‘So tell me about this new Phelix Bradbury.’

‘There’s not a lot to tell,’ she replied. ‘I worked hard—and here I am.’

‘And that covers the last eight years?’ Nathan queried sceptically.

He halted, and she halted with him, and all at once they were facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes. And her heart suddenly started to go all fluttery, so that she had to turn from him to get herself together. She supposed she had always known that this—‘the day of reckoning’—would come.

She took a deep breath as she recognised that day was here.

Get ready to be swept off your feet by perfect English gentlemen!

Mills & Boon® Romance brings you another fabulous, heart-warming read by bestselling author

Jessica Steele

Jessica’s classic love stories will whisk you into a world of pure romantic excitement…

Praise for the author:

‘…Jessica Steele pens an unforgettable tale filled with vivid, lively characters, fabulous dialogue and a touching conflict.’ —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

Jessica Steele lives in the county of Worcestershire, with her super husband, Peter, and their gorgeous Staffordshire bull terrier, Florence. Any spare time is spent enjoying her three main hobbies: reading espionage novels, gardening (she has a great love of flowers), and playing golf. Any time left over is celebrated with her fourth hobby: shopping. Jessica has a sister and two brothers, and they all, with their spouses, often go on golfing holidays together. Having travelled to various places on the globe, researching backgrounds for her stories, there are many countries that she would like to revisit. Her most recent trip abroad was to Portugal, where she stayed in a lovely hotel, close to her all-time favourite golf course. Jessica had no idea of being a writer until one day Peter suggested she write a book. So she did. She has now written over eighty novels.

FALLING FOR HER CONVENIENT HUSBAND

BY

JESSICA STEELE

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

PHELIX had not wanted to come. Oh, she loved Switzerland, but her previous visits had always been in winter when the skiing was good.

Yet now it was September and, apart from the remains of winter’s snow on some of the highest peaks, there was no snow. In fact the weather was sunny and beautiful. And here she was in Davos Platz, having arrived last night—and still feeling very annoyed because, in her view, there was no earthly reason for her to be there.

It was ‘business’ her father said. What business? She was a corporate lawyer working for Edward Bradbury Systems, her father’s company. But she could not for the life of her see why any lawyer, corporate of otherwise, would need to attend a week-long scientific, electronic, electrical and mechanical engineering conference!

‘I can’t see why I have to go,’ she had protested when her father had informed her of the arrangements he had made.

‘Because I say so!’ Edward Bradbury had replied harshly.

At one time she would have accepted that. Would have had to accept it, she knew. But not any longer. Not blindly, and certainly not without question. In the past she had been forced to accept every edict her control-freak father uttered. But not now. So, ‘Why?’ she challenged. It had taken a long while for her to get where she was, to get to be the person she now was. There was nothing left now of the weak and pathetic creature she had been eight years ago. ‘If it’s work related, I could understand a need. But for me to spend a week in Switzerland with a load of scientists who—’

‘Networking!’ Edward Bradbury chopped her off, but unbent sufficiently to explain that there had been whispers for some while that JEPC Holdings, one of the biggest names in the industry, were about to outsource a vast amount of their engineering. He had now, personally, along with the top brass from other competing companies, been invited to make the same Swiss trip next week, when the top men from JEPC would be flying in for a round of exploratory talks, give a general outline, and chat with the various highest of executives. ‘It will mean millions to whichever company gets the contract,’ he stated, money signs flashing in his eyes. Phelix still did not see, since as yet there was not a sign of any contract, why she had to go. ‘I’m sending Ward and Watson with you. I want you all to keep an ear to the ground; listen for anything else going on that I need to know about.’

Duncan Ward and Christopher Watson were both scientists and wizards when it came to electronics. But Phelix doubted that there would be anything going on apart from a load of boring old speeches. It made her feel a little better, though, that the two scientists, both men she liked, would be there too.

‘I’ve booked you into one of the very best hotels,’ her father stated—as if that was an inducement!

‘Duncan Ward and Chris Watson too?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ he replied stiffly. And that, as far as he was concerned, was that.

It was not that, as far as Phelix was concerned. The very next day she went to see Henry Scott, her friend and mentor, and who was also the company’s most senior corporate lawyer. Henry was nearing sixty and, through their various conversations over the years, she had learned he had been a very good friend to her mother.

He must have been an excellent friend, Phelix had long since realised. Because it had been Henry that her mother had called on the night she had died. The night she had taken all the cruelty she could take from her domineering husband and had attempted to run away from him.

Phelix’s thoughts drifted back to that dreadful time. Back to that awful night. It had been a foul night when, pausing only to make that phone call and to throw some clothes on, Felicity Bradbury had fled her home. When she pieced everything together afterwards, Phelix thought that her mother must have seen car headlights coming towards her in the storm thrashing about overhead, and had run out into the road in the blinding rain. It had not been Henry, and the car driver had stood no chance of not hitting her. Henry had been held up by a tree that had crashed over in the storm and which had blocked the road. By the time he had found another route and reached her home, he had been acquainted with the news he had arrived too late. The police had waved him on.

But while he had not been in time to help Felicity, he had made sure that her daughter would not ask for his help in vain.

It had been Henry who, almost eight years ago now, had aided Phelix when she had decided that she wanted a career of some sort. He had taken her seriously to suggest, ‘Being a corporate lawyer is really not as dull as it may sound.’

‘You think I could become a lawyer?’ she’d asked, for one of the few times in her listless life feeling a surge of excitement at the thought.

‘I know you could—if that is what you want. You’re bright, Phelix. It will mean a tremendous amount of hard work, but we’ll get you there, if indeed law is what you fancy doing.’

And she had rather thought she did fancy a career in law. She had recently—no thanks to her father—had quite a lot to do with lawyers. She had found them upright and trustworthy which, having discovered the duplicity of her father’s nature at first hand, was more than she could say for him.

He, needless to say, had not cared for the idea of her taking up legal training—most probably because it was not his idea. But by then she’d been on the way to receiving ten percent of the very substantial sum of money her grandfather—the same type of hard nut as her father—had left her.

‘I said no!’ Edward Bradbury Junior had declared vociferously. ‘I forbid it!’

She had still been in awe of her father in those days. But, having only a short while ago been party to the biggest untruth of all time, she had again felt the stirrings of breaking free from the chains of his life-long dictatorship over her.

‘Actually, Father, I’m eighteen now, and no longer require your permission,’ she had dared.

He had taken a step nearer and, purple with rage, had looked as though he might strike her. And it had taken every scrap of her courage not to cower back from him, but to stand her ground.

‘I’m not paying for your years of training!’ he had spat at her, enraged.

‘You don’t need to,” she had answered, still watching out for his clenching and unclenching fists at his side. ‘I’ve been to see Grandfather Bradbury’s solicitors. They tell me—’

‘You’ve done what?’

He had heard, she was not going to repeat it. ‘They were most surprised to learn that the letters they had sent me had gone astray.’ Not half as surprised as she had been to hear the full contents of her grandfather’s bequests to her—nor the conditions imposed. ‘But what happened to my private and confidential mail is no longer important. I now know I have sufficient money to fund my own studies.’

Edward Bradbury had thrown her an evil look. She’d always been aware that he had no love or liking for her, and in the days when it had mattered to her she had wondered if it would have been different had she been the son he had so desperately wanted. But his love and liking had never been there, and had he ever loved her mother that love had died stone cold dead when she had failed to produce the male heir he’d so badly wanted.

‘Would you like me to leave home?’ Phelix had been brave enough to volunteer, more than hoping he would say yes.

She supposed she had known in advance that he would say no—she was the buffer between him and their housekeeper, Grace Roberts. In actual fact Phelix knew that Grace had only stayed on after her mother, the gentle Felicity, had been killed, for her sake. Edward Bradbury was under no illusion that if his daughter left then Grace, who was only a few years away from retirement anyway, would leave too. He enjoyed Grace’s cooking, enjoyed the fact that his shirts were laundered exactly as he liked them, enjoyed that his home was run on oiled wheels—he had not the smallest interest in spending his time trying to find a new housekeeper who would only measure halfway up to Grace’s standards.

‘No, I wouldn’t!’ he had reported bluntly, and stormed out of the room.

Phelix came out of her reverie and supposed she ought to make tracks for the Kongresszentrum. But she had little enthusiasm for the day’s events: a general introduction and getting to know some of the people. ‘Networking’ as her father called it.

She was more than a little off him at the moment. Had she not made that phone call to Henry from the airport before she had left yesterday she would probably not have known until today exactly why her father was so insistent that she attend.

‘Do I really have to go, Henry?’ she had asked the senior lawyer.

‘Your father will play hell if you don’t,’ he’d answered gently. ‘Though…’ He’d paused.

‘What?’ Phelix had asked quickly, sensing something was coming that she might not be too happy about.

‘Um—you’re coming back a week tomorrow, right?’

‘I’ll come back as soon as I can. Though I suppose I’d better stick it out until then. My father and all the big chiefs will be there from a week Wednesday—thank goodness I don’t have to be!’

‘Er—not all the bigwigs are leaving it until next week,’ Henry informed her kindly—and suddenly her heart lurched.

There was a roaring in her ears. No, she definitely wasn’t going! Though, hold on a minute, her father would never send her on this mission if he thought for a single moment that he would be there.

‘Who?’ she asked faintly, wanting confirmation and urgently.

‘Ross Dawson,’ Henry supplied, and a whole welter of relief surged through her.

To be followed a few seconds later by a spurt of annoyance at yet another sign of her father’s underhandedness. Ross Dawson was a few years older that her own twenty-six years. He was the son of the chairman of Dawson and Cross and, it had to be said, had a ‘thing’ for her despite Phelix telling him frequently and often that he was wasting his time.

‘Do me a favour, Henry?’

‘I’ve already done it.’ He laughed, and she laughed too. All too plainly Henry Scott had known that she would check in with him before she left London.

‘Where am I staying?’ she asked, loving Henry that, without waiting to ask, he had transferred her hotel booking.

‘A lovely hotel half a mile or so from the conference centre,’ he replied. ‘You’ll be more than comfortable there.’

‘You’ve cancelled my other reservation?’

‘Everything’s taken care of,’ Henry assured her.

She rang off a few minutes later, knowing that her father would go up the wall if he ever found out. But she did not care. It went without saying that Ross Dawson would be staying at the hotel she had previously been booked into—her father would have got that piece of information to him somehow.

Deciding she had better be going, Phelix checked her appearance in the full length mirror. She’d had her usual early-morning swim, in the hotel’s swimming pool this time, and was glowing with health. She stared at the elegant and sophisticated unsmiling woman who looked back at her, with black shiny hair that curved inwards just below her dainty chin. She used little make-up, and did not need to. She wore an immaculate trouser suit of a shade of green that brought out to perfection the green of her eyes.

Phelix gave a small nod of approval to the female she had become. There was nothing about her now—outwardly, at any rate—of the shy, long hair all over the place, gauche apology for a woman she had been eight years ago. And she was glad of it—it had been a hard road.

Having hired a car in Zurich and driven to Davos, she opted to walk to the conference centre, and left her hotel quietly seething that her father so wanted an ‘in’ with Dawson and Cross that he was fully prepared to make full use of Ross Dawson’s interest in, not to say pursuit of her to that end. He was obviously hoping that by spending a week in close proximity of each other, with limited chance of her avoiding Ross, something might come of it!

She wouldn’t put it past her father to even have telephoned in the first instance on some business pretext, and then casually let Ross, a director of Dawson and Cross, know that his daughter would be in Davos for a whole week.

She felt hurt as well as angry that her father, having sold her once, cared so little for her he was fully prepared to do it again. Over her dead body!

But, thanks to Henry having got wind of what was going on, he had been able to forewarn her, and at least do a little something to limit the time she had to spend with Ross. Not that she didn’t like Ross. She did. She just had an extreme aversion to being manipulated. And, in the light of past events, who could blame her?

She knew that her father had been having a liaison with his PA, Anna Fry, for years. She wished he would concentrate his attentions more on Anna, and leave his daughter out of his scheming.

As Phelix neared the Kongresszentrum she saw other smartly dressed representatives making their way towards the entrance. She would be glad to see Chris and Duncan, she realised, and hoped nobody else would wonder, as she had before Henry had tipped her off, what possible reason she could have for being there. At least she had been spared the surprise of seeing Ross Dawson unexpectedly.

She made her way inside the building, hoping there were no other unexpected surprises waiting for her on this trip.

‘Where did you get to?’ She turned to find that Duncan Ward and Chris Watson had spotted her coming in and had come over to her. ‘We looked high and low for you last night. Reception said you hadn’t checked in.’

It was gratifying to know that they had been concerned about her. ‘I should have let you know,’ she apologised. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I’d prefer a hotel a bit further away.’

‘As in I might have to put up with you two talking shop during the day, but I want some rest from it in the evenings?’ Chris grinned.

‘Not at all.’ She laughed, and did not have a chance to say anything else because someone was calling her name.

‘Phelix!’ She looked over to where Ross Dawson was making his way over to her. ‘Phelix Bradbury!’ he exclaimed as he reached her.

‘Hello, Ross,’ she replied, and was about to make some comment with regard to his act of being surprised to see her there when, even as Ross kissed her on both cheeks, she caught a glimpse of a tall, dark-haired man standing with a blonde woman and another man. But it was the dark-haired man that held Phelix riveted. She felt a deafening silent thunder in her ears, but even as she tried to deny that he was here after all, it took everything she had to keep her expression composed. She glanced casually away, but not before she noticed that he had been looking at nowhere but her!

Her insides were all of a jangle. She had not seen him in eight years, and only twice before then, but she would know him anywhere! She had been just eighteen then, he twenty-eight. That would make him thirty-six now.

Phelix began to get herself more of one piece when she realised that, thankfully, he could not possibly have recognised her. She was nothing remotely like the awkward and, in her view, late-developing teenager she had been then. But that was it—she was out of here!

But, having grown a veneer of sophistication, even if her insides were now feeling like just so much jelly, Phelix knew she could not just simply cut and run. But she wasn’t staying, that was for sure! As soon as she possibly could, she would tell either Chris or Duncan that she had forgotten something, had a headache, a migraine, athlete’s foot—she didn’t care what—and was going back to her hotel. From there she would make arrangements to fly back to England.

Hoping against hope that he was a figment of her imagination, she found she was irresistibly drawn to glance over to him again. It was him! He was tall, but even so would have stood out from the crowd of people milling around.

She slid her glance from him to the other man standing with him, and on to the close to six feet tall glamorous blonde woman. His girlfriend? Certainly not his wife.

Oh, heavens, he was looking her way again. Phelix flicked her glance from him. She was not unused to men giving her a second look, so knew his second glance was no more than passing interest. But, apart from his female companion, herself and several other women, the conference seemed to be a predominantly male affair.

She tried to tune in to what Ross and the other two were babbling on about, but when she felt as much as surreptitiously glimpsed the man leaving his companions, so her wits seemed to desert her.

But—oh, help—he seemed to be making his way in her direction! Dying a thousand deaths, Phelix prayed that he was making his way elsewhere, or that if he was perhaps coming over to say hello to Ross, that Ross would not think he had to introduce them; the name Phelix was a dead give-away.

He halted as he reached them and her mouth dried and her heart raced like a wild thing. ‘Ross,’ she heard him greet Ross Dawson, and saw him nod to Duncan and Chris. And then he turned his cool grey eyes on her. How she remained outwardly calm as, for the longest second of her life, he studied her, she never knew. And then casually, every bit as if he had seen her every day of his life for the past eight years, ‘How are you, Phelix?’ he asked.

Her throat was so dry she didn’t think she would be able to utter a word. But the poise she had learned since she had last seen him stood her in good stead. ‘Fine, Nathan,’ she murmured. ‘You?’

‘You know each other?’ Ross asked.

‘From way back,’ Nathan Mallory drawled, his eyes still on her. She guessed he couldn’t believe the evidence of his vision; the change in her from the frightened timid mouse she had been eight years previously to the cool, collected and polished woman who stood before him now.

‘You’re here for the conference?’ she enquired, and could have bitten out her tongue for having asked so obvious a question.

‘One of our speakers had to drop out. As I intended coming this way, I thought I might as well come early and fill in for him.’

She smiled, nodded—she knew darn well his name had not been down on the programme as one of the speakers. She, knowing he was likely to be in Davos next week with the other heads of businesses, had scrutinised the list of speakers very thoroughly before at last bowing to her father’s insistence that she come this week as part of the Edward Bradbury Systems entourage.

‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she managed, striving with all she had to hold down the dreadful feelings of anxiety that were trying to get a hold—she hadn’t felt like this in years! ‘I think I have to register in.’

Somehow or other she was able to make her legs take her in the direction she wanted them to go. And later, having had no intention of still being there but somehow having been swept along, she was in a seat, listening without taking in a word of what the introductory speaker was droning on about.

She had by then started to recover from seeing Nathan Mallory again after all those years. As well as being tall with dark hair, Nathan was handsome—quite devastatingly so. A man who could have any woman he chose. But Nathan Mallory—she drew a shaky breath—was her husband! She, for all she went by the name Phelix Bradbury, was in actual fact Mrs Nathan Mallory. Phelix Mallory. Oh, my word!

As she twisted her wedding ring on her finger—the marriage band he had put there—her thoughts flew back to more than eight years ago. She ceased to hear the speaker’s voice and was back in the cold, cheerless home she shared with her father in Berkshire. She was no longer in the conference hall, but was in her father’s study, back before she had met Nathan.

Her grandfather, cold and forbidding Edward Bradbury Senior, had died shortly after her mother. Phelix had missed her warm and loving mother so much, and later realised that, perhaps needing warmth and comfort at that time, she had been ready to imagine herself in love when Lee Thompson, their gardener’s son, home on vacation from university.

It seemed as though she had always known Lee. She had always been shy with people, but he’d seemed to understand that as their romance blossomed.

Though he’d left it to her to seek her father out in his study and tell him that she and Lee were going to marry.

‘Marry!’ her father had roared, utterly astounded.

‘We love each other,’ she had explained.

‘You might love him—we’ll see how much he thinks of you!’ Edward Bradbury had retorted dismissively. And that had been the end of the conversation —and the end of her romance.

She had seen neither Lee nor his father again. When Lee had not phoned as he had said he would she had telephoned him, and had learned that his father had been dismissed from his job and that Lee had been bribed—for that was what it amounted to—to sever all contact with her.

She had been too shocked to fully take in what Lee was saying. ‘What do you mean—my father will pay off all your student loans?’ she had protested.

‘Look, Phelix, I’m in hock up to my ears. I was mad to think we could marry and make a go of it. We’d be broke for years! You’re not working and—’

‘I’ll get a job,’ she’d said eagerly.

‘What could you do? You’re trained for nothing. Any money you’d be able to bring in would be nothing at all like as much as we’d need to keep us afloat.’

That was when a pride she hadn’t known she had started to bite, and she had taken a deep breath. ‘So, for money you’d forget all our plans, all we ever said? All—’

‘I have no choice. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking to you now. I’m risking the bonus your old man promised me if I—’

‘Goodbye, Lee,’ she had cut in, and had put down the phone.

After that she hadn’t cared very much what happened. But a few days later she had been able to accept that, her pride feeling more bruised than her heart, that she had been more fond of Lee than in love with him. And that in fact what lay at the base of her wanting to marry him was more an urgent desire for change of some sort. More a need for some kind of escape from this—nothingness. For the chance to leave home, the chance to get away from her intimidating father.

And, since it was for sure Lee had not been in love with her either, she’d realised that any marriage they’d made would probably not have lasted. Not that she had seen her father’s actions as doing her a favour. She had not. She’d still wanted to get away. But she supposed then that she must have been living in some kind of rose-tinted never-land, because when she’d got down to thinking about leaving and striking out on her own, she had known that she just could not afford to leave. She could not afford to live in even the cheapest hostel. And as Lee had more or less stated—who would employ her?

Another week went by, but just when she had started to feel even more depressed, her father summoned her to his study. ‘Take a seat,’ he invited, his tone a shade warmer than she was used to. Obediently, she obliged. ‘I’ve just been advised of the contents of your grandfather’s will,’ he went on.

‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured politely, wondering why he was bothering to tell her. Grandfather Bradbury had been as miserly as his son, so probably had a lot to leave—but not to her. In any event, she was sure that anything he left was bound to have some ghastly condition attached to it.

‘Your grandfather has been very generous to you,’ her father went on.

‘Really?’ she exclaimed, surprised, Grandfather Bradbury had never shown any sign that he knew she existed when he had been alive.

‘But I’m afraid you are unable to claim your quite considerable inheritance until you are twenty-five,’ he enlightened her. The hope that had suddenly sprung up in her, died an instant death. Bang went her sudden joy at the thought that she could leave home and perhaps buy a place of her own. ‘That is, unless…’ her father murmured thoughtfully.

‘Unless?’ she took up eagerly.

‘Well, you know he had a thing about the sanctity of marriage?’

To her mind he’d had more of a thing about the iniquities of divorce. He’d had a fixation about it ever since his own wife had walked out on him and, despite all his best efforts, had ultimately divorced him. He had passed his loathing of women breaking their wedding vows down to his son. Phelix’s mother had confided in her one time when Edward Bradbury had been particularly foul to her how she had wanted to divorce him years ago. He had gone apoplectic when she’d had the nerve to tell him—delighting in telling her that if she left him she could not take their daughter with her. ‘When you’re eighteen,’ she had promised, ‘we’ll both go.’ And, until that last desperate bid when Phelix had been seventeen, she had stayed.

‘Er—yes.’ Phelix came out of her reverie to see her father drumming his fingers on his desk as he waited for her to agree that his father had had a thing about the sanctity of marriage.

‘So—he obviously wanted you to be happy.’ Her father almost smiled.

‘Ye-es,’ she agreed, knowing no such thing.

‘Which is why a clause was inserted in his will…’ Naturally there was a clause—possibly some snag to prevent her claiming her inheritance even when she was twenty-five, ‘…to the effect that if you marry before you are twenty-five you will be eligible to receive ten percent of the considerable sum he has left you.’

‘Honestly?’ she gasped, her spirits going from low to high, then back down to positive zero. Oh, if only this had happened a couple of weeks ago. She could have married Lee and claimed that ten percent and have been free! Well, not entirely free. Only now did she fully accept that she was glad her romance with Lee had gone no further. Marriage to him would have been a big mistake.

‘Your grandfather plainly did not want you to suffer financial hardship in any early marriage you made.’

‘I—see,’ she answered quietly.

‘And how do you feel about that?’

Her father was actually inviting her opinion about something? That was a first. ‘Well, I wouldn’t have minded having a little money of my own,’ she dared. With her father forbidding her to take any lowly job which would shame him, he made her a tiny allowance that, at best, was parsimonious.

‘We’ll have to see if we can’t find you a suitable husband,’ he, having paid off her one chance of marriage, had the nerve to state.

It was the end of that particular discussion, but less than forty-eight hours later he had again called her into his study and invited her to take a seat.

‘That little problem,’ he began.

‘Problem?’

He gave her an impatient look that she hadn’t caught on to what he was talking about. ‘The husband I said I’d find for you.’

‘I don’t want a husband!’ she’d exclaimed, appalled.

‘Of course you do.’ He overrode her initial protest. ‘You want your inheritance, don’t you?’ he demanded. ‘Ten percent of it represents a considerable amount of money.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘It goes without saying that the marriage will be annulled before the ink is dry on your marriage certificate,’ he had bulldozered on. ‘But that certificate is all I need to take to your grandfather’s solicitors and—’

‘Just a minute,’ she dared to cut in, ‘are you saying that you’ve found a man for me to marry so that I can claim that ten percent?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

She couldn’t believe it and stared at him dumbfounded. ‘Is it Lee?’ she asked out of her confused thoughts.

‘Of course it isn’t him!’ Edward Bradbury snapped.

‘But—but you have found someone…’

‘God Almighty!’ her father cut in, exasperated. But then, obviously counting to ten, ‘Yes, that’s what I’ve just said.’

Her tutors had said she had a quick brain—Phelix wondered where it was when she needed it. ‘You’re saying that as soon as I’ve got that—um—marriage certificate that the solicitors want to see, I can divorce—er—this man?’ She wasn’t going to marry anybody! Besides, her father hated divorce—there was something fishy going on here.

‘You won’t need to divorce him. Since you’ll never live with him, an annulment will suffice.’

In spite of herself, with freedom beckoning, Phelix had to own to feeling a spark of interest. Even perhaps the small stirrings of a little excitement.

‘How old is he?’ she asked, telling herself she was not truly interested, but not relishing the idea of marrying one of her father’s Methuselah-like cronies.

‘I’ve checked him out. He’s twenty-eight.’

That spark of interest became a flicker of flame. Twenty-eight? That was all right. She could marry and claim that ten percent, and… ‘And he, this man, he’s willing to go through a form of marriage with me so that I can claim some of my inheritance?’ she questioned. Even while wanting to get away from the environment she lived in, she discovered that she did not trust her father enough to go into this blindly.

‘That’s what I’ve just said,’ he replied tetchily.

At that stage Phelix had not known just how diabolical and underhand her father could be if the occasion demanded it. But, even so, something just didn’t seem to her to tie up.

She started to use what her teachers had said was her good brain. ‘What is in it for him?’

‘What do you mean, what’s in it for him?’

Phelix had no idea of her potential. All she saw was that she was a dowdy, unemployable newly eighteen-year-old, with little to recommend her. And while it was true that by the sound of it her marriage would be annulled as quickly as made, she could not see any man willingly marrying her just because her father asked him to.

‘Does he work for you?’ she asked, suspecting that some poor man was being pressured in some way to do the deed.

Edward Bradbury’s thin mouth tightened at having his slip of a daughter daring to question him. ‘He and his father have their own scientific electronics company,’ he answered shortly.

She knew she was making her father angry. Indeed knew she should be jumping at this chance to have her own money. But, ‘I don’t get it,’ she persisted.

‘For heaven’s sake!’ her father erupted on a burst of fury. But he managed to control himself to state more calmly, ‘If you must know, I heard a whisper that Nathan Mallory and his father are in a hole, financially. I approached the son and said I’ll bail him out if in return he’ll do this small thing for me.’

Her father was helping out a competitor? She found that hard to believe. On the other hand, as her need for freedom gave her a nudge and then a positive push, what did she know about what went on in big business?

‘You’ve said you’ll give him some money if—’

‘Not give!’ That sounded more like her father. ‘I’ve said that in return for him marrying you—a marriage he will not be stuck with—’ thank you very much ‘—I will that day hand over a substantial cheque, a loan repayable two years hence. Now, anything else you need to know before…?’

By the sound of it she would be doing this Nathan Mallory as much of a favour as he would be doing her. That made her feel a little better. ‘He—er—knows it isn’t permanent?’ She found she needed to qualify. ‘The marriage, I mean. You’re sure he knows…’

Her father did not attempt to spare her feelings but, as harsh as he more normally was, told her forthrightly, ‘I’ve seen a sample of the fashionable beauties he favours—take my word for it, he’ll be at his lawyers annulling your marriage before the first piece of confetti has blown away.’

It had not turned out quite like that. Nor had there been any confetti. In fact it had turned out vastly different from the way Edward Bradbury had had in mind. He had thought they could be married by special licence and it would all be over and done with within a week. But in actual fact they’d had to appear at the register office in person, and give fifteen clear days’ notice of their intent to marry.

So it was that, three weeks before the proposed marriage date, Phelix had presented herself at the register office and met for the first time the man she was to marry. Had she been hoping that her father would be there to ease any awkwardness, then she would have been disappointed. He had an ‘important business meeting.’ Why would he need to be there, for goodness sake!

‘How will I know him?’ she’d asked anxiously.

‘He’ll know you.’

From that she’d gathered that her father had given him a description of her. As it appeared he had, for a tall dark-haired man had been there a minute after her and had come straight over to her. ‘Hello, Phelix,’ he’d said, and she had almost died on the spot. Already, aged twenty-eight, there had been an air of sophistication about him. Oh, my heavens—and she was going to marry him!

‘Hello,’ she’d answered shyly, knowing she was blushing, but calming herself by remembering that this was not going to be a marriage, just a ceremony.

‘We seem to have a minute or two to wait. Shall we sit over here?’ he’d suggested, his tone cultured, well modulated.

Lightly he touched a hand to her elbow and directed her to a corner of the room which for the moment they had to themselves. She wanted to say something, anything, but even if she could have thought of anything remotely clever to say she felt too much in awe to say a word.

But not so him, and it appeared, while being perfectly civil and polite, he wanted there to be no misunderstanding of the reasons why they were both doing what they proposed to do. Because without further delay, he asked, ‘You’re quite happy to go through with this, Phelix?’

Shyly she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she answered, her voice barely above a whisper.

‘And your reasons are as your father stated?’ he pressed, clearly wanting everything cut and dried before he committed himself further.

‘My gr-grandfather… Um, I can’t claim my inheritance from my grandfather until I’m twenty-five. But if I marry I can have ten percent of it,’ she began, her voice growing stronger. ‘And—er—the thing is, I’d quite like to have some money of my own.’

‘You’re thinking of going to university?’ Nathan enquired.

‘No,’ she replied, feeling it would be disloyal to reveal that her father had vehemently vetoed that suggestion long since.

‘You don’t work?’

She blushed again. How could she tell someone who must obviously respect her father that her father was so controlling that anything she suggested, or her mother when she had been alive, had always been very firmly trodden on by Edward Bradbury?

‘No,’ she repeated. And, fed up with herself that she seemed to be totally spiritless, ‘I believe you have financial considerations too, for going through with this?’ she said.

Nathan Mallory looked at her then, taking in her long pulled-back hair that revealed her dainty features, observing her splendid complexion, seeming to drink in her face with his steady grey eyes on her wide green ones. ‘It will be years before I’m financially in a position to marry for real,’ he stated. He was serious still as he dotted the last i and crossed the last t. ‘You understand, Phelix, that our marriage ends at the register office door?’

‘That will suit me perfectly,’ she responded primly. And suddenly he had smiled—and she had fallen a little in love with him.

CHAPTER TWO

A BURST of applause brought Phelix back to the present. ‘That was pretty good, don’t you think?’ Duncan Ward, seated next to her, brought her the rest of the way back to the world of commerce.

‘I’ll say,’ she responded, having not taken in a word.

‘Coming for coffee?’ called a voice from the aisle. It was Ross Dawson who had detached himself from the group he was with.

Phelix turned to her two colleagues. ‘Shall we?’ she asked. Chris Watson adopted a bland expression, knowing full well he had not been included in Ross Dawson’s invitation.

‘I’m so dry I couldn’t lick a stamp,’ he accepted.

A few minutes later Phelix was waiting with Duncan while Chris and Ross went to get them coffee.

‘Are you staying the full week?’ Duncan asked. He and Chris had flown out on an earlier flight, and this was their first chance to catch up.

‘My father thinks it will benefit the company if I stay for the end of speeches get-together on Monday evening.’ She still couldn’t see how. Though her urgent need to bolt of a couple of hours ago did not now seem as urgent as it had. Plainly Nathan, after coming over and asking ‘How are you?’ while being perfectly happy to acknowledge that he knew her, had no intention of telling anybody that he was her husband any more than she had.

She glanced to her left as Ross and Chris joined them—her eyes seemed somehow to be drawn in that direction. Nathan was there in her line of vision, talking to the tall blonde.

With her insides churning, Phelix flicked her glance from him. It seemed to her then that Nathan Mallory had always had some kind of effect on her. Right at this moment she again felt like taking off. But, having discovered over the last eight years that she had far more backbone than she had up to then always supposed, she made herself stay put and smiled, laughed when amused, and generally chatted with her three male companions.

‘Have lunch with me?’ Ross asked as they made their way back to their seats.

‘Sorry. I’ve some work I want to look through.’

‘You can’t work all the time!’ he protested.

Sitting listening to speeches, even if she didn’t take in a word, hardly seemed like work to her. ‘There’s no answer to that,’ she replied, smiling gently at him. It wasn’t his fault that on the man-woman front he did nothing for her.

‘Dinner, then?’ he persisted.

She almost said yes if it included Chris and Duncan. But from their point of view they probably wanted to let their hair down away from the boss’s daughter.

So she smiled. Ross was harmless enough. ‘Provided you don’t ask me to marry you again, I’d love to,’ she agreed.

‘You’re hard-hearted, Phelix. If ever I catch up with that mythical husband of yours, I shall tell him so.’

‘Seven o’clock at your hotel.’ She laughed, and glanced from him straight into the eyes of Nathan Mallory. He was no myth.

She smiled, acknowledging him. For a split second he stared at her solemnly. And then he smiled in return—and her heart went thump!

Phelix was in her seat, determined not to let her mind stray again. The current speaker was a bit dry, but she concentrated on key words—‘state of the market’ and ‘systems and acquisitions’—and still couldn’t see what she was doing there—apart from Ross Dawson, of course, and the idiotic pipedream her father seemed to have that if she and Ross Dawson became one, Edward Bradbury might one day rule a Bradbury, Dawson and Cross empire.

No chance. Ross had spoken of her ‘mythical husband.’ Quite when she had let it generally be known that she was married she wasn’t sure.

Probably around the same time as she had discovered the extent of her father’s unscrupulous behaviour.

Probably around the same time her backbone had started to stiffen. Prior to that, having learned a passive ‘anything for a quiet life’ manner from her mother, she would never have dreamed of going against her father’s wishes. Though, on thinking about it, perhaps Nathan standing up to him had been the wake-up call she had needed.

Realising she was in danger of drifting off again, Phelix renewed her concentration on what the speaker was saying. ‘Face-to-face meetings are better than a video link,’ he was opining. What that had to do with their businesses she hadn’t a clue, and knew she was going to have to pay closer attention. Though in her view it was still farcical that she was there at all.

With quite a long break for lunch, Phelix took herself off back to her hotel. Her father had wanted her to ‘network’ so he said. Tough! That was a lie, anyway.

Up in her room, she went to open her laptop. But, feeling mutinous all of a sudden, she ignored it. She didn’t feel like working. She took some fruit and the cellophane wrapped slice of cake from the platter residing on a low table, added the chocolate that had been placed on her pillow when her bed had been turned down last night, went out to the balcony and stretched out on the sun-lounger.

The scenery was utterly fantastic. In the foreground a church—complete with clockface to remind her that she had to attend the conference centre that afternoon—and behind, towering, majestic mountains. Forests of pine trees right and left. Tall… Somehow she found she was thinking of tall, towering Nathan Mallory—and this time she let her thoughts go where they would.

They had married, she and Nathan, on a warm, humid day. She had worn what she had thought then, but blushed about now, to be a smart blue two piece. She supposed she must have worried a bit, after she had bought it because it had fitted her then. But on her wedding day, it had literally hung on her. Nathan—a stern-faced Nathan—had worn a smart suit for the occasion.

Because he’d been waiting for an extremely important business telephone call her father had been unable to attend, but had said he would be home when they got there. And that had annoyed Nathan because it had meant he would have to go back with her to her home to exchange their marriage certificate for the cheque that would save Mallory and Mallory from losing everything.

‘I’m s-sorry,’ she’d stammered, half believing from Nathan’s tough look that he would change his mind about going through with it.

But apart from muttering, ‘What sort of a father is he?’ Nathan had kept to his part of the bargain—even to the extent of holding her hand as they came away from the register office.

‘Is that it?’ she’d asked nervously.

‘That’s it,’ he had confirmed. ‘I expect there’ll be a few more formalities to deal with to undo the knot…’

But the knot had never been undone. It should have been. They had originally planned it should be so. But, as matters had turned out, their marriage had never been annulled.

‘Where did you leave your car?’ Nathan had asked.

‘I—um—don’t drive,’ she’d answered, newly married and starting to dislike the wimp of a creature she, through force of circumstance, had become. As soon as she had that ten percent she was going to have driving lessons, despite what her father said. She would buy a car…

‘We’ll go in mine,’ Nathan had clipped, and had escorted her to the car park.

Her home was large, imposing and, despite Grace Roberts’ attempts to brighten it up with a few flowers, cheerless. Grace had had no idea that the daughter of the house had that day married the handsome man by her side, and had been her usual pleasant self to Phelix.

‘Your father had to go out urgently,’ she said. ‘But he left a message for you to leave the document in his study and said he’ll attend to it.’

Hot, embarrassed colour flared to Phelix’s face, a horrible dread starting to take her that her father might be intending to renege on the part of the deal he had made with Nathan Mallory. That Nathan, his competitor, having kept his part of the bargain, had been hung out to dry!

‘Thank you, Grace,’ she managed. ‘Er—this is Mr Mallory…er…’

‘Shall I get you some tea?’ Grace asked, seeming to realise she was struggling.

‘That would be nice,’ Phelix answered and, as Grace went kitchenwards, ‘My father must have left an envelope for you in his study,’ Phelix suggested. Hoping against hope that her fears were groundless, and that there would be an envelope on the desk with Nathan’s name on it, she led the way to the study.

But there was no envelope. Scarlet colour scorched her cheeks again, and she felt she would die of the humiliation of it. ‘I’m s-sorry,’ she whispered to the suddenly cold-eyed man by her side. ‘I’m sure my father will be home soon,’ she went on, more in hope than belief. ‘Shall we have tea while we wait?’

Apart from Henry Scott, who had occasionally in the past called at the house with important papers for her father to sign, Phelix was unused to entertaining anyone. If her father had been delayed, her mother had always offered Henry refreshment of some kind.

So copying her mother’s graceful ways, even if she was feeling awkward, Phelix gave her new and promised to be temporary husband tea.

It was Grace Roberts’ evening off—she was going to the theatre and would be staying with a friend overnight. ‘You’ve everything you need?’ she enquired, with a professional look around.

‘Everything’s fine, thank you, Grace. Enjoy the theatre,’ Phelix bade her.

‘Grace has been with you for some while?’ Nathan, with better manners than her father, stayed civilly polite to ask a question he could have no particular interest in knowing the answer to.

‘About six years—she adored my mother.’

‘Your mother died recently in a road accident, I believe?’

Phelix did not want to talk about it. Never would she forget the horror of that night. The day had been a day similar to today. Warm, sticky, and with thunder in the air.

‘I’m truly very sorry,’ she said abruptly. ‘I can’t think what’s keeping my father.’ And, feeling sure that Nathan did not want to spend a minute longer with her than he had to, ‘Look, if you’ve somewhere you’ve got to be, I can give you a ring the moment my father comes in.’

Nathan Mallory stared at her long and hard then, and she could not help but wonder if he suspected she was giving him the same run-around that her father seemed to be giving him.

But, deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt, ‘I’ll wait,’ he clipped. ‘That cheque is my last remaining option.’

And Phelix knew then from the set of this man’s jaw that, in order to save his firm for him and his father, Nathan Mallory was having to bite on a very unpleasant bullet. Having completed his side of the bargain, he now had to wait for the man who had offered him the deal to complete his part. Yet Phelix just knew, as she looked numbly into Nathan Mallory’s stern grey eyes, that everything in him was urging him to leave. That if there was any other way he would have taken it. She felt humiliated, but that must be nothing to what this proud man must be feeling. And yet for his business, for his father, it was, as he said, his last remaining option.

‘D-does your father know about today?’ she asked tentatively.

‘I thought I’d prefer to have that cheque in my hand before I told him.’

That made her feel worse. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I truly am.’

He looked at her again, and his expression softened slightly. ‘I know,’ he replied.

And the next two hours had ticked by with still no sign of her father.

‘Will you excuse me?’ she said at one point, and went to her father’s study to make a call to her father’s PA. But Anna Fry said she had no idea where he was. ‘Is Mr Scott free?’ Phelix asked. And, when she was put through, ‘Henry? Phelix. Do you know where my father is? I need to contact him rather urgently.’

Henry did not know where he was either. But, alarmed at her anxious tone, he was ready to come over at once to help with her problem, whatever it was. Phelix thanked him, but said it was nothing that important.

So she went back to Nathan, gave him the evening paper to read—and started to grow anxious on another front. The sky had darkened to almost black when she heard the first rumble of thunder. Thunderstorms and their violence terrified her.

She tried to think of something else, but at the first fork of lightning she was again reliving that night—the night her mother had died. There had been one horrendous storm that night. She had been in bed asleep when the first crack of thunder had awakened her. She had sat up in bed, half expecting that her mother would come and keep her company—her mother did not like storms either.

It was with that in mind that as the storm had become more fearsome, Phelix had shot along to her mother’s room to check that she was all right. Only as she had quickly opened the door a fork of lightning, swiftly followed by another, had lit up her mother’s room—and the scene that had met her eyes had sent her reeling. Phelix had plainly seen that her mother was not alone in her bed. Edward Bradbury was there too.

‘What are you doing?’ Phelix had screamed—he was assaulting her mother!

Her father had bellowed at her to leave in very explicit, crude language. But at least her interruption had had the effect of taking his attention briefly away from her mother, and her mother had been able to dive from the bed and pull a robe around her shoulders.

‘Go back to bed, darling,’ she’d urged.

Phelix had not known then which terrified her the more: the violent storm or the dreadful scene she had happened across which was now indelibly imprinted on her mind for evermore.

But there was no way she was going to leave. ‘No, I’ll—’ But she had been urged from the room.

‘We’ll talk about it in the morning,’ her mother had promised, and pushed her to the other side of the door. They had been the last words she had ever said to her. By morning she’d been dead.

A fork of lightning jerked her to awareness that she was in her father’s drawing room with the man she had that day married. It looked as if it was going to be another of those horrendous storms. Rain was furiously lashing at the windows, and as another fork of lightning speared the room Phelix only just managed to hold back from crying out.

‘W-would you mind very much if I left you to wait by yourself?’ she asked, feeling that at any moment now she would disgrace herself by either shouting out in panic or bolting from him.

‘Not at all,’ Nathan replied and, realising he would probably quite welcome his own company, she fled.

Hoping she could get into bed, hide her head under the bedclothes and wait for morning, when her father would have paid Nathan the money he’d promised, Phelix quickly undressed. No way, with that storm raging, was she going to take her usual shower.

She got into bed, but left her bedside lamp on. She did not want to lie in the dark, when she would again see that ugly scene in her mother’s bedroom that night. Phelix closed her eyes and tried to get some rest. It was impossible.

She had no idea what time it was when, wide awake, she heard the storm which she had hoped had begun to fade return with even greater ferocity. It seemed to be directly overheard when there was a violent crack of thunder like no other—and then the lights went out.

Only vicious forks of lightning, in which she again saw her father’s evil face, her mother’s pleading, illuminated her bedroom. Striving desperately to banish the images tormenting her mind, Phelix made herself remember that she might still have a guest—a husband she had abandoned to his own devices.

Pinning her thoughts on Nathan, who had already been dealt a raw deal by her father and who might now be sitting in the drawing room in the dark, Phelix left her room and raced down the stairs. ‘Nathan!’ she called, her voice somewhere between a cry and a scream as thunder again cracked viciously directly overhead.

In the light of another fork of lightning she saw he was still there, had heard her, had come from the drawing room and had seen her.

‘You all right?’ he asked gruffly.

Words failed her. The fact that he was still there showed how very badly he needed that money. ‘Oh, Nathan,’ she whispered miserably, and in a couple of strides he was over to her, his hands on her arms.

‘Scared?’ he asked gently.

‘T-terrified.’ She was too upset to dissemble.

Nathan placed a soothing arm about her shoulders. ‘You’re shaking,’ he murmured.

‘It was a night like this when my mother was killed,’ she replied witlessly.

‘Poor love,’ he murmured, and she had never known that a man could be so kind, so gentle. ‘Come on, let’s get you back to bed,’ he said.

And, when she was too frozen by the empathy of the moment to be able to move, he did no more than pick her nightdress-clad body up in his arms and carry her up the winding staircase, his way lit by fork after fork of blinding lightning.

Phelix had left her bedroom door open in her rush, and Nathan carried her in and placed her gently under the covers of her bed.

‘Don’t leave me!’ she pleaded urgently as another cannonshot of thunder rent the air.

She was immediately ashamed, but not sufficiently so to be able to tell him she would be all right alone, and, after a moment of hesitation, Nathan did away with his shoes, shrugged out of his suit jacket and came to lie on top of her bed beside her. It was a three quarter size bed, but for all she was five feet nine tall there was not much of her.

‘Nothing can harm you,’ he told her quietly, and in the darkness reached for her hand.

She had gone down the stairs with some vague notion that he would feel uncomfortable sitting alone in a strange house in the dark. But here he was comforting her!

Again she felt ashamed. Then lightning lit the room, and she was again in that nightmare of unwanted visions of that night in her mother’s bedroom not so long ago. She clutched on to Nathan’s hand.

‘Shh, you’re all right,’ he soothed. ‘It will be over soon.’ And, maybe because her grip was threatening to break his fingers, he let go her hand and to her further comfort placed an arm around her thin shoulders. Instinctively she turned into him, burying her face in his chest.

Quite when, or how, she managed to drop off to sleep, she had no notion. But she was jerked awake when her bedside lamp suddenly came on—power restored.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, sitting up. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed again. Nathan was still on the bed with her. He got to his feet and stood, unspeaking, looking at her. ‘Oh, Nathan, I’m so sorry,’ she apologised. The storm was over; normality was back.

He surveyed her troubled eyes, her blushing complexion—and more shame hit her. This man had married her—for nothing. He had trusted her father’s word—for nothing. She wanted to cry, but managed to hold back her tears. This man, her husband, had suffered enough without him having to put up with her tears too.

‘You didn’t have dinner!’ she gasped, suddenly appalled, although she could not have eaten a thing herself. But just then the headlights of a car coming up the drive flashed across the window. ‘My father’s home,’ she offered jerkily, though was not taken aback when Nathan declined to rush out to meet him.

‘I’m surprised he bothered,’ he answered, bending to put on his shoes. But Phelix did not miss the hard note that had come to his voice.

‘What will you do?’ she asked, feeling crushed, sorrowfully knowing for certain now that her father did not intend to honour the deal he had made.

‘Frankly, I honestly don’t know,’ Nathan answered tautly, and suddenly Phelix could not bear it.

‘You can have my money,’ she offered. ‘I don’t know yet how much it will be, but you can have it all. I’ll—’

Nathan smiled then, a grim kind of a smile. ‘Enough is enough,’ he said.

‘You—don’t want it?’

Nathan shook his head. ‘Not to put too fine a point on it, little one, I’d cut my throat before I’d touch a penny of Bradbury money,’ he replied bluntly.

That ‘little one’ saved his remark from being as wounding as it would otherwise have been—and then they both heard the sound that told them that her father was coming up the stairs.

With the light of battle in his eyes, Nathan grabbed up his jacket and went out to confront him. Phelix hated rows, confrontation, but it started the moment her father saw Nathan coming from her bedroom.

‘What the hell game do you think you’re playing?’ Edward Bradbury roared.

‘I might well ask you the same question!’

‘I checked—you married her.’ There was a satisfied note in her father’s voice.

‘I kept my side of the bargain,’ Nathan agreed coldly.

‘Hard luck!’

‘You’re saying that you never had any intention of handing over that cheque?’

‘I thought you’d have twigged before now,’ her father gloated—and that was when Phelix discovered she had more backbone than she had thought. Which made it impossible for her to sit there and listen to the way her father, so careless of her, was so blatantly pleased with himself. ‘You can forget all about getting a cheque from me,’ he crowed.

‘Father!’ Phelix rushed from her room and out to the landing, ashamed, disgusted, and never more embarrassed to have such a parent. ‘You can’t possibly—’

‘Don’t you dare tell me what I can and cannot do!’ her father bellowed.

‘But you owe—’

‘I owe him nothing! He can forget about the money, and—’

‘And you, sir,’ Nathan cut across—furiously, ‘can shove your money!’ And somehow or other—perhaps in the thinking time during the long hours of his wait, perhaps with Phelix offering him the money she was due—Nathan seemed to sense now, when he hadn’t seen it before, that there was more in this for Edward Bradbury than allowing his daughter to have her own money. ‘And while you’re about it,’ he went on, his eyes glinting fury, ‘you can forget about the annulment too!’

That stopped Edward Bradbury dead in his tracks. ‘What are you saying?’ he demanded, looking more shaken than at any time Phelix had ever known.

‘Exactly what it sounds as if I’m saying!’ Nathan Mallory stood up to him.

Phelix saw her father’s glance dart slyly to her bedroom—and saw unadulterated fury sour his expression, none too sweet before. ‘Is this true?’ he turned to demand of his nightdress-clad daughter, his voice rising to a screaming roar when she was not quick enough to answer him. ‘Is this true?’ Hot colour flared to her face. She might be naïve in certain areas, but she knew what he was asking. ‘Is it?’ he shouted.

Her throat felt suddenly dry. She wasn’t sure what was happening here, but by the sound of it—if she’d got it right—Nathan wanted to score off her father by letting him think they had been—lovers.

Colour flared to her face again. Even her ears felt hot. But just then she truly felt that, in the light of her father’s conduct, she owed more loyalty to Nathan, the man she had married, than to her father.

‘If you’re asking have I slept with Nathan since our marriage, Father, then the answer is yes. Yes, I have,’ she answered. She did not dare look at Nathan as she said it, but realised full well what the huge lie implied—just as she realised that she must have said the right thing.

Because without a word to her Nathan, his chin jutting, leaned to her father, told him to, ‘Put that in your dishonourable drum and bang it, Bradbury,’ and walked down the stairs and out of the house.

And that was the last time she had seen him. Though even with her father’s plan for the marriage annulment scuppered it had not prevented Edward Bradbury from searching for an alternative route to get the marriage annulled. He’d still been nefariously plotting when, a few days later, Phelix had discovered exactly why that annulment was so important to him.

Feeling sickened that her own flesh and blood could care so little for her that he could so deliberately attempt to cheat her, Phelix had lost what little respect she’d had for her father. For the first time ever she had dug her heels in and refused to listen to any further talk of an annulment, or for that matter a divorce.

Had Nathan wanted a divorce or an annulment she would have agreed at any time. But he had not made any representation to that effect.

The church clock in front of her chiming the quarter hour brought Phelix back to the present.

Knowing she had to get back to the conference, she jumped up from the sun lounger, her thoughts promptly shooting back to Nathan Mallory. The night of their wedding was the last time she had seen him or had had any contact with him until today. She remembered his gentleness, his arm about her…

Stop it! She made her way to the conference knowing she was going to have to stop drifting off to relive matters that had taken place so long ago. She supposed it was just seeing Nathan again so unexpectedly that had set her off.

It was for sure she would have given Davos a very wide berth had she thought for a moment that he would be here this week. She had been aware, of course, that Mallory and Mallory had long since pulled themselves out of the financial crater they had been in. They were now one of the most top-notch companies in the business. But she had been certain that the heads of such large companies would not be bothered with this week’s conference, but would be circling around from next week, when the big noises from JEPC Holdings would be leading the show.

And yet, as she entered the conference centre, did it matter that Nathan Mallory was here? He had said hello and that was the end of it.

Nevertheless, as she spotted Duncan and Chris and made her way over to them, she could not help but be glad that, although still slender, she had filled out a little, had curves in the right places, and had developed a sense of style that suited her.

She took her seat and noticed Nathan Mallory seated some way away. She had done nothing either about an annulment or a divorce from him. And since she had not received any papers to sign from him, she could only assume that—although he was now more than financially able to support a wife—there could not be anyone in particular in his life.

After striving to concentrate on what the present speaker was talking about—‘Strategy and Vision’—she was glad when they broke for refreshments. She told Chris she was going outside for some air, and made haste before Ross Dawson should waylay her.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and too lovely to be stuck indoors. She strolled out into the adjacent park and felt as near content as at any time in her life. She ambled on, in no hurry, pausing to bend and read the inscription on a monument in tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who had apparently brought the new sport of skiing to the attention of the world by skiing over the mountain from Davos to Arosa.

No mean feat, she was thinking, when a well remembered voice at the back of her asked, ‘Enjoying your freedom?’

She straightened, but knew who it was before she turned around and found herself looking up—straight into the cool grey eyes of Nathan Mallory. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here!’ she exclaimed without thinking.

‘Otherwise you’d have kept away?’

Phelix hesitated, then knew that she did not want Nathan to form an impression that she was as dishonest as her father. It took an effort, but she managed to get herself back together. ‘I still feel dreadful when I think of our last meeting.’ She did not avoid his question. She knew he would never forget their wedding day and its outcome either. ‘You’ve done so well since then,’ she hurried on.

He could have said that it was no thanks to the Bradburys, but by dint of sheer night-and-day labour he and his father had managed to turn their nose-diving company around and into the huge thriving concern that it was today. What he did say was, ‘You haven’t done so badly either, from what I hear.’ He did not comment on the physical change in her, but it was there in his eyes. ‘Shall we stretch our legs?’ he suggested.

She felt nervous of him suddenly. But he had never done her the least harm; the reverse, if anything. She remembered the way he had stayed with her that awful storm-ridden night when she had been so terrified.

It was not an overly large park, and as she stepped away from the monument Nathan matched his step to hers and they strolled the kind of a horse-shoe-shaped path.

‘You heard I studied law?’ she asked, feeling in the need to say something.

‘I’m acquainted with Henry Scott,’ Nathan replied. ‘I bump into him from time to time at various business or fundraising functions. I knew he worked at Bradburys, and asked him once if he knew how you were getting on. He’s very fond of you.’

‘Henry’s a darling. I doubt I’d have got through my exams without his help.’

‘From what he said, I’m sure you would.’ Nathan looked down at her. ‘You’ve changed,’ he remarked.

She knew it was for the better. ‘I needed to! When I look back—’

‘Don’t,’ Nathan cut in. ‘Never look back.’

She shrugged. ‘You’re right, of course.’

‘So tell me about this new Phelix Bradbury.’

‘There’s not a lot to tell,’ she replied. ‘I worked hard—and here I am.’

‘And that covers the last eight years?’ he queried sceptically.

He halted, and she halted with him, and all at once they were facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes. Her heart suddenly started to go all fluttery, so that she had to turn from him to get herself together. She supposed she had always known that this, ‘the day of reckoning,’ would come.

She took a deep breath as she recognised that day was here. ‘What you’re really asking,’ she began as they started to stroll on again, ‘is what was the real reason my father wanted me married and single again with all speed?’ She was amazed that, when she was feeling all sort of disturbed inside somehow, her voice should come out sounding so even.

‘It would be a good place to begin,’ Nathan murmured.

He was owed. Owed more than that she just tell him about herself. And he, she realised, wanted the lot. ‘I’m sure you’ve guessed most of it,’ she commented. She glanced over to him, and caught the slight nod of his head.

‘I was too desperate in my need to save the company to look for hidden angles in your father’s offer. But as I started to take on board that I’d been had, I began to probe deeper. And, while I still didn’t know “what”, it didn’t take a genius to realise—too late,’ he inserted, ‘that there had to be some other reason why your father wanted you in and out of a marriage in five minutes.’

That ‘too late’ made her wince. But she was honest enough to know that it was justified. ‘You were quicker at picking that up than me,’ she remarked, remembering how it had been that night. ‘That’s why you let my father believe an—er—annulment was out of the question, wasn’t it?’

‘It was the first time I’d seen him with you. It was pretty obvious from the way he spoke of and to you that an annulment was more important to him than simply doing a father’s duty and watching out for you. His prime concern, clearly, was that annulment.’ Nathan shrugged. ‘As enraged as I was, the question just begged to be asked—if he was so uncaring, why was he going to such extraordinary lengths to help his daughter gain ten percent of her inheritance.’

‘You knew that there must be some other reason?’

‘By then every last scrap of my trust in the man had gone. It didn’t take long for me to see that, shark that he is, there had to be something in it for him.’

It should, she supposed, have upset her to hear her father referred to as a shark, but what Nathan Mallory was saying was no more than the truth. My word, was he telling the truth! ‘There was,’ she had to agree. Now that she was in possession of the true facts of her grandfather’s will, she was totally unable to defend her father. And since the man she had married had been the one to have suffered most, she did not see how—or why for that matter—she should try to defend her father’s atrocious actions either. ‘There was something in it for him,’ she confessed quietly. ‘Something he had no chance to claim should I stay married.’

Nathan looked down at her as they ambled along. ‘You’re not going to leave it there, I hope?’ he enquired evenly.

For a few seconds Phelix struggled with a sense of disloyalty to her father. But he had long since forfeited any right to her loyalty. And Nathan was owed! ‘My father had plans that would never come to fruition if that annulment did not take place,’ she said at last. ‘But you’d realised that, hadn’t you?’

‘Sensed, more than knew,’ Nathan replied, but asked sharply, ‘Did you know in advance—?’

‘No!’ she protested hotly, not wanting to be tarred by the same disreputable brush as her father. ‘I didn’t so much as suspect…I’d not the smallest idea. I was still totally in the dark the next morning, when Henry Scott came to the house with some paperwork he needed to go through with my father. When my father was hung up with some business on the phone, I made Henry some coffee. Grace, our housekeeper, wasn’t back,’ Phelix vividly recalled.

‘She’d had the previous night off—she’d been to the theatre.’

‘You remember that!’

‘I have forgotten absolutely nothing about that night!’ Nathan said grimly.

Her heart did a peculiar kind of flutter. She had lain in her bed. He had cradled her close. ‘Er—Grace is still with us. She should have retired ages ago, but… Anyway.’ Phelix strove to get back to what they were saying, and came abruptly down to earth when close on that memory she thought of her father returning home that night. ‘I was a bit down—still coming to terms with my mother’s sudden death, and— Well, anyway, Henry—with the patience of a saint, I have to say—dragged from me what had happened.’

‘You told him you’d got married?’ Nathan’s tone had sharpened.

‘There’s no need to sound so tough! I was very upset over the way you had been treated! I told him my father had defaulted on some money he’d promised a businessman—er—who was down on his luck—to marry me. But I never said who the man was, and I never would. Nor, you can be sure, would my father.’

Nathan nodded. ‘So you told Henry Scott that you’d married, and why?’ he prompted.

‘And I’m glad I did,’ she answered. ‘Henry’s got a shrewder head than me. He asked if I’d seen my grandfather’s will. I hadn’t, of course. So Henry then asked me what the letter from my grandfather’s solicitors had said.’

‘But you hadn’t received any letter from them,’ Nathan stated.

‘You’re shrewder than me too,’ she commented.

‘You were standing too close to the picture to see it as Henry Scott and I see it.’

‘I suppose you’re right. Anyhow—’ she broke off. ‘I must be boring you with all of this.’

‘Don’t you dare stop now,’ Nathan ordered. ‘I’ve waited eight years to hear this!’

Phelix flicked him a sharp look. Oh, my, was he owed! ‘I’m—er—trying not to be too disloyal to my father here…’ she began—and had her ears scorched for her trouble.

‘Good God, woman!’ Nathan snarled fiercely, halting in his stride. ‘You think that man deserves your loyalty?’ Phelix stopped walking too and looked up into Nathan’s angry grey eyes. ‘For his own ends—whatever they were—he used you! In doing so he thereby gave up all right to any loyalty from you!’ But suddenly then Nathan seemed to pause in his anger, somehow seeming to collect himself, and he was much less angry when, quietly, he promised, ‘You have my word, Phelix, that whatever it was your father was up to I won’t broadcast it.’

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.