Marion Lennox - The Last-Minute Marriage

The shoes weren’t the only jarring note. One ankle was puffing while he watched.

‘Hell.’

‘Hey! It’s me who’s supposed to swear. Why don’t you just go away so that I can?’

‘Don’t let me stop you.’

‘A lady doesn’t swear in front of a gentleman,’ she told him, lifting her ankle so she could see it. Mistake. She winced and let it drop. Cautiously. But still the determination was there to move on. Ignoring pain. ‘While I might not be a lady, by the look of the suit you’re wearing, you must be a gentleman,’ she managed. ‘That’s about the most gentlemanly suit I’ve ever seen.’

Here they were again. Talking about him. He found himself glancing down at his Armani suit and thinking, Yeah, that’s all it took. Wear a suit that cost a few thou’ and bang, you’re a gentleman.

Even if he did toss kids downstairs.

‘I’m really sorry,’ he told her, and she nodded as if she’d been waiting for it.

‘I wondered when we’d get around to that.’

She took him aback. It wasn’t just her accent that was unusual, he decided. It was everything about her. She was hurting-hurting badly. He could see it behind her eyes. But she wasn’t letting on. She was sassy and smart, and she wanted him to disappear so she could swear in private. Or do whatever she had to do in private.

‘Is it only your ankle that’s hurting?’ he asked.

‘Isn’t that enough?’

‘I guess it is.’ He touched her foot, lightly probing, and saw that it hurt. A lot. ‘That was quite a fall.’

‘You thumped out of there hard.’

‘I guess I did.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, and he knew that, though she was trying to keep things light, there was a load of bitterness behind the words. ‘Leave me be.’

‘That ankle might be broken.’

‘Yeah, with my luck…’ She broke off and seemed to try to haul herself together. She even managed to produce that smile again. Almost. ‘No. Don’t worry. It’d be hurting more if it was broken.’

‘Can I help you inside?’ He motioned to the door he’d just come from.

‘To the offices of Charles Higgins?’ Her eyebrows hiked up in mock incredulity. ‘Attila in there wouldn’t let me sit on her settee and eat my bagel. You think she’ll let me sit on her settee now I’m covered with banana milkshake?’

‘I guess she wouldn’t,’ he said, his voice a trifle unsteady. Attila… He knew exactly who she was talking about. Charles Higgins’s secretary.

‘You were waiting to see Charles?’

‘Yeah.’

Marcus knew Charles Higgins. The man was sleaze. A king-sized ego with the morals of a sewer rat. Because of renovations-the same renovations that were causing problems with the lifts now-Marcus had been forced to share a corporate washroom with Charles Higgins for the last few weeks. But that was as far as their relationship went. The man’s brains were in his balls. He had a reputation for dealing dishonestly with dishonest money.

Marcus owned this building. He might lease part of it to Higgins but it didn’t mean he had to like the man.

He couldn’t understand for a minute what business this girl would have with a slime-ball of a lawyer like Higgins.

‘You had an appointment?’

‘At ten this morning. Three hours ago.’ She was still lying on the landing, her fingers tentatively probing her ankle. ‘Attila keeps fobbing me off. Finally I was so hungry I dived out and got lunch and Attila told me I’d have to eat out here. Enter you.’

That made sense. Higgins’s secretary, a woman of indeterminate years and with a bosom like plate armour, had a reputation for being nastier than Higgins himself. If that was possible.

‘You know…’ It was a crazy conversation. Any minute now Ruby would arrive and rescue him, but meanwhile maybe he could give her a bit of advice. It couldn’t hurt. ‘You know, maybe if you want to talk to high-powered New York lawyers, then maybe shorts and T-shirt and scruffy sandals aren’t going to cut it.’

‘Scruffy…’ She probed her ankle and winced yet again but she was able to focus on what he was saying. ‘You’re saying my sandals are scruffy?’

‘Yes,’ he said firmly, and he almost got that smile again. Not quite. She was in real pain, he thought. Where on earth was Ruby? ‘Scruffy is a polite way of describing them, really.’

‘They’re my aunty’s.’

‘Um…good?’

‘She’s dead,’ the girl said as if that explained all. It didn’t. But he had to say something.

‘Oh,’ he said and this time he definitely got the smile.

It was worth working for. It was a great smile.

‘I brought corporate clothes,’ she told him. ‘I’m not silly. But I’ve come from Australia. I came in a hurry because my aunt was dying, but I did pack decent clothes. Unfortunately the airline is playing keepings-off with them.’

‘Keepings-off?’

‘I put my clothes on the plane in Sydney. I put me on the plane in Sydney. I got off the plane here, but clearly my suitcase fell out somewhere around Hawaii. So now someone in Hawaii’s wearing my good, Charles-facing suit while I’m forced to wear the only clothes I have. I had one pair of decent shoes but I was stupid enough to use the same pavement as a New York mutt with poor choice in toilet placement. With ten minutes to make it here, Aunt Hattie’s sandals were all I had.’

‘You didn’t think of buying something else?’ he asked, and that was a mistake. He’d shoved her down the stairs, he’d hurt her, and she’d reacted with humour. Now, though, he got a blaze of anger that made him take a step back.

‘Yeah. Toss a little money at the problem and it’ll go away. Of course. What’s money for? Just like Charles. You leave your mother with Peta until it looks like you’ll inherit; then you haul her over to the other side of the world. Economy class. When she’s dying! Even when you can afford all this! Only you don’t really want her. You dump her in some appalling nursing home to die alone, making sure you get her to change her will first…’ She bit her lip and the wash of pain across her face was dreadful.

‘Um… I don’t have a mother,’ he said cautiously and the anger exploded even more.

‘Of course you don’t. I wasn’t talking about you. I was just grouping you.’

‘Categorising me?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see.’ He didn’t. In fact, he didn’t have a clue what was going on. Her anger was palpable and he needed to break through it in order to get some… Well, some order.

‘Who’s Peta?’ he asked.

‘Me.’ She glowered.

‘You’re Peta? Hi. I’m Marcus.’

She wasn’t about to be distracted.

‘I can do without the introductions. I haven’t finished being angry yet.’

His eyebrows hiked. ‘I’m sorry. But… Peta?’

‘My dad wanted a boy,’ she snapped, recovering momentum. ‘And will you be quiet when I’m letting off steam? You and Charles and Attila the Hun in there, you judge. You think just because I’m not wearing an Armani suit-yeah, I can tell it’s Armani, I’m not stupid, no matter how patronising you sound-that I don’t matter. I’ll never get to see Charles. I’ve used the last of my money to care for and bury Hattie, and if I don’t get to see him…’ She gave a deep, raspy breath, the pain and the shock of the last few minutes finally surfacing to the point where they couldn’t be hidden.

She’d been using her anger as a barrier, Marcus realised, and it wasn’t working. Whatever was behind was breaking through.

‘This is stupid,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t give a toss, and anyway, you’ll have a secretary like Attila in there, and even if I threaten to sue the pants off you, you’ll just turn to your secretary and say fix it. Keep her away from me…’