Page 12 of The Millionaire's Baby

* * *

Caro had just settled into the new partnership and was putting the finishing touches to the flat in Highgate she'd moved into, relishing having her own space af­ter sharing with two other students while she'd been doing her business studies course, when her mother phoned, sounding frantic.

'You must come home this weekend.'

An anxious frown pulled Caro's brows together. Her mother never insisted on anything; she was more than happy to allow everyone else to do their own thing, in their own way, because it made life much simpler. 'Is anything wrong?' She knew something must be.

'It's Katie. I can't get through to her, but you could. She listens to you. And I daren't tell your grand­mother—you know what she's like.' It all came rush­ing out, like a torrent when a dam had been breached, the words almost tumbling over themselves. 'She's been in bed for days, ever since the accident—I thought it was an accident but now I'm not so sure. She won't get up. Just lies there. Won't eat. If I ask her what's wrong she says, "Nothing," and turns her face to the wall. She won't look at me, or tell me anything. She's always crying. Say one word and she bursts into tears.'

'What accident?'

'She fell into Quarry Lake; at least that's what I assumed happened. If David Parker hadn't been in the vicinity and jumped in to pull her out, she never would have survived. She was always too afraid of water to learn to swim properly.'

Caro gave an involuntary shudder. The lake, the site of a long-abandoned quarry on the northern rim of the family estate, was a sinister place; the tree-hung area always seemed cold, even in mid-summer, the still waters dark and deep.

'She's probably still in shock,' she told her mother reassuringly. 'Do try not to worry. I'll drive down this afternoon and if she's not showing signs of getting back to normal by the morning we'll call the doctor in and get him to check her over.'

Privately thinking her parent should have consulted Dr Grice immediately after the accident, Caro aborted her plans for enjoying her new flat this weekend and drove home. Ever since she'd been around ten years old and had developed a mind of her own, she'd been making most of the decisions for her family, as well as defending them against the sharp tongue of her grandmother.

Gran called her daughter-in-law and younger grandchild simpering fools and only tolerated their presence in the lodge because she could keep an eye on them, tell them what to do, keeping a tight hold on the family purse-strings, keeping them dependent because, as Caro suspected, it gave her a sense of power.

Springing to her small family's defence, Caro had coldly pointed out that her mother and sister were not fools, simpering or otherwise. They were sweet-natured, both of them. Shy but loving. And terrified of her. And who in their right mind wouldn't be?

'You, for one!' the old lady had snorted, her faded eyes approving. 'I've never been afraid of anything in my life. You're a chip off the old block, I'm relieved to say!'

Caro devoutly hoped she wasn't. True, she knew what she wanted and went all out to get it, but she hoped she would never develop into such a cantan­kerous old biddy!

Smiling ruefully, she pulled up on the drive of the lodge, confident that Katie was suffering nothing worse than the aftermath of falling into the lake, a place she had always avoided when they'd been chil­dren together roaming the estate. She must at least have got rid of some of her childhood antipathy to the area to have chosen to walk there...

For once her confidence was misplaced. Katie looked even worse than their mother had intimated. Alone with her, Caro opened the bedroom curtains, letting in the sunlight, and Katie flinched, hiding her face in her hands, turning her head away.

Consciously trying not to frown worriedly, Caro sat on the edge of her sister's bed and said gently, 'Mum told me you had an accident—fell in the lake of all places!' And she had all the breath knocked out of her body when Katie launched herself at her, clinging, holding her tight, sobbing as if her heart would break.

'Hey!' Caro said softly when the storm at last died down. 'What's all this about, sweetie? So you fell in the water, and that would have been a shock, but Dave was on hand to pull you out, so no harm done.' She smiled reassuringly, but Katie wouldn't have seen that because her head was bowed. 'I can only suggest that if you go for a walk in the direction of the lake again you take Dave with you! He's so nice, don't you think?' Gently, she tucked her fingers beneath her sis­ter's chin, forcing her to look at her. And what she saw appalled her.

Although Katie had had her eighteenth birthday only a few short weeks ago, her eyes had always been childishly wide and innocent. Now they looked old, weary beyond measure, shadowed by dark circles, her once smoothly pretty cheeks fallen in, making her look gaunt, her peaches-and-cream complexion a dis­maying ash-grey.

'I don't care if Dave rescued me. No big deal.' Tears brimmed her eyes again. 'I don't care if I went in the water—don't you understand? I don't care about anything. Not now. Not ever again!'

Ice closed around Caro's heart. 'Is that your way of saying it wasn't an accident? You didn't find your­self down at the lakeside by mistake, and somehow tumble in?'

Katie lifted her head and looked at her blankly, then lowered her eyes, muttering almost inaudibly, 'What do you think?'

Caro didn't know what to think but she wasn't go­ing to say so. Instead she asked, 'Can you tell me why you can't care about anything?'

'I loved him. I thought he loved me,' she answered quaveringly. Shakily, she reached for the night table and took a piece of carefully folded newsprint from the drawer, holding it out. 'Then I saw this.'

It was a wedding shot. Caro scanned the accom­panying text. A very eminent banker and his new bride. A very handsome banker by the name of Finn Helliar. The surname rang bells, but faintly. His lovely bride was Fleur Ferrand, a previously obscure French singer who had recently shot to public rec­ognition.

'They're having a baby; it says so. Going to live—live in Canada.' Katie's voice wobbled omi­nously.

'This is the man you thought you were in love with?'

'I didn't t

hink I was. I was in love with him. I am in love with him,' Katie said on a reassuringly muti­nous note, showing a smidgen of spirit at last, much to Caro's relief. 'And I truly believed he loved me. He was so kind, that day, you wouldn't believe. Oh, he did say he thought I was a bit young. After all, I was still only seventeen, but, like I told him, I was nearly eighteen and old enough to do what I wanted.'

'What day was that?' Caro asked as levelly as she could. What could a thirty-two-year-old successful banker be wanting with a seventeen-year-old virgin barely out of the schoolroom?

Source: www.allfreenovel.com