The Marriage Solution

by Helen Brooks

  'Fun?' Katie came back into the conversation with a vengeance as she saw red. 'You are supposed to be down here to see Dad, or had you forgotten?' she asked furiously. 'I hardly think 'fun' comes into it!'

  'Oh, don't be an old grouch,' Jennifer said with a total lack of heat, which told Katie that she had other fish to fry, and, as she watched her sister eat Carlton with her eyes, she had a good idea of what they might be. 'Donald can always take my car and disappear back to the fiat, can't you, darling?' She glanced across at him and continued without waiting for an answer, 'And I'll stay here to help you, Katie.'

  And pigs might fly, Katie thought balefully. She knew exactly what Jennifer had in mind—she had seen that predatory gleam in her sister's eyes before with more than one man. And she also knew the reason for the quick turn-about regarding Donald's visit. He would cramp her style if she were to indulge in a full-scale man-hunt.

  'How sisterly.' Carlton's voice was bland, but as Jennifer's eyes returned to his face she saw the cynical mockery evident in every hard line and her mouth curved in a seductive little pout This was the sort of man she both understood and appreciated.

  'You don't mind going back tomorrow morning, do you, darling?' Jennifer turned to Donald with a languid wave of a limp hand. 'Perhaps it would be better with Father so ill.'

  Donald obviously did mind, very much, but just as obviously he wasn't going to voice his protest with Carlton's piercing grey eyes trained on his face. He shrugged once, with a shake of his blond head, and said nothing but the pale blue eyes were malevolent.

  As Mrs Jenkins bustled in with the coffee-tray the conversation came to a halt for a few moments, but once the housekeeper had left and everyone was seated Jennifer spoke directly to Carlton, her eyes curious. 'What exactly do you do, Mr Reef?' she asked sweetly.

  ' 'Exactly'?' He was openly mocking her but she didn't seem to mind, Katie thought in amazement. She had never seen anyone treat her beautiful sister like this before; normally the boot was very definitely on the other foot. 'Well, 'exactly' might take too long to explain,' he said easily, 'but among other interests I own the Tone Organisation. Perhaps you've heard of it?' he continued lightly as Jennifer's slanted eyes opened as wide as they could.

  'I knew I recognised the name,' she breathed softly. 'I just knew it. You never told me,' she added accusingly to Katie who was watching the little by-play with some bewilderment.

  'Told you what?' Katie asked in surprise.

  'That you'd got the Carlton Reef down here,' her sister said breathlessly. 'I've been trying to fix up an interview with you for ages, you know,' she added as she turned the full hundred-watt smile in Carlton's direction. 'The paper has been doing a series on millionaires of the nineties. Perhaps you've read it?' she asked hopefully.

  'I think not.' Carlton's voice was very dry.

  'Oh.' Jennifer wasn't one to let a small put-down affect her. 'Well, your publicity department wasn't at all helpful,' she added with a faint touch of provocative helplessness. 'And it would mean so much to get a scoop at the moment.'

  'Excuse me,' Katie interrupted as her stunned mind tried to make sense of what she had just heard. 'Are you telling me that you're a millionaire?' she asked Carlton flatly.

  'I wasn't aware I was telling you anything.' His voice was guarded and very cool as he looked expressionlessly into her shocked face.

  'But are you?' she persisted, still in the same flat voice.

  'Do you mean to say you didn't know?' Jennifer laughed shrilly into the loaded atmosphere. 'Really, Katie, you live in a world of your own at that awful school. There is something beyond disinfectant and snotty noses, you know—'

  'Shut up.' And for once in her life Jennifer did just that as her sister turned on her a glare that would have silenced Attila the Hun, before looking again into Carlton's dark face. 'What sort of man are you?' she hissed tightly as she rose slowly from her chair to stand over him like an avenging angel. 'To threaten my father like you did, to act as though the loss of that deal was the worst thing that had ever happened to you when all the time you're rolling in money…'

  Carlton hadn't moved; in fact, neither had anyone else. The whole room had taken on the effect of a macabre tableau, frozen in time. 'He's lost everything—everything!' She could hardly get the words past her lips, so great was her fury. 'And you sit there like a big black spider with a hundred other webs, laughing at us!'

  'I'm not laughing at you, Katie.' Carlton's voice was as flat as hers had been. 'And, if you remember, I thought your father had been…less than honest.'

  'And that makes it all right?' she ground out through clenched teeth. 'To fool us—'

  'Your father is fully aware of my financial position,' he cut in sharply, his voice icy now, 'which is one of the reasons why he approached me in the first place. I agreed to partner him in this venture at his insistence.'

  'But the loss of the money doesn't mean anything to you,' she said furiously. 'Not really. How could you badger him—?'

  '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.'

  'You were a little emotional,' Jennifer said reprovingly, 'but perhaps he likes a bit of melodrama now and again. Anyway, it ought to be me who is mortally offended.'

  'Why aren't you?' Katie asked shrewdly.

  'Because you were only speaking the truth,' Jennifer answered disarmingly. Katie remembered this tactic of her sister's from the past—she always used it to devastating effect, especially when accompanied by the sheepish grin that, as she was doing now, melted the rather sharp features. It didn't mean anything but it was hard to resist, she thought wryly. 'Come on, Katie, I know I'm a pig but it's just the way I'm made,' Jennifer continued persuasively. 'Give me the gen on this Reef man, please.'

  'There's not much to tell,' Katie said slowly, knowing she was being duped but beyond caring. 'Dad apparently approached him to go into this business deal with him and—'

  'I don't mean that,' Jennifer interrupted caustically. 'What about his love life? Has he got a girlfriend? Is he keen on you? Any skeletons in the cupboard that you know of?'

  'Jen!' Katie jerked upright in the bed as she brushed the hair out of eyes that were beginning to spark. 'Can't you forget you're a reporter for a few minutes?'

  'Well, if I could, he's the man to make me,' Jennifer said dreamily. 'You must have noticed what a dish he is, Katie. I know your sex drive isn't particularly frenzied but that physique coupled with those incredible eyes of his must have caused a few tremors, surely?'

  As Katie opened her mouth to deny it she remembered the kiss of the night before and the way it had fired her body, and blushed scarlet, the protest dying on her lips.

  'I thought so.' Jennifer narrowed her eyes at her sister, her expression thoughtful. 'But he has a certain reputation, little sister, in business and out of it, for going straight for the jugular. I wouldn't mess with him, sweetie; leave it to the experts.'

  'Like you?' Katie slanted her eyebrows at Jennifer even as she had to laugh at her sister's outrageous manoeuvring.

  'Exactly.' Jennifer stood up gracefully, stunning in white ski-pants teamed with a pure white cashmere sweater that would have cost Katie a month's salary. 'You never know, I might be able to…persuade him to do something to help us out.'

  'You really do have the morals of an alley-cat, Jen,' Katie said lightly, half serious and half teasing.

  'I know.' Jennifer seemed pleased at the comment. 'But life's so short, sweetie, and I do find sex such fun.' The feline eyes narrowed still further at the expression on Katie's face. 'Oh, hell, I've shocked you again,' she drawled lazily. 'When were two sisters ever such opposites as you and I?' She sauntered over to the window and pulled the curtains wide open, gazing down into the shining white world outside. 'I suppose you haven't met anyone since we spoke last?' she asked idly, without turning round.

  'If you mean am I still a virgin why don't you just come straight out and ask?' Katie said tightly, well aware of the hidden question in her sister's apparently innocuous words.

  'Oh, Katie, you've going to grow old and die here without ever having any fun if you're not careful.' Jennifer yawned as she sw
ung round and walked towards the door. 'What, or who, are you waiting for anyway? I haven't noticed many Prince Charmings beating a path to your door.'

  'Jennifer, we're different; let's just leave it at that,' Katie said firmly. 'You can go from man to man without it bothering you an iota; I just couldn't. And I do have fun, anyway. I go on dates when I feel like it and I've loads of friends—'

  'These are the 1990s, Katie.' Jennifer stopped at the door with her hands on her hips as she frowned across at her sister. 'People just don't go on dates without following through.'

  'Well, I do.' Katie was determined to end the conversation as soon as possible. 'And now I want to get dressed, so if you don't mind vacating the premises…? And Dad is waiting for a visit, don't forget.'

  'I know, I know.'

  'And later you are going to have to go through some of the legal implications with me, Jennifer,' Katie added warningly.

  'Oh, hell, darling, how tacky.' Jennifer wrinkled her nose disapprovingly. 'Can't we just leave it to Dad and the solicitors?'

  'Jennifer, when are you going to get it through your head that he is an ill man?' Katie asked tightly. 'A very ill man. He shouldn't be worried—'

  'Well, you refused Carlton when he offered to help,' Jennifer snapped back abruptly, 'and frankly I think that that was a hell of a moment to get on your high horse.' She flounced out of the room before Katie could respond, banging the door in her wake.

  Katie stared after her, her face dark with anger, before she relaxed against the pillows with a deep sigh. Why did five minutes with Jennifer always resemble several rounds with Muhammad Ali? she asked herself silently, although in this case she had to admit that that parting shot had been justified.

  She shut her eyes tightly as she forced down the sick panic in her chest. She would have to ring him and ask if he would still help them, to eat humble pie… She pictured the scene in the hall in her mind's eye and shook her head helplessly. He was going to just love this. He must think he'd got them all exactly where he wanted them.