Married By Christmas

by Carole Mortimer

  Patrick’s mouth quirked. ‘That hardly applies in this case, does it? Besides, it’s because Lilli is married to me that I—’

  ‘Think you can tell me what to do,’ she finished scathingly, shaking her head. ‘I don’t think so,’ she bit out coldly. ‘Daddy?’ she prompted in a voice that brooked no further argument.

  He sighed, giving a regretful glance in Patrick’s direction before turning back to Lilli. ‘Andy telephoned me this morning,’ he stated without flourish.

  She gasped in shock. Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t this!

  She froze momentarily. ‘Andy did...?’

  Her father nodded. ‘He wants to see you, Lilli,’ he told her softly.

  She hadn’t been mistaken yesterday; it had been Andy standing outside in the crowd as she went to the wedding. But why did he want to see her...?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘YOU just aren’t thinking this through at all, Lilli,’ Patrick said as he sat watching her dress. ‘Brewster believes that by talking to you, appealing to your softer nature, he may be able to stop your father’s legal proceedings against him!’

  She didn’t look at him, hadn’t done so since he’d followed her into the bedroom a few minutes ago. They had made love in this room, knew each other intimately, and yet she still felt slightly self-conscious at having Patrick watch her, thankfully pulling up the side zip to olive-green trousers before pulling on a matching sweater.

  She was still stunned by Andy’s contact with her father, couldn’t imagine what had made him do such a thing. She certainly didn’t agree with Patrick’s last comment; she had every reason to hate Andy, and he must be well aware of that fact. Where Andy was concerned, she had no ‘softer nature’ to appeal to!

  ‘And just how do you think he hopes to achieve that?’ she replied, still smarting from Patrick’s earlier attempt to tell her what she could and couldn’t do. Marriage was a partnership—particularly this marriage!—and she was not about to be told whom she could or couldn’t see.

  ‘You were engaged to the man—’

  ‘And he used that engagement to cheat my father,’ she reminded him forcefully.

  ‘You loved him—’

  ‘I thought I did,’ she corrected him; loving Patrick as she now did, she knew damn well she had never really loved Andy at all!

  ‘You were going to marry him—’

  ‘And now I’m married to you.’ She looked at him challengingly. ‘A fact I’m unlikely to forget!’

  Patrick returned her gaze. ‘We made a bargain, Lilli—’

  ‘And I won’t renege on that,’ she returned sharply. ‘But being married to you does not make me your prisoner. I have no idea why Andy wants to talk to me,’ she added as his face darkened ominously, ‘but I honestly don’t see that it can cause any harm.’ Her father was right; telling her not to do something was a sure way of ensuring that she did!

  Patrick stood up, throwing off his robe, completely unconcerned by his own nakedness as he took underwear from a drawer. ‘I’m coming with you,’ he informed her as he dressed.

  ‘No!’

  He halted in the action of buttoning up his shirt. ‘What do you mean...no?’ he said slowly.

  ‘I mean no, Patrick,’ she repeated firmly, outwardly undaunted by his fury—inwardly quaking. Patrick was again the coldly resilient man who had come to her home the day after their initial night together, a man who seemed like a stranger to her. But she wouldn’t allow Patrick to see any of her inner apprehension. ‘Andy asked to see me—’

  ‘And I’m now your husband—’

  ‘We aren’t joined at the hip, Patrick!’ she snapped impatiently. ‘And I really don’t have the time for this,’ she added after glancing at her wristwatch. ‘The sooner I see Andy, the sooner we’ll all know what’s going on.’

  ‘I’ve already told you what’s going on: the man believes he can use emotional pressure, or possibly blackmail—’

  ‘Strangely, I would rather hear all this from Andy himself.’ Her eyes flashed deeply green.

  Patrick looked at her between narrowed lids. ‘You still care for the man...!’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Her cheeks were flushed with anger at the very suggestion of it.

  In truth, she had come to realise in the last week exactly how shallow her feelings for Andy had been...And it was because she loved Patrick, loved him in a totally different way, completely, intensely, in every way there was to love a man—even his anger!

  Andy had been a challenge to her, she had realised, a man who didn’t respond to the way she looked as other men always had—for reasons she understood only too well now! But his lack of interest had only piqued her own interest in him a year ago, and it was only since loving Patrick, when every nerve-ending, every part of her, was live to his presence, that she had realised how lukewarm her desire for Andy had been.

  To have married him, she now knew, would have been a complete disaster. But she couldn’t explain that to Patrick without admitting how she had come to realise that fact. And she couldn’t, at this moment, admit to Patrick that he was the very reason she could now see Andy without fear of emotional pressure, of any kind, having any effect whatsoever. Loving Patrick consumed all of her emotions; there was no room for anyone else.

  But it was almost as if Patrick’s tenderness last night, and again this morning, might never have happened as he continued to glare at her accusingly. Lilli didn’t have time to deal with his temper just now, wanted to get this meeting with Andy over and done with.

  ‘Daddy’s waiting,’ she told Patrick briskly. ‘We can talk when I get back—’

  ‘I won’t be here, Lilli,’ Patrick said flatly.

  She gave him a startled look. ‘What do you mean...?’

  He shrugged. ‘By your own words, our honeymoon is over. In which case, I may as well go to my office for a couple of hours.’

  For a moment she had thought—! Ridiculous—she and Patrick were married, for life, by his own decree. And, both being determined people, she didn’t doubt they would have many disagreements in the future, but that didn’t mean either of them intended giving up on their marriage. As Patrick had said earlier, they had made a bargain. For all they knew, she could already have conceived the first of those four children...

  Patrick nodded abruptly. ‘I’ll see you later, Lilli.’ He strode out of the room.

  No parting kiss, not even a second glance; he just went. And it was with a heavy heart that Lilli joined her father in the suite lounge where he had sat waiting for her.

  He looked up, frowning at her. ‘Patrick looks—’ He hesitated over his choice of description.

  ‘Furious,’ she finished for him. ‘That’s probably because he is.’ She slipped on her jacket.

  ‘Actually, I was going to use a much more basic word to describe how he looked,’ her father returned ruefully.

  She gave a warn smile. ‘He doesn’t want me to see Andy.’

  ‘I think he made that more than obvious earlier.’ Her father grimaced. ‘And for once I have to agree with him.’

  Her eyes widened accusingly. ‘I wouldn’t even know Andy wanted to talk to me if you hadn’t come here and told me!’

  ‘I know,’ he said wearily. ‘And I think now I was probably wrong to do so.’

  She laughed dismissively. ‘Let’s go, Daddy—before you start proving as stubborn as Patrick!’ She took a firm hold of his arm and led him out of the suite, locking the door behind them; Patrick had his own key if he returned before them. ‘I believe you said Andy wants me to meet him at—’ She named a very exclusive hotel as they entered the lift. ‘He’s staying there on your money, I suppose!’ she added scornfully.

  Her father raised his eyebrows. ‘Who knows? I’m at a complete loss as to what’s going on. All he would say when he telephoned earlier was that he had to talk to you—’

  ‘I thought you said he telephoned you?’ she reminded him.

  ‘I had to say that.’ He grimaced. ‘How
do you think Patrick would have reacted to being told it was you your ex-fiancé wanted—insisted!—on talking to all the time?’

  Exactly as he had reacted now—he had walked away!

  But she still didn’t understand; why did Andy want to talk to her? He had to know how she felt about him now, had to realise that what they had once shared had been over the moment he decided to cheat her father. And used her to do it!

  She gave a heavy sigh. ‘Maybe we had better not speculate any of this until we see Andy—’

  ‘You see him,’ her father corrected her. ‘He had the damned nerve to tell me he doesn’t want to speak to me. Although, to be honest, now that I’m involved in legal proceedings against him, I don’t want to speak to him either. I think if I saw him, after the heartache he’s caused, I would probably just hit him and think about the consequences of that action later—which wouldn’t help anyone! I’ll wait outside the hotel for you. But make sure he realises, exactly as I told him on the telephone this morning, that whatever he has to say to you will make no difference to the legal proceedings being brought against him.’

  Now she was even more puzzled by this meeting between Andy and herself. He didn’t want to see her father... She didn’t know what she had been expecting—perhaps a plea from Andy, or even the blackmail that Patrick had suggested. Now she wasn’t so sure...

  Andy sat alone at one of the tables in the huge reception area, a pot of coffee in front of him. Lilli had time to study him before he was aware of her presence. The last three months hadn’t been kind to him either; his handsome face was ravaged and tired-looking, his suit fitting him loosely, as if he had lost weight too.

  Lilli hardened her heart to the way he looked; he was the cause of everyone’s unhappiness, including his own, from the look of him!

  She walked to the table, standing beside it looking down at him wordlessly as she waited for him to say something.

  He stood up. ‘At least sit down, Lilli,’ he said, holding back the chair for her. ‘You’re looking well,’ he told her as he resumed his own seat opposite her.

  ‘What do you want, Andy?’

  ‘I suppose it is a little late for social politeness between us,’ he conceded. ‘Could I just say, I never meant to hurt you, Lilli—?’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ she interrupted.

  He gave a sad sigh. ‘No...’

  ‘You hurt me because of what you did to my father, but on a more personal level...?’ She shook her head, her eyes flashing her pain. If she had been hurt in any way by the end of their engagement then it had been her pride that had taken the blow—and, as Patrick had already assured her all too clearly, she had more than enough of that!

  Andy looked at her closely for several seconds, and then he slowly nodded. ‘I’m glad about that. I thought by the announcement of your marriage to Devlin that I couldn’t have done you too much harm—’

  ‘I haven’t come here to discuss the harm—or otherwise! —that you did to me,’ Lilli cut in. ‘My father is the one—What on earth is that?’ She stopped as Andy produced a small flat package from his jacket pocket, the paper brightly coloured, decorated with a silver bow and ribbon. ‘I realise it’s Christmas tomorrow, Andy—’ her mouth twisted contemptuously as she looked at the present ‘—but I—’

  ‘It isn’t a Christmas present, Lilli, it’s a wedding gift,’ Andy told her, holding out the small present to her.

  Her eyes widened, her hands tightly locked together in her lap. ‘I don’t want anything from you!’ And she knew, without even consulting him, that Patrick wouldn’t want it either!

  ‘You’ll want this.’ Andy continued to hold out the gaily wrapped gift, but when she still didn’t take it he put it down on the table between them, standing up. ‘Please tell your father I’m sorry.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ she said incredulously as he would have walked away; she still had so much to say to him!

  He gave a little smile. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Lilli; I’m staying exactly where I am. The last three months have been a nightmare—’

  ‘You think they’ve been a nightmare for you?’ she demanded disbelievingly. ‘What do you think it’s been like for my father? He—’

  ‘I know,’ Andy acknowledged heavily, coming down on his haunches beside her chair, reaching out to clasp both her hands in his. ‘I do know, Lilli. That’s why I’ll understand if, after opening your present, your father still wants to prosecute me.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It was all so tempting, Lilli, too much so in the circumstances.’ He looked at her pleadingly. ‘I was involved in a relationship that—well, I was in over my head. I thought if I had some money of my own—’

  ‘I know about your—relationship, Andy,’ she told him hardly. ‘It’s the reason I know you could never really have cared for me!’

  He closed his eyes briefly, those eyes slightly overbright when he raised his lids to look at her once again. ‘I did—do—care for you, Lilli. You’re a wonderful woman—’

  ‘Please, Andy.’ She instantly shook her head. ‘Don’t take me for a complete fool!’

  He let out a deep breath. ‘I know how it must seem to you, but I—If things had been different—’

  ‘Don’t you mean, if you had been different?’ she countered, pulling her hands away from his.

  ‘Yes,’ he acknowledged. ‘But you really are an exceptional woman, Lilli—a caring, beautiful woman. And you deserved so much better than me—’

  ‘She got it!’ interrupted a harsh voice.

  Lilli and Andy turned sharply in the direction of that voice, Lilli troubled, Andy guarded, slowly straightening to face the other man. Lilli couldn’t even begin to imagine what Andy thought of Patrick’s presence here—she was too busy wondering about that herself!

  Patrick’s mouth showed his contempt as he looked at the younger man. The two were in such stark contrast to each other, Patrick so dark where Andy was golden, Patrick’s face masculine, Andy’s, seen against such stark masculinity, appearing much softer, his features so regular and handsome he appeared almost beautiful.

  As the two men continued to stare at each other, Lilli couldn’t help wondering if Patrick had entered the hotel in time to see Andy holding her hands...!

  Whatever he had or hadn’t seen, his cold anger of earlier this afternoon certainly hadn’t diminished; he still looked furious!

  ‘Lilli and I were married yesterday,’ he informed Andy icily, pulling Lilli to her feet so that she stood at his side, holding her there firmly, his arm like a steel band about her waist.

  Andy nodded. ‘I realise that.’

  ‘Then you must also realise that you have intruded on our honeymoon,’ Patrick barked. ‘An unwelcome intrusion.’

  ‘I realise that too,’ Andy acknowledged ruefully. ‘But I had something I had to give to Lilli.’ He bent down and picked up the gaily wrapped present before handing it to Lilli. ‘I hope the two of you will be very happy together,’ he added lightly, although he seemed to frown as he glanced at Patrick’s harshly set face, his expression softening as he turned to Lilli. ‘You’re a very lucky man to have Lilli for your wife.’ Even as he spoke to Patrick he bent forward and lightly kissed Lilli on the cheek. ‘Take care, love. And be happy.’ He turned and walked away.

  There was complete silence as Andy left the hotel, Lilli still clutching the small present he had given her, Patrick silent at her side. She didn’t need two guesses as to why; he was absolutely furious—at her for seeing Andy at all, but also at the fact that the man had dared to kiss her, albeit on the cheek!

  ‘For goodness’ sake, stop brooding, Patrick!’ she told him spiritedly as she moved out of his grasp. ‘I don’t recall that I behaved this way yesterday when your ex-wife decided to turn up at our wedding!’ In fact, that subject hadn’t been mentioned, by either of them, since.

  He looked blank, as if the memory was something he had completely forgotten about. And perhaps it was; Sanchia didn’t appear to be someone he wanted to rememb
er. But that didn’t change the fact that his reaction to Andy now was completely unfair to her.

  Patrick relaxed suddenly. ‘Let’s sit down for a while. Your father has gone home, so he isn’t going to be waiting outside. I spoke to him on my way in,’ he supplied at her questioning look. ‘I couldn’t see the point in both of us waiting for you.’ The two of them sat at the table Andy had recently vacated.

  Of course not. And, of course, her father would also have seen the sense of that—with a little help from Patrick...!

  ‘Open the damned present,’ Patrick instructed tersely. ‘Although I still think, given the circumstances, that Brewster had a damned nerve wanting to see you at all, let alone give you a present!’

  Lilli wasn’t really listening to him, was staring down at the gift she had just unwrapped, the silver ribbon and bow hanging limply from her hand now.

  ‘What is it?’ Patrick prompted sharply. ‘Lilli!’

  She looked across at him, her eyes unfocusing, her face pale. She couldn’t think, let alone speak!

  ‘For God’s sake...!’ Patrick stood up to come round the table and take the package roughly out of her hand, looking quickly at the contents. ‘My God...!’ he finally breathed dazedly.

  Lilli knew exactly what had caused his astonishment. The same thing that had caused her own... Andy’s gift to her was a bank account, made out in her name. For the amount of five million pounds!

  The amount he had taken from her father...?

  She looked up at Patrick. ‘Is that what he owed?’

  His expression was grim now. ‘More or less,’ he grated.

  She frowned. ‘How much less?’

  He shrugged. ‘Probably the interest that should have been earned in the last three to four months. Brewster has probably needed that for his living expenses. I doubt your father will mind that, as long as he gets the capital returned to him.’

  Lilli was still totally fazed, couldn’t believe what had just happened. ‘Why do you think Andy did it? Gave it back, I mean.’ It was almost like a dream, and if it weren’t for that bank account—for five million!—Lilli would have had trouble believing Andy had been here at all.