Mother Of The Bride. Carole Mortimer

under control. Emily's disappointment was understandable, but Zack's derision was unforgivable.

      ‘Gramps didn't come,’ Emily repeated dully, once the waiter had departed, turning away to talk softly to Greg, but not before Helen had seen the sheen of tears in her eyes.

      Helen knew her father was in the wrong for behaving so stubbornly and ruining Emily's birthday, but she also found Zack's attitude extremely annoying. She was so agitated that as she took out her napkin to place it over her knee it dropped to the floor.

      Zack bent down to retrieve it for her, his gaze clearly mocking her slightly flustered movements. ‘Your father heard of the return of the prodigal, did he, and decided not to come?’ he taunted softly.

      ‘You're hardly that!’ she snapped disparagingly.

      He held her gaze in steady challenge as he placed the napkin in her lap, his fingers deliberately brushing against her thigh, and laughed softly as Helen pushed his hand away with a hurried movement, high colour in her cheeks.

      Helen was breathing shallowly, inwardly berating herself for letting this man's touch affect her in that way. She suddenly wished that the champagne Zack had ordered would arrive; she desperately needed something to steady her nerves!

      Zack turned to the young couple. ‘We seem to have strayed off the subject of your supposed engagement,’ he reminded them firmly.

      Emily instantly brightened. ‘Oh, there's nothing “supposed” about it.’ She held out her left hand so that they could all see the ring sparkling there. ‘Greg and I went out and bought this today.’ She moved her hand so that the emerald and surrounding diamonds winked more effectively.

      Which was why neither of them had been at home all day to answer the telephone! Or was it? Helen had rung too early the first time this morning for the shops to even be open. She had the distinct feeling that she and Zack had been given the run-around all day by their respective children, Emily and Greg putting off the moment of confrontation until it couldn't be put off any longer.

      ‘You put the announcement in the newspaper yourselves,’ Helen guessed impatiently. ‘Emily, how could you?'

      ‘Mummy, there was no other way.’ Emily looked at her imploringly. ‘If we had come to you first and told you—–'

      ‘Asking might have been better,’ Zack put in harshly. ‘It's customary to at least ask the girl's parents first before making any other plans,’ he reproved his son sternly.

      ‘You two certainly didn't ask Gramps,’ Emily accused. ‘Otherwise the two of you would never have got married!'

      ‘Emily!’ Helen gasped weakly, mortified at even having that particular relationship between Zack and herself brought into the conversation.

      ‘Well, it's the truth,’ her daughter asserted defensively. ‘And if we had come to the two of you and told you how we felt about each other you would only have put every objection you could think of in our way.'

      ‘Only because you're too young to know your own minds,’ Helen defended exasperatedly. ‘Both of you!’ Greg might be possessed of his father's supreme self-confidence, but he was still, after all, only nineteen.

      ‘You were both married at our ages,’ Greg pointed out reasoningly.

      Not to each other, thank God, Helen sighed with inward relief.

      ‘And it was far from a perfect arrangement,’ Zack told them impatiently. ‘Helen believes she married too young, I know. And your mother and I struggled along as students, Greg, because my parents had disapproved of the marriage at the time. It became even more of a struggle after you were born.’ He shook his head at the memory of the hardship involved in being a medical student and trying to be a father at the same time.

      ‘Thanks!’ Greg drawled hardly, blue eyes glittering as angrily as his father's.

      ‘You know damn well I didn't mean it that way,’ Zack snapped.

      ‘I know that what you're saying sounds suspiciously like a threat to me,’ Greg glared. ‘Stay away from each other or we'll leave you to struggle like we had to, is what you mean!'

      Helen looked at the two men with dismay; they were too much alike, these two, and as she had often had to do in the past she found herself cutting in between them in an effort to ward off a serious disagreement. ‘Your father wasn't suggesting that at all, Greg,’ she soothed. ‘He—–'

      ‘Wasn't I?’ Brown eyes glittered coldly. ‘They are too damned young to know what they're doing!'

      ‘And I suppose you're always so confident you're doing the right thing?’ Greg challenged defiantly. ‘That's why the two of you only stayed married to each other for five months!'

      ‘Greg!’ Emily gasped warningly, turning concernedly to Helen as she paled, very wisely not even daring to look at Zack, although the anger emanating from him was a tangible thing, to all of them. ‘Mummy, I'm sorry Greg said that; he didn't mean it.’ She glared across the table at him as he would have disagreed with her, his mouth setting mutinously as he bit back his angry retort. ‘But just because your teenage marriages turned out to be less than ideal, it doesn't mean that ours will,’ she added with persuasive charm. ‘Greg and I love each other.'