Holding Strong. Lori Foster

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      ‘Joey,’ he repeated with a hard smile. ‘I realise all this has probably been—a shock for you,’ he drawled. ‘I also accept that you’re tied up with…Lily at the moment, and that our conversation would be better taking place where she can’t be a witness to it.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you could meet me later this evening and we could go somewhere quiet and have dinner together—’

      ‘No!’ she cut in harshly. ‘No,’ she repeated more calmly as he looked at her with raised brows. ‘It isn’t possible to organise a babysitter at such short notice. Besides—’

      ‘Besides, you don’t want to have dinner with me later,’ David Banning finished. ‘I’ve come over from the States for the sole purpose of talking to you, Joey—’

      ‘My name is Delaney,’ she cut in forcefully. ‘Miss Delaney,’ she added pointedly. ‘I don’t know you well enough for you to call me Joey.’

      She hadn’t known the man at the salon earlier well enough, either, came the unbidden thought, and yet she had invited him to use the familiarity! In retrospect, the fact that he owed her eight pounds fifty for a haircut was nothing when put into perspective with the damage this other man could wreak in her life!

      ‘Miss Delaney,’ David Banning mused mockingly. ‘It’s Irish, isn’t it?’

      ‘So what if it is?’ she challenged defensively.

      ‘No reason.’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s make it tomorrow evening, then,’ he continued hardly, his tone brooking no argument to what wasn’t even meant to sound like a suggestion.

      Joey was aware that she had been outside talking to him on the pavement for over ten minutes already, and Lily wouldn’t remain enthralled in her video for long if Joey failed to appear. But she didn’t want to meet this man tomorrow evening!

      ‘I’m staying at the Grosvenor Hotel.’ He named the best hotel in town—although it was obvious from his tone that it didn’t come up to his usual standards.

      Joey knew from Daniel that the Bannings were a very prominent banking family in New York, and that they lived up to that lifestyle one hundred per cent; obviously the little town in which Joey had chosen to make her home, with its three-star hotel, didn’t quite meet those standards!

      ‘That’s nice for you,’ she returned sarcastically.

      David Banning’s mouth tightened at her obvious scorn. ‘I was suggesting that we meet there tomorrow evening for dinner,’ he rasped.

      He hadn’t been ‘suggesting’ anything—it had been in the nature of an order! But the Grosvenor wasn’t a place Joey knew well, and the chances were that no one there would know her, either…Besides, she doubted this man would go away until he had spoken to her.

      ‘Very well,’ she accepted abruptly. ‘I’ll meet you there at eight o’clock tomorrow evening.’ She was sure the neighbour’s teenage daughter, who usually babysat for her on the rare occasions she went out, would be only too pleased to earn some extra money. ‘Now, if that’s all…?’ she added pointedly.

      ‘For the moment.’ He gave an abrupt inclination of his head.

      ‘Who was that man, Mummy?’ Lily turned to ask curiously when Joey entered the sitting-room a few minutes later.

      ‘Just a salesman trying to sell me something,’ Joey dismissed tersely; Lily had never known her father—she certainly didn’t need to know that the man outside was his brother! ‘Tea will be ready in fifteen minutes,’ she added lightly, before escaping to the kitchen.

      Once there she took some time to gather her scattered thoughts together. The D. Banning who had written to her had been Daniel’s brother David, not Daniel himself. And now he had travelled all the way from America for the sole purpose of talking to her. There could be only one subject he wanted to discuss with her—Lily!

      Well. Joey straightened decisively. He could say whatever it was he wanted to say, and then leave. Neither she nor Lily needed anything from him.

      ‘There’s a man in the salon asking to see you, Joey,’ Hilary told her lightly as she came out back into the tiny room Joey occasionally used as an office.

      Joey instantly paled. David Banning! He hadn’t waited for dinner this evening, after all. Why hadn’t he? What had happened that he needed to see her so early this morning? It would be too much to hope that he had come to inform her he had to return urgently to the States!

      ‘Thanks, Hilary.’ She gave her assistant and friend a shaky smile as she reluctantly stood up.

      The two women had met a year ago, when Hilary came to the salon for a job, and within weeks of working together the two women had worked out their system—Hilary finished work at the salon at three-fifteen every weekday, so that she could go to the school to collect Lily and Daisy, and cared for Lily at her home until Joey finished at the salon for the day. It was a system that worked well for both women.

      ‘He’s rather gorgeous,’ Hilary murmured admiringly.

      Joey had barely noticed David Banning’s good looks the evening before, but, yes, she supposed he was rather handsome. If you liked cold self-confidence that bordered on arrogance, that was. Joey didn’t—had been completely cured of that romantic image seven years ago when Daniel, also arrogantly confident, had walked out on them!

      ‘Perhaps,’ she answered noncommittally, moving around her desk to follow Hilary out into the salon, bracing herself for this second meeting with Daniel’s brother.

      Her eyes widened with surprise as she saw the man waiting there. Not David Banning, after all, but the man from the previous evening who hadn’t been able to pay for his haircut!

      He looked slightly less disreputable today, the shirt and denims looking relatively clean, at least.

      ‘You weren’t expecting me,’ he said slowly as he took in Joey’s surprised expression.

      No, she hadn’t been, had been sure she’d been taken for a ride the evening before. But she was relieved to see that it was him rather than the man she had been expecting!

      ‘I told you I would be in this morning to pay for my haircut,’ he reminded her mockingly, handing her a ten-pound note.

      Joey gave a shaky smile. ‘That’s very kind of you.’ She nodded, taking the money and putting it in the till.

      The unexpected honesty had also gone some way to restoring her faith in human nature. Now, if she could just make David Banning go back to America without making any waves in her own or Lily’s lives…!

      ‘Keep the change,’ the man told her dismissively as she would have given him one pound fifty back. ‘We’ll call it interest paid, if you like,’ he added wryly.

      ‘The last I heard interest wasn’t as high as almost twenty per cent.’ Joey smiled wanly.

      The man returned the smile. ‘Bad debts come slightly higher than normal—Hey, are you OK?’ He looked at her closely. ‘You look ill,’ he added, his brown eyes narrowing consideringly on the paleness of her face.

      Joey was instantly on the defensive. She had spent a terrible СКАЧАТЬ