“You’re sure about that?” he asked grimly. “Your grandmother mightn’t have told you everything. People have secrets. Some they take to the grave.”
“Tell me about it,” Miranda countered with real sadness. “I loved Mum—Sally—my grandmother. I nursed her. I was with her at the end. She told me everything. Not a pretty story. I had to forgive her. I loved her. She was so good to me. Yet the person I had trusted more than anyone else in the world had lied to me. God, it hurt. It will always hurt.”
“I imagine it would.” He studied her downbent face. She had a lovely mouth, very finely cut. Leila’s mouth was positively lush. This girl wore no lipstick. Maybe a touch of gloss. “I expect your grandmother thought it was best at the time. Then it all got away from her. Where did you live?”
She told him. “The Gold Coast Hinterland, Queensland.”
“A beautiful area. I know it well. So your grandparents were farming people?” he asked with a frown. “According to Leila she was born in New Zealand.”
“She was. And just look at how far she has come.” Miranda gave a theatrical wave of her hands. “Married to one of the richest men in the country. You can bet your life she didn’t want any more children. She’s only thirty-three, you know. But children would only cramp her style.”
True of Leila. “The woman you claim is your mother told my father she wasn’t able to have children,” he volunteered.
“I think you can take it she’s a born liar. Anyway, your father has you and your sister. You’re the heir.”
“You bet your life I am.”
“Don’t look at me!” She slumped back against the rich leather upholstery. “I don’t want to muscle in.”
“I thought you did.”
He had very sexy brackets at the sides of his mouth. “No way!” She shrugged, unsettled by his proximity. In a matter of moments this stranger had got under her skin. Definitely not allowed. “What I want—what I need—is to have the financial backing to get through med school. I’m clever. Maybe I’m even cleverer than you.” She held up her hand. “Okay, joke! But I scored in the top one per cent for my finals.”
“And there I was, only winning a few spelling bees.”
“Not so.” She sat straight. “You were awarded a university medal. You have an Honours Degree in Engineering. You also have a degree in Business Administration.”
“Go on—what else?” he asked caustically.
“Listen, Corin. I did my homework. It was necessary. I’m not asking for a fortune, you know. I’ll get a part-time job. Two if I have to. But I must attain my goal. It’s what my par—my grandparents lived and worked for. I was the one who was to be given every chance. Only they both went and died on me. That’s agony, you know.”
He regarded her for a moment in silence, all kinds of emotions nipping at him fiercely. This girl was getting to him. And she had done it so easily. “Your story has to be checked out very thoroughly,” he said. “You might tell me how, given there wasn’t much money in the family, your mother got away? Everyone needs money to survive. She was just a schoolgirl. How did she manage?”
“I daresay she blackmailed my father,” she said, bluntly rephrasing the explanation her grandmother had offered.
“So it runs in the family, then?”
She winced, her turquoise-green eyes flashing. “Don’t make me hate you, Corin.”
He laughed, very dryly. “That’s okay. Hate works for me, Miranda.”
Some note in his voice sent a shiver down her spine. “Miri, please.”
He continued to scan her face. “I prefer Miranda.”
She was locked into that brilliant regard. “You’ll find I’m telling the truth right down to the last detail. My grandparents didn’t know who fathered Leila’s child. But, whoever it was, his family must have had money. Someone must have given it to her. Although she took everything she could lay her hands on from her parents, including much needed money that was awaiting banking.”
“It’s a terrible story, Miranda, but not rare,” he said. “Young people—girls and boys—go missing all the time, for any number of reasons. It must be heartbreaking for the caring parents.”
“Leila obviously didn’t care about them. There was no abuse, no excessive strictness, only love. You know, I’ve been thinking of you—your father and you, certainly Leila—as the enemy,” she confessed. “You’re not so bad.”
“You don’t know me,” he said.
“I know you bear a noble name. The Corin bit anyway. I like it. I don’t even mind being allied with you, or your part of the enemy. But you can’t be slow about this, Corin. There are lots of things to be taken care of. I don’t have another damned soul in the world to appeal to.”
“And I’m supposed to care?” He was out to test her.
“But you do care, don’t you?” She was looking into his eyes as if she was reading his mind. “Leila may have cast a spell on your father, but I bet she didn’t cast any spell on you or your sister.”
Nothing could be truer. They had disliked and distrusted Leila even before she had married their father. Now they hated her. “So you think this will give me an advantage?” Of course it would. But he knew he wouldn’t use it. Not yet, anyway. His moment would come.
“Nothing so ugly,” she said. “You may dislike Leila. But you love your father. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“You might well make a doctor, Miranda,” he answered tersely. “You appear to have a gift.”
She visibly relaxed. “I hope so. I want so much to do good in this world. I won’t let my paren—” she corrected herself again “—grandparents down. I’m going to see this through and you’ve got to help me. I’ve even had a psychological assessment to determine whether I have the right stuff to become a doctor.”
“And you passed?”
“With flying colours, Corin. Also the mandatory interview for selection into the MBBS course. You don’t mind if I call you Corin?”
“Obviously you have a keen interest in getting me to like you.”
“I like you already. Bit odd, really. But I believe in destiny, don’t you? I was waiting for you—maybe your father. I got you. Far and away the better choice.”
There was severity, but a touch of amusement in his expression. “You can say that again. My father would have had you thrown out of the car. Right on your pretty ear.”
“Is that so? You can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats a woman.”
“I agree.”
“Hey, you do love your dad, don’t you?” She eyed him anxiously. There was something a bit off in his tone.
“Why do you ask that?”
“Unusual answer, Corin.” She spoke in an unconscious clinical fashion. “I’d say textbook father-son conflict?”
“Sure you don’t want to go for psychiatry?” he asked very dryly.
“I hit a nerve. Sorry. I’ll back off. Anyway, even your father wouldn’t have thrown me out. Not when I waved the photographs.” His handsome face was near enough to hers to touch. “I have to be tough. Like you people. I know you can work this out somehow. I won’t interfere. All you have to