JESSICA STEELE
the other brother
Harleqiun Books
TORONTO • LONDON • LOS ANGELES • AMSTERDAM VDNEY • HAMBURG ■ PARIS • STOCKHOLM • ATHENS - TOKYO
Harlequin Presents first edition September 1982 ISBN 0-373-10533-9
Original hardcover edition published in 1981 by Mills & Boon Limited
Copyright © 1981 by Jessica Steele. AM rights reserved. Philippine copyright 1981. Australian copyright 1981. Cover illustration copyright © 1982 by William BkJdle Illustration Limited. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part fn any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
The Harlequin trademarks, consisting of the words HARLEQUIN PRESENTS and the portrayal of a Harlequin, are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises Limited and are registered in the Canada Trade Marks Office; the portrayal of a Harlequin is registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Printed in U.S.A.
CHAPTER ONE
'You're just not with me, Kathryn.'
Hurriedly Kathryn straightened the small smile that hovered on her prettily shaped mouth. 'Sorry, Mr Kingers-by,' she offered, while trying to recall what it was they had been doing before her thoughts had taken off to dream of what was to happen a week tomorrow.
'I wonder what it is you find far more thought absorbing than the celebrations of fifty years of Kingersby International we were discussing?'
Quickly she brought her mind back to the jubilee to be celebrated in a couple of months' time—then saw the twinkle in his faded blue eyes and recognised that she was in for some more of his teasing. She saw. from the way he was trying to repress a smile that he wasn't really cross with her for not paying attention. And because she was so happy anyway, she just had to let her own smile break; her smile was answer enough. He had been pulling her leg now in a nice way all week. She guessed next week would be no different.
'It couldn't be anything to do with the fact that that rascally nephew of mine has charmed his way into the heart of the prettiest secretary I've ever had, could it?' he went on.
'Er—it could be,' she tried to say demurely. But such was her happiness, she couldn't keep her smile from turning into a grin.
George Kingersby grinned too, his lined face creasing into more lines in his seventy-year-old face. Then, teasing apart, he asked, 'Did you say Rex is out of town?'
Kathryn nodded. 'Trying to finalise the Whitaker con-tract.'
'Thought that was already settled,' said the near to retiring chairman of Kingersbys, and her smile faded as she suspected censure for her fiance.
'I'm sure it will be by this afternoon,' she said quietly.
'So am I,' he said confidently, and her smile started to peep out again that he hadn't been having a dig at Rex, realising that her sensitivities must be touchy where Rex was concerned. 'So what do you plan to do this weekend?' he asked, changing the subject.
'A million and one things,' Kathryn replied, wondering how she was going to get everything fitted in. If this was supposed to be a serene time for the bride then nobody had heard of the rushing around that accompanied having a big wedding.
'Name two,' said George, looking ready to offer his assistance, though from Kathryn's point of view everything that had to be done required her personal attention.
'Church rehearsal tomorrow,' she obliged. 'Plus another visit to the caterer's.'
With her mother dead, her father as far as she was concerned no longer anything to do with her, Kathryn felt it a matter of personal pride that she keep up her side of things on entering the very close knit Kingersby family, and pay for everything that was the responsibility of the bride's family herself. Rex had offered to pay for it all, of course; he could have done so without feeling the pinch. But she still had a little money from the amount her mother had left her and her sister Sandra. It would clear her out, but it was important to her that she settled her own dues. After she was married to Rex it would be a different matter... A smile curved her mouth again at just the thought of being married to Rex.
'You've gone from me again.'
'Er-' Hastily she came back. She recalled that Mr
Kingersby had enquired what she had planned for the
weekend, and added another couple of things she had to do to what she had already told him, 'And I must find time to go to see my sister in Reading. I collected the bridesmaids' dresses yesterday. This weekend will be the last chance I'll get to see if they fit my two nieces properly. And somehow,' she added, more pondering her thoughts out loud than thinking her employer would be interested, for all he was listening with every appearance of attention, 'I must try and take some of my things over to Rex's place. It will save me a lot of time next week if I do.'
'Stop!' said George, grinning again. 'You'll have me dizzy.' Then seriously, 'By the sound of it you're going to meet yourself coming back if you're not careful.' He thought for a moment, then told her, 'We've worked hard this week getting everything straight for the board meeting on Monday.' His face was suddenly puckish. 'What would you say if I offered you the rest of the day off?'
'Do you mean it?' She wasn't sure he wasn't still teasing her.
'Can you make use of the time?' 'Can I!'
'What's the use of marrying into the Kingersby empire if you can't have a few perks?'
Kathryn was so pleased she could have kissed him. 'I told Rex I might find time to pop a few things over to his flat tonight. He let me have a spare key before he went,' she beamed. 'I've got most of the things I shan't need ready packed, so I could take them over now and from there go on to Reading . . .' Her mind spun on.
'What are you waiting for?' said her lovely employer.
Staying only long enough to clear up her desk, check that there wasn't anything that could possibly be wanted before she came in again on Monday, by twelve-thirty Kathryn was driving her once-seen-better-days Mini out of the staff car park and heading homewards.
It was quiet in her fiat, all other tenants in the building being still at work, but she quite liked the peace and quiet of it. Her rent was paid to the end of the month, a few weeks to go yet. But by the time her tenancy expired she would be in the sunny climes of Spain. Just she and Rex, together.
Thinking to have a bit of something when she got to Sandra's, Kathryn didn't bother with lunch, but got busy. Three trips down to her car with suitcases and cartons and she was wondering how on earth she had collected so much stuff, beginning to be thankful Rex's flat was so roomy. Finished at last, she checked to see she had the key Rex had given her, then she was off on the first leg of her journey.
Held up at some road workings, she let her mind wander freely in the interminable time it took for the temporary traffic lights to change.
Thoughts of George Kingersby's teasing made her smile. He hadn't done such a bad job with the firm he and his two brothers had started when they were young men fifty years ago, she mused. The other two, Rex's father one of them, were dead now. Her mind drifted on to the board meeting on Monday. Which one of the six cousins would get the chairmanship? she wondered. Rex had said he hadn't an earthly. Not that he wanted it. He was happier without that sort of responsibility,
he had told her, and since there was nothing secret between them, had let her know that when it came the time to vote, he would be backing his brother Nate.
Would Nate get the chairmanship? she wondered. Or, as she had grown to think since listening to George singing his son's praises, would Adrian get it?
She was still toying with the answer as the fights changed allowing her to go forward. Would Nate want the job, always supposing Adrian hadn't already got it sewn up? Nate was seven years older than Rex—that made him thirty-seven. And if the streamlined way he ran the American end of the import and export business, not to
mention the packaging business he had recently acquired for Kingersbys, was anything to go by, he could probably handle the chairman's job without any trouble.... Though her money was still on George's son Adrian.
Her mind flitted back to Rex's brother, a man she had never met. Nate was killing two birds with one stone by coming over for the meeting on Monday, she thought, and thoughts of her wedding never far from her mind taking over again, Nate was to be Rex's best man.
A pity she'd missed meeting Nate when he'd been over three months ago. It had all been arranged, Rex so proud and looking forward to introducing her to his brother. But it hadn't come off. Only an hour before she was due to meet him she had received a frantic phone call from Sandra saying her rake of a husband had walked out on her again. And as Sandra was unable to cope with the situation by herself her need of her had had to come first.
Kathryn's lips tightened when she thought of Victor Smith, her sister's husband. He was everything she disliked in a man. You'd have thought, she frowned, anger darting inside, that Sandra would have had more sense. Hadn't their father and the way he was constantly unfaithful to their mother been enough to show her if she couldn't have a constant husband then she was better off without marriage?
Broadminded about most things as she was, just the word infidelity was enough to have Kathryn feeling nauseous. Thank God she had found Rex. He would always keep faith with her, she knew it. Just as she knew that if there had been any doubt in her mind, even loving him as she did she would have turned him down. It was true, of course, that he had played around before they had met, he had told her as much. But there had been ho one for either of them since they had become engaged. And Rex had known without her having even to mention it that no way was she going to have a marriage like that of her parents—or that of her sister.
As she reached the smart apartment block where Rex had his flat, the flat that after next Saturday she would set about making a home for them both, her smile peeped out again. And all the infidelity of her father, the unfaithfulness of her sister's husband—who had had his fling and then come home again; and to her amazement been taken back yet again by Sandra—went as she took a couple of suitcases from the boot and sent up glad thanks that the building had a lift so she wouldn't have to struggle three times up the stairs with her cargo.
Outside Rex's door she relieved herself of the weight she was carrying while she took out the door key from her bag. She smiled softly as she mused on the thought that Rex would be surprised to see her things when he came home tomorrow.
Though perhaps he wouldn't have a minute to spare to look into the spare room to see if she had found time to call and leave her things, she thought. And a sudden imp of mischief had her deciding to hang some item of hers beside his in his wardrobe.
Picturing his astonishment before his face creased into a smile as he went to change before meeting her at the church, to find one of her dresses hanging there, Kathryn unlocked the front door and went in.
Her eyes went straight to the door she knew to be his bedroom, a room he had showed her and had tried without success to get her to linger in, and she was still inwardly smiling at the surprise she was about to play on him as she closed the front door behind her. Her thoughts happy, not a cloud in her sky, she placed one case on the floor and headed for the bedroom with the other.
It was without conscious thought that she turned the door handle and pushed it inwards. She had actually taken three or four swinging steps inside the room before her eyes were drawn by a movement on the bed. And then she stared, and
stared—horror-struck.
Disbelief was still inside her as she stood staring, knowing her eyes couldn't be lying. But e.ven then she couldn't take
in what her eyes were telling her. The scene she had walked
in on was just refusing to register.
For long seconds her stunned brain refused to think—the couple sharing the bed appearing to be similarly dumbstruck. For the man she hadn't expected to see until they were in church rehearsing their responses tomorrow just sat and stared too, his chest bare while his blonde companion—his secretary, Kathryn recognised—tried to cover up her naked breasts.
Then as Kathryn went first ashen, then fiery red, and back to ashen again, Rex moved. And that was her cue to turn abruptly about.
He was in the sitting room with her before she could pick up her other suitcase and go back the way she had come through the flat door, a robe thrown about him as he grabbed hold of her arm.
'Kathryn,' he said hoarsely, dragging her round to face him.
And it was then that the most dreadful ice cold feeling took possession of her. She should be ranting and raving, she thought, even while this other person inside her looked icily down at that hand clutching on to her arm. So icy was her glance that as he saw her expression, Rex's grip on her loosened and his hand fell away.
'It would appear,' said the iceberg who had taken charge of her, 'that I'm the wrong person to be wearing this.' The automaton she had become took the ring from her engagement finger and handed it to him.
'No!' said Rex, a cry from the heart she was impervious to.
'Your next line, I believe, is, "Don't do this—I can explain". Or,' Kathryn said coldly, 'perhaps it's what you
wanted. In my view you certainly aren't ready for marriage and the fidelity that word signifies.'
'Oh, for God's sake, Kathryn, don't be like this. Maxine means nothing to me . . .'
'Thanks very much,' said the blonde, who now appeared dressed in a bedcover at the doorway. And as two pairs of eyes turned to her she strolled into the room. 'You weren't saying that half an hour ago, nor were we just holding hands then—nor the many times before.'
'Oh, shut up!' Rex told her distractedly, turning from her, his eyes going imploringly to Kathryn. 'Don't—don't do this, Kathryn, please,' he begged. 'I love you. I. . . You love me.'
'Did I?' Kathryn answered, and thought that just about said it all as, her heart encased in a block of ice, she took the key he had given her and placed it on a low table to the side of her.
'Please, Kathryn . . .' Rex was still pleading when she picked up her other case and walked out.
Half an hour later she pulled her Mini to the side of the road. She had no idea where she was, had no recollection of driving or of even thinking. She was only aware of a feeling of being frozen up inside.
There were not even tears there at the dreadful shock she had received only a week before her wedding. Even the memory of how she had been congratulating herself that she had found one man she could utterly rely on to always be faithful didn't bring tears at the bitter knowledge of how badly she had been deceiving herself.
How long she sat there she couldn't have said. But at last, having to make a very conscious effort to stir herself, she just had to start to think.
She had been going to go somewhere after she had deposited her things, hadn't she? Where was she going? A need suddenly to see her sister reminded her that she had
■ been going to go to Reading. But only then did she begin to understand fully why Sandra always rang her when she was in trouble. It was as though they both knew that whatever happened to them, the hurt and deception they endured, one thing was certain, each could rely on the other never to let them down.
Kathryn set the car in motion, found a signpost after about half a mile and th
en, able to sort out her directions, she turned her Mini and headed for Reading.
The ice that had formed inside had in no way diminished by the time she pulled on to the drive of her sister's home. And Sandra, hearing her car and coming to the door, her face showing pleased surprise at her unexpected arrival came smilingly forward, her eyes taking in the laden car.
'Goodness, Kathryn, how long are you stay . . .' She broke off as she saw Kathryn was having a hard time summoning up a smile for her. 'What's wrong?' she asked quickly. 'Something's happened, hasn't it?'
'You could say that,' Kathryn replied, getting out from the car. 'I've just come from finding my fiance in bed with his secretary.'
'Oh—Kathryn!' Sandra's shocked disbelief was obvious. But, unable to handle her own emotional crises, she found the strength from somewhere to put her shock behind her for the moment. 'Come on, love,' she said gently, 'let's go inside. You can tell me about it over a cup of tea. We won't be disturbed, the girls are at a birthday party next door.'
Flatly, dry-eyed, Kathryn stirred the tea she didn't want and relayed without a flicker of emotion everything that had happened. As she came to the end she found that of the two of them it was Sandra who looked to be the one nearer to tears.
'Oh, love,' she crooned, looking lost for a way to comfort her. 'The wedding's off now, of course?' Her sister's look was sufficient answer, and both girls were silent for a while
until Sandra enquired tentatively, 'Do you still love him?'
'I don't know what I feel,' Kathryn said tonelessly, 'Other than dead inside. I have an idea I should be tearing my hair out or something. But there's nothing there—I can't even cry.'
'You've had one almighty shock,' Sandra soothed. 'The tears will come, chick, don't rush them.'
Kathryn did her best to smile, knowing Sandra was upset on her behalf, but she would have welcomed tears as a relief from this nothing inside her. Then she found she was wondering what it would take to make her cry—there couldn't be a bigger disaster waiting round the corner for her, could there? Was she saving her tears for that?
The Other Brother Page 1
