Joined By Marriage. Carole Mortimer

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      CHAPTER TWO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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