzi. As the suffocating crush of human bodies was held at bay by Grant’s security guards, Kitty was at screaming-point. She was painfully convinced that she had just received yet another polished paternal demonstration of how to manipulate the publicity machine to one’s own advantage.
With remarkable forbearance, her father neglected to comment on her bruised eyes, her pallor and her fined-down features. Unperturbed by her monosyllabic responses, he managed to have an entire conversation with himself in the rear of the limousine that ferried them to the villa where he was staying.
The palatial building, loaned to him by a close friend, was secreted behind high walls and electronic gates. In a vast tiled hall with a soaring ceiling and the acoustics of Westminster Cathedral, he took gross insensitivity to new heights.
‘You’ll want to freshen up before we go out to dinner,’ he told her in a rallying tone. ‘We’re eating out at La Chevre d’Or. A gastronomic experience par excellence.’
Under her despairing gaze, he kissed his fingertips French fashion. ‘And it will be a dinner you will never forget,’ an unfamiliar voice promised sweetly from the top of the stairs.
Grant whipped round, his charismatic smile evaporating with almost comical suddenness. ‘What are you doing here?’ he snapped.
A lush brunette, clad in ice-blue separates, was calmly descending the stairs, secure in the knowledge that she held the floor. Kitty recognised her instantly. Grant’s co-star, Yolanda Simons.
‘I made the booking at La Chevre D’Or,’ Yolanda announced, directing a killing smile at Kitty. ‘I should warn you that you will be sharing your table with a third party—namely me. I’m not prepared to be publicly ditched during the making of this film. Do stop scowling like that, Grant. You look like a cross little boy. You should understand that this is a matter of image. It is not personal.’
Kitty shot her flushed father a disgusted glance. ‘Tell her.’
‘Tell her what?’ He employed volume and voice pitch to intimidate.
Kitty was beyond intimidation. ‘Grant is my father, Miss Simons. I am his daughter. I am not a rival. And I do not have any plans to spoil your dinner engagement this evening. I shall be eating in.’
For the count of five seconds, Yolanda’s sultry mouth was wide. Kitty didn’t dare look at her father. She continued on up the stairs in the wake of her luggage.
‘Your daughter? Your daughter!’ Yolanda was shrieking in a rage. ‘And you let me think…’
Grant was receiving his just deserts. Kitty stifled a pang of conscience as she heard him trying to bluster loudly out of the confrontation. She had done something she should have done years ago. She had forced the issue, and now that the skeleton was out of the closet it would eventually rattle its bones in the outside world.
A maid arrived to do her unpacking. Dismissing her, Kitty continued to pace the floor. She expected her father to blaze explosively into her presence at any moment. When he failed to appear, she wondered if he was taking Yolanda out to dinner after all. She was well acquainted with her parent’s astonishing ability to charm the angriest females into purring complacency.
At eleven she abandoned her strained vigil and crawled into her elegant Empire bed to stare miserably up at the ceiling. As the turbulence of her emotions emerged from the stultifying fog of self-pity, doubts cast her into turmoil.
Jake had run over her like a truck. But hadn’t she connived at her own downfall? Candour would have resolved the conflict between them. What she was struggling to come to terms with now was that, even in the midst of that violent argument, she had made no real attempt to tell him the truth about Grant.
It had been so easy to tell Yolanda, but she had withheld it from the man she loved. Jealousy had twisted Jake’s view of her with disastrous consequences. She had kept quiet, stubbornly and stupidly using the most divisive and combustible emotion in existence as a subversive weapon. Jake had retaliated and she had bolted, something he had once suggested she did all too easily.
When those pictures of her with Grant hit the papers, their separation would be permanent. She fought a sensation that came very close to pure panic and an aching tide of longing for Jake could not be put to flight. She was remembering how supportive and kind he had been in spite of her insults when she had first arrived at Lower Ridge. And by the time she worked through to remembering how he had plunged into a burning house to save her life, she was crying her heart out so she didn’t hear the knock on the door.
‘I saw your light on…God,’ Grant groaned as she twisted away to wipe clumsily at her tear-swollen face. ‘This takes me back eight years to a phase I don’t want to live through with you again.’
Gulping she sat up and was nonplussed. He didn’t look furious. He didn’t walk in a very straight line either, which shook her. A devotee to the cult of the body beautiful, Grant usually stuck to mineral waters. He had a large brandy in his hands as he lowered himself down into an armchair by the bed. ‘I was planning to make a Press release about us when I finished the film,’ he informed her.
‘Were you?’
Meeting drenched violet eyes, he sighed, ‘Well, I was thinking about it. I don’t know why I let the charade go on for so long. No, that’s a lie. It amused me.’
Unaccustomed to her father in a morose mood, she forced a smile. ‘Did you soothe Yolanda?’
‘She didn’t need to be soothed. She went out of here laughing like a drain,’ he related humourlessly. ‘I spent the evening dreaming up a Press release about my long-lost daughter. I hope you’re not looking for recognisable facts. There aren’t any. I let your mother down badly. I am fifty-two years old tomorrow and you are the only person in my life whom I have ever really cared about. Some track record that, isn’t it?’
‘Fifty-two?’ she couldn’t help parroting.
He winced. ‘Fifty-two.’ He rolled his brandy round the glass slowly. ‘I thought I was being tactful earlier, but now I’ll be blunt. Tell me about him. I hate the bastard, but who needs an open mind at a wake?’
She swallowed chokily. ‘I don’t want to bore you.’
‘Take my mind off my birthday,’ he invited gloomily.
She started at the beginning and then leap-frogged back and forth. He phoned down for a bottle of brandy and another glass. She glossed so fast over the wedding, he almost missed out on it. When she mentioned the fire, he looked at her in horror and loosed a pungent remark about it being very kind of her to have kept him informed. When silence finally fell, her father was surveying her more cheerfully and she was in tears again. ‘At least he’s not after your money.’
Aghast, she stared at him. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’
‘It springs to mind that Romeo and Juliet hit on the perfect solution, but don’t take that as a serious piece of advice,’ he quipped. ‘Why the blazes didn’t you admit that I was your father? You really put him through the wringer. And in my name too. Now I’ve got him on my conscience as well. That is all I required to make my cup truly overflow.’
The internal phone buzzed. Grant stretched out a long arm to answer it. His frown of impatience slowly faded to be replaced by an expression of growing amusement. Involved in diving for another issue, Kitty didn’t follow one word in five of her father’s fast and fluent French.
‘Do something with your face,’ he said abruptly. ‘You’ve turned blotchy.’
Hurt, she wriggled off the bed and vanished into the en-suite bathroom. Cool water eased her hot, stretched skin. She tugged a comb through her tossed hair and returned to the bedroom.
‘Assuming that he takes the stairs at a normal pace, your husband is goi
ng to walk through that door in about three minutes,’ Grant imparted.
‘P…pardon?’ she stammered.
‘He pinned the security guard on the gate to the wall and forced him to use the phone.’ Her father’s eyes gleamed with rich appreciation. ‘It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that Jake has come to snatch you from your den of iniquity and wipe the floor with me. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.’
‘Jake’s here?’ In consternation, Kitty leapt back off the bed.
No knock gave forewarning of Jake’s precipitate entry. He came through the door and froze in his tracks, night-dark eyes whipping from Kitty’s stilled figure to the man standing on the other side of the room. Her eyes clung to his lithe, taut physique in close-fitting jeans and a leather blouson jacket. Her mouth ran dry and a wave of weakness swept her.
What Grant read in Jake’s unshielded eyes more than satisfied him. ‘Before you get the wrong idea—’ he began.
‘She belongs with me and I’m taking her home,’ Jake interposed harshly. ‘But before I leave, I intend to—’
‘I’m Kitty’s father,’ Grant cut in.