LITMIR.BIZ

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again early the next morning, and said she was likely to be away for a couple of days. She was worried because her ex-husband was too committed to have Alice with him, but Leyne assured her there was no need to worry and that she would be pleased to have Alice stay with them. Dropping the girls off at school on Tuesday, Leyne drove on to her office and delivered the work she had finished the previous evening. Explaining that she needed to work from home, she stuffed her briefcase with enough work to keep her busy for the next two days.

      As it happened, it suited her very well to work from home. Should Jack Dangerfield’s PA ring, she would be there to take the call.

      That call did not come, and by Thursday Leyne had formed the opinion that this had gone on long enough! Only last evening she had glanced up and found Pip’s eyes on her, silently asking the question, Is there any news yet?

      Feeling uptight herself as she drove to her office, Leyne could only imagine how much worse it must be for her young niece. That being so, the minute she had the office to herself, she rang the offices of J. Dangerfield, Engineers, and went through the same procedure as before.

      This time, though, when she heard voice number three, she changed it slightly. ‘My name is Leyne Rowberry,’ she said firmly. ‘I would like to speak with Mr Dangerfield.’

      ‘Just one moment, Miss Rowberry. I’ll see if he’s available,’ the efficient-sounding voice answered to her surprise.

      Leyne waited, fully expecting to be told that Mr Dangerfield was in Timbuktu, or somewhere equally unlikely, when, to her further surprise, the next voice she heard—was his!

      ‘Miss Rowberry,’ he said.

      ‘Mr Dangerfield,’ she replied, and was stumped for the moment by the realisation that she must have previously been talking to his PA, who must know something of her to have let her through her screening position.

      ‘You rang me?’ he reminded her when she had nothing to add.

      ‘You were going to contact me!’ she reminded him, hostility starting to enter her tone.

      ‘I was?’

      His PA had been going to, so he said. It was the same thing. ‘Are you playing with me?’ she demanded.

      ‘Now, there’s a thought,’ he drawled. And while she was chewing on that, and at the same time striving for control—there was more at stake here than the personal antagonism she felt towards this man—his tone suddenly changed to be all tough businessman. ‘You expect me to take you seriously?’ he questioned shortly.

      ‘Yes, I do!’ she retorted bluntly. ‘There is more here than you and me. I’ve a vulnerable eleven-year-old in my care who is daily hoping I can tell her who her father is!’

      There was a pause, as though Jack Dangerfield was taking on board what she had just said. Then, his tone more reasonable, ‘From my point of view, Miss Rowberry, I have told you as plainly as I know how that I am not the child’s father. You, clearly, do not believe me. So why don’t you tell me what makes you so convinced that I am?’ He paused again, but only to come back to demand, ‘You’re trying to tell me that she carries my family’s birthmark?’

      ‘No, I’m not! Pip doesn’t have a birthmark!’

      ‘Which is in your favour—there isn’t one.’

      ‘Are you trying to trip me up?’

      ‘You’re trying to get me to admit to something that I know is untrue,’ he reminded her. ‘Again I ask—why are you so sure that I fathered the child?’

      ‘I asked my mother.’

      ‘Not the child’s mother?’

      ‘The child’s name is Philippa! We call her Pip!’ Leyne flared, feeling awkward suddenly, but starting to object to her niece being discussed as though she were a parcel. ‘And I told you that her mother is out of the country and likely to be for some while. And that is why I asked my mother.’

      ‘You were obviously too young when I was—er—sowing my wild oats, but you—’

      ‘Look here, you!’ Leyne erupted. ‘My sister is not some—some scrubber. She is a responsible and a loving person. And she would not have gone with you for some—er—cheap thrill. You would have meant something to her, and I’m not having you talking as if—’

      ‘So she told your mother I was the child’s father?’ He cut through her tirade.

      Leyne counted to ten. ‘Max did not have to tell her. You were the only man my sister was dating at the time!’

      ‘I see,’ he said, but was obviously just mulling over in his mind what Leyne had just told him. ‘Then it seems to me,’ he concluded, ‘that I had better come and have a word with your mother.’

      ‘What for?’ All of Leyne’s protective hackles rose up. ‘My mother doesn’t live with us. But, anyway, my mother has never met you.’

      ‘I never called at your home for your sister?’

      ‘You know you did! Only you never came into the house.’

      ‘Did I never meet your father either?’ He was starting to sound sceptical—as he had last Monday.

      ‘I don’t think so. It was around that time that my father fell ill—he died less than a year later.’

      There was a brief pause, then Jack Dangerfield threw her completely with his next question. ‘Who do you live with?’ he wanted to know.

      ‘Who…?’ She just wasn’t with him.

      ‘You said you didn’t live with your mother,’ he replied patiently—as though she were the eleven-year-old under discussion. ‘Are you living with someone—some man?’

      ‘No!’ she answered abruptly. ‘It’s just Pip and me, and Max when she’s home. We live in the family home—my mother’s home. She thought it best that we stayed put when she remarried four years ago.’ Thanks to their mother allowing them to live there rent-free, they were able to cope financially most of the time. ‘But this isn’t getting anything settled and…’

      ‘And I’m a busy man.’

      He could run if he thought she was going to apologise for interrupting his day. ‘So too am I busy!’ she snapped.

      ‘You work and look after the—Philippa?’

      ‘It’s no hardship, and I’m able to work from home when necessary,’ she replied. And, as a sudden dreadful thought struck her, ‘I’m not after your money!’ she told him hurriedly. ‘Please don’t think that for a minute. Pip has everything she needs, I promise you. It’s just that…’ her voice softened ‘…that she’s reached an age where her mind is starting to be more enquiring. And what she wants to know more than anything is who her father is.’ Leyne gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘It could not have come at a worse time.’

      ‘I can see that,’ Jack Dangerfield commented, and sounded as if he understood.

      So much so that Leyne found she was telling him, ‘Not only that, but Pip wants to meet him.’

      Instantly Jack Dangerfield’s tone changed. ‘You can count me out on that one!’ he rapped sharply.

      ‘Trust me, I’d want to know a lot more about you before I let you within a mile of her!’ Leyne retorted.

      ‘Good!’ he barked. But sounded a touch more polite when he enquired, ‘So what is it you want from me, Miss Rowberry?’

      ‘I want to be able to tell my niece the name of her father.’

      ‘Can’t you just tell her he died? That he fell off a cliff or something?’

      ‘I’m not going to lie about something like that!’ Leyne gasped, appalled at the very suggestion. But, realising belatedly that he probably already knew that, and was most likely

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