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  the—er--final all-clear from my medical consultant.'

  The harsh bark of his laugh that greeted her as she finished speaking told her he still wasn't believing she had ever felt a surgeon's knife.

  `Oh, my God,' he groaned, 'spare me the gory details— I assume you were going to regale me with such delightful little snippets as the number of stitches you had?'

  He did not wait for any reply she would have made. But he was short and to the point, leaving her knowing that, God help her, she had not got it wrong. That she had been right when she had thought what she had. And he was sounding angry with her too, that from his view she was showing she was a compulsive liar, as he snarled:

  `Since we're doing away with marriage, there'll be no need for you to wait for your consultant to return from his holiday before you give me your answer.' And just in case she had forgotten his question, he gave her the two

  alternatives, by adding relentlessly, 'Does your father go to prison—or do you come to live with me?'

  She knew now what he meant; but that hint of stubbornness her chin denoted had her hanging on still in the hope that she had misunderstood him.

  `As your—wife—without marriage?' she made herself ask—and earned herself more of his loathsome sarcasm for her trouble.

  `There,' he replied, enjoying himself hugely she thought, just knew you were as bright as you look!'

  Devon's first reaction, as her heart dropped to the bottom of her boots to hear that she hadn't been so dim after all, was to think no, no, no, she couldn't do it! But even as she was thinking, God, how could this cynical swine of a man expect her to go to bed with him; that part of her that would do anything to save her father made her stay where she was on the settee when all instincts would have had her leaping from it and haring out of his house.

  Somehow, a tight control came that made her turn a deaf ear to that voice in her head that said she could not possibly contemplate doing what was being asked of her. She gripped firmly at that control and hung grimly on, as, her voice gone cold, she asked:

  `How long--would it be for?' The tight rein she was holding threatened to slip as she saw the way his eyes moved deliberately over her as he considered his answer. And quickly, she was saying, 'Might I assume—with you not wanting to be lumbered with me permanently, that my—residence--here will be for a set period?'

  His eyes moved to her face, but she didn't want him looking at her face either. She knew she was a tangled mass inside, but with his ghastly proposition hanging starkly in the air, she just had to know, also, that though he might detest her, there had to be something in her face—in her figure—that had stirred him to desire her.

  Oh, dear God, she couldn't do it, she thought when, unspeaking, relaxed where he sat, Grant Harrington was in no hurry to answer her question. The silence lengthened, fracturing her nerves, so that it was she who broke it, conversely, sorely needing to know what sort of a sentence she was letting herself in for.

  `I mean,' she choked huskily, 'how long,' she stumbled to get the words out, 'how long does it usually take before you tire of your—women?'

  The mockery in his look told her he thought the halting, husky way she had spoken was just so much play-acting. `A week,' he replied casually, giving her hope that she would only have to stick it out that long. 'A month sometimes,' he added to torment her, knowing she thought, hating him, that if he had said a year, she just wasn't in any position to object. 'Though,' he drawled softly, not missing, she was sure, the spears of hate in her eyes as she waited for him to continue, 'since you'll be the first one I've had living under my roof, it might not take that long.'

  That any man could in one breath so disparagingly intimate that once he had possessed her his desire for her would soon wane; that he wouldn't want her anymore; had the anger she had been too stunned to feel suddenly rearing its head. She was no man's toy, no man's plaything. She wouldn't do it!

  Anger dipped as the position her father was in spiked her. But with the memory of her father, memory of how regardless of what this vile man was ready to do to him if she didn't go along with his awful plan, her father had insisted that Grant Harrington had been more than fair to him, so her anger peaked again.

  `My father respected you,' she threw at him hotly, all the loathing she was capable of injected into those four words. But only, like lightning, to have Grant Harrington out

  of his chair, his anger instantly loosed—more at her words than at her tone, she thought, as threateningly he stood over her, and roared furiously:

  `And I bloody well respected him!' And his voice cutting as it quietened and he turned to stare into the log fire, he told her, 'There wasn't a man in my employ I respected more for his integrity than Charles Johnston.'

  He moved then, from the fire, from her, and went over to a drinks cabinet. An unapproachable look was on his face as she watched him take out a bottle of Scotch and pour himself a measure. She saw he looked fed up suddenly, and all at once while some sixth sense was telling her that the unfeeling man she had thought him had somehow been deeply hurt by what her father had done, she was suddenly afraid, because of that deep hurt, that he was going to change his mind!

  Even while the price he had asked of her for her father's freedom was a price she did not want to pay, she was suddenly terrified that he was rethinking, and that he was deciding that the possession of her was not a very good exchange for not only the loss of thousands of pounds, but his shattered faith in a man he had been sure he could trust above all others.

  `Grant—' she began on a choky cough, getting to her feet, needing to get in quickly to tell him that she would do all he asked.

  Her speaking his name had him looking at her over the rim of the crystal in his. hand. Arid she had a terrible feeling then, from the granite look in his eyes, from the dreadful harsh look of him, that if she said so much as one word about being ready to-accept whatever terms he proposed, she could lose her father every chance of escaping prison.

  `You know the way out,' he confirmed curtly, his voice arctic.

  Dark despair was all hers again. She was afraid to speak, afraid from the shuttered look of him that already she had lost the only chance she and her father had. And yet she couldn't just leave—as Grant Harrington wanted her to.

  He took a swig from his glass, and then he was looking at her, intelligence in the proud arrogant stance of him, so that she knew he was quite well aware of why it was she hadn't moved.

  Arrogance in him was the chief characteristic she noted, as he turned his back on her to pour himself another measure. 'Ring me by Friday,' he threw over his shoulder.

  The bottle in his hand went down with a thud. And it was then that Devon knew, even while she wanted to stay and get it all settled now, that by the time Grant Harrington turned, he wanted her to be gone. Without another word, she left him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THAT her father's sleeping pattern. was worse than hers, and she had slept only fitfully the night before, was apparent the next morning. And that he looked even more haggard than he had yesterday when Devon had joined him at breakfast told her that Grant Harrington was not going to have to wait until Friday to hear from her.

  Her panicky thoughts were back when she recalled how he had frozen on her, his mood changed after she had brought up her father's respect for him. He had dissociated himself from her then, and she had thought that he had grown weary of her before she had so much as spent one night under his roof. But his 'Ring me by Friday' had to mean that he was giving her until then to decide if she was going to live with him, or if he should call in his legal people—didn't it?

  That a different kind of panic would swamp her if she allowed herself to dwell on what was going to happen to her once she was installed in his house, she just did not dare to allow. Again and again she made herself think only of her dear father—she just could not afford to think of herself. More importantly, she was faced with the big 'if'.

  `You went to bed more or less st
raight away when you came in last night,' said her father as he dried up the breakfast things as she washed them. 'You didn't give me a chance to ask what the film was like.'

  For his sake Devon had to lie, and keep up the pretence that she had been to the cinema. He would go into heart

  failure if she told him where she had been—and anything of what had been said!

  `I've—seen better films on TV,' she said.

  Lying to him did not come all that easy, and it was a moment or two before she could turn her head to smile at him. There were bags appearing beneath his eyes, she noted, her heart breaking to see he looked greyer than ever this morning. He can't go on like this, she thought, it's killing him. It was killing her to have to stand by and watch him.

  His announcing just then that he thought he would go and change his library books was the heaven sent opportunity she needed. The time it usually took him to select fresh books should give her just sufficient time for what she wanted to do.

  `If you want to be back in time for lunch,' she said with an attempt to tease, but more because the sooner he went the sooner she could get started, 'then it wouldn't be a bad idea to go now.'

  `I do tend to lose all sense of time when I get there, don't I?' he agreed, managing to raise a smile at her teasing.

  Half an hour later, watching from the sitting room window, Devon saw him go down the street. The moment he had turned the corner out of sight saw her with nervous fingers dialling the number of the firm he had been employed by for the last twenty-five years, up until recently.

  Getting through to Grant Harrington's secretary was the easy part. Revealing her name, colour tingling her cheeks that the efficient secretary would not have forgotten the instruction that her boss did not have time to spare for Devon Johnston or any of her sort, proved more difficult.

  `I assure you Mr Harrington is expecting me to call,'

  she insisted when she had been firmly told that any message she cared to leave would be passed on.

  She was left hanging in mid-air while she suspected Wanda counted up to twenty, and would then come back to tell her that Mr Harrington did not want to speak to her.

  `Yes?' rapped a sharp voice she wasn't ready for. struggling `Oh—er—Hello, Mr Har—er—Grant,' she said,

  for words, struggling for tact. 'It's—Devon John . .

  `I know that.'

  Trying to banish pictures of the fun time she was letting herself in for if she was allowed to live with such a grumpy brute, Devon hurried in with her request before he got fed up with waiting for her to speak and hung up on her.

  `Can I come and see you?' she asked in a rush.

  `I'm busy,' was the terse reply. Followed by, 'There's only one word I want from you. You don't have to see me to give me a "Yes" or "No".'

  Half of her went soaring. By the sound of it—for all he - had but definitely got out of bed the wrong side—it was still on! That word 'bed' had the other half of her feeling sick inside at the enormity of what she was going to have to do.

  `I—wanted to—ask you something,' she said quickly, on tenterhooks lest' she blew it, knowing she just wasn't in any position to put conditions, but the memory of her father's grey face forcing her on. 'It is very important.'

  The pause, the silence that followed, had her holding her breath. She guessed he was thinking the same as she was—that any conditions laid down were his prerogative. Then his voice, no more charming than it had been before, was there in her ear again.

  `I have a meeting in half an hour—I'll come round.' That he hadn't waited to say goodbye before slamming

  the phone down Was a courtesy she should not have expected, she thought. And that he wanted neither of the Johnstons to soil his plush office carpeting with their dishonest feet was no more than she should have expected. But did his, 'I'll come round,' never dreamt of, mean that he meant novel That regardless of whether her father was in—for Grant had not deigned to enquire— he was already on his way to discuss his awful proposition!

  That his respect for her father was lower than low helped Devon with the crushing weight of nerves and agitation, when not many minutes later, a sleek car was pulled up outside the house.

  Since' Grant Harrington's working time appeared_ so valuable, she was at the front door opening it as he walked briskly up the garden path.

  `Come in,' she invited, unnecessarily, as he didn't alter his pace but brushed past her. 'The sitting room, I think,' she murmured, as in the hallway, the front door closed, he turned back to look at her in her faded jeans and T-shirt— there just hadn't been time to change into anything more alluring, even supposing she had any item in her wardrobe that had been designed to arouse a man's interest— vital at this stage, she thought.

  Once inside the sitting room, she did not invite him to sit; there was a sort of barely restrained energy about the man, and she rather thought he would have refused anyway. But she was hopeful that this would not take too long.

  `I told you last night that my father looks terrible,' she said, trying to earn a few points by not hanging about. `What I wanted to ask you, to discuss with you,' she amended, aware of her precarious position, 'is the-er possibility of you telling him that you don't intend to prosecute.'

  He wasn't slow. 'You're saying that if I put your father out of his misery today, that your answer is yes?'

  love my father,' she replied, and could have hit him when he offered a sarcastic:

  `My heart bleeds.'

  But what she wanted to do, and what she had to do, were two entirely opposite things. 'Will you ring him tonight?' she asked, keeping her voice as level as she could, trying to keep her face expressionless as she looked at him across the few feet of not so plush carpeting that separated them.

  His reply was not immediate, and she felt her nerves begin to jangle again as his eyes flicked over her; seeing again that light she had seen in his office once before which she had discounted as admiring as, softly, he instructed:

  `Come here.' And when she just looked, not having any idea why she should go closer when there could be nothing wrong with his eyesight since he appeared satisfied with what he could see of her, he tacked on idly, 'For the fee I'm paying, I'd prefer to sample the goods before I commit myself to a promise like that.'

  Apparently she was not quick enough to obey him—for long arms had come out and were gripping her upper arms. The feel of his body close to hers, as with one flex of powerful muscle he had jerked her until she had moved those few feet he demanded, had two kinds of alarm shooting through her. For as his face came nearer, not only was his intention to kiss her obvious, in itself sufficient to have her fighting the instinct that would have had her pushing him away. But the sudden jolt to her hip as firm hands on her arms pulled her off her feet towards him had caused a spasm of pain to sear her.

  Her numbed reaction when his mouth met hers in a seeking, mobile kiss was a non-reaction as fear rocketed through her momentarily that her operation had not been

  -

  the success it just had to be. She couldn't regress to the way she had been before Dr Henekssen had performed that miracle of surgery on her—she just couldn't!

  Grant Harrington pushed her away, the look on his face cold and chilling as darkly he threatened, 'We may as well forget it now, if you're not going to co-operate better than that,' made Devon promptly forget all fears real or imaginary about the success of her operation.

  `I will co-operate,' she rushed to tell him quickly, the feel of his lips still imprinted on hers. But she dared not let herself dwell on that either. `I'm—s-sorry about just now,' she said in another rush. Then more slowly. 'It's just that—that I've got a lot on my mind at the moment.' His kiss had unnerved her, there was no saying it hadn't— and she had had only a small part of her attention on it—oh God! 'I was.. .'

  Grant, his voice still threatening, had her giving him her undivided attention, as he chopped through any further excuses she would have made, deciding for himself, she heard, how
he thought she was about to explain the fact that she had been wooden in his arms. And he was angry with it, she was soon to realise.

  `If you so much as breathe one word of that fictitious surgery story,' he told her fiercely, 'then count on it, I'll make you eat your lies if I have to ram each one back down your throat!'

  His pure aggression more than anything told her that Grant Harristton was unused to his kisses leaving a woman cold. Acknowledging for the first time that he did have a certain something, that he might have other women panting for his kisses, though assuredly not her, Devon was quick to tell him:

  `I've given up on that—that story,' vowing there and then that not another word would she tell him about her need for surgery. And adding something that was giving

  her a very worrying time, she brought that out as an excuse for her non-co-operation. 'It's just that—I'm exceedingly anxious about what to tell my father. I—I haven't any idea what I'm going to tell him, when I leave to come to . .

  `What do you usually tell him when you leave on similar expeditions?' His sarcasm was back, but she thought it an improvement on his blatant aggressiveness.

  `I—I'll think of something,' she replied, anxious to get back to her request that her father should be advised that he did not have to face charges of embezzlement.

  `I'm sure you will,' he said, not doubting it.

  `And you'll . . .' she hesitated, then rephrased it, 'Will you ring him?' Hate was renewed in her that he made her wait long, long breath-held seconds, before he nodded, then said:

  `I'll contact him.'

  Her agitation not quieted yet, she had one more question to ask. 'Could I ask you not to—not to tell him— about what we've agreed?'

  A loftily raised eyebrow told her she wasn't going to like what was coming. 'He still believes you're as innocent as your big baby blue eyes would suggest?' he asked, and it was evident that he didn't believe in her look of innocence for a moment. It irritated her, when she knew she couldn't afford to let him provoke her.