The Marriage Solution

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 sky-high—'

'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 teen 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 tiling 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 aim gently, pushing her back down in the seat as he passed a cup to hear. '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 wellnigh 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-on 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.'