The Bride of Santa Barbara Read online

  ‘Oh,’ said Beth, taken aback. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ replied Daniel. ‘It’s not an issue for me now, although it was when I was a kid. I remember being very lonely in that big house in Boston with only my father for occasional company.’

  She had intended only to hit back, but she found herself suddenly intrigued.

  ‘Your father?’ she echoed, wrinkling her nose. ‘Why didn’t you stay with your mother? Didn’t she want you?’

  Daniel’s eyes took on an expression that made Beth flinch. Hard, ruthless, unforgiving.

  ‘Oh, she wanted me,’ he growled. ‘But there was a messy custody battle and my father won. He had the money to win.’

  ‘Do you ever see her now?’

  The smouldering glint went out of Daniel’s eyes and he gave a twisted smile.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he agreed. ‘She married again, an assistant professor of history in Iowa, and I have two half-brothers in their early twenties. They’re a nice family, but in a way they’re not my family, not the way they would have been if I’d grown up with them. But that’s all right.’

  Something in his tone told Beth that it wasn’t all right, that there was still a lot of pent-up anger raging inside him.

  ‘You really hate your father, don’t you?’ said Beth without thinking.

  His reaction was immediate, hostile and uncompromising.

  ‘Don’t be a fool!’ he snapped. ‘That would be giving him far too much importance. But I did hate his values. Money and power were the only things he ever cared about. That, and getting people to do what he wanted. He loved to be in control of things.’

  Beth’s forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. ‘How strange,’ she murmured.

  ‘Why? What’s strange about it?’

  She gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘Nothing. Except that he sounds exactly like you.’

  Daniel stared at her in outrage. ‘Like me?’ he snarled. ‘That’s ridiculous! He was nothing like me.’

  Beth remained silent, but continued to watch him with a small, infuriating smile.

  ‘Look,’ insisted Daniel angrily, ‘I got out from under my father’s thumb at the first opportunity! When I was a teenager I made a vow that I was going to make so much money of my own that he’d never be able to control me again.’

  ‘And did you?’ asked Beth. ‘Or—’ She broke off, suddenly realising that what she had been about to ask was in extraordinarily bad taste. After all, it was none of her business whether Daniel had made his obvious wealth himself or inherited it from his father. But she had become absorbed by his story and wanted to know how it ended.

  ‘Or did Daddy put a silver spoon in my mouth?’ finished Daniel mockingly. ‘No, Beth, Daddy didn’t. When I dropped out of Harvard law school at age nineteen, Daddy washed his hands of me. He swore I’d never have another penny out of him and I haven’t.’

  ‘Nineteen?’ echoed Beth. ‘That’s young. What did you do? Go and live with your mother?’

  Daniel shook his head impatiently.

  ‘No, I didn’t want to be a burden to her. I hitch-hiked to Hollywood, of course. Just what any red-blooded kid would do. I wanted to be in the movies.’

  ‘As an actor?’ asked Beth.

  ‘No, an actor doesn’t have enough control over things. I wanted to be a producer and director.’

  Beth smiled mockingly.

  ‘I see,’ she murmured. ‘You wanted control, did you?’

  The unspoken words ‘like your father’ hovered in the air, but Daniel successfully read her mind.

  ‘No, not like my father!’ he exploded. ‘Now do you want to hear about this or not?’

  ‘All right, go on,’ Beth invited peaceably. ‘So you arrived in Hollywood, walked into MGM and said, “I’d like to produce and direct a movie for you,” did you?’

  Daniel rubbed his forehead as if he were smoothing away a tension headache.

  ‘Well, no, it wasn’t quite that easy,’ he admitted. ‘For two years I worked nights in a hamburger joint as a short-order cook. And in the daytime I worked as an extra on the studio lots whenever I could get hired.’

  ‘Short-order cook?’ asked Beth.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Daniel with a short laugh. ‘I used to cook a mean hamburger, although it wasn’t the sort of talent to impress anyone.’

  There was a bitterness in his tone that was oddly jarring. Beth looked at him curiously.

  ‘Were you trying to impress someone?’ she asked.

  But at that moment the waiter arrived and began setting a plate of fragrant veal and lemon in front of Beth, accompanied by fried potatoes and salad. Daniel looked at the food with relief and shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know how the hell you got me started on all that,’ he grumbled, picking up his fork. ‘I don’t usually bore people by telling them the story of my life.’

  ‘I wasn’t bored,’ insisted Beth.

  All the same, she had the feeling that Daniel was glad of the interruption. It’s all very well when he’s the one firing the questions, she thought shrewdly, but not when he’s in the hot seat. It makes him feel too vulnerable. But why? What’s he hiding under that all-powerful exterior? Daniel did not speak again until they had both embarked on their main courses. And he seemed to have changed his mind about the boredom of polite conversation. The words ‘perfect host’ suddenly seemed to be tattooed across his forehead.

  ‘How’s the food?’ he asked solicitously.

  ‘Great,’ said Beth with a faint sigh.

  She knew instinctively that his guard was now up, yet somehow she felt as reluctant to drop their earlier discussion as she had been to embark on it. It had been fascinating to learn about Daniel’s youth. And, although he had been rather wary, he hadn’t bragged about things the way Warren always did. She remembered Warren showing her a photo album of family holidays. ‘This is Mother in Monte Carlo, this is me skiing in Gstaad, this is my sister Alison at the Cannes Film Festival.’ Every word was designed to impress, but Daniel hadn’t done that. He had simply shared his feelings with her. She tried to push away her regret that the moment of intimacy was over and simply enjoy her meal. At first she was successful. The veal was melting and delicious with its lemony cream sauce and the crispy fried potatoes rich with bacon and parsley, not to mention the refreshing green salad. But almost at once Daniel spoiled her appetite.

  ‘Why did you ever get involved with Warren?’ he demanded suddenly. ‘Surely those boyish good looks weren’t enough to lure you in, especially when they’re not even accompanied by boyish charm?’

  Beth flushed.

  ‘His looks had nothing to do with it,’ she retorted.

  But even as she spoke she knew it wasn’t quite true. Warren’s looks had formed a part, although only a very small part, of her complex reasons for becoming involved with him. Her eyes took on a tormented expression as she cast her mind back to that time three years ago. She remembered it all so vividly. Her brother Andrew, newly qualified as a doctor, had insisted on paying for a really slap-up twenty-first birthday party for her and his girlfriend Sue had entered into the spirit of things by offering her parents’ home as a venue. They were away overseas. What could be more suitable? But Beth had found herself in the embarrassing position of not having enough guests to invite to the party. Being hard-working and rather shy, she only had four or five close friends and to bolster the numbers she had impulsively asked Warren. After all they had worked together on a third-term project and knew each other slightly. But there certainly hadn’t been any great romance. Not then. And if it hadn’t been for a deeply disturbing incident at the party she might never have got to know Warren any better.

  At the moment when her mother was already halfway through lighting candles on the cake someone had realised that Beth’s brother-in-law, Greg, was missing. She remembered how she had offered to go and fetch him and then had frugally blown out the candles that were already lit. It was rather like an omen when you thought about it. As if only ha
lf her wishes were going to come true. What had she wished for, anyway? Love? Success? She could no longer remember. But she did remember finding Greg in the rumpus-room which opened out on to the swimming-pool on the lower level of the house. He was alone and must have just come out of the pool, for his body was streaming with water and he was clad only in bathing trunks. An unwilling pang of desire had shot through her at the sight of that dark, powerful figure and she was conscious of an unwelcome tremor in her voice when she spoke.

  ‘Greg, we’re ready to cut the cake now.’

  He had smiled at her slowly, lazily.

  ‘Well, good. Do I get a kiss from the birthday girl then?’

  Before she had time to protest he had swept her into his arms and kissed her. Not on the cheek but full on her open mouth. And to Beth’s horror for the merest fraction of a second she had responded, kissing him back with inexperienced fervour. A moment later, hating herself, she had broken away, flushed and trembling. Bolting back up the stairs, she had run straight into Warren who had come to look for her. Warren had seemed so safe, so normal, unthreatening. Somehow it had all started from that moment. Daniel’s harsh voice broke into her thoughts.

  ‘I asked you why you became involved with Warren,’ he said.

  She took in a swift, unsteady breath.

  ‘Because he seemed safe,’ she replied.

  ‘Safe,’ mocked Daniel. ‘That seems an odd reason to start a relationship. Unless—’ His dark eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Unless you were on the rebound from somebody totally unsafe.’ Too shocked even to lie, Beth cast him a stricken look. ‘How did you guess?’ she whispered.

  His laugh was nothing but a mirthless growl. ‘You forget that I spent years as a film director,’ he replied. ‘In that job you learn to read people’s faces. Bodies are often more honest than speech and your body tells me something that you don’t even want to admit to yourself.’

  ‘What’s that?’ queried Beth unwisely.

  Daniel caught her fingers in a merciless grip and held them.

  ‘That you’re not the kind of woman who was born to live safely,’ he retorted. ‘You’re a person who was born to take risks, to live life to the full. You’re doing violence to your own nature by staying with a pathetic creature like Warren.’

  Beth snatched away her fingers as if they had been burned. ‘Surely that’s for me to decide?’ she snapped.

  Daniel’s expression was as brooding as a thundercloud. ‘Not if I have anything to do with it,’ he muttered.

  ‘But you don’t have anything to do with it, do you? It’s none of your damned business.’

  Daniel changed his tack. Helping himself to more salad, he eyed her thoughtfully under lowered lids.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how do you like the United States?’

  Beth consciously had to take a deep breath and relax. She realised that her body was tensed up ready for fight or flight and instead he had suddenly thrown a simple question at her. So simple that it was unexpected. She shrugged expressively.

  ‘Well, what I’ve seen of it is very nice, which isn’t much. I haven’t even been to Disneyland yet. But I think California is wonderful. I love the climate and in many ways it reminds me of home. And the people are really friendly and dynamic. I think it’s a great place.’

  ‘Would you ever consider living here?’

  The question shot out so rapidly that it took her by surprise. For a moment a wild thought rose in her head only to be instantly dismissed.

  ‘You mean for business reasons?’ she asked.

  Daniel smiled thinly. ‘All right, let’s say for business reasons. Would you consider living here?’

  Beth turned the idea over. ‘Yes, I think I’d probably enjoy it,’ she admitted. ‘If I were earning enough to live comfortably.’

  ‘You wouldn’t miss your family?’ asked Daniel.

  She smiled affectionately. ‘Not if I could see them at least once a year,’ she agreed. ‘My mother is retired now and Andrew bought her a home unit down at Cronulla near the beach. She’s got a life of her own, going to bowls and doing things with Kerry’s children. And I’m fond of my sister and brother but we never really spent a great deal of time together. Yes, I think if the chance came my way I’d jump at it. After all, the United States is one of the most important fashion places in the world.’

  ‘And fashion is what you care about most?’ asked Daniel.

  Beth’s eyes clouded.

  ‘It is at the moment,’ she agreed. ‘You see, I have to earn my living and I really like to do the very best I can at anything I tackle. But putting it like that gives it far too much importance somehow. I mean, you’d have to be an awfully superficial person to think that fashion was the most important thing in your life, wouldn’t you?’

  Daniel shot her a piercing look.

  ‘So what do you think ought to be the most important thing your life?’ he demanded.

  Beth wriggled, feeling uncomfortable at this inquisition. But the steadiness of his gaze demanded an answer.

  ‘I don’t know. A home, a family if I ever had one,’ she replied huskily. ‘I can’t think of anything much more important than that.’

  His eyes strayed to the mysterious envelope on the table. ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ he said mockingly. ‘You sound like a positive paragon of womanhood.’

  She dropped her gaze, hating him for making fun of her, hating herself for giving him the opportunity. With a vague feeling of surprise she realised that her plate was empty.

  ‘Would you like a pudding?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she agreed in a subdued voice.

  The zabaglione was heavenly, a warm, bittersweet froth of Marsala and beaten egg yolk. And the cappuccino which followed it was equally good with its thick, creamy layer of foam and chocolate. But Beth barely tasted them. The thought that she was never going to see Daniel again cast a shadow over the meal, because the truth was that she would miss him. And in some ways the most hurtful feature of this dinner was the manila envelope which lay between them on the table like the boundary marker in a tug-o’-war. Somehow it reduced all that had happened between them to a sterile business transaction, and Beth could not help finding her gaze drawn towards it with a mixture of resentment and fascination. At last, when the empty cups had been removed, Daniel picked it up and handed it to her.

  His eyes were dark, piercing, inescapable. She felt they were boring right through to her soul. Try as she might, she could not turn away.

  ‘I said this was a farewell dinner,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t have to be a farewell. It’s up to you.’

  An incredulous joy flooded through her, followed rapidly by suspicion and misgiving.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded sharply.

  ‘I have a proposition to put to you,’ he said.

  ‘What kind of a proposition?’

  ‘Have a look through the letter and the documents and then I’ll explain everything.’

  With trembling fingers she opened the envelope and scanned its contents. It was written on the letterhead of a firm of lawyers and it began with the words ‘Dear Miss Saxon’, but after that it was such gibberish that it might as well have been written in Greek. Full of words like ‘whereas’ and ‘heretofore’. With a puzzled sound she put the letter at the back and looked through the accompanying documents. It was some kind of contract. But her head swam when she tried to understand it. An incredulous notion rose in her head.

  ‘You mean you want to go into business with me formally?’ she asked. ‘Employ me and eventually form a company? Called Solo Designs?’

  Daniel nodded.

  ‘But why?’ demanded Beth. ‘And how? Wouldn’t I have to get a work permit? And what if I went broke? You’d lose heaps of money. And where could I make the clothes? I can’t keep living at your place forever.’

  Daniel smiled, but the smile did not reach his eyes which were lit with a strange brooding glint.

  ‘You can leave all
the details to me,’ he said impatiently. ‘If necessary, I’ll move mountains to allow you to stay in the United States. And as for going bankrupt, don’t give it a thought, Beth. I won’t allow it to happen. You’re going places, girl. And you’re going there with me.’

  She stared at him in disbelief, feeling half elated, half terrified.

  ‘But where would I work?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s easy,’ he said. ‘I have a horse farm just near Buellton with an old barn that’s not being used. I could easily fix it up as a factory for you. And there are local girls nearby who could work for you. Wendy Fulton, for one. I’ll take you up tomorrow to see the place if you’re interested.’

  Beth hesitated. Belatedly she remembered that she wasn’t alone in her fashion venture.

  ‘I’d have to see what Warren thinks,’ she began, but Daniel cut her off sharply.

  ‘Warren won’t be involved. You might as well get one thing straight, Beth. If you accept my offer, there’s no place for Warren in this business.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  ALL Beth’s old fears came rushing back to torment her. Daniel’s offer seemed far too good to be true, so why was he making it? She thought of his passionate kisses in the conservatory and then of his offhand behaviour at the lunch. And she looked down at the contract dangling between her fingers as if it were some kind of loathsome spider.

  ‘Why are you offering me this?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Not to get you into my bed, if that’s what you think,’ he snapped. ‘There are no hidden traps in that document, Beth. And you’re perfectly free to take it to an attorney or an agent and get it checked out. In fact, I advise you to do so.’

  Beth hesitated, feeling a confused mixture of emotions. She could no longer deny that she was violently attracted to Daniel. Whenever she looked at him she felt a hollow ache inside that was close to physical pain, and the corrosive jealousy she had felt on seeing him with Sunny earlier in the day made it even clearer to her how deeply he stirred her. But those weren’t good reasons to get involved with him. Far from it. As far as Beth was concerned they were reasons for running miles in the opposite direction.