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‘By using my natural charm and diplomacy?’

      Skye gave a disbelieving snort; she wasn’t aware this man had any natural charm, let alone diplomacy.

      ‘I asked you a question when I arrived, Skye,’ Falkner reminded briskly. ‘You’re over the concussion, and your broken ribs are mending nicely, so isn’t it time you checked out of here?’

      She glared at him resentfully. ‘I wasn’t aware a medical degree was one of your many accomplishments!’

      Skye was totally aware that since the accident that had excluded him from the showjumping circuit three years ago this man had turned his hand to playing the stock market, that everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. Maybe he should have been named Midas rather than the unusual Falkner!

      ‘You might be surprised at some of my “accomplishments”,’ he bit back tersely, before instantly making a visible effort to relax. ‘Although a medical degree isn’t amongst them,’ he conceded dryly. ‘The truth is, I had a lengthy conversation with your doctor before I came in here—’

      ‘You had no right—’

      ‘I have every right, Skye,’ Falkner harshly cut in on her indignation, sitting forward slightly on the chair. ‘Skye, I realize that I’m probably the last person you expected to see today, that you wanted to see,’ he accepted heavily. ‘But the fact of the matter is—’ He broke off, running an agitated hand through the blond thickness of his hair.

      ‘The fact of the matter is…?’ Skye prompted warily, suddenly extremely suspicious of Falkner’s motive for being here.

      She personally hadn’t seen this man since that day over six years ago, but she knew that her father had continued to have a working relationship with the younger man until the time of the accident three years ago, that her father’s liking and respect for Falkner had deepened as he’d first fought his way back from his horrendous injuries, to move on to make a success of himself in another field.

      Her father…

      Pain shot through her like a knife just at the thought of him, once again closing her eyes, although she couldn’t manage to shut out the memories that had brought her to this point in time.

      When had everything begun to go wrong for them? She had lain here this last week trying to make sense of it all.

      There was no denying it had been a bad year for all the O’Hara family. Uncle Seamus’s wife had walked out on him after five years of marriage. Uncle Seamus had always been a little too fond of the family product, and his drinking bouts had become more frequent, usually ending in blazing rows, if not actually fisticuffs, with his younger brother, Connor. But with Skye’s help that situation had eventually calmed down, Uncle Seamus apologetic and shame-faced, the two men, to Skye’s relief, once again friends.

      Only for something even more disastrous to follow.

      Six months ago O’Hara Whiskey had been in serious financial difficulty, rumours quickly following of her father’s possible misconduct.

      And then had come the worst blow of all. That fatal night a week ago…

      It had been late at night as Skye and her father had driven back to their London hotel after yet another unsuccessful business meeting in the south of England, the rain beating blindingly against the windscreen, visibility almost nil. So much so that her father hadn’t seen the truck coming the other way, hadn’t realized it was driving on the wrong side of the road, either. Until it had been too late…

      Her face was now as white as the pillow she lay back on, her eyes still haunted by those last terrible moments as she once again looked at Falkner. ‘Would you please just go away and leave me alone?’ she pleaded brokenly.

      He reached out a hand to her, that hand dropping ineffectually onto the bed as she flinched away from him. ‘Skye, I know how it feels to be in pain. Who should know better than me?’ he rasped harshly. ‘But I—hell, I wish there was an easy way to say this, but ultimately I know that there isn’t.’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘You know they held the inquest three days ago?’

      Skye nodded her head without turning. She had given her statement to the police several days ago—she couldn’t remember how many days, they all seemed to have merged into one big, painful blur—knew that a verdict of ‘accidental death’ had been decided upon.

      ‘Skye, your father’s funeral is arranged for the end of this week,’ Falkner told her gently.

      No!

      All the memories, those terrible final moments, fell in on top of her, her father’s warning cry as he’d swerved to avoid the oncoming truck, the terrible sound as the two vehicles had collided, the eerie silence that had followed.

      Skye had regained consciousness as someone, a stranger, had pulled her from the car, the pain in her head and side so extreme that she’d thought she might faint again. Except…

      ‘My father,’ she had cried as she’d sat up. ‘You have to help my father.’

      But even as she’d called out she had known it was already too late for her father, his side of the car completely crushed where he had swerved to avoid the collision, making it impossible to believe that anyone could have survived in such a tangled mess.

      And no one had…

      At the hospital there had been even more strangers to reassure her that her father’s death would have been instantaneous. That he wouldn’t have known anything about it. Finally, when it had become apparent that Skye’s grief was inconsolable, that his injuries had been such that it was a blessing he hadn’t survived.

      A blessing.

      How could it possibly be ‘a blessing’ that her father, the person she loved most in the whole world, had died so suddenly, so tragically?

      And now Falkner Harrington, yet another stranger, had come to tell her that her father was to be buried in four days’ time…

      Skye didn’t even glance at Falkner now. ‘Go away,’ she told him.

      ‘I can’t do that,’ he told her regretfully. ‘And one day you’ll thank me for not doing so—’

      ‘I doubt that very much,’ she snapped.

      ‘Skye, in four days’ time, at his own request, your father is being laid to rest beside your mother, and I’m here to take you home—’

      ‘I’m not going to any funeral, in four days, or any other time!’ She turned on him fiercely, eyes blazing deeply blue as she attempted to sit up, the pain in her head and side instantly pulling her back down again. ‘I’m not going, Falkner,’ she repeated flatly as she turned away.

      ‘Oh, yes, you are,’ he told her firmly as he stood up to tower over her. ‘You know, as well as I do, that it was always your father’s wish to be buried beside your mother in Windsor. Skye,’ he groaned as she looked even more stricken as he once again mentioned the childhood loss of her mother, ‘I admit, I can’t even begin to take in the enormity of how you feel at the moment—my own parents are, thankfully, still both very much alive and living in Florida. But I have lost a very dear friend, a friend that I’m going to miss very much,’ he murmured huskily. ‘I also know that dear friend would have wanted me to look after his daughter,’ he added softly.

      Skye’s expression was scathing as she turned to him. ‘If you’re such a “friend”, then where were you this last six months, when my father so obviously needed all the friends he had?’

      Falkner straightened, his expression enigmatically unreadable. ‘I was there, Skye—’

      ‘I didn’t see you,’ she scorned.

      ‘But I saw you,’ he assured her quietly.

      Her eyes widened incredulously. ‘When? Where?’

      He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he dismissed.

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