The Threat of Love

She walked to the door, half expecting him to try to stop her leaving, and hoping he would so that she could have the satisfaction of slapping his face, but he just sat there on the edge of his desk, and did nothing at all but swing those long, athletic legs of his, watching her walk out of his office and slam the door behind her.

Caro got a taxi back to the head office of Rams Stores Ltd and went straight up to her father's office, to catch him before he left for the finance committee meeting.

He was going to be furious about what had happened, and she disliked making him angry; but she couldn't keep it a secret, because it might still have unpleasant repercussions. If the Press got hold of the story it would be embarrassing, for one thing; which was one very strong reason for taking legal action against Gil Martell. That way she would be covering herself. If she didn't sue it might look as if she could be guilty of shoplifting.

Her father was at his desk running an eye over the various reports which were to be discussed that afternoon in the committee. He looked up with an abstracted smile, surprise in his eyes, as she walked in.

'Hello, darling. Nice lunch with Amy?' he said, and then his gaze sharpened and he said anxiously, 'What's wrong, Caro?' getting to his feet at once.

She hadn't meant to burst into tears; she had thought she was just angry, and she hadn't realised until that moment just ho

w upset she was, but as her father put an arm around her the tears sprang into her eyes.

'Darling, whatever's happened?' Fred asked, hugging her.

She dried her eyes with a stifled sob, took a deep breath and told him, and after a while he held her away from him, his big hands gripping her arms, staring down into her flushed face incredulously.

'You were accused of being a shoplifter?'

She wasn't surprised that he should be so staggered. At the time she had been too stunned and horrified to realise exactly what was happening to her, and later, in Gil Martell's office, she had been so angry that adrenalin had carried her along, but now that it was all over her legs had turned to jelly and at the same time she couldn't believe she had actually been treated like that.

'They accused me of stealing,' she shakily repeated,

nodding vehemently. 'Right in the store, with hundreds

of people watching, and the detective wouldn't listen to

a word I said—he made me go up to Gil Martell's office,

and threw me across '

'Threw you?' roared Fred Ramsgate, going purple around the neck.

'Well, pushed me,' she said, reluctantly telling the truth. 'He pushed me into the office and I tripped and fell... face down on the carpet.'

'Face down?' Fred seemed to be having difficulty breathing.

'I was so humiliated!' Caro wailed, tears of rage in her eyes, although it was Gil Martell's comments on her father that were upsetting her, not the way she herself had been treated. Gil Martell had said such vicious things about her father. They were all lies, and she hated him.

'I'll kill him,' Fred said. 'When I get hold of him, he'll wish he'd never been born.'

'He dragged me up and shook me- '

'This detective?'

'Gil Martell.'

'Martell himself? I'll kill him, I'll kill both of them,' her father repeated, breathing like a bellows.

'And interrogated me, as if I were a criminal!' Caro said, remembering.

'I'll interrogate him!' Fred snarled.

'He bullied me! If you'd heard the way he talked to me!'

'I'll bully him!' Fred promised, his face grim and tight.

Caro was beginning to calm down and feel much better, now that she had been able to talk about the experience, let out some of the nervous tension that had built up inside her. Her father was always on her side, ready to spring to her defence, as he had throughout her life, and she loved him for it, but his rage worried her; she was always afraid he might have a heart attack in one of his tempers, and she gave him an uncertain look, biting her lip. Fred watched her, frowning.