HELEN BROOKS – The Marriage Solution (страница 2)

‘Can I speak to Mr Reef, please?’ she said politely. ‘He is expecting the call.’

‘I’ll put you through to his secretary.’

A few more seconds elapsed and then a cultured, beautifully modulated female voice spoke silkily. ‘Mr Reef’s office. Can I help you?’

As Katie gave her name and a brief explanation to the disembodied voice she felt her stomach tighten in anticipation of what was to come, and it was with a sense of anticlimax that she beard the secretary’s voice speak again a minute or so later. ‘I’m sorry, Miss White, I understand that Mr Reef was expecting your father to call.’ It was said pleasantly enough but with just the faintest condemnation in the soft tones. ‘He really can’t spare the time—’

‘My father has been taken into hospital,’ Katie said tightly as she felt her face begin to burn with impotent anger. ‘I’m fully aware of what Mr Reef was expecting but he’ll have to make do with me, I’m afraid.’

‘Just a moment.’ There were a few more seconds of silence and then the secretary spoke again, her voice faintly embarrassed now. ‘I’m sorry, Miss White, but Mr Reef said he did make it plain to you that it is your father he needs to contact. He doesn’t think there is any point in talking to you.’

‘Now just a darn minute.’ Katie fairly spat the words down the phone. ‘My father has been rushed to hospital with a heart attack and that creep you work for hasn’t even got the decency to talk to me? Whatever he is paying you, it isn’t enough for working for a low-life like him.’

‘Miss White—’

‘Look, this isn’t your fault but I see no purpose in continuing this conversation,’ Katie said stiffly before slamming the phone down so hard that the small table quivered under the force of it.

The pig! The arrogant, cold, supercilious pig! She tried to take a sip of coffee but her hands were shaking so much that she couldn’t lift the cup, which made her still angrier. A combination of shock at her father’s sudden collapse and rage at Carlton Reefs total lack of sympathy brought the tears she had kept at bay so far burning hot into the back of her eyes. She sat for long minutes trembling with the strength of her emotions before she wiped her wet eyes with a resolute hand and dialled the number of the local hospital with her heart in her mouth.

She was put through almost immediately to Mark whose calm, unflappable voice reassured her somewhat. ‘It’s as I expected, Katie,’ the doctor said gently. ‘His heart is struggling a little—I’ve recognised it for some time—but with certain medication or perhaps even an operation he can carry on more or less as normal.’

‘Did he have a heart attack?’ she asked nervously.

‘I won’t lie to you, Katie; you’re over twenty-one and well able to take the rough with the smooth from what I’ve seen of you. Yes, it was a heart attack. He’s all wired up at the moment and the results aren’t too good but they’re far from fatal, so don’t let your imagination run riot. He’s been working too hard of late but you can’t tell him. At sixty he’s no spring chicken.’

‘No...’ She smiled shakily. ‘Can I come and see him?’

‘Leave it for now,’ he said gently. ‘He’d hate you to see him at the moment; you know how he is.’

Yes, she knew how he was, Katie thought painfully as the shaft of agony that whipped through her body made her gasp. If it had been Jennifer here he would have allowed her to see him, but the simple fact was that he didn’t rate his younger daughter at all. She shut her eyes tight and forced her voice to remain normal. ‘But he’s in no danger?’ she asked quietly.

‘Not now.’ Mark’s voice was soothing. ‘I only wish I could have got him in here months ago.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’ She could feel the tears bubbling to the surface and knew she had to finish the call quickly. ‘I’ll phone later, if I may?’

‘Of course. Goodbye, Katie.’

‘Goodbye, and thank you.’

She sat for long minutes in the overwhelmingly male study before wiping her eyes for the second time, phoning a local taxi firm and checking the address of the Tone Organisation in her father’s smart address book. Somehow, during that telephone call with Dr Lambeth, something that had been forming slowly through the last few years of her life crystallised in her mind.

She was aware that her father treated her with an offhand, almost casual and often slightly caustic tolerance that was totally absent from his dealing with her older sister. Jennifer had chosen a career in the cut-and-thrust, dog-eat-dog world of journalism and was doing wonderfully well. This her father could both understand and respect. Whereas she...

She blinked as she laid the book down on the desk. She had chosen to work with physically handicapped children in a local school after finishing her degree at university, despite better, more up-market job offers. The hours were long, the salary low and the mental and physical exhaustion that were part of the job sometimes seemed too much to bear but the rewards... She straightened her back as she stood up. The rewards as the children under her care learnt to live to their potential were enormous and something that her father would never understand, she thought painfully.

‘Where are you going, Katie—the hospital?’ Mrs Jenkins met her in the hall as the taxi driver rang the bell. Katie’s neat red Fiesta was sitting in the drive but she knew she was in no fit state to drive herself.

‘No.’ She smiled as she answered although it was an effort. ‘Dad doesn’t want any visitors although Dr Lambeth said he isn’t in any danger.’

‘Thank goodness.’ Mrs Jenkins shut her eyes for a moment and then smiled mistily at her. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

‘Of course you did.’ Katie smiled back at the homely face she had come to love over the years. ‘I have to sort out some business affair of Dad’s—you know, that other phone call? It’s urgent and I can’t really leave it but if anyone should phone you know nothing about it. OK?’

‘Of course, my dear.’ Mrs Jenkins understood her perfectly. ‘Anyone’ meant one person and one person only. ‘I wouldn’t say a word. We just want him to get better, don’t we?’

Their house was situated on the outskirts of London, in a pleasant suburb with gracious tree-lined avenues and large houses in their own immaculate grounds. As the taxi ate up the miles into the capital the general vista changed to miles and miles of identical terraced dwellings, rows of shops broken only by the odd garage and, eventually, blocks of office buildings, neutral and blank in the cool March air.

The taxi stopped at a particularly imposing high-rise monstrosity and she saw the sign, ‘Tone Organisation’, with a little quiver of her nerves. But she wasn’t backing out now. Her father might not think much of her but that didn’t matter. This was something that needed to be done; Carlton Reef had made that plain. It wouldn’t just go away—or, rather, he wouldn’t just go away, she corrected grimly as she stared up at the tall building.

She needed to buy her father some time. She stuck out her small chin aggressively and leant forward to the driver. ‘Could you wait?’ she asked firmly. ‘I shan’t be long.’

‘No problem, miss.’ She received a toothy grin. ‘You’re paying.’

The offices were busy and full but by the time the smart lift had carried her up to the top floor all was hushed opulence and quiet elegance. She found the secretary’s office with no trouble and prepared for battle as she opened the door, but the office was empty, the interconnecting door with the office on the left partly open.

‘I don’t care what it takes.’ She knew that voice, she thought blindly as her stomach dropped into her feet. ‘This is one hell of a mess, Robert, and you do what you can to get us out of it. Get back to me.’ The sound of a receiver being banged down made her flinch but in the next instant the doorway was full of a big male body and a hard square face was staring at her with something akin to amazement in the narrowed eyes. ‘Who the hell are you?’

She realised that she wasn’t dressed in office mode, but the worn denims and thick jumper that she had donned that morning were ideal for her work, as was the no-nonsense hairstyle that held her long honey-blonde hair in a severe French plait at the back of her head. But in this world of pencil-slim skirts and the latest designer suits she was sadly out of place.

She lifted her chin a fraction higher and stared straight into the piercing grey eyes that were watching her so intently. ‘I’m Katie White, Mr Reef, and I want a word with you.’ She was glad her voice didn’t betray her—inside she was a mass of quivering jelly. ‘I have to say you are, without exception, the rudest, most objectionable man I have ever had the misfortune to come into contact with. My father is in Intensive Care at the moment with a heart attack—not that I expect you to be interested in that—and other than wheel the bed down here I had no alternative but to come here myself, as you wouldn’t accept my call.’

‘How did you get past Reception and my secretary?’ he asked grimly, without the flicker of an eyelash.

There was something in the complete lack of response to her tirade that was more daunting than any show of rage but she forced herself not to wilt as she continued to face him. ‘Reception was busy; a party of Japanese businessmen had just arrived,’ she answered shortly. ‘So I just slipped into the lift once I’d found your name and floor on the notice-board. And your secretary—’ she glanced round the large room with her eyebrows raised ‘—is your problem, not mine.’