The Prospective Wife. Kim Lawrence

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СКАЧАТЬ behind this logic; he was pretty sure he might be a bit paranoid too if his personal life had been served up for public consumption as often as Matt Devlin’s had.

      ‘If you’re so bothered about security I’m surprised you’re not staying with your parents. Don’t they even have their own drawbridge…?’

      ‘Not to mention a moat, castle, and the best part of a village,’ Matt drawled languidly. ‘But no son… At least, not as far as my father’s concerned.’

      The doctor looked at his patient’s perfectly proportioned, rather stern profile and wondered if he cared. You never could tell with Matt.

      ‘But…’ He stopped himself just in time from blurting out the information that Devlin senior, who had even more financial clout than his son, had forbidden any member of staff to mention. ‘I’d have thought the accident…’ he protested mildly.

      ‘It would take more than a near-death experience to make my father change his mind, Andrew. As far as he’s concerned I stopped being his son the day I didn’t do as he wanted. I’m the competition now…and he’d like nothing better than to ruin me.’

      Andrew Metcalf was shocked by this cold-blooded analysis even though he knew it wasn’t strictly true.

      ‘Well, that’s not likely to happen, is it?’ he responded uncomfortably.

      Despite the fact that after the somewhat mysterious departure of his more experienced partner the City had predicted disaster, it was well known that the airline Matt had started from very humble beginnings was now causing the big players who had scoffed—none louder than Matt’s own father, Connor Devlin—serious headaches.

      ‘Worried about your share dividend, Doc?’

      Andrew grinned. He could afford to. Fair Flights was one of the financial success stories of the decade. ‘Actually, I do have a small sum invested.’

      ‘Then I’ll probably make you a very rich man,’ Matt announced with a total lack of modesty.

      ‘The rates we charge here and the amount of hardware in that leg, Matt, you already have…’

      ‘I’ve never actually done any private sector work, and to be honest it’s never really appealed.’

      Despite her indifferent tone Kat was well aware she couldn’t afford to be picky when it came to jobs. In fact it was all she could do not to kiss the woman’s hand-made Italian shoes!

      Kat’s anxiety began to mount as she watched Drusilla Devlin’s china-blue eyes drift around the forlorn-looking, half-empty sitting-room. Supposing I sounded too uninterested? It was one thing not wanting to come over as a charity case; it was another playing hard to get!

      ‘But you need work…?’

      Kat felt a wave of relief. For a nasty moment there she’d thought she’d talked herself out a job.

      ‘Don’t we all?’

      Well, not all, Kat silently conceded, realising that she was almost certainly speaking to someone who didn’t need to work. The chauffeur-driven limo Drusilla had driven up in had been ample proof of that.

      Kat’s own situation wasn’t desperate, but it could get that way…and fast. Her godfather was executor of her mother’s estate and, even though he’d tried to break the news as gently as he could, Kat had been shocked to learn of the full extent of her mother’s debts. Kat had genuinely thought the gambling thing was in the past.

      Apparently she wasn’t legally obliged to pay back the undocumented amounts of cash—some of them large—that her mother had borrowed from friends and family over a twelve-month period, but Kat was determined to pay back every penny!

      It was a weight off her mind that the house had sold so swiftly; unfortunately this piece of good luck had left her without a roof over her head.

      With very little in her bank account—the extended leave she’d taken to care for her mother during her final stages of her illness had been unpaid—she needed a job and somewhere to live.

      Now here was a friend of Mum’s who, up until last month, they hadn’t seen for years, offering her both. It had to be fate!

      She nudged the edge of a half-full packing case with the toe of her trainer. It was filled with the stuff the auctioneers hadn’t wanted.

      ‘People always want good physios, and I’ve heaps of experience. I’ll get a new job easily enough,’ she assured her affluent-looking visitor on an earnest, upbeat note.

      ‘But not your old one.’

      ‘No,’ Kat confirmed with a regretful sigh. ‘I knew they couldn’t hold it open indefinitely, but that might be a blessing in disguise.’

      Drusilla wasn’t surprised to hear it. Five minutes after she’d met Kathleen Wray she had realised that her old friend’s daughter was as resiliently optimistic as she was beautiful. A few discreet enquiries into the girl’s financial situation, added to what Amy had told her, had revealed she’d need every ounce of that youthful resilience.

      ‘I’ve worked in the same hospital since I qualified—not exactly bold and adventurous.’

      Drusilla wondered if Matthew would find the girl’s smile as enchanting as she did. A frown tugged at her seamless brow as she contemplated her son’s choice of female companionship.

      ‘I always meant to travel,’ Kat explained, her eyes shining with enthusiasm as visions of exotic sun-kissed shores rose tantalisingly before her eyes. ‘I just never got around to it somehow…’ The smile faded. ‘There’s nothing to keep me here any more.’

      Drusilla caught up the young woman’s hand in a comforting clasp. ‘You did everything you could for Amy, my dear,’ she insisted warmly. ‘And you must take comfort from the fact that in the end she was here amongst all the familiar things that were dear to her, and with the daughter I know she loved very much.’

      The motherly patting on the arm made Kat’s wide-spaced grey eyes fill with tears—not that Drusilla Devlin, with her designer clothes, glossy hair and impossibly youthful face, was like any mother she knew.

      ‘You’re very kind. You say this job would only be short term…? It is a live in post…?’ That would solve her immediate problem.

      Drusilla clapped her prettily kept hands in delight. ‘You’ll do it for me? Excellent!’

      ‘There is a job, isn’t there? You’re not just inventing one because you feel sorry for me…?’ Her doubts emerged gruffly as she wiped a hint of moisture from the corner of her eye. ‘Mum didn’t ask you to watch out for me…?’

      Drusilla laughed. ‘Oh, there’s a job all right; you’ll definitely earn your money, my dear. Incidentally, you’ll be working for me, not Matthew.’

      Kat nodded. That was understandable. If the man had been in hospital for six months it was likely he didn’t have the spare cash to pay for a private physiotherapist, and it was equally obvious his mother did.

      ‘I suppose it will be some time before he’ll be able to get back to work…I mean, pilots СКАЧАТЬ