The Fiance Fix

‘My name is David Banning.’ The man spoke with a hard American drawl. ‘I’m Daniel’s brother.’

Daniel’s brother…Joey hadn’t even known he had a brother. Although she had no reason to doubt this man’s word. Besides, the likeness was unmistakable.

‘Daniel didn’t have the nerve to show his face here himself, then?’ she scorned.

The blue gaze became even more icy, the hard mouth tightening into a thin line. ‘That would have been rather difficult, in the circumstances,’ David Banning rasped harshly. ‘Daniel died four months ago!’

Joey could only stare uncomprehendingly at David Banning after he made this blunt announcement, unable to take in what he had just said, swallowing hard, swaying slightly, knowing a sudden feeling of light-headedness.

Daniel was dead…?

But how—? What…?

She shook her head as a sudden thought occurred to her. ‘He can’t be,’ she denied weakly. ‘I…He wrote to me. Just two months ago—’

‘That was me,’ David Banning interrupted.

D. Banning. The letter she had received had been signed ‘D. Banning’. This man, Daniel’s brother, was D. Banning too…

She had thought the signature on the letter a little formal, given the circumstances, but, as Daniel hadn’t been seen since the moment he was informed of Lily’s birth, Joey had decided he really was the stranger he obviously preferred to be.

But the letter hadn’t been from Daniel at all. Because he had already been dead two months when the letter was sent…

‘How did he die?’ she breathed huskily.

His brother shrugged dismissively. ‘The same way he lived—recklessly,’ he said harshly. ‘He was driving a high-speed motorboat—too fast—when it flipped over and sank. We recovered his body three days later,’ he added.

Joey thought back to the fun-loving, irresponsible man she had known seven years ago. Yes, she could see Daniel enjoying the power of going along on the water at high speed, could almost hear that huskily triumphant laugh of his as he challenged the sea gods.

And lost…

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured dazedly.

‘Are you?’ his brother questioned sceptically. ‘I think the two of us need to talk, don’t you?’ he added hardly.

Joey stiffened defensively. She didn’t like the sound of that at all. This man had already told her all that she needed to know—hadn’t he…?

‘As you can see, I’m rather busy at the moment.’ She nodded vaguely in the direction of the house, the sound of the video playing inside audible in the quiet of early evening.

‘As I can see,’ David Banning echoed softly, moving around the car to stand only feet away from her, his light suit obviously expensively tailored, as was the white silk shirt and grey tie he wore beneath it. ‘She’s very like Daniel,’ he murmured huskily.

Joey recoiled at the claim. ‘She is called Lily,’ she snapped coldly. ‘And she is absolutely nothing like Daniel. Thank God!’

‘Just so,’ David Banning acknowledged with a mocking inclination of his head. ‘But I still say we need to talk—Josey, isn’t it?’ he drawled knowingly.

‘Joey,’ she corrected abruptly, desperately trying to take all of this in.

Just how much did this man know of what had happened seven years ago? And exactly what did he want to do about it?

‘Joey,’ he repeated with a hard smile. ‘I realise all this has probably been—a shock for you,’ he drawled. ‘I also accept that you’re tied up with…Lily at the moment, and that our conversation would be better taking place where she can’t be a witness to it.’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you could meet me later this evening and we could go somewhere quiet and have dinner together—’

‘No!’ she cut in harshly. ‘No,’ she repeated more calmly as he looked at her with raised brows. ‘It isn’t possible to organise a babysitter at such short notice. Besides—’

‘Besides, you don’t want to have dinner with me later,’ David Banning finished. ‘I’ve come over from the States for the sole purpose of talking to you, Joey—’

‘My name is Delaney,’ she cut in forcefully. ‘Miss Delaney,’ she added pointedly. ‘I don’t know you well enough for you to call me Joey.’

She hadn’t known the man at the salon earlier well enough, either, came the unbidden thought, and yet she had invited him to use the familiarity! In retrospect, the fact that he owed her eight pounds fifty for a haircut was nothing when put into perspective with the damage this other man could wreak in her life!

‘Miss Delaney,’ David Banning mused mockingly. ‘It’s Irish, isn’t it?’

‘So what if it is?’ she challenged defensively.

‘No reason.’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s make it tomorrow evening, then,’ he continued hardly, his tone brooking no argument to what wasn’t even meant to sound like a suggestion.

Joey was aware that she had been outside talking to him on the pavement for over ten minutes already, and Lily wouldn’t remain enthralled in her video for long if Joey failed to appear. But she didn’t want to meet this man tomorrow evening!

‘I’m staying at the Grosvenor Hotel.’ He named the best hotel in town—although it was obvious from his tone that it didn’t come up to his usual standards.

Joey knew from Daniel that the Bannings were a very prominent banking family in New York, and that they lived up to that lifestyle one hundred per cent; obviously the little town in which Joey had chosen to make her home, with its three-star hotel, didn’t quite meet those standards!

‘That’s nice for you,’ she returned sarcastically.

David Banning’s mouth tightened at her obvious scorn. ‘I was suggesting that we meet there tomorrow evening for dinner,’ he rasped.

He hadn’t been ‘suggesting’ anything—it had been in the nature of an order! But the Grosvenor wasn’t a place Joey knew well, and the chances were that no one there would know her, either…Besides, she doubted this man would go away until he had spoken to her.

‘Very well,’ she accepted abruptly. ‘I’ll meet you there at eight o’clock tomorrow evening.’ She was sure the neighbour’s teenage daughter, who usually babysat for her on the rare occasions she went out, would be only too pleased to earn some extra money. ‘Now, if that’s all…?’ she added pointedly.

‘For the moment.’ He gave an abrupt inclination of his head.

‘Who was that man, Mummy?’ Lily turned to ask curiously when Joey entered the sitting-room a few minutes later.

‘Just a salesman trying to sell me something,’ Joey dismissed tersely; Lily had never known her father—she certainly didn’t need to know that the man outside was his brother! ‘Tea will be ready in fifteen minutes,’ she added lightly, before escaping to the kitchen.

Once there she took some time to gather her scattered thoughts together. The D. Banning who had written to her had been Daniel’s brother David, not Daniel himself. And now he had travelled all the way from America for the sole purpose of talking to her. There could be only one subject he wanted to discuss with her—Lily!

Well. Joey straightened decisively. He could say whatever it was he wanted to say, and then leave. Neither she nor Lily needed anything from him.

‘There’s a man in the salon asking to see you, Joey,’ Hilary told her lightly as she came out back into the tiny room Joey occasionally used as an office.

Joey instantly paled. David Banning! He hadn’t waited for dinner this evening, after all. Why hadn’t he? What had happened that he needed to see her so early this morning? It would be too much to hope that he had come to inform her he had to return urgently to the States!

‘Thanks, Hilary.’ She gave her assistant and friend a shaky smile as she reluctantly stood up.

The two women had met a year ago, when Hilary came to the salon for a job, and within weeks of working together the two women had worked out their system—Hilary finished work at the salon at three-fifteen every weekday, so that she could go to the school to collect Lily and Daisy, and cared for Lily at her home until Joey finished at the salon for the day. It was a system that worked well for both women.

‘He’s rather gorgeous,’ Hilary murmured admiringly.