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if you don’t identify yourself? Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s polite to announce your identity when you call someone?’

      ‘My mother taught me many things,’ he said, ‘and I intend to act on all of them.’

      She wasn’t sure she wanted him to elucidate on just exactly what he meant so she changed the subject.

      ‘Why did you call?’

      ‘I think it’s time we went out on a date.’

      ‘A date?’ She frowned. ‘Save yourself the time and bother, Kane. You don’t need to wine and dine me; you’ve paid for me already, remember?’

      ‘As you wish.’

      She knew it was inconsistent of her to be disappointed by his ready agreement but she just was.

      ‘I guess we can discuss the wedding arrangements just as easily over the telephone as we can over a dinner table somewhere,’ he continued. ‘I’ve decided we’ll have the ceremony conducted at Mercyfields overlooking the lake.’

      Her hand around the receiver tightened until her knuckles went completely white.

      ‘Your mother will appreciate you being married at your home,’ he added when she didn’t speak.

      ‘It’s no longer my home,’ she pointed out somewhat sourly. ‘It’s yours.’

      ‘It will belong to both of us. Your parents’ things will be moved out while we’re on our honeymoon.’

      ‘Honeymoon?’ she choked.

      ‘That’s what newly married couples usually do, is it not?’

      ‘Yes…but…’

      ‘I’ve arranged a week on a private beach on the south coast.’

      ‘The south coast?’

      ‘You do know where that is, don’t you?’ he drawled.

      ‘Of course I do, but I—’

      ‘It will be slightly cooler there than the city but the water is warm and the beach long and lonely.’

      ‘You sound like a travel journal,’ she said with a touch of scorn.

      His rumble of laughter sent a shiver over the surface of her skin.

      ‘I like to get away from the hustle and bustle of high city life,’ he said. ‘I go there quite a lot. It’s just about the only place you can still have the beach to yourself, no jet-skis, no crowds, just the sound of the waves beating along the shore.’

      Bryony could almost smell the sea-spray. She loved the beach but it had been months since she’d felt the sand between her toes.

      ‘Your parents will leave for a month-long cruise of the Pacific Islands the day after our wedding,’ he informed her, apparently undeterred by her lack of response. ‘Until I settle all his debts over the next few weeks, your father needs to keep his head down. Your mother, quite frankly, needs a holiday.’

      It was difficult not to voice her agreement but somehow she managed to remain silent.

      ‘It will take me the best part of that month to sort out the mess your father has made,’ he went on. ‘I have to wait until I get clearance of some international funds to relieve the situation.’

      That did get her attention.

      ‘International funds? What international funds?’

      ‘I recently inherited my maternal grandfather’s estate in Greece. I have to wait until the bank clears the funds to access them.’

      Bryony’s forehead creased in a frown. His maternal grandfather had been wealthy? It didn’t make sense. Why then had his mother worked her fingers to the bone cleaning?

      ‘I thought you didn’t know any of your relatives.’

      ‘I don’t, nor do I wish to. They didn’t help my mother when she most needed it so I don’t see why I should pay them any attention now.’

      ‘But surely if your grandfather left you his entire estate you must feel some sort of obligation to go and see the rest of the family and—’

      ‘My grandfather’s money is nothing more than guilt money. I’ve made my own fortune without it.’

      ‘Then why are you using it to sort out my father’s debts?’

      ‘You’re not listening, Bryony,’ he chided her. ‘I told you, my grandfather’s money is guilt money. I think it’s highly appropriate if I use it to dig your father out of the hole he dug for himself.’

      Guilt money.

      Her stomach churned as she thought about it.

      ‘Exactly whose guilt are we talking about here?’ she asked.

      ‘I think you know whose guilt we’re talking about,’ he answered.

      She took a breath and hoped he didn’t hear the way it snagged in her throat.

      ‘What sort of outfit should I wear to the ceremony?’ she asked for the want of something to say to steer the subject away from the topic of guilt.

      ‘It’s a wedding, Bryony. Your mother will expect you to look like a bride.’

      He really knew how to press her buttons. Her mother had been planning her wedding since she’d been five, her enthusiasm undaunted by her daughter’s flat refusal to select herself a groom.

      ‘I don’t look good in white,’ she said. ‘It’s not my colour.’

      ‘Wear cream, then.’

      ‘Shouldn’t I be wearing black?’ she asked. ‘After all, isn’t this the end of my life as I now know it?’

      ‘Quite frankly, I don’t care what you wear,’ he said with the first sign of impatience in his tone she’d heard. ‘Your job is to appear at the right time, say the right words and do what you’re told. If you don’t your father and mother will be cruising the exercise yard of whatever correctional facility they’re sent to instead of the Pacific Islands.’

      Bryony stared at the buzzing receiver in her hand as he ended the call with an abruptness that left her feeling somehow deflated.

      Her mother rang the next morning and arranged a time to meet her in the city to select the wedding finery. Bryony had to give herself a mental shake once or twice to remind herself that this wasn’t going to be a normal wedding in any shape or form, because her mother was quite clearly on a mission and had been waiting years to execute it.

      ‘I don’t want a huge bouquet,’ Bryony insisted in the florist’s shop.

      ‘You must have a big bouquet,’ Glenys said, thrusting yet another design under her nose. ‘This is the most important day of your life; you have to have everything perfect.’

      Bryony stared down at the various floral arrangements in the brochure in front of her and wondered what had ever been perfect in her parents’ marriage. Her mother continually danced around her father’s demands, subsuming her own needs into the satisfaction of his. What was perfect about that?

      ‘I’ll have the roses,’ she told the hovering assistant. ‘Cream, not white.’

      They left the florist to do yet another round of the bridal boutiques as she had been unable to find anything that suited her colouring or her figure.

      ‘I need to go on a diet,’ she lamented at the fifth boutique, her hands pushing against her tummy where the satin of the gown she was trying on was showing too much detail of her Christmas indulgences.

      ‘You worry too much about your figure,’ her mother remonstrated as she eyed the gown. ‘I was at least ten pounds heavier than you when I got married.’

      ‘At least

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