The Marriage Solution

'Dammit, girl, I haven't badgered him,' Carlton snapped tightly. 'If you remember, it was I who offered to help tonight, to try and find a way—'

'We don't need your help.' She saw Jennifer's hands flutter in protest with a soft exclamation of disagreement and turned on her sister like a small virago. 'And if you want your precious interview you have it, but not in this house. You don't care about Dad, not really. He could have died and you wouldn't even have been here. He could still die! What sort of world is this anyway where money is considered more important than a human being?'

She drew herself up and cast them all an icy look as she prepared to leave the room. 'We'll probably go under, Mr Reef,' she said at the door as she turned to hold his eyes across the room. 'But that needn't worry you at all, need it? As you said when you phoned this house the day my father had his heart attack, it was his 'stupidity and crass ineptitude' that caused it all anyway.' His harsh words had been burning in her subconscious ever since they'd been uttered and Carlton's face whitened as she flung them back at him. 'But he's worth ten of you—of any of you.'

'Oh, really…' Jennifer's deriding voice wafted across the room. 'I can't see what all the drama is about, for goodness' sake. Anyone would think the old man was whiter than snow when in fact he's been a right so-and-so most of his life.' She stared at Katie scornfully. 'When has he ever been there for you, then? Answer me that. I don't understand you, Katie, I really don't. You're one of life's natural doormats.'

'No, I'm not.' Katie's face was as white as a sheet as the enormity of the confrontation began to sink in. 'I love Dad. I don't care what you think, Jennifer. You're incapable of love, and perhaps he is, but that doesn't make what I feel for him any different, and he has been there for both of us on lots of occasions in his own way.'

'Spare me the bleeding heart—' Jennifer's voice was cut off as Carlton ground out her name through clenched teeth before turning to Katie, his body tall and straight as he stood up and his face calm.

'You're thinking with your heart and not your head,' he said coldly as he walked across the room after picking up his coat from the back of his chair. 'Probably the result of the mental and physical exhaustion of the last few days.'

'No, it isn't.' He took her arm as she replied and led her out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind the other two. 'This is me; take it or leave it.'

'I'd prefer the former.' She had no warning as he enfolded her in his arms, his body hard as he held her close to him, forcing her head back in a deep, long kiss that she was powerless to resist, pinned as she was against his big frame. Her brief struggles were ineffectual, only serving to move her more intimately against his body as he moulded her into him, his mouth devastating as it held hers.

And then, shockingly, she felt a response deep inside to the sensual lovemaking, a warmth in her lower stomach and a tightening ache in her breasts as they pressed against his hard chest that frightened her far more than his embrace. She had never, ever experienced such a reac

tion to male chemistry and was unprepared for the violence of the assault that came traitorously from within.

His tongue moved caressingly along her lips before invading the sweetness of her mouth and she felt her heart pounding with the thrill of it She couldn't believe that a kiss could draw forth such blindingly shattering sensations as she was feeling now. Her head was spinning, her body was pure fluid as it melted into his and the rest of the world was a distant thing with no meaning or substance.

'Hell, you're lovely…' His voice was thick and deep and a sensuous, teasing tool in itself as his hands massaged her back, slipping under her thin cotton sweater with an ease that suggested he had done this sort of thing a million times before. 'I don't think you know the sort of power you have over a man…'

She wasn't aware that her arms had drifted up to his neck or that she was straining into him, searching for closer contact, as he took her mouth again. She was drugged, drugged with sensations that she had never dreamed existed but then, as his hands moved to her hips to draw her further against the hard evidence of his desire, cold reason returned in an icy deluge.

'Let me go.' It was a whisper but he heard it, freezing for a single moment before he put her from him without a word, striding down the hall and out of the front door without a backward glance.

CHAPTER THREE

Katie leaned against the wall of the hall for long moments as she struggled to calm her spinning mind, hearing the roar of the Mercedes' engine as it left the drive far too fast and died away into the night.

How dared he? How dared he kiss her like that? she thought weakly as she forced her trembling legs to move and carry her towards the stairs. She reached the sanctuary of her room just as her legs gave way. He knew she loathed him; how could he take advantage of his superior strength so blatantly?

She scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand but the feel of his lips and body were imprinted on her flesh, going more than skin-deep. He was quite without morals, principles of any kind—that much was clear, she thought bitterly. But then who was she to talk after the wanton way in which she had responded?

She shook her head as she began to undress, walking through to the pretty en-suite bathroom in pale lemon and standing for long minutes under the shower as she let the warm water flow over her skin and hair.

After wrapping herself in a big fluffy bath-sheet she walked through to the bedroom again, looking round this room that had been hers since childhood, with its wonderful view over the half-acre of garden at the back of the house. Soon it wouldn't be theirs any longer.

She frowned as the enormity of it all began to seep into her consciousness. She had been concentrating so much on her father these last few days, so anxious that he wouldn't have another relapse, that she had pushed the financial disaster to the back of her mind in order to cope. But it was starkly in focus now and there was no escape from the knowledge of the effect that losing the family home would ultimately have on her father. He wouldn't be able to bear it. She thought back to the last few days before Carlton had given him a ray of hope and shook her head wearily. He had been waiting to die, willing it almost. And she'd sent Carlton away, insisting that they didn't need his help.

She groaned out loud, moving from the window to look into the full-length mirror-doors on her wall-to-wall wardrobes. Why had he kissed her? She inspected her face critically. She wasn't a beauty, whereas Jennifer was quite stunning. Large hazel eyes fringed with thick, dark lashes stared back at her, her wet hair clinging in curling tendrils to her shoulders.

She was averagely pretty, she thought with a little puzzled sigh, no more. Boyfriends had come and gone since she had started dating at sixteen, some more ardent than the rest, but none that had fired her with a grand passion.

She searched her face once more and then shrugged with a defeated sigh, quite missing the soft vulnerability in the hazel eyes and innocent appeal of her mouth that was more sensual to a discerning male than any flamboyant glamour. Maybe he had meant the kiss as a punishment for her harsh words? As she remembered all she had said her cheeks burnt with embarrassment. Oh, hell. She'd made a real mess of all this.

It was a long, sleepless night and she only drifted off into a heavy slumber as the birds began to sing in the old silver birch outside her window. She awoke with a terrible start a few hours later as Jennifer burst unannounced into her room, looking as fresh as a daisy.

'Come on, sleepyhead.' Her sister plumped herself down on the edge of the bed and shook her without ceremony. 'I've sent Donald packing, so are we speaking again?'

'What time is it?' Katie struggled out of a disturbing dream that she couldn't recall and stared sleepily at her sister.

'Just gone nine,' Jennifer answered chirpily. 'Are you seeing Carlton today?'

'Carlton?' The name acted in much the same way as a bucket of cold water. 'I hardly think so after what I said to him last night.'