The Marriage Solution

by Helen Brooks

  'And that which can't?' she asked quietly as she looked into the hard, handsome face opposite with a little shiver.

  'Is dealt with.' His eyes had a flinty coldness that chilled her blood. 'I don't go looking for trouble, Katie, but I can deal with it when I have to.'

  She didn't doubt it. Not for a minute.

  'I see.' She kept all shadow of apprehension out of her voice.

  'Not yet, perhaps,' he said grimly, 'but you will. As my wife you will come under my protection but unfortunately the tentacles of the media are pernicious. You will learn to say little and be on your guard—'

  'Wonderful,' she interrupted wryly. 'It looks like all this is going to be a bundle of laughs. I take it Jennifer is included in this strategy?' she asked carefully.

  'Especially Jennifer.' He raised sardonic black eyebrows. 'Your sister is a barracuda on two legs, in case you hadn't noticed. It is fortunate that the two of you have little to do with each other, although having her in the immediate family is a problem I could well do without.'

  'Then why—?' She caught herself up abruptly and subsided back in her seat, aware that she had been about to ask the question that had been tormenting her for days but had become more urgent since her conversation with Joseph earlier that day. The knowledge of that other love burnt like fire at the back of her mind.

  'You would like me to open the champagne now, Mr Reef?' She could almost have kissed the portly little manager who appeared at their side again, complete with two massive menus, which he handed to them with elaborate ceremony before proceeding to open the champagne and fill their glasses with the sparkling, effervescent wine that tasted quite wonderful.

  Once they were alone again Carlton surveyed her thoughtfully over the top of his menu as she took another sip of the delicious drink. 'I seem to have got something right for a change,' he remarked quietly. 'Champagne is obviously your drink.'

  'This particular sort is,' she said appreciatively, 'although, to be honest, I didn't think I liked champagne. I've only had it a couple of times at weddings and so on and it didn't taste anything like this.'

  'No—' there was a wry amusement in the dark face as his eyes wandered from her pale, creamy skin to the shining silk of her honey-blonde hair '—it probably wouldn't have. That is a very good vintage that you're guzzling so shamelessly. One advantage of the terrible position you find yourself in is that you won't have to drink mediocre champagne, at least.' The grey eyes were mocking. 'What were you going to say before we were interrupted?'

  'Say?' She had hoped he'd forgotten but she might have known that that razor-sharp mind never let anything slip, she thought resentfully as hot colour flooded her face. 'I don't remember—'

  'We had been discussing Jennifer and then you asked me why…?' She wasn't going to get away with it. She knew it and he knew it.

  'It was nothing.' She lowered her eyes to her menu, raising it so that her face was hidden from his gaze as she searched her mind for something to say that wouldn't suggest that she was in any way interested in either his love life or what he thought of her.

  'Katie…' The deep voice was insultingly patient. 'In the short time I've known you you have never opened your mouth without something emerging,' he said softly. 'Now spit it out.' She saw him wave the waiter away as he approached for their order and knew her last pretext for hesitating was gone.

  'I just wondered, in view of your disliking Jennifer and everything…' She found it hard to continue as the dark eyes held hers, and took a deep, hidden breath before speaking the thought that had been stinging unbearably since the mention of his first love's name. 'I just wondered why you wanted to go ahead with the marriage,' she finished in a little rush, lifting the glass of champagne as he leant back in his seat, his face expressionless, and finishing the contents in two gulps.

  'I'm not marrying Jennifer.' He looked devastatingly handsome, she thought helplessly, the dark evening suit a perfect foil for his particular brand of harsh maleness, the dangerous attractiveness that was an essential part of him accentuated by the formal clothes.

  'But there must have been other women with fewer complications?' she asked hesitantly, her heart thudding as he watched her so carefully. 'I mean—'

  'I know what you mean,' he assured her drily, his tone almost bored. 'But I've already told you, a pretty little socialite with nothing in her head but pound signs doesn't fit the bill for what I have in mind.'

  'You don't seem to have had any such compunction in the past from what I've heard,' she said tartly as aching hurt and furious anger at her own vulnerability made her voice tight.

  'That's enough.' The easy, bored facade was ripped apart in an instant as he leant forward, his voice low and cold but his eyes fiery. 'If you will listen to rumours and gossip, Katie, then don't expect to hear anything good. Of course I have had relationships with women. At my age I think there would be more justification for anxiety on your part if I hadn't, don't you?' he queried softly with cutting mockery.

  'However, if only half of what has been printed about me were true I'd have long ago burnt myself out, and I can assure you I haven't.' The glittering eyes held her own wide ones as if in a steel vice. 'As you will discover in due course.'

  He settled back in his seat again as an almost visible mask settled back in place, hiding his thoughts and emotions. 'Now, the poor waiter is getting restless. What would you like to eat?'

  In spite of the shaky beginning, halfway through the evening Katie was surprised to find that she was beginning to relax. The food was superb, the service faultless and the clientele… She found herself holding her breath as yet another well-known name, the third in as many minutes, strolled into the dimly lit nightclub. 'Isn't that…?'

  'Blake Andrews?' Carlton's voice was smiling and as she turned to him she saw that his face was lit with unconcealed amusement at her wide-eyed enthraldom, and the cynical mockery that was usually evident in the dark face for once was totally absent. 'Yes, it is. I'll introduce you later if you like.'

  'You know him?' she asked quietly, hearing the breathless note in her voice with a feeling of self-disgust He must think that she was so naive, so stupid, but this place, this whole scene, was so overwhelming that she couldn't disguise the effect it was having on her nervous system.

  'Not intimately,' he drawled lazily. 'But Blake is the sort of entertainer who is always pleased to meet a fan, especially one who is both young and beautiful.'

  Although the teasing was light, playful even, it hit a raw spot and she flushed violently, lowering her eyes immediately to her glass. Why was she forever destined to make a fool of herself in front of this man? she asked herself painfully.

  'Katie?' His hand covered hers as he leant forward. 'Look at me.' She raised eyes that were jade-green with chagrin to stare into grey ones that were soft with an emotion she couldn't name. 'Be yourself.' It was an order and spoken with a quiet intensity that made her hold her breath. 'I can't—' He hesitated as though searching for the right words. 'I can't drop the habits of a lifetime in a few weeks—they're too deep and too strong—but I'm not trying to humiliate you. Do you believe that?'

  'Yes.' It was a whisper but he heard the note of bewildered surprise as she voiced what was obviously the truth and was satisfied, leaning back in his seat again as he surveyed her through narrowed grey eyes.

  'There isn't a woman in this place to touch you tonight,' he said softly. 'I mean that.'

  She couldn't respond; it was taking all her control, all the fortitude she had built up through the long years since her mother's death to cope with the knowledge that had suddenly burst into her consciousness as though his words had been a key that had unlocked a door she had kept tightly bolted.

  She loved him.

  As she forced a careful smile to her face and took a small sip of champagne her mind was screaming the truth at her. Quite when this physical attraction, the fascination she had felt since the first moment of seeing him had changed into something deeper she didn't kno
w, but she had been fighting the knowledge for days, weeks even. How could she have been such a fool as to let it happen?

  'Katie? Are you all right?' he asked quietly.

  She stood up quickly as he spoke, keeping the smile in place even as the muscles in her jaw hurt with the effort. 'Fine, just fine. I'm just popping to the cloakroom for a moment; I won't be long.' She had left the table even as she spoke.

  He was too knowledgeable, too intuitive for her to remain sitting there. She found the ladies' cloakroom and collapsed on to one of the velvet-covered seats in front of an ornate mirror, overwhelmingly thankful that she had the small room to herself.

  The worst thing, the very worst thing in the world had happened and she was powerless to do anything about it.

  She looked deep into the haunted eyes staring back at her from the mirror and shook her head wearily as she let the truth permeate her mind. Most women would have given everything they possessed to be in her place—the fiancée of Carlton Reef. And the fact that she loved him? They would look on that as natural, inevitable even with a man like him who was larger than life in every way.

  But he didn't love her. The face in the mirror could offer no comfort. He had made that perfectly clear. A deep sexual attraction, a satisfaction in the type of woman she was and her standards and morals maybe, but that wasn't love. She had experienced years and years of trying to win the love of one cold, ruthless, hard man and had never won. And now the process was to begin again but intensified a million times because what she felt for Carlton made any other emotion in the past seem lukewarm by comparison.

  What was she going to do? She groaned and leant her head against the cool glass, only to straighten almost immediately as the door opened and two women, elegance personified, glided past her in a cloud of expensive perfume. That was the sort of woman Carlton should have married.

  She watched them in the glass as they purred and wriggled, stroking already immaculate hair and glossing beautiful lips like two sleek, expensive cats. They would know how to survive with a man like him but her sense of self-worth, already badly damaged by her father's constant rejection, was too fragile to endure a life of walking on eggshells.

  She bit her lip as the women disappeared and she was left alone again. Stop it. She glared into the greeny brown eyes as she spoke the words again out loud. 'Stop it.' She was going to be his wife, bear his children, be at his side both publicly and privately. And he had said, promised, that there would be no other women.

  She would make him love her. Somehow, even if it took years, she would reach that cold, cynical heart and make it her own. Time, if nothing else, was on her side.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next three weeks sped by in a whirl of last-minute arrangements and minor panics. May had been a beautiful month, full of warm spring sunshine that heralded the approach of a perfect summer, new life bursting out in a frenzy of curling new leaves, the heady perfume of a thousand spring flowers, and, best of all, the steady, reassuring improvement in her father's health that meant the world to Katie. And she was miserable. Desperately, frantically miserable.

  She couldn't fault Carlton's handling of their relationship. He was attentive, affectionate to a point, introducing her to many facets of his life and work in easy stages so that she absorbed each one without too much effort, but…

  Her brow wrinkled as she arranged a bowl of fresh dawn-pink roses which she had just picked from the garden, their rich perfume scenting the hall with their promise of summer.

  He was remote, in the same way he had been since that night they had brought her father home. It was as though he was deliberately keeping her at a distance, controlling his emotions in a way she found impossible. His lovemaking was still intoxicating—he only had to touch her for her to melt in a heady, trembling fever that she strove to conceal—but even in that, or perhaps especially in that, he allowed himself to go so far and no further, his control absolute.

  And tomorrow she would become his wife in the eyes of God and man. She stifled the flood of panic as her hands shook, dislodging a rose, which fell to the floor, its velvet petals scattering in a little arc at her feet.

  'Katie?' Her father came carefully down the stairs, his steps slow but steady, and she glanced up at him as she knelt to gather the petals in her hand. 'Come and talk to me for a while.'

  Since his graduation from the study to his bedroom upstairs, her father seemed to have accepted that he was really going to get well and the realisation had made life easier for the rest of the White household.

  'Come on.' David held out his hand as she rose, and led her into the drawing-room, walking through the wide French doors, open to the early June sunshine, and into the garden beyond, drawing her down beside him on the old wooden bench just behind the house. 'Jennifer will be here soon and that will be the end of any peace and quiet,' he remarked with his customary causticity.

  'You don't like peace and quiet,' she chided softly as she smiled up into his face. 'Look at you this week, sorting through all your papers, discussing the business with Carlton all the time, and working into the night when you should be in bed.'

  'I'm going to let Carlton run it in future, Katie.' She stared at him, too surprised to speak. 'Or, at least, he's putting one of his managers in to do the job. I'll still be around in an advisory capacity but the heat will be taken out of the job.'

  'And that's what you want?' she asked quietly, her eyes fixed on his. 'That's what you really want?'

  'Katie…' He paused and, to her amazement, reached out and took both of her hands in his, his eyes soft. 'I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last few weeks when I've been laid up in that damn bed and I've made a hell of a mess of the last few years, haven't I, girl?' He shook his head slowly. 'A hell of a mess.'

  'No, I—'

  'Don't deny it, lass. Carlton and I have done some honest talking which I didn't thank him for at the time, but I've faced some personal demons that have been on my back for years. I've only loved two people in my life, Katie— your mother was one of them and you are the other.' His eyes were intense on her face.

  She had wanted to hear it, needed to hear it for years, but now the reality left her stunned and speechless, her heart thudding painfully as she stared back at him, her eyes enormous.

  'I ought to love Jennifer, I know—she's my own flesh and blood—but I don't.' He shook his head. 'No, I don't.'

  'Dad—'

  'When your mother died I felt my world had ended. Can you understand that?' He gazed at her and the pain in the pale blue eyes mirrored what her own had been at that time. 'The only way I could cope with it and go on was to shut it away, ignore it,' he continued quietly. 'But you were there, Katie, the very image of your mother in your ways and emotions, a kindred spirit, a constant reminder of all I'd lost, and so I shut you out too. Not consciously—I didn't realise I was doing it—but I did it nevertheless. Can you forgive an old fool, lass?' He shook his head slowly. 'Because I can't forgive myself,' he finished with a break in his voice.

  'Oh, Dad…' She turned into his arms and he hugged her close, the tears that were streaming down his face wetting her hair as she lay against his chest, her heart full and her eyes moist.

  'I want to see my grandchildren, Katie, for your mother as well as myself. I want to make up to you for all the years I've wasted.'

  'Dad…' She drew herself back slightly and looked into his face, her own wet with her tears. 'There's nothing to make up for. I love you—I've always loved you.'

  'Coals of fire.' He drew her to him again and sighed deeply, his voice husky. 'I'm a hard man, lass. Your mother knew that when she married me but she still went through with it, bless her. Because she loved me as I loved her. Katie—' he moved to look into her upturned face '—do you love Carlton? Really love him?'

  'Yes.' In this, at least, she could be honest even if the reason for their marriage had to remain forever hidden. She took a deep breath and smiled through her tears. 'I do love him,'

/>   'That's all I wanted to know.' He settled her against him, the June sunshine warm on their faces. 'I know he loves you—what man wouldn't?—but it's important for a woman to feel absolutely sure, with everything that the physical side of a marriage entails. You know what I mean?' he added uncomfortably.

  'Yes, Dad.' Her face hidden from his gaze, she smiled at the touch of fatherly advice, but in the next instant the smile disappeared as Jennifer's voice sounded from within the house, high and authoritative and strident.

  'Here we go.' He straightened, moving her gently to one side, but it didn't hurt at all. She knew how he felt now. That was all that mattered. She didn't need effusive shows of affection.

  'I know he loves you—what man wouldn't?' The irony of his words stayed with her all that morning and into the afternoon, when, her father having retired for his afternoon nap, Jennifer dragged her into her bedroom so that she could watch her try on her bridesmaid's dress again.

  'Do you think the colour is really me?'

  As her sister turned and pirouetted in front of the minor, the deep wine-red of the dress swirling round her feet in a cloud of silk, Katie stifled an irritated sigh. Jennifer hadn't once asked about her father's health, the state of their finances, even any details about the wedding except those directly concerning her.

  'It's the dress you chose,' she said patiently. 'We went through the whole shop if you remember.'

  'And what a shop…' Jennifer gave one more twirl and then reluctantly took the beautiful dress off and replaced it on its hanger. 'I've got to hand it to you, Katie, you've got your head screwed on all right. I used to wonder—but to make a catch like Carlton Reef must have taken some planning.'

  'Planning?' Katie stared at her sister with distaste. 'I didn't plan anything.'