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beat her,’ Joel corrected grimly. ‘Although she said she’d fallen over.’

      ‘Maybe she had,’ Sabina said hopefully.

      ‘She didn’t,’ he said with certainty.

      Sabina felt sick. ‘I didn’t know.’ Her voice was faint.

      ‘Maybe not,’ he shrugged. ‘You could only have been nine or ten at the time they separated.’

      Then her father had known, he had been Nicholas’ partner for the last fifteen years. And he had been going to let her marry such a monster. But why? It was a question only he could answer. ‘Do you have a telephone?’ she asked Joel Brent.

      ‘Why?’ His eyes were narrowed.

      ‘I—I need to call someone.’

      He shook his head. ‘Not from here you won’t. I don’t have a telephone, radio, television, or read newspapers.’

      So that was why he didn’t know she was Charles Smith’s daughter, why he took her to just be a young reporter taking the easy way to the top of her career. How wrong could he be! She had never worked in her life, a little charity work was as near as she had ever come to it. Her father always said he needed her at home whenever she suggested going out to work, and Nicholas seemed to feel the same way when she had told him she would like to get a job after they were married. Maybe if she had had a job, had gained a little independence from her father, she might not have been so easily persuaded to marry Nicholas.

      ‘Then you don’t know that the public are anxious to know what’s happened to you?’ she now asked Joel Brent.

      He seemed to stiffen. ‘They were quick enough to condemn me a year ago.’

      ‘But—–’

      ‘I don’t conduct interviews at two o’clock in the morning, Miss Smith,’ he cut in harshly. ‘In fact I don’t conduct interviews at all, not any more.’

      ‘I was only—–’

      ‘I don’t care what you were only!’ His face was livid with anger. ‘You can sleep in this bed tonight, tomorrow we’ll have to try and fix up some other arrangement.’

      ‘T-tomorrow?’ she queried.

      ‘I’ve already told you, you aren’t leaving, not until I do. And that may not be for months yet.’

      ‘But I just told you I can’t stay here! Mr Brent, I—–’

      ‘Joel!’ he snapped. ‘If you have to call me anything call me Joel. I don’t get many visitors, just the occasional neighbour, and they have no idea that my name is Brent. Do you understand?’

      ‘Yes. But—– Where are you going?’ Her question stopped him going out of the door.

      ‘What’s the matter, aren’t you used to sleeping alone?’

      ‘I always sleep alone!’ she told him through gritted teeth.

      ‘Always?’ he taunted.

      ‘Yes!’

      ‘I wonder if Freed has ever taken a virgin?’ he mused cruelly. ‘I doubt it, I shouldn’t think he has the finesse for it. Still, perhaps we can change all that before you leave here.’

      His softly spoken words conjured up erotic pictures in her mind, pictures of her and this man locked together in love. She blushed as she saw by the contempt in his eyes that he had clearly read her thoughts. ‘You’re disgusting!’ she snapped to cover her embarrassment.

      ‘Maybe,’ he agreed huskily. ‘But you seem to like me well enough.’

      She didn’t like him at all, her feelings went much deeper than that. How was it possible to fall in love with a man she hardly knew, a man still in love with the memory of a dead woman? No matter how it had happened she did love him, and it was because she loved him that she was going to stop fighting him about leaving here. If she stayed long enough she would be able to get out of marrying Nicholas simply by not turning up for the wedding—a coward’s way out, but in this case the safest. Her father could be very persuasive when it came to getting something he wanted.

      She couldn’t have married Nicholas now, not even if Joel hadn’t told her about his marriage to Nancy. How Joel Brent would laugh if he knew the mess she was in. How much more he would laugh if he knew she had fallen in love with him almost on sight.

      ‘It’s been tried before,’ he told her coldly.

      Sabina gave him a puzzled look. ‘What has?’

      ‘A colleague of yours, Sharon Kendal, got me into bed with her and then tried to get me to talk about Nicole. Needless to say I got the hell out of there.’

      Sabina knew all about Sharon Kendal’s methods of getting a story. She had come to work for the Daily News about six months ago, a hard-headed career woman of about Joel’s age. In that six months she had come to be the chief reporter, pushing out anyone who got in her way. Sabina could quite well believe she would use any tactics to get a story, although how Joel could have fallen for that—–

      ‘I didn’t know she was a reporter until it was too late.’ Once again he seemed to be able to read her thoughts, a disconcerting habit of his.

      She frowned. ‘I thought you said you didn’t tell her anything.’

      His mouth quirked. ‘I didn’t mean too late for that.’

      ‘Oh,’ she blushed at her stupidity. ‘Where are you going, Joel?’ she changed the subject to something less painful to her. Joel Brent’s past would be littered with women who had shared his bed—and Sabina found she hated every one of them.

      ‘Downstairs—to sleep on the sofa. I’m not in the mood for you tonight, attractive as you are. Tell me, does Freed know exactly where in Scotland you are?’

      He didn’t even know she was in Scotland as far as she knew! ‘Why should I tell you that?’ she said defensively.

      ‘He doesn’t,’ Joel said with satisfaction. ‘This gets better and better.’

      ‘How do you know he doesn’t?’ she flashed. ‘I didn’t say he—–’

      ‘He doesn’t, Sabina. If he did you would have said so straight away.’

      She sighed. ‘You’re right, he doesn’t.’

      ‘Now why should you admit that?’ His eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Is this another approach? Now that you know I won’t be fooled by the holiday story are you going to try and charm it out of me?’

      ‘I’m not interested in—in Nicole Dupont, or the relationship you had with her.’

      ‘That’s good,’ Joel rasped. ‘Because I don’t intend discussing it with you. Get some sleep, Sabina, you look as if you need it.’

      ‘Thanks!’

      He laughed at her sarcasm. ‘I’ll leave Satan up here with you—just to keep you company,’ he taunted.

      ‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ she said hastily, the cat already watching her with an evil look in its eyes.

      ‘I’m sure you would. Sweet dreams,’ he mocked as he left.

      Sweet dreams be damned! She couldn’t even fall asleep, let alone dream. What was she going to do about Joel’s bad opinion of her? Finding out that Nicholas was the man she was engaged to had only seemed to confirm that she was a reporter, and Joel made no secret of his hatred of reporters. With good reason, if she remembered correctly. Until he had been cleared of all suspicion of crashing deliberately, the newspapers had given him a rough time—mainly, she realised now, because he refused to confirm or deny their allegations.

      If she could manage to convince Joel she wasn’t a reporter perhaps he would stop resenting her and start seeing

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