“I just wouldn’t like us to become—close, and then discover a relationship between us is impossible.” About the Author Books by Carole Mortimer Title Page Dedication PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN EPILOGUE Copyright

“I just wouldn’t like us to become—close, and then discover a relationship between us is impossible.”

Nathan pulled her into his arms. “We’re already close, Brianna,” he murmured huskily, his breath stirring the hair at her temple. “Didn’t this morning prove that?”

CAROLE MORTIMER says: “I was born in England, the youngest of three children—I have two older brothers. I started writing in 1978, and have now written over ninety books for Harlequin Presents®.

“I have four sons—Matthew, Joshua, Timothy and Peter—and a bearded collie dog called Merlyn. I’m in a very happy relationship with Peter senior, we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live on the Isle of Man.”

Books by Carole Mortimer

HARLEQUIN PRESENTS

1863—ONE-MAN WOMAN

1894—WILDEST DREAMS

1929—A MARRIAGE TO REMEMBER

1965—THE DIAMOND BRIDE

Don’t miss any of our special offers. Write to us at the following address for information on our newest releases.

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Oanadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Joined by Marriage

Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Peter,

Eternity

PROLOGUE

A SINGLE sheet of paper lay on the table in front of her, the words written upon it. as she looked down at them, at once seeming not enough and yet at the same time too much. Perhaps she shouldn’t have written this letter. But a part of her had wanted to so much. She couldn’t let go without leaving something, something to say that she had been here at all.

She picked up the letter and read it once more, unaware that her tears fell onto the paper. She had read the words so many times already, knew them all by heart. And yet she read them again, reluctant to let them go, too, now that the time had come.

Would they ever be read by the person she’d written them for, anyway?

Or would someone, perhaps someone wiser than her, deem it better that her letter be destroyed?

Slender fingers tightened on the sheet of paper as she held it to her protectively. It wouldn’t be destroyed. It would reach the person it was intended for. It had to. It was all she had left to give. Of herself.

She had long since given up the emotional struggle as to whether what she was doing was right. She had taken that inevitable step some time ago. What was right and what was wrong had passed long since. And leaving this letter, whether right or wrong, was something she needed to do. Had to do.

Then do it, that warring voice inside her head instructed. Do it, and let that be an end to it.

An end...

This letter was the end.

Or a beginning...

CHAPTER ONE

THE letter was decidedly unhelpful, Brianna decided. It told her nothing. And yet at the same time it promised her everything.

Dear Miss Gibson,

Could you please contact our office at the above address, either by telephone or mail, at your earliest convenience, so that we might arrange a time for you to call in and see one of our partners?

The notepaper heading was that of a firm of prestigious London lawyers, but the signature at the bottom of the short request wasn’t that of any of the partners listed at the top of the letter.

Everything and nothing.

‘What have you got there, sis?’ Her brother Gary leant over her shoulder, the bowl of cereal he was eating for breakfast tipping precariously in the direction of Brianna’s plate of toast as he did so.

Brianna reached up and straightened the bowl. ‘A case of mistaken identity, I think,’ she said dryly, crushing the letter into a ball in preparation for throwing it into the bin when she had finished eating.

‘What’s that, love?’ her father said vaguely as he came into the kitchen straightening his tie, a tall, loose-limbed man in his early fifties.

She shook her head, smiling. ‘Just a firm of lawyers who haven’t done their homework very well and have sent a letter to me by mistake.’ She stood up, the letter already forgotten. ‘Would you like some toast for—Dad, what is it?’ She frowned as she saw he hadn’t moved to the refrigerator for his customary glass of early-morning orange juice but had come to a sudden halt just inside the kitchen door, his face pale. ‘Dad?’ she prompted again worriedly.

He sat down heavily on one of the chairs at the kitchen table. ‘Could I see the letter?’ he said abruptly.

‘This?’ Brianna looked down at the crumpled piece of paper in her hand. ‘But I just told you, it’s obviously a case of mistaken identity—’

‘Landris, Landris and Davis,’ her father said flatly, his gaze steadily meeting hers.

Her eyes widened as her father correctly named the firm of lawyers who had sent her the letter. How on earth—?

‘Please, Brianna.’ He held out his hand for the letter, then slowly and meticulously straightened out the creases before attempting to read its typed words.

‘What’s going on, sis?’ Gary asked in a loud whisper, his cereal being eaten now as he got ready to leave for school. In his final year at school, and taking his ‘A’ levels, Gary looked like most of his peers: hair a bit too long, clothes studiously untidy, not yet a man but no longer a child.

‘I have no idea,’ Brianna told him frankly, distractedly handing him some money for his bus fare and lunch.

He grimaced at the way their father just sat looking at that letter Brianna had received in this morning’s post. ‘Looks serious,’ he muttered.

Brianna wasn’t altogether certain how it looked. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, either. Her mother had died just over two years ago, and since that time their father, with help from Brianna, had managed to keep them going as a family.

Perhaps this letter was something to do with her mother? Although that didn’t make much sense to her either; her mother had left them all that she had to give, which was her love, and the happiness of close-knit family life. That was a legacy not everyone could leave behind them.

‘School,’ she reminded her brother as he hovered curiously, then ‘Homework,’ as she handed him a folder from the top of the fridge. ‘Bus,’ she finished pointedly.

He looked disgruntled at having to miss finding out what the mystery was all about, and pulled a face as he went. But he was going to miss his bus if he didn’t leave now, and having to walk the distance to school wouldn’t suit him at all; any form of exercise was total anathema to Gary!

Brianna busied herself tidying away the breakfast dishes, knowing that when her father was ready he would talk to her. She had learnt this practice from her mother, although it hadn’t been an easy lesson to learn; Brianna was more inclined to impulsive action than thinking things through. But, as her mother had pointed out affectionately long ago, her father could be led but he wouldn’t be pushed.

And so Brianna waited—although she hoped her father wouldn’t take too long over his musing, or the two of them were going to be late for work, her father at his consulting rooms, Brianna at the hospital where she worked as a receptionist.

Her father suddenly spoke, his voice gruff with emotion. ‘I believe that this letter has something to do with your real mother.’

Brianna turned slowly, frowning. Her parents had never made any secret of the fact that she was adopted. It had been explained to her as soon as she was old enough to understand that she was special, a gift to Graham and Jean Gibson after childless years of marriage.

It had never bothered Brianna that she was adopted or that, as often happened in these cases, her adoptive parents had actually conceived a baby of their own when she was four years old. She was ‘special’, loved all the more dearly because her parents had believed they would never have a child of their own. It was because of that love she had never felt any inclination to search out her real parents; she simply didn’t feel the need to know them, accepting that there must have been a reason she was given away in the first place, and that it was probably a reason that might still cause hurt and distress to the people involved.

She had certainly never expected that her real mother would seek her out!

She sat down in the chair opposite her father, her face pale, blue eyes wide above a small nose, generous mouth, and stubbornly determined chin. Her father had often teased her about that stubbornness during her childhood, saying her shoulder-length hair should have been red rather than the colour of gold-ripened wheat. But gold it was, straight and fine to her shoulders, with a wispy fringe above those deep blue eyes.

‘Why do you think that?’ she asked through stiff lips. She didn’t want to hear any of this!

Her father looked at her with steady brown eyes. ‘Because I received a letter from them myself about three months ago. Just before your twenty-first birthday...’

‘The letter clearly states that you should contact us before coming to the office,’ the frosty middle-aged receptionist told her dismissively. ‘I would be happy to make an appointment for you to see—’

‘I don’t want an appointment,’ Brianna told her equally coldly—after all, she was a receptionist herself, knew every put-off there was, both polite and otherwise. She also knew that if she waited here long enough, refusing to budge, someone would eventually see her. ‘I wish to see one of the partners mentioned in the letter. Now.’

And she was determined that she would. She had been totally shocked this morning when her father had told her Landris, Landris and Davis had written to him some time ago, enquiring as to whether he had an adopted daughter by the name of Brianna. Her father had written back confirming that he did, and asked exactly why it was they wanted to know. But he had received no reply from the lawyers in the three months that followed and had finally decided the law firm must have made some sort of mistake. The second letter, this morning, from the same practice, seemed to indicate there had been no mistake after all...

Brianna had gone off to work as usual, but she had been distracted all morning, thoughts going round and round inside her head, and she’d finally decided that enough was enough. She hated mysteries, and the sooner she found an answer to this one, the better. Which was why she had taken a taxi to this office during her lunch-break.

The premises of Landris, Landris and Davis were designed to be imposing, the grey-haired dragon of a receptionist a further deterrent to anyone not here on serious business. Or someone without an appointment...

‘I’m afraid that’s impossible,’ the woman told her firmly. ‘None of the partners are available to see you at the moment.’

‘Then I’ll wait until one of them is available,’ Brianna informed her stubbornly.

‘Look, Miss—Gibson—’ the woman filled in her name after another quick glance at the letter Brianna had received this morning ‘—I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. I can make you an appointment, possibly some time next week—’

‘I don’t think so,’ Brianna cut in mildly, deep blue eyes silently warring with stony brown.

‘Miss Gibson, I really must insist—’

‘Problems, Hazel?’

Both women turned sharply at the sound of that deeply male voice, the receptionist at once looking flustered and Brianna’s interest in the intruder deepening as she saw the other woman’s reaction to him.

Not a simple clerk, by the look of him. He stood well over six feet tall, and was powerfully built beneath the formality of the dark suit and white shirt he wore. He looked down his arrogant nose at the two of them with icy blue eyes through dark-rimmed glasses: eyes that were not the deep blue of Brianna’s own, but a pale blue that sent an arctic chill down her spine.

Some of the doctors she worked with on a day-to-day basis were a little full of their own importance, but this man’s air of arrogance was nothing like theirs; it seemed to be inborn and his air of severity was added to by the shortness of his dark hair, his hard, chiselled features and firm, unsmiling mouth. In fact, the man didn’t look as if he found much in life to smile about!

Brianna’s irritation with the receptionist turned to pity as she imagined having to work with the Ice Man day in and day out...!

‘No, not really, Mr Nathan,’ the receptionist assured him in a voice that seemed suddenly breathless, sounding more like a little girl’s than that of a mature woman in her fifties. ‘It’s only that Miss Gibson doesn’t have an appointment—’

‘Gibson?’ He repeated the name in a clipped voice, once again looking through those dark-rimmed glasses down his thin, aristocratic nose at Brianna. ‘Exactly who is it you are wishing to see, Miss Gibson?’

Her father was right about her temper, and, as this man not only looked down at her but spoke down to her too, she could feel it rapidly rising. ‘Landris, Landris or Davis,’ she returned, as coolly as he had spoken to her.

Irritation flickered across his aristocratic features, his mouth twisting mockingly. ‘That’s rather a generalisation,’ he drawled derisively.

Her eyes flashed. ‘I can’t be any more specific than that. The letter I received from this office was just as ambiguous,’ she returned scathingly.

‘Letter?’ Those icy blue eyes narrowed behind the glasses. ‘What letter is that? Maybe if I could see it—’

‘I have it here, Mr Nathan,’ Hazel offered eagerly, holding out what was turning out to be a much-read letter.

‘Mr Nathan’ took it. His hands were long and slender—far too artistically sensitive for such a man, Brianna decided critically.

She realised she had taken an instant dislike to him. She usually got on with most people, that was why her job at the hospital was so interesting and enjoyable. Maybe it was just that she was already so emotionally strung-cut. After all, she didn’t even know him, although a part of her said she didn’t want to, either!

‘Hmm.’ When he looked up again, his. gaze was even more chilly than before. ‘It states quite clearly here that—’ He broke off as an elderly couple entered the reception area. ‘Would you like to come to my office, Miss—Gibson?’ This time he added her name after another glance at the letter, which he still held. ‘We can talk more privately there.’

The receptionist looked alarmed. ‘You have an appointment at two o’clock, Mr Nathan.’

‘Plenty of time, Hazel,’ he dismissed with a wave of his hand, before taking a firm hold of Brianna’s arm. ‘If you would like to come this way, Miss Gibson,’ he suggested as the elderly couple approached the receptionist desk. ‘I’m sure you will be more comfortable in my office.’

And not such a visible nuisance, Brianna guessed wryly. It simply wasn’t done, at the offices of Landris, Landris and Davis, to have altercations, no matter how mild, in their reception area.

She wasn’t sure that ‘comfortable’ exactly described the room he took her into; grand and imposing sprang to mind, but not comfortable! The walls were panelled halfway up in the dark oak, and above hung paper the colour of a deep blue sky; there was a much darker blue carpet on the floor, and one of the walls was completely lined with books, all of them of legal origin, if the titles were anything to go by. In the centre of the room a huge bay window, edged with dark blue velvet curtains the same colour blue as the carpet formed the backdrop to a very wide oak desk. A high-backed dark blue leather chair sat behind it; a smaller chair in the same leather faced it.

Mr Nathan moved to sit in the large chair, indicating she should sit opposite him, her letter still firmly in his possession. He laid it down on the desk in front of him, reading it again quickly before looking up at her once again. ‘You really have no idea what this letter is about?’ he prompted.

She had only the guesswork of her father to go on, which she wasn’t sure was accurate. She had been put up for adoption when she was only two months old, so why on earth should her real parents be interested in her now?

Although that first letter sent to her father by this firm of lawyers three months ago was still a puzzle...

‘None,’ she replied quickly.

He pursed his firm, unsmiling lips. ‘I see,’ he murmured thoughtfully.

‘And I really think, Mr Nathan—’ Brianna sat forward in her chair ‘—that if you don’t know either, then you’re wasting my time as well as your own!’

She felt the embarrassed colour enter her cheeks after this outburst, realising instantly that she owed him an apology; after all, he hadn’t needed to bother with her at all, he could just have left her for the receptionist to deal with—which she was sure, without this man as an audience, the other woman was more than capable of doing!

‘I’m sorry, Mr Nathan.’ She sat back with a heavy sigh. ‘It’s just that letters like that one—’ she indicated the letter in front of him ‘—arriving in the post without warning, can be quite unnerving.’

‘I’m sure they can,’ he returned smoothly. ‘But could I just set the record straight on one thing before we continue this conversation?’

She looked across at him expectantly. ‘Yes?’

He gave a small inclination of his head, the late spring sunlight coming through the window behind him showing a slight touch of red in the darkness. ‘My name is not Mr Nathan.’

‘But it’s what the receptionist just called you,’ Brianna protested confusedly.

His mouth quirked, not quite into a smile, but into something—in this man’s case, Brianna felt—that came very close to it. ‘It’s what she has always called me.’

‘But I don’t see why, if it isn’t your name.’ Brianna frowned. ‘You—’

‘If you will just allow me to finish?’ the man continued imperiously. ‘Are you usually this—impetuous, Miss Gibson?’ He frowned at her darkly, as if she were a species he very rarely came into contact with! And she didn’t mean women; she was sure there was a wife in the background somewhere, someone as stiffly formal and haughty as he was. He obviously just wasn’t used to someone as bluntly forthright as she was.

Well, that was okay, because she had never met anyone quite this stuffy and arrogant before, either. It wasn’t even as if he was that old; possibly he was in his mid-thirties, and yet he talked and behaved like someone so much older than that. What he really needed was to—

Never mind what he needed, she impatiently admonished herself; she would never see him again after today, anyway. She wasn’t going to get anything out of him at all if she didn’t curb her impetuosity a little.

‘Probably,’ she conceded with a grimace. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have come here today at all, would I?’ she added with a shrug.

His face showed his irritation with her levity. ‘As I was saying...’

‘Before you were so rudely interrupted!’ Brianna couldn’t control the facetious mental ending to his statement—or the smile that threatened to curve her lips and bring a sparkle to the deep blue of her eyes. The first she stifled by biting her bottom lip, the latter she could do nothing about, although she did make an effort to try and look avidly interested in what he was saying. If only he weren’t so pompous...!

‘Hazel calls me Mr Nathan because she has known me most of my life,’ he bit out tersely, as if he guessed some of her amusement was at his expense.

‘That sounds fair enough—except you’ve just told me it isn’t your name!’ Brianna shook her head frustratedly.

Maybe it was her, or maybe what he was saying had lost something in the translation—because for all she understood his explanation he might as well have been talking a foreign language! But if his name wasn’t Mr Nathan, why on earth did the receptionist persist in calling him that?

He drew in a harshly controlling breath, studying her with narrowed eyes behind his dark-rimmed lenses, as if he sensed only too well that she was laughing at him.

Which she wasn’t. Well, not really. She was sure she was the one missing something here; this man was far too sensible ever to talk the load of nonsense this conversation had so far seemed to her to be. No doubt he would explain properly in a minute, and all would be understood. She hoped...

‘My name is Nathan.’ He spoke slowly now, as if he were talking to a slightly backward child. ‘And, as Hazel has worked on Reception here for the last thirty years, she has known me since I began visiting these offices when I was five years old.’

Brianna put her head back, looking puzzled. She still didn’t understand, but she was beginning to think it wasn’t her fault, after all...

‘You’ve been a lawyer since you were five years old...?’ she said in slow disbelief.

He scowled. ‘You know, if I didn’t think your bewilderment was genuine—’

‘Oh, but I can assure you it is,’ she hastily replied, not liking the dark clouds she could see appearing over his furrowed brow.

God, this man must be daunting in a court-room. But not since he was five years old... She didn’t even know what had made her make such a ridiculous remark. A slight touch of hysteria probably. But not because of him; it was this situation over the letter that had her so wound up.

‘Of course you haven’t been a lawyer since you were five.’ She dismissed her own stupidity. ‘I’m just a little confused.’

He gave her a look that clearly said he thought she was very confused!

He absently moved the letter around the top of his desk before replying. ‘I was visiting my father at these offices, Miss Gibson,’ he bit out in those coldly clipped tones that were rapidly becoming familiar to her. ‘He was—and still is—a lawyer.’

‘Oh.’ Brianna nodded, sure there was more to come. Although she was getting a little tired of waiting. They hadn’t even really begun talking about her letter yet. Were all lawyers this pedantic?

‘My first name is Nathan,’ he finally explained. ‘And since I came to work here Hazel has always called me Mr Nathan, simply as a sign of respect, I suppose. Although, in the circumstances, it’s probably less confusing for her too,’ he added thoughtfully, his icy blue gaze boring into Brianna as he looked at her steadily. ‘My name is Nathan Landris, Miss Gibson,’ he bit out.

At last! Nathan Landris. One of the partners... ‘Which Landris are you—Landris or Landris?’ She frowned.

‘Neither,’ he returned dryly. ‘My father is Landris, and my uncle James was Landris—but he died ten years ago. And my uncle Roger is Davis.’

How extremely confusing. ‘So you aren’t Landris or Landris?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ he confirmed. ‘In five years’ time—’

‘When you’re forty?’ Brianna quickly and instinctively calculated, still trying to come to terms with who this man was. Oh, she had decided very quickly that he couldn’t be anything as lowly as a clerk—this office he had brought her into had only confirmed that—but she certainly hadn’t realised he was the son of one of the partners in the firm. No wonder Hazel called him Mr Nathan!

‘When I’m forty,’ he echoed curtly, again watching her with narrowed eyes, as if uncertain whether or not she was laughing at him.

Which she wasn’t now. Okay, so he was pompous, obviously took himself—and everything else—far too seriously, but he was also the son of one of the partners of this prestigious firm; getting as far as talking to him had to be better than being turned away until ‘possibly some time next week’ by the ever-vigilant Hazel.

‘Then I’ll be made into a full partner,’ he informed her crisply. ‘And we will become Landris, Landris, Davis—’

‘And Landris,’ Brianna finished knowingly.

What else? They couldn’t possibly remain just Landris, Landris, and Davis—oh, no, the fourth partner—despite the fact that one of their number was dead, and his nephew’s surname was the same—would have to be officially added to the partnership.

It all sounded positively feudal to Brianna. But then, other aspects of this law firm seemed slightly out of time, anyway, this man opposite her along with them... She could picture him now, as a feudal overlord, dispensing law and wisdom with an arrogant flick of his wrist or a raising of his eyebrow. He—

‘Have you ever thought of taking up law yourself, Miss Gibson?’

His speculative voice interrupted her wandering thoughts and Brianna focused on him with effort, back in the here and now, having been in the middle of imagining him riding across his lands on a magnificent black stallion, his hair neither as short nor as controlled as it was now, dressed in magnificent robes of blue and gold. Ridiculous. In reality, he was a stiff, unyielding man, full of his own importance.

And at this moment he was looking at her with cold impatience as he waited for her response to his remark!

‘Sorry?’ She blinked long dark lashes.

‘The law, Miss Gibson,’ he drawled derisively. ‘I have a feeling you would make a formidable lawyer. I have never met you before today—in fact we have only been acquainted for ten minutes or so—and yet I seem to have talked to you of my childhood, my age, and my intention of being a partner here by the time I’m forty.’ He shook his head in denial of such intimacy with a relative stranger. ‘But, at the same time, I know little or nothing about you. Quite remarkable, Miss Gibson,’ he added.

‘Brianna,’ she supplied absently, grinning as he raised his brows questioningly. ‘As we seem to have become such confidantes,’ she added teasingly, ‘you may as well call me Brianna.’

‘Your name is Brianna?’ he said slowly.

Almost disbelievingly, it seemed to her. ‘Of course it’s my name,’ she snapped. ‘I would hardly have said so otherwise, now would I?’ Not everyone suffered such confusion over their name as this man did!

‘I didn’t mean to sound offensive, Miss—Brianna—’

He didn’t mean to—he just was!

‘It’s just that it’s an unusual name.’ He frowned darkly. ‘Almost masculine.’

‘Well, I can assure you—I’m not!’ she bit out impatiently, wishing she had never told him her first name; he was making such a meal out of it!

His mouth once again twisted into what Brianna assured herself must be a smile—although it looked more like a pained grimace to her. ‘I can see that.’ He dryly acknowledged her prettily petite but definitely feminine figure in a fitted skirt and neat, fitted blue blouse tucked in at her slender waistband.

He showed as much male awareness of her as a woman as a stick might, Brianna decided. And time was pressing; she would be late back to work if she didn’t soon settle this.

‘Maybe I had a male relative named Brian; I really don’t know,’ she dismissed. ‘No one has ever bothered to explain.’ She glanced at her wristwatch; she really would have to leave soon. ‘I’m afraid, Mr Landris, that if you can’t help me—’

‘I’m afraid I can’t.’ Without her being aware of it, he had stood up and was even now moving around his desk, as if to escort her to the door. ‘It really would be better if you made an appointment with Hazel. It’s my father you want to see.’

Brianna felt as if she was being swept along in the middle of a tidal wave as he clasped her arm, once she had stood to her feet, and began walking her toward the door. But she came to an abrupt halt at this last remark, looking up at him suspiciously. ‘How do you know that?’ He hadn’t known it in the reception area. Or, at least, he hadn’t appeared to...

He shrugged broad shoulders beneath the dark suit he wore. ‘The reference at the top of the letter is obviously his.’

He had known exactly who the letter was from, and which Landris she should have seen! Her eyes flashed accusingly; she was getting more than a little tired of the feeling of being shunted from one person to another, with none of them more willing to be of help to her than the last. What was the mystery, for goodness’ sake? She was the one who had been sent the letter; she hadn’t come here uninvited!

Brianna snatched the letter out of his hand, glaring up at him. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me from the first that it’s your father I need to see?’

‘Because he isn’t here at the moment,’ Nathan Landris answered firmly. ‘But I’m sure Hazel told you that...?’

‘She said he wasn’t available,’ Brianna scorned, ‘whatever that’s supposed to mean!’ She wasn’t sure any more!

Icy blue eyes unwaveringly met deep blue. ‘It means he isn’t available,’ Nathan clipped. ‘But I’ll tell him you called.’

‘Will you?’ she challenged; she had the feeling this man wanted to forget ever setting eyes on her! In this case the feeling was mutual. Pompous, overbearing, bossy—

‘Yes, I’ll tell him,’ Nathan Landris confirmed dryly. ‘But I suggest you make an appointment with Hazel, nonetheless.’

‘For “some time next week”,’ she said disgustedly. He gave a haughty inclination of his head. ‘If that’s the first appointment available to you, then, yes.’

Brianna looked at him. ‘Despite what you said earlier about my own qualities, Mr Landris, I have a feeling you’re quite formidable yourself in a court-room!’ she said slowly.

He gave what could only be described as a wolf-like smile—that of one which had just pounced on its prey! ‘I have been known to win the odd case or so,’ he drawled.

She bet he had—he’d certainly managed to effectively divert her from her initial purpose here! ‘I’m sure,’ she accepted scathingly. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ She walked to the door. ‘It seems I have an appointment to make!’

She turned and stormed out of the office, neither thanking him—she had no reason to do so!—or saying goodbye. Somehow she had a feeling, despite the fact that there was absolutely no reason why they should, that they would meet again...

‘I’ll come with you.’

Brianna turned to him in the carpeted corridor. ‘There’s no need for you to do that—I’m not about to steal the company silver!’

He looked down at her from his imposing height, dark brows raised reprovingly. ‘Are you always this—forthright, Miss Gibson?’ he said carefully.

‘Probably,’ she dismissed. ‘I suppose, despite what you said earlier, that excludes me from taking up law as a profession?’

The insult hung in the air between them, only a nerve pulsing high in Nathan Landris’s cheek, as he reached up to remove his glasses, telling of his response to it.

She hadn’t particularly meant to insult the man, but it was nevertheless true that he didn’t appear to have a forthright bone in his body. ‘I’ll go and make that appointment,’ she said quickly. ‘Er—thank you for your help,’ she added, with the gratitude she had omitted earlier.

It started out as that now-familiar grimace, but then it went one step further, and, to her surprise, Brianna found herself looking at a smiling Nathan Landris. It was quite amazing what a difference it made to him—his blue eyes warm, that hard, unyielding face suddenly rakishly attractive.

Brianna stared at him, totally thrown by the transformation. God, this man had it all, didn’t he: a razor-sharp brain, a lethal coldness, and, when that failed, a sudden charm that was breathtaking. At least, Brianna felt suddenly breathless. Clark Kent and Superman—and she had thought they were both ficticious characters!

‘I think so.’ He answered her facetiously made remark. ‘You speak first, and think afterwards.’

‘Whereas a lawyer thinks first and often doesn’t speak at all.’ She acknowledged the fact that, although he might think he had almost told her his life story, he had in fact told her nothing she had come here to find out. And she was no longer sure that was because he didn’t know anything... ‘Very well, Mr Landris, we’ll do this your way.’ She doubted it was very often done any other way! ‘You escort me back to Reception, I’ll organise my appointment, and then we can both get back to work.’

He walked at her side down the corridor, the glasses firmly back on the bridge of his nose. ‘And what work do you do, Miss Gibson?’

She glanced up at him, tongue slightly in cheek as she answered him. ‘I’m a receptionist.’

This time the smile that closely resembled a grimace didn’t even get a look in. That rakish grin appeared instantly, accompanied by a throaty chuckle. ‘Miss Gib—Brianna, you really are...!’ He shook his head, the grin still curving his lips. ‘I don’t think you need any assistance in organising your appointment. I—’ He broke off, looking at a man walking down the corridor toward them, and his humour faded, his expression suddenly becoming grim.

‘Can you find your own way back to Reception?’ he prompted Brianna distractedly, still looking at the other man.

‘I would think so,’ she answered him humorously, also looking at the man approaching them. He was dressed as formally as Nathan Landris but he wasn’t quite as tall as him, although he had an equal air of purpose about him. Nathan Landris’s two o’clock appointment, Brianna decided.

‘Could you wait in my office for me?’ Nathan addressed the man, confirming Brianna’s suspicions. ‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’

‘I’m in rather a hurry, Nathan,’ the older man said sharply.

‘This won’t take long,’ Nathan assured him.

‘I can see you’re busy.’ Brianna lightly touched Nathan’s arm. ‘I won’t take up any more of your time.’ She gave an apologetic smile to the older man—who, despite being much older than Nathan, did give her a male response, openly staring at her.

Brianna’s parting smile included both men as she walked away, and as she glanced back, before turning the corner into the reception area, it was to find both men still watching her, the older still staring at her. Nathan Landris might be made of ice, but his client certainly wasn’t!

Brianna, out on the street minutes later, her appointment made for next week with Landris Senior, felt distinctly dissatisfied with the whole morning; she was no nearer to knowing what all this was about than she had been when she’d received the letter earlier that day!

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU really shouldn’t have gone there alone, Brianna.’ Her father spoke across the dinner table to her. ‘I thought we agreed before you left for work this morning that you weren’t going to do anything until we had another chance to talk this evening?’

‘Don’t worry, Dad.’ Brianna leant across the table and squeezed his hand reassuringly. ‘For all the good it did me, I might as well not have bothered! I feel as if I just made a complete fool of myself.’ And Nathan Landris had helped her to do it!

She had thought on and off during the afternoon about her conversation with him; the more she thought about it, the more annoyed she became, both with him and herself. Who had been trying to glean information from whom?

‘I think it’s ace,’ her brother piped up. ‘Perhaps you’ll find out you’re the daughter of a rich Arab sheik, and that you’ve been left millions in his will!’ Gary grinned expectantly.

As a family, they had never made any secret of Brianna’s adoption, and, because they were all so close, it had never mattered to any of them—Gary was Brianna’s brother, and her father was exactly that.

She grimaced now. ‘With this colouring? Knowing my luck, it’s more likely I’m the daughter of a debtor—and I owe millions!’

Her brother grinned, she noticed, but her father still looked far from happy with the situation. ‘Dad—’ She broke off as the telephone rang out in the hallway. ‘You aren’t on call tonight, are you?’ She frowned.

‘No, I’m not. But when has that ever stopped patients calling me?’

Her father specialised in obstetrics, and as such was always on call!

‘I’ll get it,’ Gary offered, getting up from the table.

‘It’s probably for you, anyway,’ Brianna said; her brother seemed to have a veritable stream of girlfriends.

‘Or the rich Arab sheik for you!’ he called out cheekily before leaving the room.

‘Not if he’s dead!’ she returned lightly.

‘We’re all so normal.’ Her father slowly shook his head. ‘Just a normal happy family. And yet I have this strong feeling of impending doom, like a heavy weight hanging over us all. I—’

‘It’s for you, sis.’ Gary breezed back into the room. ‘A Mr Landris.’

‘You see.’ Her father sat back heavily, looking every inch his fifty-three years at that moment.

Nathan Landris! What on earth was he telephoning her for, at home, at seven o’clock in the evening? Unless he was a workaholic, it was way out of office hours. Come to think of it, he probably was a workaholic! But she didn’t have any business with him; it was his father she wanted to see. Surely this wasn’t a social call? Superman hadn’t burst out of Clark Kent’s clothing, had he, with Nathan Landris actually behaving like a man rather than a lawyer? No, it was the Incredible Hulk who burst out of his clothes, not Superman—

‘I don’t think he’s going to hang on all evening, Bri,’ Gary urged. ‘He sounded a bit pompous to me.’

Nathan Landris, the Ice Man, Brianna decided ruefully as she stood up, lightly touching her father on the shoulder as she passed him. ‘It will be okay, Dad,’ she assured him huskily. ‘You’ll see.’

‘I hope so.’ He still looked haggard. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Brianna.’

‘You won’t,’ she told him firmly, before going out into the hallway to take the call, picking up the telephone receiver. ‘Nathan,’ she greeted coolly. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?’ She started the conversation in the way she meant it to continue!

There was a moment’s pause on the other end of the line before an answer came. ‘It is a pleasure to speak to you, Miss Gibson, but I’m afraid this isn’t Nathan,’ said a male voice she didn’t recognise. ‘My name is Peter Landris. I’m Nathan’s father.’

She had realised it wasn’t Nathan the moment he spoke. Oh, the accent was just as refined, the voice almost as deep, but it certainly wasn’t Nathan. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Landris.’ She gave an inward grimace at her faux pas. ‘I—’

‘Please don’t be,’ he returned smoothly. ‘It was a natural mistake for you to have made, in the circumstances.’

What circumstances? She was even more stunned now that she knew her caller was Landris Senior!

‘I understand that you spoke with my son earlier today,’ Peter Landris continued lightly, as if aware of her confusion and giving her time to recover.

Those circumstances. ‘Yes, I did.’ Now she couldn’t help wondering exactly what his son had said about their meeting! ‘He explained you were unavailable,’ she added pointedly; he obviously wasn’t unavailable this evening!

‘That’s the reason I’m calling, actually,’ he came back calmly. ‘I realise you have made an appointment to see me next week, but I find I have a window in my schedule tomorrow, at one o’clock, and wondered if you would like to come in and see me then instead?’

If she took a late lunch, and wasn’t gone too long... ‘Could you make it one-fifteen?’ She wasn’t sure how wide this window was!

‘I’m sure I can,’ he accepted briskly. ‘One-fifteen tomorrow, then, Miss Gibson.’ He abruptly ended the call.

Brianna quickly put down her own receiver. Not quite the Ice Man, but it was obvious where Nathan had learnt his terseness; the reason for the call was concluded, and so was the call itself!

What a strange family the Landrises were, Brianna decided, shaking her head ruefully. But she had an appointment to see Peter Landris, and it wasn’t for next week, either. Now all she had to do was go back to the dining-room and reassure her father...

Brianna sat across from Peter Landris, his desk between them. He was the man who had been walking down the corridor yesterday, as she was leaving, the man Nathan had asked to wait for him in his office—the man she had assumed was Nathan’s two o’clock appointment.

Peter Landris was the man whom Nathan had known she’d come here to see yesterday—and to whom she was sure he had deliberately chosen not to introduce her!

Her eyes sparkled deeply blue as she looked across the desk at the elder Landris. As she knew from yesterday, he was slightly shorter than his son, although he probably still reached six feet, and with the knowledge of their relationship she was now able to see the similarities between the two men. Both were dark-haired, although Peter Landris’s hair was liberally peppered with grey, and they both had those strongly hewn faces, dominated by cold, pale blue eyes. In fact, Peter Landris was looking at her very much as his son had done yesterday!

Brianna bristled resentfully. The Landris family, with their initial letter sent to her father three months ago, and the one sent directly to her yesterday, had already wreaked havoc in her previously harmonious life; she was the one who should be angry. And she was!

‘You wanted to see me, Mr Landris?’ she prompted. ‘This is my lunch hour and I really don’t have a lot of time.’

To her surprise, he smiled, and, as with his son, it changed his whole demeanour, giving warmth to his eyes and a boyish charm to those hard features. Brianna decided at that moment that she wouldn’t like to face either father or son in a court-room—their charm would be totally disconcerting, before the coldness ripped you to shreds!

‘It’s my lunchbreak too,’ he told her softly. ‘Perhaps I should order us some coffee and sandwiches?’

Her expression deepened. ‘Am I going to be here long enough to eat them?’ She had imagined this meeting wouldn’t take long at all!

His smile broadened as he picked up the telephone. ‘Nathan told me you’re extremely direct,’ he murmured, before talking briskly into the receiver. ‘Hazel—coffee and sandwiches for Miss Gibson and myself. Thank you.’ He ended the call as abruptly as he had with Brianna the evening before.

‘I can’t see the point of being any other way.’ Brianna answered his previous statement—although she could imagine all too well what Nathan had told his father about her. But, unlike poor Hazel, she had no reason to be in awe of either man. And she wasn’t. ‘I dislike mysteries, Mr Landris, and this has certainly become one.’

She no longer believed a mistake had been made concerning her identity; this man didn’t make those kind of mistakes! And if it wasn’t an error, then she wanted to know as quickly as possible what it was all about.

‘I’m sorry if you feel that way,’ Peter Landris returned politely. ‘It certainly wasn’t meant to be.’

‘Exactly what is “it”, Mr Landris?’ Brianna prompted impatiently.

‘There are certain formalities to get through before I—Ah, Hazel.’ He turned to the receptionist as she came in with a laden tray, moving several papers aside on his desk to make room for the woman to put it down. ‘Would you like to pour?’ he invited Brianna, once the receptionist had departed.

‘No, I do not want to pour!’ Brianna burst out irritably; they were never going to get to the point of the meeting at this rate! ‘Mr Landris—Oh good grief!’ she snapped, as there was a brief knock on the outer door before Nathan walked into the room. ‘This is worse than Piccadilly Circus in the rush hour!’ she muttered.

Although if she was annoyed at yet another interruption, then Nathan looked absolutely stunned to see her sitting in his father’s office. Which meant he couldn’t have known of his father’s telephone call to her last night...

‘Nathan,’ his father greeted without warmth. ‘As you can see, I’m busy,’ he added pointedly.

The younger man didn’t move. ‘You didn’t tell me you intended seeing Brianna today.’

His father reacted to what sounded like an accusation. ‘I don’t believe it’s something I have to inform you of, Nathan,’ he rasped.

‘And I don’t believe you introduced me to your father yesterday, either, Nathan,’ Brianna interrupted. Father and son seemed to be locked in a silent battle with each other, so much so that she, the apparent reason for the tension between them, was briefly forgotten.

Nathan glanced at her momentarily before turning to his father. ‘Perhaps we could talk in private for a few minutes,’ he bit out harshly. ‘In my office,’ he added determinedly.

His father didn’t so much as move a muscle. ‘I don’t think so, Nathan.’

‘Father, I really think—’

‘I told you, no, Nathan,’ his father said glacially. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’m in the middle of a confidential meeting with my client.’

Brianna turned to him sharply. Client? She most certainly was not a client of his. For one thing, clients deliberately sought out the services of lawyers, something she most certainly had not done where Peter Landris and his son were concerned. And, for another, she could never have afforded the prices of a prestigious firm like this one, so if either of them had the least idea of presenting her with a bill for these two meetings, they could just think again...!

She stood up, picking up her handbag. ‘I’ll leave the two of you to sort out your differences. And then, when you have, perhaps you would like to send me a letter stating exactly what all this is about, Mr Landris,’ she suggested to the older man. After all, he was the one who had just claimed she was a client! ‘I really don’t have any more time to waste today,’ she added.

‘You were right, Nathan.’ Peter Landris spoke quietly as she crossed the room. ‘Brianna is as wilful as her mother.’

Brianna stopped, feeling the colour drain from her cheeks as she slowly turned to face him. ‘My mother?’ she repeated slowly, her lips suddenly feeling so stiff she could barely speak. ‘You know my mother?’

‘Yes. Nathan, help Brianna back to her chair before she falls down,’ Peter Landris added calmly, as she swayed on her feet.

She was barely aware of the arm about her waist, of being guided back to the chair she had so recently vacated, of sitting down. She could only stare at Peter Landris with suddenly very dark blue eyes. ‘You’re talking about my biological mother?’ she asked weakly. Having her father suspect that this was the reason for the letters was one thing; it was quite another for it to turn out to be true!

‘Of course,’ Peter Landris answered briskly, taking a file out of the top drawer of his desk. ‘I would—’

‘Father!’ Nathan barked tensely. ‘There are papers to see first, to be verified—’

‘Nathan, I will not tell you again!’ his father returned forcefully, eyes glacially blue. ‘Do not attempt to tell me how to do my job. I am well aware of what has to be done. But Rebecca was my client, and now that makes Brianna so.’

‘Rebecca is my mother?’ Brianna wasn’t in the least interested in the argument between father and son; in fact the more she heard the less sure she was that she wanted to know about any of it. Her mother had been Jean Gibson—she was the person who had cared for Brianna as a helpless baby, who had cuddled her when she hurt herself, who had wept for her on the day she began school, helped to ease the pain of her first broken love affair, sat and talked to her in the night when she panicked about her exams, had been pleased for her when she secured the job she wanted. Jean was her mother. She didn’t even want to know that this other woman’s name was Rebecca—suddenly felt as if the life she had always known was being invaded, violated...

‘She was,’ Peter Landris confirmed in a gentle voice.

Brianna swallowed hard. Was...? ‘She’s dead?’

‘I’m afraid so, my dear,’ he said. ‘Rebecca—’

‘I don’t want to know!’ she cut in emotionally. And she didn’t. She had wanted this meeting, the reason for it, out of the way, so that she could forget about it and get on with her life. But now she had a feeling that once she had heard the truth her life would be changed for ever. She didn’t want that.

‘I don’t want to know,’ she repeated flatly as the two men looked at her. ‘Whoever this woman Rebecca was, whatever she was, she most certainly was not my mother.’ She felt no loss at knowing of Rebecca’s death. How could she? She had never known the lady. And now that Rebecca was dead, there was no reason for her to know that, either. ‘Whatever this is about,’ she told Peter tersely, ‘I want no part of it.’

‘It isn’t as easy at that, Brianna—’

‘It most certainly is,’ she interrupted the older man firmly. ‘My mother abandoned me, gave me up; I now have the right to do the same where she’s concerned.’ She looked at him challengingly.

‘You’re oversimplifying things, Brianna—’

‘I most certainly am not,’ she replied strongly, feeling her self-determination returning rapidly. She had been thrown for a few minutes, but now she was in control again. ‘If a parent can choose to abandon a child, then that child can choose to abandon the parent.’

‘Nathan, will you either come into the room or get out of it.’ Peter Landris spoke sharply to his son as a young woman walked by along the corridor outside. ‘This is an intensely personal matter; I do not want all and sundry to hear about it!’

‘I’m well aware of how private it is,’ Nathan told him icily, moving further into the room and shutting the door firmly behind him.

His father looked at him intently. ‘Exactly what do you mean by that remark?’

The younger man gave him a scathing glance. ‘Exactly what I said,’ he snapped back, before turning his attention to Brianna. ‘I think you should listen to my father, Brianna,’ he told her harshly. ‘You stand to be a very wealthy woman at the end of this conversation!’

She gave him a pitying look. He was neither Clark Kent nor Superman; he couldn’t even see that wealth didn’t interest her in the least. Maybe it was because he obviously came from such a well-off family himself that he just couldn’t imagine anyone being happy without money!

‘I’m not interested,’ she told the elder Landris firmly. ‘I have a family already; I don’t need to know of another one.’

He raised dark brows; she was clearly adamant. ‘I understand your adoptive mother is dead.’

‘What does that have to do with this?’ Brianna bristled indignantly, eyes sparkling angrily, not even interested as to how he knew of Jean’s death. ‘It appears that both my adoptive mother and my biological mother are dead—I can assure you I know which one I mourn! This other woman—Rebecca—means nothing to me. And neither does any money she may have left me. She didn’t care about me enough over the last twenty-one years to seek me out, so I have no intention of her recent death intruding on my life now!’ She was breathing hard in her agitation.

‘But your mother didn’t die recently, Brianna,’ Peter Landris told her quietly. ‘She died twenty-one years ago.’

Brianna blinked at him, totally speechless. She had never really thought of her real mother as she grew up, had been totally secure in the love of her adoptive parents. Even once she had reached adulthood it had never occurred to her to seek out the woman who had given birth to her. She had accepted that the woman probably had—probably still had—a life that wouldn’t welcome the daughter she had given birth to years ago. Somehow she had never imagined that her biological mother might have died so long ago...

She moistened her lips. ‘How did she die?’

‘The cause of death on the death certificate?’ Peter Landris returned hardly.

She frowned at him, at the way he had voiced the question. She knew all about death certificates—as a doctor, sadly her father had occasionally had to sign them—but from the way Peter Landris spoke there was clearly some doubt about her mother’s—Rebecca’s...

‘It’s usually pretty accurate,’ she said flatly.

‘Not in this case,’ Peter Landris countered. ‘The last I heard, they didn’t list a broken heart as the cause of death,’ he added bitterly.

‘Father, you’re too close to this,’ Nathan put in, stepping forward. ‘Too involved. Worse than that, you’re alarming Brianna.’

She wasn’t alarmed; she was confused. Just exactly when had her mother died twenty-one years ago? Obviously some time soon after Brianna’s arrival. But if she had died because of the birth of her baby, why hadn’t Brianna been taken in by relatives rather than put up for adoption. Who were her real family?

Peter Landris drew in a deeply controlling breath. ‘I’m sorry, Brianna. I just—It’s the waste!’ He shook his head, his face pale. ‘I was never able to accept the ending of that beautiful life. The utter futility of it all. You’re right, Nathan, I thought I could deal with this, but I—’ He gave a shaky sigh. ‘Seeing Brianna has brought it all back to me.’ He looked across the desk at her. ‘You look so much like—God, it’s unnerving!’

She looked like her mother... Like Rebecca...? And, from this man’s behaviour now, he had known her real mother very well...

Her mouth tightened. ‘Who was my father?’

Peter Landris grimaced. ‘Your mother refused to name your father.’

Brianna shook her head. ‘I find it hard to believe that no one knew.’

‘You wouldn’t if you’d known Giles,’ Peter Landris rasped with feeling.

‘Who was Giles?’ She sighed her impatience with this disjointed conversation. This was becoming more and more complicated by the moment!

‘Your grandfather. Rebecca’s father,’ Nathan told her without hesitation. ‘Rebecca was terrified of him.’

Brianna turned to him with shadowed blue eyes. ‘You knew my mother too?’ Twenty-one years ago Nathan would only have been fourteen!

‘I did,’ he confirmed curtly. ‘She was four years older than me, but—’

‘My mother—Rebecca,’ she corrected herself, ‘was only eighteen when she gave birth to me?’ No more than a child herself! ‘And when she died...’ Brianna realised dazedly. She had been far too young to die. And yet Rebecca had loved, and apparently lost, and had given birth to Brianna in those brief eighteen years...

‘I’m afraid this interview isn’t being carried out very professionally.’ Nathan gave his father a reproving look. ‘Ordinarily, in these circumstances, we would ask you for documentary proof of who you are. And then—’

‘She’s Rebecca’s daughter.’ Peter Landris was staring at her now as if he was seeing a ghost. ‘Without a shadow of a doubt!’

‘I agree with you,’ Nathan concurred. ‘I knew that the moment I saw her in Reception yesterday.’

‘You could have told me!’ Brianna snapped angrily. ‘Instead of which you carried out some sort of elaborate delaying charade. This all happened twenty-one years ago, isn’t that delay enough?’ she bit out accusingly, looking from one man to the other to emphasise the point that she was tired of this further prevarication. She wanted the facts, and she wanted them now. There would be time later, once she was alone, to sit and brood over the significance—or otherwise!—of them to her life now. ‘Nathan?’ she pressed. ‘You seem to know all about this, so you tell me what happened all those years ago!’ The need to return to work was right at the bottom of her priorities now!

‘Rebecca was my client—’

‘Rebecca is dead,’ Brianna coldly cut into Peter Landris’s protest. ‘I appear to be your client now—and I would rather hear this from Nathan.’ He, at least, appeared able to talk about all of this unemotionally.

‘Father?’ Nathan glanced at the older man.

‘Go ahead,’ his father invited dully. ‘I—Seeing Brianna, the likeness to—It’s been a shock...’

‘Have a cup of cold coffee and a rapidly curling sandwich.’ Brianna poured the coffee for him, before turning back to the younger man. ‘Nathan?’ she pressed again, his father forgotten.

Nathan sighed, pulling up another chair and sitting down on the same side of the desk as Brianna, his pale blue eyes strangely compassionate. ‘We have to start with your grandparents—’

‘Rebecca’s mother and father?’

‘This will be much quicker if you don’t interrupt after every statement,’ Nathan told her sharply.

Much quicker. Although she had pushed the need to return to work firmly to the back of her mind, time was still passing rapidly. ‘Sorry,’ she ventured.

He acknowledged her apology with an arrogant nod of his head. ‘Your grandparents—Joanne and Giles. Joanne was the daughter of a very rich man; Giles was a local farmer. But, nevertheless, the two of them apparently fell in love and married. A year into the marriage Joanne gave birth to Rebecca. There were to be no more children.’

This was much better, much easier for Brianna to deal with emotionally.

‘Despite its apparently romantic beginning—’ Nathan couldn’t seem to help the cynical twist to his lips that accompanied this statement ‘—it wasn’t a particularly happy marriage. Giles came to quickly resent the fact that it was his wife who held the purse-strings, and he didn’t care for his daughter, or the pull she had on her mother’s time and love.’

‘It should have read “broken heart” on Joanne’s death certificate too,’ Peter Landris muttered harshly.

Nathan glared his father into silence. ‘At the age of eight, Rebecca was sent away to boarding-school,’ he continued evenly. ‘Her mother, it seems, never got over the loss.’

‘But there must have been holidays—’

‘Giles always made sure they were out of the country for those.’ It was Peter Landris who answered her. ‘Leaving Rebecca in the care of a housekeeper when she was at home. Joanne rarely saw her daughter during the next three years.’

‘I—But that’s inhuman!’ Brianna protested. ‘How could anyone be so cruel?’

‘If I could just continue?’ Nathan cut in icily, his brows raised as he waited for Brianna’s attention to return to him.

‘But this is all so—it’s like something out of a Victorian novel.’ Brianna shook her head dazedly. ‘I can’t believe anyone could get away with treating his wife and daughter in that way less than forty years ago!’

‘Can’t you?’ Nathan said bleakly. ‘Then perhaps you should see some of the cases that come to court nowadays!’

She had seen some of the battered wives and children that were brought into the hospital. ‘But Joanne was the one with the money.’ She frowned. ‘Surely that gave her a certain amount of—freedom?’

‘Giles was Rebecca’s father—a fact he never let Joanne forget,’ Peter Landris put in baldly. ‘I can assure you, Joanne was by no means a weak woman, but she did have a weakness. And that weakness was her child.’

Not physical cruelty, Brianna realised, but emotional blackmail—who could say which was worse?

‘Go on,’ she invited gruffly, wondering what other horrors she was going to hear about her family; perhaps Rebecca had done her the biggest favour of all by keeping her well away from them!

‘When Rebecca was thirteen, her mother died.’ Nathan was now the one to continue. He shot his father another censorious look as he added, ‘In a car accident. But her death left Rebecca with only her father.’

‘He didn’t take her out of boarding-school?’ Brianna said worriedly, beginning to care about Rebecca in spite of herself. Her own childhood had been such a happy one, with parents and a brother who loved her, she simply couldn’t bear the thought of the loneliness Rebecca must have endured as she was growing up.

‘No, he didn’t do that.’ Nathan gave the ghost of a smile in reassurance. ‘Rebecca continued to stay at the boarding-school; her father continued to be absent when she came home for the holidays. But there were no letters or telephone calls from her mother to sustain her. As was to be expected, Rebecca became desperate for love, for someone to care about her. As she got older there were—relationships. The majority of them with totally unsuitable men. But in this Giles had no say. What could he have threatened Rebecca with?’ Nathan stated frankly. ‘He had never given her anything he could possibly take away from her.’

Brianna was watching Nathan closely, questioningly. ‘You liked my mother,’ she said slowly, realising there was a warmth in his voice as he spoke of her.

Emotion flashed briefly in those pale blue eyes behind the glasses, and then it was gone, replaced by that mask of professionalism she was used to. ‘Rebecca, despite her unorthodox upbringing, was impossible not to like. She was full of life, and laughter, and beauty. Perhaps too much of the latter,’ he added wistfully. ‘It left her prey to the—attentions of men.’

Brianna frowned. ‘Are you saying my mother was promiscuous?’

‘Certainly not,’ he snapped, his mouth a thin line. ‘I’m saying she didn’t always love wisely.’

‘As she didn’t where my father was concerned. Did he happen to be married to someone else?’ Brianna guessed shrewdly.

‘We don’t know,’ Nathan said flatly. ‘Perhaps.’ He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘Perhaps her letter to you will explain all that to you,’ he added gruffly, glancing briefly at his father.

Brianna looked at him sharply, disbelievingly. She had learnt so much of Rebecca’s background in the last few minutes. Her father, she believed, had been a despot who denied his wife and daughter their love for each other. Rebecca had been the emotionally deprived child of that union, a child who had grown to young womanhood craving love, and not always finding it in the places that she should have.

Brianna had listened to all of this, had felt pity for her grandmother and her mother in an abstract way, even a little for the grandfather who must have been a very insecure man to have ruled his family in the way that he had. She had listened and had felt sorrow for such unhappiness, but it was a story of someone else’s life—a life unrelated to her own.

But a letter... A letter written to her by her mother was so much more...

She didn’t want it.

Didn’t want it.

Couldn’t read it...

CHAPTER THREE

‘GENTLEMEN.’ She stood up. ‘I thank you for your time, and the information you’ve given me today. Now I have more of an idea of what my natural mother and her family were like.’ She turned to leave.

‘Where are you going?’ Pete Landris sounded bewildered by her dismissal.

She turned back only slightly. ‘I have to get back to work now.’

‘But—’

‘I’ll drive you.’ Nathan had moved silently to her side.

‘But we haven’t finished,’ his father protested behind them. ‘There’s so much more. Rebecca’s death. Brianna’s inheritance—’

‘And Brianna has had more than enough already today for her to cope with,’ Nathan told him harshly, before turning back to Brianna. ‘I’ll drive you wherever you want to go,’ he offered gently.

‘I’m sure you’re very busy,’ she refused vaguely, needing to be away from these offices, away from the two Landris men. ‘I can get a bus. Take a taxi.’

‘I’m not busy at all,’ Nathan said firmly, lightly grasping her arm as they went out into the corridor. “The buses are incredibly irregular around here. And a taxi would be an unnecessary expense when I’ve already offered to drive you wherever you want to go.’

Brianna didn’t argue any more, standing silently by while Nathan informed Hazel of his departure, taking no interest in the brief conversation he had with a grey-haired man passing through Reception, although she sensed the other man’s interest in her as she left with Nathan. Not another one who recognised her as Rebecca’s daughter...! It was a very strange feeling to know she looked so much like someone she had never even known—and would never know...

‘My uncle, Roger Davis,’ Nathan supplied as he took her out to the private car park at the back of the building. ‘He’s married to my mother’s sister.’

He was also Nathan’s father’s partner. It really was a family-run business. And the Landris family seemed to know rather a lot about her mother and her family. Too much so, in the circumstances, Brianna was beginning to realise. ‘Nathan—’

‘Here we are.’ He unlocked a dark green Jaguar saloon car, opening the passenger door for Brianna to get in. ‘Just tell me where you want to go,’ he said, once he was seated beside her.

She gave him the name of the hospital where she worked, watching him as he drove. He handled the car in the same way he seemed to deal with everything, capably, with the minimum of effort, and completely unemotionally—even when another driver cut dangerously in front of the Jaguar at a busy junction. The Ice Man, no matter what the situation.

‘Have dinner with me this evening?’

His invitation was so at odds with her thoughts of him that for a moment Brianna was stunned into silence. The icy Nathan Landris had just invited her out to dinner with him!

‘Why?’ she returned abruptly.

Dark brows rose over those pale blue eyes, his mouth quirking, although his visual attention didn’t waver from the road and traffic in front of him. ‘Is this your usual response when a man invites you to spend the evening with him?’

Her mouth curved upwards, some of her earlier tension leaving her. ‘No,’ she acknowledged. ‘But then, it wasn’t a usual invitation!’

‘I can assure you that it was,’ he drawled.

Her eyes widened. ‘It was?’

‘It was,’ he confirmed dryly. ‘Unless there’s a young man in your life somewhere whom you feel might object to your accepting?’

Brianna had the feeling the question wasn’t as casually asked as he’d made it sound. Although why he should have any interest in the romantic side of her life, she couldn’t imagine. Even if he had invited her out to dinner...

‘Not at the moment, no,’ she answered him smilingly.

Her most recent relationship, with a young doctor at the hospital, had ended three months ago, by mutual agreement; Jim had worked nights and Brianna had worked days, and the strain of trying to keep up even a casual relationship had finally proved too much of a strain.

‘Then I repeat, would you have dinner with me this evening?’ Nathan pressed her.

In her head she repeated her own question—why? Nathan didn’t give her the impression he was in the least impulsive—in fact quite the opposite!—and, despite what he said, she didn’t think this invitation was unpremeditated, either.

Nathan turned and smiled at her, the smile that transformed him from a coldly removed man to a rakishly charming one, as she had glimpsed yesterday. A dangerously attractive one...! He couldn’t be two people, and yet...

‘Is there a young lady in your life who might object to my accepting?’ she returned evenly.

His mouth quirked again. ‘Not at the moment, no.’ He repeated her words of a few minutes ago.

It was the answer Brianna had expected him to make. Not because she didn’t think there hadn’t been women in his life—that smile said otherwise!—but because she didn’t think he was the type of man to invite one woman out while he was involved with another. For one thing, she doubted he would want the complications that would involve.

‘In that case, I accept,’ she told him.

He nodded, showing no emotion at her capitulation. ‘I’ll call at your home for you, at eight o’clock. I have the address.’ He forestalled her next comment. ‘It’s on file at the office.’

Of course it was. As were a lot of other things, things personal to her, things that, until today, she’d had had no knowledge of. Most of which she would rather still have no knowledge of, including a letter Rebecca seemed to have left for her!

The puzzle of that letter was going to burn a hole in her curiosity; she knew it was. Already part of her was wondering what was written there, what her mother had wanted to say to her daughter once she reached twenty-one. Had Rebecca loved her baby? Hated her because she had complicated her life? Did she say who Brianna’s father was? Had she even known who he was?

Did it matter? Did any of it matter? It was the past, the principal player dead and buried long ago—

‘He’s still alive, you know.’ Nathan spoke softly at her side.

She gave him a startled look. ‘Who is?’ She was completely taken aback, both because he seemed to have read her thoughts so easily, and by the statement itself. He had stated earlier that her mother hadn’t said who her father was, that no one knew—

‘Your grandfather,’ Nathan said in reply. ‘Giles is still alive.’

Brianna looked at him uncomprehendingly for several long seconds. That man, the man who had made her grandmother’s and her mother’s lives such a misery, was still living? It didn’t seem fair somehow, not after all the misery he had caused to his family.

‘Did you hear me, Brianna?’ Nathan glanced at her frowningly. ‘I said—’

‘I heard you,’ she said tensely, surprised—and pleased!—to see that they had arrived at the hospital. ‘Thank you for the lift, Nathan.’ She gave him a bright, meaningless smile. ‘I’ll see you later this evening.’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.