Married By Christmas. Carole Mortimer

what about you?’ Lilli accused emotionally. ‘I don’t need to ask where you spent the night. Or with whom!’ She was furiously angry, but at the same time tears of pain glistened in her eyes.

      Her father reached out to touch her hand, but she drew back as if she had been burnt ‘You don’t understand, Lilli,’ he told her in a hurt voice. ‘You—’

      ‘Oh, I understand only too well.’ She stood up so suddenly, her chair fell over behind her with a loud clatter, but neither of them took any notice of it as their green eyes locked. ‘You spent last night in the bed of a woman everyone knows to be a man-eating flirt, a woman who has been involved with numerous men since her brief marriage—and equally quick divorce!—five years ago. And with my mother, your wife, barely cold in her grave!’ She glared across the table at him, her breathing shallow and erratic in her agitation, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

      For that was what hurt the most about all this. After a long illness, her mother had died three months ago—and now her father was intimately involved with one of the biggest flirts in London!

      It was an insult to her mother’s memory. It was—it was—God, the pain last night of seeing her father with another woman—with that woman in particular!—had been almost more than she could bear.

      Her father looked as if she had physically hit him, his face as pale as her own, the likeness between them even more noticeable during those seconds. Lilli had always been so proud of her father, had adored him as a child, admired him as an adult, had always loved the fact that she looked so much like him, her hair as dark as his.

      Now she wished she looked like anyone else but him—because at this particular moment she hated him!

      ‘You’re right, Father, I don’t understand,’ she told him coldly as she rose and walked away from him. ‘But then, I don’t think I particularly want to.’

      ‘Lilli, did you spend the night with Patrick Devlin?’

      She stopped at the door, her back still towards him. Then, swallowing hard, she turned to face him, her head held back defiantly. ‘Yes, I did,’ she told him starkly.

      He frowned. ‘You went to bed with him?’

      Lilli stared at her parent woodenly. She had woken up in a hotel bedroom this morning, wearing only her lace panties, with Patrick Devlin singing in the adjoining bathroom as he took a shower, the other side of the double bed showing signs of someone having slept there, the pillow indented, the sheet tangled; so it was probably a fair assumption that she had been to bed with him!

      But the real truth of the matter was she didn’t actually remember, couldn’t recall anything of the night before from the moment she had closed her eyes in the car—and even some of the events before that were a bit hazy!

      Her mouth tightened stubbornly. ‘What if I did? I’m over twenty-one.’ Just! ‘And a free agent.’ Definitely that, since the end of her engagement. She had barely been out of the house during the last six months—which was the reason the champagne and wine she’d drunk last night had hit her so strongly, she was sure. At least, that was what she had told herself this morning when she’d finally managed to open her eyes and face the day. ‘Who was I hurting?’ she added challengingly.

      Her father gave a weary sigh, shaking his head. ‘Well, I believe the intention was to hurt me. But the person you’ve hurt the most is yourself. Lilli, do you have any idea who Patrick Devlin is?’

      Why should she? As her father had already said, she had only met the man last night. And her nonsensical conversation with Patrick in the kitchen had told her nothing about him, except that he had a sense of humour. But then, she had told him nothing about herself either, was ‘Just Lilli’ as far as he was concerned. She never expected to see or hear from him again!

      ‘I only wanted to go to bed with him, not hear his life story!’ she scorned dismissively.

      Her father drew a harsh breath. ‘Perhaps if you had done the latter, and not the former, this conversation wouldn’t be taking place. In fact, I’m sure it wouldn’t,’ he rasped abruptly. ‘You really don’t have any idea who he is?’

      ‘Why do you keep harping on about the man?’ She snapped her impatience. ‘He isn’t important—’

      ‘Oh, but he is,’ her father cut in softly.

      ‘Not to me.’ She gave a firm shake of her head, wincing as she did so.

      She just wanted to forget about Patrick Devlin. Last night she had behaved completely out of character, mostly because, as her father had guessed, she wanted to hit out at him. But also at Geraldine Simms. Well, she had done that—more than done that if her father’s reaction was anything to go by!—and now she just wanted to forget it had ever happened. She couldn’t even remember half of last night’s events, so it shouldn’t be that hard to do!

      ‘Oh, yes, Lilli, he is important to you too.’ Her father nodded grimly. ‘Patrick Devlin is the Chairman of Paradise Bank.’

      She thought back to the man she had met last night in Geraldine Simms’ kitchen—she couldn’t count this morning; she had left the hotel before he’d stopped singing and emerged from the bathroom! She remembered a tall, handsome man, with slightly overlong dark hair, and laughter in his deep grey eyes. He hadn’t looked anything like a banker.

      She shrugged. ‘So? Is he married, with a dozen children; is that the problem?’ Although if he were he must have a very understanding wife, to have gone off to a party on his own and then have felt no compunction about staying out all night. No...somehow she didn’t think he was married.

      Her father gave a sigh at the mockery in her tone. ‘Okay, let’s leave that part alone for a while. Do you know what else he is, Lilli?’

      ‘A Liberal Democrat,’ she taunted.

      ‘Oh, very funny!’ Her father, a staunch Conservative voter, wasn’t in the least amused at her continued levity.

      ‘Look, Father, I don’t—’

      ‘And will you stop calling me “Father” in that judgemental tone?’ he bit out tautly.

      ‘I’m sorry, but you just don’t seem like “Daddy” to me at the moment,’ she told him in a pained voice, unable to look at him at that moment, too.

      Her father had always been there for her in the past, she had always been ‘Daddy’s little girl’, and now he suddenly seemed like a stranger...

      ‘I’m really sorry you feel that way, Lilli.’ He spoke gently. ‘It wasn’t meant to be this way.’

      ‘I’m not even going to ask what you mean by that remark,’ she said scathingly, turning towards the door once again.

      ‘I haven’t finished yet, Lilli—’

      ‘But I have!’ She swung round, eyes flashing deeply green. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure I can listen to any more of this without being sick!’ This time she did turn and walk out the door, her head held high.

      ‘He’s Geraldine’s brother,’ her father called after her. ‘Patrick Devlin is Geraldine’s older brother!’

      She faltered only slightly, and then she just kept on walking, her legs moving automatically, that numbness she had known the night before thankfully creeping over her once again.

      ‘Where are you going?’ Her father now stood at the bottom of the stairs she had half ascended.

      ‘To bed,’ she told him flatly. ‘To sleep.’ For a million years, if she was lucky!

      ‘This mess will still be here when you wake up, Lilli,’ her father told her fiercely. ‘I’ll still be here!’

      She didn’t answer him, didn’t even glance at him, continuing up to her bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her, deliberately keeping her mind blank as she threw off the clothes she had worn last night, not even