A Daughter For Christmas

Leigh looked at him and eventually said in a low voice, ‘You’re quite right, Mr Kendall. We’ve never met before. But you did meet my sister.’ She paused in the face of the difficult task of persuading him of the veracity of the claim. Someone more ordinary might well have remembered the isolated incident with Jenny. This man was not ordinary, however. Would he remember one face, one night, eight years ago amid a sea of doubtless willing women?

The eyes, focused on her, were sharper now, picking up clues and trying to fit the pieces together.

‘Jennifer Stewart,’ Leigh said in a low voice. ‘She looked nothing like me. She was blonde, very extrovert. She was in Majorca for a week, mixing business and pleasure. She had a contract to do the design work for a part of the hotel they were in the process of extending.’

‘I had to get out of England, away from Roy. I felt awful, but I just had to think... I was mad, griefstricken

’ she had told Leigh in the hospital, her voice barely audible.

Nicholas Kendall recognised her. Leigh could see it in his eyes. She didn’t know whether it had been the description or whether he remembered Jennifer because she had been there on business, but remember her he did. He stiffened very slightly. His eyes, which had been uninviting to begin with, now regarded her coldly, as though suspicious of whatever motive had brought her to this encounter. He was, she thought, waiting to shoot her down in flames.

‘Quite an eye-stopper

’ he said, looking at her and making comparisons.

‘Yes, she was.’ She looked him fully in the face. ‘Unlike me.’

He didn’t deny it. ‘I remember her because she seemed driven at the time. A little too full of it. Too much laughter, too much chatter, too much drink. How is she?’

It was a polite question. Jennifer had meant nothing to him. She was a quick gallop down memory lane. How ironic that a passing memory would now rise up from nowhere to alter everything in his life, whatever his reaction to her news might be.

‘She died in an automobile accident sixteen months ago,’ Leigh said abruptly. She toyed with the food in front of her, eating it half-heartedly and shoving the remainder around her plate the way Amy did with her vegetables.

‘You have my sympathy.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I still don’t understand what all this has to do with me, however.’

‘Mr Kendall,’ Leigh said slowly, putting down her knife and fork and looking ruefully at the half-finished plate of food. It was delicious food but her appetite had deserted her, if it had ever been there in the first place. ‘Are you married?’ Magazine and newspaper articles had made no mention of a wife, but who knew how these people operated? Fast-lane lives with open marriages.

Thickly fringed green eyes narrowed on her. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Are you?’

‘I am not.’

Leigh released her breath. Well, that was one less issue that would have to be navigated. The Lord knew, there were enough obstacles, without that being one of them.

‘Just say what you have to say, Miss Walker. I’m getting very tired of playing these word games with you. I have no idea why you’re here and, frankly I’m beginning to regret my decision to meet you in the first place. You said in the letter that you had something to tell me. Well, tell me.’ He took another glance at his watch. ‘I haven’t got all day.’

‘You slept with my sister, Mr Kendall. One night...’

He leaned forward and the black threat on his face made her draw back sharply. ‘Yes, I did, Miss Walker. Two consenting adults. If you’re going to try and blackmail me in any way whatsoever you’re barking up the wrong tree.’

‘I have no intention of blackmailing you, Mr Kendall.’ She stared at him with loathing. Just what sort of world did this man move in where blackmail was something that featured on the menu? ‘I’ve come here to break some rather...unexpeeted news. I’ve come to tell you that you’re a father. You have a seven-year-old daughter. Her name is Amy.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHAT!’ The colour had drained from Nicholas Kendall’s face and his body was rigid.

‘I know that this must come as a shock to you—’ Leigh began, and he cut in swiftly, leaning forward, with his elbows on the table.

‘What the hell are you playing at? You breeze in here and have the bare-faced nerve to present me with the most deranged story I’ve ever heard in my entire life, and then you talk to me about shock. I have no idea what’s going on in that head of yours, but you must be certifiable if you think that you can try and hold a virtual stranger to ransom over some fabricated piece of nonsense.’

Leigh couldn’t recall ever having felt so intimidated in her life before. His expression conveyed shock, disbelief and, now that his colour had returned, a terrible calm. She was reminded of the calm before a storm.

‘It’s not fabricated, Mr Kendall.’ She leaned forward and her voice was urgent. ‘Why should I waste my time, fabricating something like this? Do you think that I haven’t got better things to do with my time? I’m not playing at anything. Believe me when I tell you that the very last place I want to be right now is here, breaking this news to you.’

‘But you felt that you had to...’ His mouth twisted cynically and she flinched ‘You must have taken leave of your senses if you think that I’m going to fall for the oldest con trick in the world.’ He sat back, but there was nothing relaxed about his posture. Even though he had drawn away from her she still felt as intimidated as when his body had been thrust forward, menacing her.

‘Con trick...?’ She looked at him in bewilderment

‘And don’t play the innocent with me. I’m not sure what you and your sister have cooked up between you, but you’re crazy to think that I’m idiot enough to believe a word of what you’re saying. You must have thought you’d hit jackpot when I agreed to having remembered your sister. What I don’t understand is why she sent you on her behalf. Did she think that your fresh-faced, onlyjust-out-of-high-school look might have had a bit more sway?’

‘I told you, Mr Kendall, my sister was killed in a car accident almost a year and a half ago. And this isn’t some kind of con trick. You think that I want to be here? What kind of person do you imagine that I am?’

‘Presumably one like your sister, Miss Walker.’

‘And what exactly is that supposed to mean?’

‘Why don’t you try working it out for yourself?’ he answered in a smooth, soft, menacing voice.

‘Nothing you’re saying makes any sense. I came here—’

‘Having cooked up a plot with your sister—’

‘Having done nothing of the sort!’ Every instinct in Leigh urged her to get up and leave, but however angry and insulted she was she knew that she could obey none of those instincts. She was utterly trapped—condemned, at least, to conclude what she had begun.

‘Get it through your head, Mr Kendall...’ she glared at him with loathing ‘...that egotistical, arrogant head of yours, that I’m not here on some harebrained scheme dreamt up by anyone...’

‘Just a courtesy call to let me know that I’m a father...’ His eyes narrowed to slits, and she half expected him to stand up and inform her that he had had enough of her time-wasting. She knew that if he did that, if he walked out on her now, then her audience with him was gone for ever.

‘No, of course this isn’t a courtesy call!’ She felt a sense of hopeless misery, welling up inside her. Her hands were clenched into tight fists.

‘Which really only leaves us one other possibility—wouldn’t you agree, Miss Walker?’

She looked at him and felt once more at the mercy of an overwhelming personality. This, she reckoned, was the last place in the world she would choose to be. Shark-infested waters would be preferable.

‘I’m not trying to con you, Mr Kendall,’ she said stubbornly, miserably.

‘I dislike stupidity, Miss Walker. I dislike it even more when people try and camouflage it with guile.’ He regarded her coldly and she met his wintry eyes with a sudden rush of hot, giddy anger.

‘This was a mistake,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t know what possessed me to come here.’ She stood up, realising that her legs were unsteady.

‘Sit down!’

‘Go to hell!’ She began to walk away. Her whole body was hot and trembling. She needed to get some cool air on her face. In a minute she would combust—at least, that was how she felt She was hardly aware of him behind her until she felt his fingers around her arm, slowing her down.

‘Take your hands off me,’ she snarled through gritted teeth, ‘or I’ll scream my head off loud enough to have all these stuffed people in here running for cover.’

Something flickered in his eyes—she couldn’t tell what—and he removed his hand.