Joined By Marriage. Carole Mortimer

Nathan’ took it. His hands were long and slender—far too artistically sensitive for such a man, Brianna decided critically.

      She realised she had taken an instant dislike to him. She usually got on with most people, that was why her job at the hospital was so interesting and enjoyable. Maybe it was just that she was already so emotionally strung-cut. After all, she didn’t even know him, although a part of her said she didn’t want to, either!

      ‘Hmm.’ When he looked up again, his. gaze was even more chilly than before. ‘It states quite clearly here that—’ He broke off as an elderly couple entered the reception area. ‘Would you like to come to my office, Miss—Gibson?’ This time he added her name after another glance at the letter, which he still held. ‘We can talk more privately there.’

      The receptionist looked alarmed. ‘You have an appointment at two o’clock, Mr Nathan.’

      ‘Plenty of time, Hazel,’ he dismissed with a wave of his hand, before taking a firm hold of Brianna’s arm. ‘If you would like to come this way, Miss Gibson,’ he suggested as the elderly couple approached the receptionist desk. ‘I’m sure you will be more comfortable in my office.’

      And not such a visible nuisance, Brianna guessed wryly. It simply wasn’t done, at the offices of Landris, Landris and Davis, to have altercations, no matter how mild, in their reception area.

      She wasn’t sure that ‘comfortable’ exactly described the room he took her into; grand and imposing sprang to mind, but not comfortable! The walls were panelled halfway up in the dark oak, and above hung paper the colour of a deep blue sky; there was a much darker blue carpet on the floor, and one of the walls was completely lined with books, all of them of legal origin, if the titles were anything to go by. In the centre of the room a huge bay window, edged with dark blue velvet curtains the same colour blue as the carpet formed the backdrop to a very wide oak desk. A high-backed dark blue leather chair sat behind it; a smaller chair in the same leather faced it.

      Mr Nathan moved to sit in the large chair, indicating she should sit opposite him, her letter still firmly in his possession. He laid it down on the desk in front of him, reading it again quickly before looking up at her once again. ‘You really have no idea what this letter is about?’ he prompted.

      She had only the guesswork of her father to go on, which she wasn’t sure was accurate. She had been put up for adoption when she was only two months old, so why on earth should her real parents be interested in her now?

      Although that first letter sent to her father by this firm of lawyers three months ago was still a puzzle...

      ‘None,’ she replied quickly.

      He pursed his firm, unsmiling lips. ‘I see,’ he murmured thoughtfully.

      ‘And I really think, Mr Nathan—’ Brianna sat forward in her chair ‘—that if you don’t know either, then you’re wasting my time as well as your own!’

      She felt the embarrassed colour enter her cheeks after this outburst, realising instantly that she owed him an apology; after all, he hadn’t needed to bother with her at all, he could just have left her for the receptionist to deal with—which she was sure, without this man as an audience, the other woman was more than capable of doing!

      ‘I’m sorry, Mr Nathan.’ She sat back with a heavy sigh. ‘It’s just that letters like that one—’ she indicated the letter in front of him ‘—arriving in the post without warning, can be quite unnerving.’

      ‘I’m sure they can,’ he returned smoothly. ‘But could I just set the record straight on one thing before we continue this conversation?’

      She looked across at him expectantly. ‘Yes?’

      He gave a small inclination of his head, the late spring sunlight coming through the window behind him showing a slight touch of red in the darkness. ‘My name is not Mr Nathan.’

      ‘But it’s what the receptionist just called you,’ Brianna protested confusedly.

      His mouth quirked, not quite into a smile, but into something—in this man’s case, Brianna felt—that came very close to it. ‘It’s what she has always called me.’

      ‘But I don’t see why, if it isn’t your name.’ Brianna frowned. ‘You—’

      ‘If you will just allow me to finish?’ the man continued imperiously. ‘Are you usually this—impetuous, Miss Gibson?’ He frowned at her darkly, as if she were a species he very rarely came into contact with! And she didn’t mean women; she was sure there was a wife in the background somewhere, someone as stiffly formal and haughty as he was. He obviously just wasn’t used to someone as bluntly forthright as she was.

      Well, that was okay, because she had never met anyone quite this stuffy and arrogant before, either. It wasn’t even as if he was that old; possibly he was in his mid-thirties, and yet he talked and behaved like someone so much older than that. What he really needed was to—

      Never mind what he needed, she impatiently admonished herself; she would never see him again after today, anyway. She wasn’t going to get anything out of him at all if she didn’t curb her impetuosity a little.

      ‘Probably,’ she conceded with a grimace. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have come here today at all, would I?’ she added with a shrug.

      His face showed his irritation with her levity. ‘As I was saying...’

      ‘Before you were so rudely interrupted!’ Brianna couldn’t control the facetious mental ending to his statement—or the smile that threatened to curve her lips and bring a sparkle to the deep blue of her eyes. The first she stifled by biting her bottom lip, the latter she could do nothing about, although she did make an effort to try and look avidly interested in what he was saying. If only he weren’t so pompous...!

      ‘Hazel calls me Mr Nathan because she has known me most of my life,’ he bit out tersely, as if he guessed some of her amusement was at his expense.

      ‘That sounds fair enough—except you’ve just told me it isn’t your name!’ Brianna shook her head frustratedly.

      Maybe it was her, or maybe what he was saying had lost something in the translation—because for all she understood his explanation he might as well have been talking a foreign language! But if his name wasn’t Mr Nathan, why on earth did the receptionist persist in calling him that?

      He drew in a harshly controlling breath, studying her with narrowed eyes behind his dark-rimmed lenses, as if he sensed only too well that she was laughing at him.

      Which she wasn’t. Well, not really. She was sure she was the one missing something here; this man was far too sensible ever to talk the load of nonsense this conversation had so far seemed to her to be. No doubt he would explain properly in a minute, and all would be understood. She hoped...

      ‘My name is Nathan.’ He spoke slowly now, as if he were talking to a slightly backward child. ‘And, as Hazel has worked on Reception here for the last thirty years, she has known me since I began visiting these offices when I was five years old.’

      Brianna put her head back, looking puzzled. She still didn’t understand, but she was beginning to think it wasn’t her fault, after all...

      ‘You’ve been a lawyer since you were five years old...?’ she said in slow disbelief.

      He scowled. ‘You know, if I didn’t think your bewilderment was genuine—’

      ‘Oh, but I can assure you it is,’ she hastily replied, not liking the dark clouds she could see appearing over his furrowed brow.

      God, this man must be daunting in a court-room. But not since he was five years old... She didn’t even know what had made her make such a ridiculous remark. A slight touch of hysteria probably. But not because of him; it was this situation over the letter that had her so wound up.

      ‘Of course you haven’t been a lawyer since you were five.’ She dismissed