Joined By Marriage. Carole Mortimer

sure,’ she accepted scathingly. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ She walked to the door. ‘It seems I have an appointment to make!’

      She turned and stormed out of the office, neither thanking him—she had no reason to do so!—or saying goodbye. Somehow she had a feeling, despite the fact that there was absolutely no reason why they should, that they would meet again...

      ‘I’ll come with you.’

      Brianna turned to him in the carpeted corridor. ‘There’s no need for you to do that—I’m not about to steal the company silver!’

      He looked down at her from his imposing height, dark brows raised reprovingly. ‘Are you always this—forthright, Miss Gibson?’ he said carefully.

      ‘Probably,’ she dismissed. ‘I suppose, despite what you said earlier, that excludes me from taking up law as a profession?’

      The insult hung in the air between them, only a nerve pulsing high in Nathan Landris’s cheek, as he reached up to remove his glasses, telling of his response to it.

      She hadn’t particularly meant to insult the man, but it was nevertheless true that he didn’t appear to have a forthright bone in his body. ‘I’ll go and make that appointment,’ she said quickly. ‘Er—thank you for your help,’ she added, with the gratitude she had omitted earlier.

      It started out as that now-familiar grimace, but then it went one step further, and, to her surprise, Brianna found herself looking at a smiling Nathan Landris. It was quite amazing what a difference it made to him—his blue eyes warm, that hard, unyielding face suddenly rakishly attractive.

      Brianna stared at him, totally thrown by the transformation. God, this man had it all, didn’t he: a razor-sharp brain, a lethal coldness, and, when that failed, a sudden charm that was breathtaking. At least, Brianna felt suddenly breathless. Clark Kent and Superman—and she had thought they were both ficticious characters!

      ‘I think so.’ He answered her facetiously made remark. ‘You speak first, and think afterwards.’

      ‘Whereas a lawyer thinks first and often doesn’t speak at all.’ She acknowledged the fact that, although he might think he had almost told her his life story, he had in fact told her nothing she had come here to find out. And she was no longer sure that was because he didn’t know anything... ‘Very well, Mr Landris, we’ll do this your way.’ She doubted it was very often done any other way! ‘You escort me back to Reception, I’ll organise my appointment, and then we can both get back to work.’

      He walked at her side down the corridor, the glasses firmly back on the bridge of his nose. ‘And what work do you do, Miss Gibson?’

      She glanced up at him, tongue slightly in cheek as she answered him. ‘I’m a receptionist.’

      This time the smile that closely resembled a grimace didn’t even get a look in. That rakish grin appeared instantly, accompanied by a throaty chuckle. ‘Miss Gib—Brianna, you really are...!’ He shook his head, the grin still curving his lips. ‘I don’t think you need any assistance in organising your appointment. I—’ He broke off, looking at a man walking down the corridor toward them, and his humour faded, his expression suddenly becoming grim.

      ‘Can you find your own way back to Reception?’ he prompted Brianna distractedly, still looking at the other man.

      ‘I would think so,’ she answered him humorously, also looking at the man approaching them. He was dressed as formally as Nathan Landris but he wasn’t quite as tall as him, although he had an equal air of purpose about him. Nathan Landris’s two o’clock appointment, Brianna decided.

      ‘Could you wait in my office for me?’ Nathan addressed the man, confirming Brianna’s suspicions. ‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’

      ‘I’m in rather a hurry, Nathan,’ the older man said sharply.

      ‘This won’t take long,’ Nathan assured him.

      ‘I can see you’re busy.’ Brianna lightly touched Nathan’s arm. ‘I won’t take up any more of your time.’ She gave an apologetic smile to the older man—who, despite being much older than Nathan, did give her a male response, openly staring at her.

      Brianna’s parting smile included both men as she walked away, and as she glanced back, before turning the corner into the reception area, it was to find both men still watching her, the older still staring at her. Nathan Landris might be made of ice, but his client certainly wasn’t!

      Brianna, out on the street minutes later, her appointment made for next week with Landris Senior, felt distinctly dissatisfied with the whole morning; she was no nearer to knowing what all this was about than she had been when she’d received the letter earlier that day!

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘YOU really shouldn’t have gone there alone, Brianna.’ Her father spoke across the dinner table to her. ‘I thought we agreed before you left for work this morning that you weren’t going to do anything until we had another chance to talk this evening?’

      ‘Don’t worry, Dad.’ Brianna leant across the table and squeezed his hand reassuringly. ‘For all the good it did me, I might as well not have bothered! I feel as if I just made a complete fool of myself.’ And Nathan Landris had helped her to do it!

      She had thought on and off during the afternoon about her conversation with him; the more she thought about it, the more annoyed she became, both with him and herself. Who had been trying to glean information from whom?

      ‘I think it’s ace,’ her brother piped up. ‘Perhaps you’ll find out you’re the daughter of a rich Arab sheik, and that you’ve been left millions in his will!’ Gary grinned expectantly.

      As a family, they had never made any secret of Brianna’s adoption, and, because they were all so close, it had never mattered to any of them—Gary was Brianna’s brother, and her father was exactly that.

      She grimaced now. ‘With this colouring? Knowing my luck, it’s more likely I’m the daughter of a debtor—and I owe millions!’

      Her brother grinned, she noticed, but her father still looked far from happy with the situation. ‘Dad—’ She broke off as the telephone rang out in the hallway. ‘You aren’t on call tonight, are you?’ She frowned.

      ‘No, I’m not. But when has that ever stopped patients calling me?’

      Her father specialised in obstetrics, and as such was always on call!

      ‘I’ll get it,’ Gary offered, getting up from the table.

      ‘It’s probably for you, anyway,’ Brianna said; her brother seemed to have a veritable stream of girlfriends.

      ‘Or the rich Arab sheik for you!’ he called out cheekily before leaving the room.

      ‘Not if he’s dead!’ she returned lightly.

      ‘We’re all so normal.’ Her father slowly shook his head. ‘Just a normal happy family. And yet I have this strong feeling of impending doom, like a heavy weight hanging over us all. I—’

      ‘It’s for you, sis.’ Gary breezed back into the room. ‘A Mr Landris.’

      ‘You see.’ Her father sat back heavily, looking every inch his fifty-three years at that moment.

      Nathan Landris! What on earth was he telephoning her for, at home, at seven o’clock in the evening? Unless he was a workaholic, it was way out of office hours. Come to think of it, he probably was a workaholic! But she didn’t have any business with him; it was his father she wanted to see. Surely this wasn’t a social call? Superman hadn’t burst out of Clark Kent’s clothing, had he, with Nathan Landris actually behaving like a man rather than a lawyer? No, it was the Incredible Hulk who burst out of his clothes, not Superman—

      ‘I don’t think he’s going to hang on all evening, Bri,’