A Daughter's Dilemma

A Daughter's Dilemma
Miranda Lee

FORBIDDEN! Look - but don't touch! Carolyn was delighted when her mother married Julian. She waved off the happy couple on their honeymoon and prepared to oversee the renovation of their new home… only to discover that the architect her stepfather had commissioned was Vaughan Slater, the man who'd turned her life upside down ten years ago.It seemed that Vaughan wasn't deterred by Carolyn's hostility. To him, those past events were hardly his fault; now he wanted Carolyn in a way he'd never wanted a woman before. Did he mean that this time he would seduce her, make her fall in love with him - and stay?

Excerpt (#u3e4d20a0-55a9-5396-a8a5-764205ac7db4)About the Author (#ub7df453a-18e7-5cee-a217-23bb99b182cc)Title Page (#u87ac858c-c0b1-5974-aaea-70d7ec4c95d4)CHAPTER ONE (#uca858bf8-5840-57b3-9924-f078e556d614)CHAPTER TWO (#u76ecc850-b8c9-5fcd-a7fd-28fcec23893b)CHAPTER THREE (#u67dc2eb6-cc9c-5ba6-87f9-5f5ac11ac8c2)CHAPTER FOUR (#ucb67b2ab-4811-5f9f-a34d-d25b491039f8)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“You still think I’m some kind of ogre.”

“Not at all,” she returned with admirable coolness. “I don’t think of you as anything anymore. You’re just my stepfather’s architect.”

“Is that so?” His gaze turned hard as it locked with hers. “And how should I think of you, Carolyn? As my client’s stepdaughter, here to help finish his house to everyone’s satisfaction? Or as a female harboring an irrational grudge against me and who might be thinking of sabotaging my work out of revenge?”

MIRANDA LEE is Australian, living near Sydney. Born and raised in the bush, she was boardingschool educated and briefly pursued a classicalmusic career before moving to Sydney and embracing the world of computers. Happily married, with three daughters, she began writing when family commitments kept her at home. She likes to create stories that are believable, modern, fast-paced and sexy. Her interests include reading meaty sagas, doing word puzzles, gambling and going to the movies.

Miranda Lee has written a sequel to A Daughter’s Dilemma. Look out next month for Maddie’s story in Maddie’s Love-Child (Harlequin Presents #1884). Maddie adores men, and has no intention of marrying one, but she does so want children—especially after she meets Miles MacMillan, a British aristocrat who has all the qualities Maddie wants in the father of her child!

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A Daughter’s Dilemma

Miranda Lee

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

‘WOULD all visitors please leave the ship immediately,’ came the call along the corridors of the SS Sea Countess. ‘We will be departing in five minutes.’

‘That means me, I guess.’ Carolyn sighed and stood up from where she’d been sitting in one of the cabin’s luxurious armchairs. She walked across the deep-pile blue carpet and bent to kiss the cheek of the very attractive blonde woman sitting on the side of the bed.

‘Have a wonderful honeymoon, Mum,’ she said softly. ‘You deserve it.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ Isabel murmured in return, and cast a shy, almost blushing glance at her husband of three hours.

Carolyn smiled with approval as she turned to face her stepfather, who had also risen from his chair. Fifty-two and going bald, Julian Thornton was not a particularly handsome man. But he had a fine build and intelligent grey eyes, as well as a kind and patient nature. He was, in Carolyn’s opinion, just the sort of man to make her mother happy.

‘As for you, Step-papa,’ she said, giving him a kiss also, ‘I think you’re very naughty depriving me of my mother’s company for two whole months. Just as well you’re leaving me your lovely car to drive around in or I might have been cross.’

He chuckled. ‘Mind you look after it.’

‘Carolyn?’

The plaintive note in her mother’s voice had her swinging sharply around. ‘Yes, Mum?’ Hard to keep the worry out of her voice. Surely nothing was going to go wrong now!

‘Did... did I pack that new hairdryer we had to buy? I just can’t remember...’

Carolyn tried to ignore the instant jab of dismay. She knew her mother’s memory could still be faulty, but she’d been so much better lately and Carolyn had hoped...

Suppressing a sigh, she said brightly, ‘It’s safely packed. We put all your toiletries and accoutrements in here.’ Moving briskly, she picked up the smallest of the green leather suitcases lying against the wall and carried it over to place it gently on the bed beside her mother.

Julian stepped up to the foot of the bed. ‘Why don’t you start unpacking, love,’ he suggested to his bride, ‘while I see my charming stepdaughter off the ship?’

‘All right.’ Isabel’s voice carried that vaguely resigned compliance Carolyn always hated hearing in her once strong-minded mother.

Biting her bottom lip, she was unsure all of a sudden if her mother was in a fit state to be anybody’s wife, even a man as understanding as Julian.

‘Come along, Carolyn.’ His voice was firm. ‘We don’t want you sailing with us, do we? Honeymoons are meant for two, not three.’

She glanced up and saw the bittersweet understanding in his face. ‘Coming. Bye, Mum.’ She gave her mother another parting peck, picked up her bag from the small table near the door and dashed from the room before she did anything stupid like cry.

‘Don’t worry about her so much,’ Julian urged as they walked along the corridor and up the narrow stairway. ‘She’s tired, that’s all. It’s been a long day.’

Carolyn shook her head. ‘You’re so patient with her. So...good.’

‘I love her.’

‘Yes...’ Carolyn swallowed and tried not to think of her mother’s words when Julian had first asked her to marry him six months ago.

‘But I...I don’t love him. I mean, I like him a lot and he’s very kind, but...’

Isabel had turned him down, but Julian was persistent, and Carolyn had to admit that her mother had sincerely warmed to him over the next three months, so much so that, when Julian had asked her again, she had said yes. Nevertheless, Carolyn was sure that their relationship had not yet become a sexual one; a fact which worried her slightly, in the circumstances...

‘Carolyn.’ Julian stopped beside the gangway and turned to take her hands in his. His grey eyes were steely as they peered down into her own frowning blue ones. ‘Let me give you a bit of advice. You’re only twenty-four years old, yet you’ve spent almost ten years being a mother to your own mother. And, while I admire what you’ve done enormously, it’s time you got on with your own life. Your mother’s my responsibility now. You have to let go of the apron strings, cut them or you’ll ruin your own life, as surely as Isabel once almost ruined hers with her exaggerated sense of responsibility.’

Carolyn was taken aback by this last remark till she recalled that Julian believed Isabel’s breakdown had been due to the stress of raising an illegitimate child on her own. Carolyn herself trotted out the same excuse whenever one of her friends questioned her mother’s odd timidity and vagueness.

Julian had eventually been privy to a more detailed version when he’d started taking Isabel out, and he’d been moved by the story of the innocent young Isabel, falling madly in love with her history professor at college—and vice versa; of her becoming pregnant to this much older professor; of his abandoning his childless and unhappy marriage to live with Isabel and await a divorce and his baby; of his dying of a heart attack before either arrived, leaving the devastated nineteen-year-old mother to cope on her own, which she did very bravely and valiantly, till suddenly, when the child was fourteen, she’d unexpectedly cracked up.

It was a touching story. And quite true. Up to a point. Carolyn suspected her mother had by now convinced herself it was the total and real truth. And she’d never contradicted her. How could she? Isabel McKensie had no idea her daughter knew the real reason for her breakdown. And Carolyn had never dared reveal her knowledge for fear of causing a relapse.

‘But she’s fine now,’ Julian was insisting. ‘Much better than you give her credit for. The fact is, you’ve been molly-coddling your mother, Carolyn. Doing far too much, making too many decisions for her.’

Resentment burned inside Carolyn for a moment. ‘How can you say that after what you yourself asked me to do earlier in the week? Doesn’t that entail my making more decisions for her?’

Julian sighed. ‘I agree your mother still has some limitations, but my request was more to keep my project a secret, rather than because Isabel is incapable of making some simple decisions. I want to present a brand new home to her, fully furnished and decorated, as a surprise when we get home. Perhaps I put it badly when I asked you to oversee the finishing touches for me, to veto anything you thought your mother might not like. If I did, I’m sorry. Look, if you feel it’s too much of an imposition on your time—’

‘No, no,’ Carolyn cut in, overwhelmed by guilt that Julian might think her unwilling to help out when he’d been so good to her and her mother. Impossible to explain that it would take more than a few stern words to make her stop worrying about Isabel. He hadn’t been around ten years ago when she’d had her nervous breakdown. He’d never witnessed the sort of woman she’d been beforehand, as compared to afterwards. The difference had been staggering. She shuddered inside at the memory, but kept her face unreadable. No point in worrying Julian at this late stage.

‘I’d like to do it. Really,’ she reassured. Then smiled. ‘And you’re quite right. I’m going to stop fussing over Mum and leave that up to you.’

Julian beamed. ‘Good.’ He fished two business cards out of his jacket pocket and pressed them into her right hand. ‘Now here’s the names, business addresses and phone numbers of the architect and interior decorator I’m using. Both of them are going to be really famous one day, you mark my words. They have adjoining offices in Wollongong and, though they’re not actually partners, there’s an unwritten agreement that, if you hire this architect to design a house, you hire this decorator as well. Having met the man, I can understand why. He’s a fanatic about his houses. Apparently has nightmares over acquiring some scatter-brained client with lots of money and no taste ruining one of his masterpieces with ghastly decor.

‘His words, not mine,’ Julian added with a chuckle. ‘Anyway, since you have excellent taste, Carolyn, you shouldn’t have any trouble with him. But watch yourself. He’s in his early thirties and extremely good-looking, but apparently not into marriage. Or so he implied one day when I was talking about the subject. I wouldn’t like my stepdaughter getting mixed up with an inveterate womaniser. I want her finding herself a husband, not a lover. Why are you looking so surprised? You did tell me you wanted half a dozen children, didn’t you?’