A Daughter's Dilemma

Quite without warning, he twisted to glance over his shoulder at her, eyes narrowing, straight dark brows bunching into a frown.

Carolyn steadfastly ignored the way her heart started pounding. Nerves, she realised, and steeled herself for the fray. At least his almost sullen expression was still the same, she grumbled to herself. Pity he’d cut his hair, though. She would have liked to have more to remind her of the Vaughan of old. But there wasn’t much evidence of those once wild chestnut waves in the dark, damp-looking, semispiked hair that covered the top of his head.

When he kept on staring at her, a breathless anticipation seized Carolyn. Any second now the penny was sure to drop.

But it didn’t! Oh, yes, there was a split second when something hovered behind his eyes, but he lost it, and, shrugging, returned his attention to the brunette.

‘Anthea,’ he said in a deep male voice, ‘I can’t talk to you now. I have a client due at eleven...’

The brunette tossed a glance of her own down the corridor to where Carolyn had frozen on the spot.

‘Look, I’ll ring you later and let you know,’ he went on impatiently.

‘And turn me down, no doubt,’ the brunette huffed. ‘Truly, Vaughan, what have you got against parties? Oh, please do say you’ll come this time, darling. I’m only putting it on for you. I want to show you off to my friends.’

Carolyn actually saw him shudder. ‘Good God, I’m not one of your prized poodles, you know. As for the crowd you mix with being your friends—huh! They’re more your husband’s friends than yours, dear heart,’ he finished with a snort. ‘Especially the women.’

The woman laughed and made the tellingly intimate gesture of straightening his collar. ‘True,’ she murmured, and traced a fingernail along his jawline. ‘That’s just the point. I want all those bitches to see what I’ve finally snared for myself. They’ll be as jealous as sin.’

Carolyn’s whole insides contracted with distaste. He hadn’t changed. Not one iota. She’d had a fleeting worry the other night that she might have misjudged the situation with her mother. But no...he was going along in his usual despicable fashion. At least now he wasn’t seducing lonely, vulnerable single women. He’d moved on to tacky, wealthy married ones. Though if what Julian suspected was right, this Anthea was not the only string to his sexual bow. There was the interior decorator as well. My, but he was a busy boy!

Her lips curled with contempt as she walked right up to them.

‘Mr Slater?’ she said archly.

His companion looked irritated at being interrupted. Vaughan turned and stared hard at her again, as though still trying to place her. Once more his memory failed him, shown by a flicker of frustration in his expressive brown eyes.

You’ll know who I am soon enough, she thought tartly. Then you’ll wish you didn’t, you immoral bastard!

‘Yes?’ he said, a faint frown remaining on his undeniably handsome face.

Carolyn was rather startled at finding herself admitting to this. When she was fourteen, she’d never thought him all that handsome. Attractive, yes. But only in a sexily brooding fashion. Either his facial features had matured favourably in the intervening years, or she’d changed her ideas on what was handsome and what was not. She certainly couldn’t find any fault in the way his face was assembled, from his wide clear forehead to his strong straight nose to his classically chiselled jawline. His eyes, she conceded, had always held some appeal, but she was perturbed to find her own locking with those rich brown depths for an uncomfortable period of time.

‘I’m Julian Thornton’s stepdaughter,’ she said somewhat stiffly at last. ‘I believe you’re expecting me?’

He glanced at his watch which showed right on eleven. As he raised his eyes, Carolyn was subjected to a fleeting but decidedly dismissive sexual scrutiny.

‘I’ll be with you in a few minutes, Miss Thornton,’ he said coolly. ‘If you’ll just go into my office, my secretary will show you a seat.’

Piqued at being made to wait—or was it because he’d found her not worth a second glance?—Carolyn swept on into Suite Three, her face burning. What on earth was wrong with her? Fancy even caring what he thought of her looks! So he was drop-dead handsome. So what? Handsome is as handsome does, she believed. And she knew exactly what Mr Casanova Slater did with the women in his life!

The middle-aged lady behind the reception desk looked up with a ready smile. ‘Miss Thornton?’

Carolyn’s returning smile felt decidedly false within her flushed cheeks. ‘Mr Slater said for you to show me into his office. He’ll be joining me shortly. He’s just saying goodbye to his—er...’ She bit her bottom lip, aware she’d been about to make an uncharacteristically catty remark. ‘I didn’t quite catch the lady’s name,’ she finished lamely.

‘Mrs Maxwell,’ the secretary supplied, and stood up. ‘She’s one of Mr Slater’s best clients.’

Oh, how typical, Carolyn thought, and almost laughed. Well he certainly hadn’t lost his touch when it came to seducing the right women, the ones who were to his financial advantage.

‘Are you sure Mr Slater said you were to wait for him in his office, Miss Thornton?’ the secretary enquired on a puzzled note.

Carolyn blinked her confusion. ‘Yes... I... I’m certain that’s what he said.’

The woman shrugged resignedly. ‘Very well, but I must warn you not to touch anything. Oh, and—er—don’t mind the mess. Mr Slater was working most of the night on a new project, and when he does that he’s inclined to be...um...untidy. He went home a short while back to shower and change and was about to clear everything away in readiness for your visit when Mrs Maxwell arrived unexpectedly. He hasn’t had time since.’

I can imagine, came the caustic thought. ‘I don’t mind a little mess,’ Carolyn lied.

Even so, when she was shown into the room, she was shocked into a wide-eyed silence. Papers and sketches and plans covered every available surface, which included several desks and cabinets, not to mention every chair and sections of the floor. One of the corners contained a pile of screwed-up paper. Several empty coffee-mugs seemed to be being used as paperweights at strategic points. The litter from a couple of visits to McDonald’s was sitting on an old plastic chair beside the main desk.

The secretary picked this latter up with a disapproving ‘tch-tch’. ‘Truly, it’s a wonder that man doesn’t have a weight problem,’ she muttered. ‘The rubbish he stuffs into himself. You’ll have to sit here,’ she added with an apologetic grimace, and indicated the now empty plastic chair. ‘I don’t dare touch any of the rest of it. It might cost me my job if I disturb any of Mr Slater’s papers.’

Carolyn, who was the neatest, most organised person both at work and at home, could only sink down into the seat and stare at the shambles in bewilderment. The whole place was made to look worse by the clarity and peace of the panoramic view provided by the wall of glass beyond it. Carolyn stared out at the crystalline blue waters of the Pacific Ocean and the perfection of clean white sands, then back at the littered room, shaking her head in amazement.

‘But how can he work in this mess?’ she asked.

‘Very well indeed,’ the man himself ground out, making Carolyn flinch as he came in with aggressive strides. ‘Why on earth did you bring her in here, Nora? You know I——’

‘It’s my fault,’ Carolyn broke in hurriedly, bringing a look of relief to the secretary’s instantly stricken face. ‘You told me to wait for you in your office and I naturally assumed...’

Her voice died when she noticed he was frowning at her again. After several excruciating seconds, he tore his eyes away and threw his secretary a withering look. ‘Never bring anyone in here unless I’m present, Nora,’ he snapped. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

The secretary practically quivered in her sensible brogues. ‘Yes, Mr Slater,’ she said, and fled.

‘She’s fairly new,’ he muttered once she’d closed the door. ‘Doesn’t know the ropes yet.’

Maybe you should give her one to hang herself with, Carolyn thought crossly, infuriated at the way he’d spoken to the poor woman.

He strode round behind his desk and began shuffling the papers on it into a still untidy bundle. All of a sudden he sighed and looked up, shocking Carolyn when an amazingly engaging smile spread across his previously scowling face.

‘I guess I was a bit rough on the old dear,’ he said with a rueful chuckle. ‘Do you think she’ll quit on me?’

Not if you smile at her like that every once in a while, came her treacherous and shattering thought.

Carolyn’s stomach fluttered then tightened, the implications of which did not escape her. ‘I have no idea,’ she said stiffly, wanting to look away but unable to.

I’m physically attracted to him, she was thinking with appalled horror.

He nodded, his smile turning wry. ‘It’s just that on one occasion I had a whole month’s work ruined by having something spilt on them. Then a previous secretary of mine let a slick smooth-talking salesman type come in to supposedly wait for me, and while he was in here he photographed a whole heap of my house plans and sold them to some very unscrupulous builders.’

‘How very upsetting for you,’ Carolyn said with a betraying lack of sympathy.

His quite beautiful brown eyes narrowed perceptibly. ‘Tell me, Miss Thornton, I get the feeling we’ve met before. Am I right?’

Carolyn swallowed the enormous lump that was filling her throat.

‘Yes,’ she said simply, merely because she was incapable of elaboration at that point in time.

‘I thought so.’ A brief look of satisfaction passed over his face before it turned into a frown. ‘Yet the name Thornton means nothing to me. Your father is the first Thornton I’ve ever met.’

‘Stepfather,’ she corrected in a strangled tone. ‘My name isn’t Thornton.’

‘Aah, yes... My mistake. But... wasn’t Miss Thornton the name you gave Nora?’

Puzzled brown eyes narrowed some more and a small shiver ran through her. He walked round the desk and cleared a spot on the edge, perching there barely an arm’s length from her. He put an elbow on one knee and leant forward, chin resting in his hand. It brought his face much closer to hers. Suddenly, her eyes were on his mouth and she began thinking how sensually full his bottom lip was.

‘Care to explain the reason for the deception?’ he probed softly.

Her eyes must have revealed something of her inner turmoil, or perhaps it was the way she physically shrank back into the chair to remove herself from his suffocating nearness, for he stiffened and straightened, his expression worried now. ‘I’m not going to like your reason, am I?’ he announced with dry intuition.

‘No,’ she rasped.

‘Out with it, then,’ he said brusquely, sliding off the desk and returning to stand behind his desk, hands on hips. ‘I like to take bad medicine in quick doses.’

‘Very well.’ She had herself under control again now, disgust at her sexual response to this man finding inner steel with a vengeance. How could you? her conscience kept screaming at her. How could you?

‘My name’s McKensie,’ she said with an icily controlled fury. ‘Carolyn McKensie... If you don’t remember me, I’m sure you must remember my mother. Her name’s Isabel McKensie, though it changed last Thursday to Isabel Thornton.’

CHAPTER THREE

IF SHE’D been expecting him to blush guiltily, or show shock, she would have been bitterly disappointed. As it was, Carolyn did expect a little more reaction than she got.

He merely kept looking at her for a few seconds, that faint frown back on his face. Then he bent to scoop his chair under his knees, sinking into it with a sigh. ‘Awkward,’ he murmured, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ she flung at him in simmering outrage. ‘Just awkward?’

He eyed her closely till she shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘What else would you like me to say?’

She dragged in a deep breath and took the plunge. ‘I’m not going to beat around the bush, Vaughan. I know what really happened between you and Mum. Not that Mum told me. She never speaks of that time in her life any more. But I saw you both... together... the night before you left. I came home early from ballet rehearsals because there was a bomb scare in the hall. You were...’

She gulped, then raced on, her voice a few decibels higher. ‘Well, let’s just say neither of you noticed me standing in the doorway of the living room. I left again in a hurry. I also overheard part of the argument you had with Mum the next day after she told you she loved you. No, please don’t say anything. I don’t wish to discuss the past or to apportion blame or pass judgements. But you must appreciate that I don’t want you seeing my mother again, under any circumstances. I want your word that when Julian and my mother come back from their trip in two months’ time you’ll avoid meeting her at all costs, because I——’

‘Oh don’t be so bloody melodramatic!’ he cut in forcibly. ‘This all happened ten years ago, for God’s sake. An eternity! I’m not going to do any such thing as run and hide from Isabel. OK, so I agree our first meeting might be a little embarrassing, but let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill.’

Carolyn could only sit and stare at him.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘Is there something here I don’t know?’

It finally dawned on her that he just didn’t feel any guilt at all over her mother. To him, having love affairs was as natural as breathing. Women came and women went. Clearly he never lost a night’s sleep over their demise and he expected them to be the same. Vaughan Slater was on a different moral wavelength from her and nothing would ever change that.

But she had to try to make him see her point of view.

‘My mother loved you,’ she said shakily.

‘No,’ he denied. ‘She didn’t.’

Carolyn’s frustration was acute. ‘How can you say that?’ Good God, she had heard her mother quite clearly, telling the wretched creature, begging him not to leave her. Her broken voice had torn Carolyn so much that she had run away and hidden in her bedroom, not coming out till she’d heard Vaughan leave a couple of hours later.

‘Because it’s true,’ he insisted harshly. ‘And your mother damn well knew it too. She wanted sex, that’s all, then afterwards she tried calling it love to soothe her conscience.’

‘Her conscience!’

‘That’s right. If you think it was me who was doing the seducing, then think again, my girl.’

‘But...but...’ Her confusion was total, her shock shattering. For there was an undeniable ring of truth in this callous man’s hard voice. Besides, why should he lie? What reason could he have?

Her distressed eyes dropped to the floor and she shook her head in anguished bewilderment.

‘Carolyn, look at me...’

His voice was so unexpectedly gentle that she was impelled to look up, only to be lanced by a look of such incredible warmth and apology that she was stunned. His regretful gaze washed over her, totally defusing her anger, making her melt inside.

Panic clutched at her stomach. Dear heaven... she would have to be very very careful with this man.

‘I shouldn’t have said that quite so bluntly,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sorry. Look, your mother was a lovely woman. Very lovely. But very, very lonely. She needed a man in her life. I was just... there. I never led her on and I never told her I loved her. She came to me, not the other way around. I don’t blame her and neither should you.’

‘I don’t,’ she bit out, shaking inside with indignation. ‘Look, I don’t know if you’re telling the truth or not about who started what, but you’re lying about not having told Mum you loved her. You did. I know that for a fact!’

An electric silence descended on the pair of them with her vehement accusation.

‘Then I suggest you check your facts,’ he said at last in a low, tightly controlled voice. ‘If your mother thought I loved her then it was all in her mind, certainly not because of anything I ever said or did. I would quite willingly swear to that on a stack of bibles!’

Her belief in his treachery wavered under this intense denial. Could he be telling the truth about everything? Had her mother’s mind already been affected so much that she’d started imagining he’d said words he hadn’t? Carolyn supposed it was possible, given the obsessive nature of her mother’s feelings for him.

What was the truth? she agonised. He claimed Isabel had been lonely... frustrated...

Carolyn supposed that could have been true. For not in all her growing-up years could she recall her mother going out with a man, or having a man in the house. Isabel had always insisted she’d loved Carolyn’s father far too much to ever look at another man. As an innocent child, she had accepted this as a wonderful, romantic concept. Now she could see that such loyalty to a dead man must have been hard on a normal healthy woman in the prime of her life.

But none of that changed the fact that her mother had believed Vaughan loved her. No one could doubt that if they’d heard her piteous ravings that day. Besides, it was the only reason that made sense of her breakdown. Isabel had been a strong woman, not a dreamer. So why had she believed Vaughan loved her if he’d not actually said so?

Carolyn lifted her pale face to stare at him across the desk. The answers had to lie in this man’s sexual power and prowess, in his ability to bewitch women and make them mad for him without having to say the words women always wanted to hear.

I love you... I love you...

The words seemed to ring aloud inside her head again and again and she wanted to clasp her hands over her ears to stop them. As it was, the blood drained from her face as an appalling thought hit her. What if he bewitches me too? What if...?

‘You look upset, Carolyn,’ he said abruptly, and stood up. ‘I’ll get Nora to make us both a cup of coffee. Then we’ll try to sort this out, come to a compromise that will ease your mind. Perhaps I could telephone your mother when she gets back and——’

‘Don’t you dare!’ she burst out, so savagely that he sat down again, looking stunned.

‘You... you don’t understand,’ she added, her voice trembling. Oh this was dreadful. Simply dreadful. She had to get a hold of herself.

‘Then perhaps you could enlighten me?’ he asked quietly.

‘I... my mother had a nervous breakdown,’ she blurted out. ‘The day after you left. Her doctor put her in a hospital for a while. Even when she was allowed out, she took a long time to get better. In fact she’s still very... fragile.’

Vaughan was looking at her as though she were mad. ‘Isabel had a nervous breakdown? Isabel? Over me?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t believe it!’

‘It’s only too true,’ she insisted wretchedly, thinking that she would never forget the pitiful scene she’d encountered soon after Vaughan had left. She’d found her mother curled up in a little ball in a corner of the kitchen, talking to herself, totally unaware of Carolyn’s presence.

‘He swore he really loved me,’ she’d raved over and over. ‘Why else did he think I started sleeping with him, even though I knew it was wrong? And what did he do in the end? Told me it was only sex, said he was leaving me. All lies... Nothing but lies... Lies, lies, lies! I can’t bear it any more... I can’t!’

And she hadn’t been able to bear it. The rantings had finally dissolved into tears and she hadn’t been able to stop. Uncontrollable hysterical tears. Racking her. Tearing her apart.

In tears herself, Carolyn had rung their local doctor and the nightmare had begun...

Remembering what had really happened brought fresh doubts. Could Vaughan be still lying? Had he, in fact, both seduced Isabel and told her he loved her? She only had his word for it that he hadn’t. Carolyn lifted her eyes to those seemingly sincere brown ones and didn’t know what to believe any more.

‘Perhaps some of it was in her mind,’ she conceded in confusion. ‘The bit about you having said you loved her. But she believed it enough to crack up over your leaving. Ten years ago or not, I don’t intend risking my mother’s mental health by your seeing her again. If you’ve got a shred of decency in you, Vaughan, you’ll keep as far away from her as you can.’

He said nothing for several seconds, his face undeniably disturbed. ‘I can’t say I appreciate the way you put that, but in the circumstances I suppose I’ll have to do as you ask.’

He rubbed his chin again in what was obviously an habitual expression of agitation. ‘Hell... it’s all so damned incredible. I still can’t take it in. Isabel was always such a together lady. I admit I was taken aback when she started saying she loved me that day. But I talked to her about it and she seemed to agree with me in the end that it was only a physical thing that had unfortunately got out of hand. I thought it was a mutual decision that I leave straight away. I would have been leaving in another week or so anyway, since I’d finished my exams the day before. She must have been only pretending she didn’t mind. She was rather unusually quiet...

‘Poor Isabel,’ he sighed, grimacing before looking up again. ‘And poor little Carolyn... I know you didn’t have any family in Sydney. How on earth did you cope?’

‘I managed,’ she said, her susceptibility to this unexpectedly sympathetic Vaughan making her curt. But he’d certainly been very convincing with his version of the story.

‘But where did you go? What did you do?’

‘After Mum came out of hospital a cousin let us live with him for a couple of years on his farm in the country. But he couldn’t let us stay forever. Things were very bad for farmers at the time, what with the recent floods and the economy. When his wife became pregnant with her fourth child, I took Mum back to Sydney to live. She had an invalid pension and I left school and got a job.’

‘But you must have been only about sixteen!’ He seemed appalled. ‘Good God, Carolyn, you were always such a bright kid. You should have finished school and gone to college! Damn it, if only I’d known. Perhaps I could have done something.’

What? she thought bitterly. Paid us back the board money?

‘We managed perfectly well, thank you,’ she retorted, not wanting this man’s pity, or anything else! ‘I have a very good job now. I’ve never regretted not going to college. I’m happy and Mum’s happy. I just want to make sure things stay that way.’

She glared at him, but down deep in her heart Carolyn suspected that already her own happiness was on the line. She’d been attracted to quite a few men since growing up. But never had she experienced the sort of inner upheaval she felt whenever Vaughan looked at her.

‘Have you considered the possibility,’ he said finally, ‘that Julian might mention my name to Isabel?’

Carolyn dragged in a deep steadying breath. ‘He won’t mention you to her till after he’s presented her with the house, since he wants it to be a surprise. I should be able to get him alone before then and make up some plausible story about you without going into too much detail. You leave that up to me.’

‘Very well, though I don’t really agree with you. I think the open and honest approach would be best. Your mother must be well and truly over me by now. After all, she’s just married another man.’

But she doesn’t love him, Carolyn was reminded. If she sees you again, especially as you are today, so handsome, so successful, so damned sexy... all those old futile desires could be revived. It wouldn’t take much to tip the more fragile Isabel over the edge again.

‘Please allow me to be the best judge of that,’ Carolyn said stiffly.

‘Very well,’ he replied just as stiffly. ‘But that particular problem’s two months away. Right now I would like to address a more immediate problem. Julian’s house.’

‘Oh? Is there a problem with it?’

His eyes narrowed as they travelled over her tensely held body. ‘Not unless you give me one. Are you going to?’