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  This man was Nicholas Steele?

  Rebekka Steele’s father?

  Incredible!

  Rebekka was such a lovely little girl, very warm and open, whereas this man— Well, he might still be as gorgeous as sin, but the last few minutes had also shown Beth that he could be arrogant, and there was a definite edge of ruthlessness to those sculptured lips.

  ‘There won’t be any repercussions,’ Beth declared firmly as she carefully placed the card on top of the dashboard before turning to open the passenger door.

  Nicholas Steele’s hand on her arm prevented her from actually getting out of the car.

  Beth turned to look at him irritably. ‘Yes?’

  The perplexed frown between his brows deepened to a scowl before he slowly released her arm. ‘If you’re sure you’re okay…?’ he muttered gruffly.

  She gave an abrupt nod before scrambling quickly out of the car, slamming the door behind her and hurrying into the school building.

  ‘The bell rang for the start of lessons some time ago, Mrs Morgan.’ Miss Sheffield’s voice rang out disapprovingly across the cavernous hallway.

  Beth turned reluctantly to face the middle-aged headmistress. ‘It really is an awful morning, isn’t it?’

  The other woman’s mouth tightened. ‘I’m pleased to say that all of my other members of staff seemed to take that fact into account by leaving home earlier than usual to ensure that they arrived on time!’

  Maybe so, but then none of Miss Sheffield’s other members of staff had been delayed because they’d been knocked down by the school’s ‘most influential’ parent!

  ‘AM I SPEAKING TO MRS MORGAN?’ Nick prompted tersely when his telephone call was finally answered.

  The two days since Bekka’s initial request for her biology teacher to be invited to their home on Christmas Day—correction, on Bekka’s birthday, which just happened to be Christmas Day!—had been decidedly uncomfortable ones for Nick, as his daughter had brought the subject up every time the two of them were together. Initially wheedling and cajoling, Bekka had soon become whining and tearful as Nick had steadfastly refused to give in to her pleas.

  The frosty drive in to school this morning, the last day of term, had been the final straw as far as Nick was concerned. To the extent that Nick had eventually decided to at least telephone the woman; with any luck the widowed Mrs Morgan would have the good sense to refuse the invitation!

  Whatever the outcome of this telephone call, Nick knew his Christmas was already shot to hell. Forced into being polite on Christmas Day to some old lady he didn’t know—and didn’t want to know, either!—if the woman accepted. Or given the silent treatment by his daughter if this Mrs Morgan turned down the invitation—because Nick had absolutely no doubt who Bekka was going to blame if her teacher refused to join them!

  Wasn’t eight a little young for his daughter to be entering the terrible teens? Or perhaps Bekka was more like Janet, her petulant mother, than he had previously realised…

  ‘Speaking,’ Mrs Morgan suddenly confirmed gruffly.

  And slightly familiarly, Nick recognised with a frown. Had he met Bekka’s biology teacher before? Perhaps during one of the numerous school events he had been expected to attend since becoming a governor of the school two years ago?

  ‘This is Nick Steele,’ he explained tersely. ‘Bekka Steele’s father—’

  ‘I know who you are, Mr Steele. Although I’m curious to know how you acquired my private mobile number?’ she prompted suspiciously.

  She’s paranoid, Nick decided irritably. Paranoid, with a deeply husky voice that made Nick wonder if she actually did have that moustache and whiskery chin to go with it!

  ‘Your headmistress very kindly gave it to me—’

  ‘Miss Sheffield did?’ That soft voice sounded dismayed now rather than suspicious.

  ‘Once I had explained the reason for my call, yes,’ Nick answered with rising impatience. Really, he didn’t have time for this. He still had several meetings to get through today, before he would be able to leave his office just after lunch so that he could attend Bekka’s Nativity Play this afternoon—thankfully the last school event before it closed down for the holidays.

  Which, with his parents flying to America to spend Christmas with his sister, and so not able to help look after Bekka as they usually did, was going to provide Nick with yet another headache.

  How had Janet managed? Nick wondered, for what had to be the hundredth time. Although their divorce three years ago had resulted in Janet being more than adequately provided for. Enough so that she didn’t have to juggle a job as well as motherhood, in the way that Nick was trying to juggle his business interests and recently acquired single parenthood.

  Get over it, he instructed himself impatiently.

  This was just the way it was.

  The way it was going to remain.

  Nick had no intention of ever remarrying. Things might be hard now, with a constant juggling act of Nick’s time, but Bekka wasn’t going to be with him for ever, whereas a second wife would be!

  Hiring a nanny was the obvious answer, of course, but Nick had already tried that—twice—when Bekka had first come to live with him after Janet died. Both those nannies, for different reasons, had been a disaster.

  The first nanny, a woman in her fifties Nick had thought would be a perfect surrogate grandmother-type, had turned out to possess the disposition of a drill sergeant. The second, much younger nanny, had been waiting for him naked in his bed when he’d returned late home from work one evening!

  As Bekka was actually at school most of the time, and his parents had always been willing to help out with Bekka whenever they could, Nick had decided, after those two disastrous attempts, to dispense with the nanny idea altogether.

  ‘And exactly what is the reason for your call, Mr Steele?’ Mrs Morgan spoke slowly now.

  Get it over with, Nick, he instructed himself impatiently. Ask the woman, make polite murmurings at her refusal, and then just hang up. ‘Bekka would like— Bekka and I were wondering if you would care to spend Christmas Day with the two of us…?’

  There was complete silence on the other end of the telephone line. As the woman tried to think up an excuse for refusing, Nick hoped.

  ‘Are you being serious, Mr Steele?’

  Nick scowled darkly as he detected the tone of disbelief. ‘Of course I’m being serious, Mrs Morgan. Christmas Day also happens to be Bekka’s birthday, and she—Bekka and I,’ he corrected again through gritted teeth, ‘would love you to spend the day with the two of us.’

  There was another loaded silence. Finally, there was a gruff reply. ‘Let me see if I’ve understood you correctly, Mr Steele. You knocked me down with your car two days ago. I’ve had the most dreadful cold as a result of the soaking I received. And now you’re inviting me to spend Christmas Day with you and Bekka…?’

  Nick reeled from the absolute shock of realising that paranoid and old Mrs Morgan was, in fact, the definitely un-paranoid and very young red-haired woman he had accidentally knocked over with his car two days ago…!

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘HAVE I understood the situation correctly, Mr Steele?’ Beth repeated as she stood in the privacy of the corridor outside the teachers’ staffroom, talking on her mobile. ‘Mr Steele…?’ she prompted sharply as he still made no reply.

  It had been a struggle for Beth to come into school at all for these last two days of term, after she had woken on the morning following that disastrous meeting with Nicholas Steele with a debilitating cough and a sore throat.

  She was actually feeling a little better today, but not enough to deal with the lethally attractive and—as one of the school governors and the parent of one of her pupils—potentially dangerous Nicholas Steele!

  Her fingers curled tightly about her mobile. ‘Mr Steele—’

  ‘You can’t possibly be the same Mrs Morgan my daughter talks about all the time!’ he burst out disbelievingly.

  Bet
h frowned slightly. ‘Obviously I have no idea whether or not Bekka has been boring you by talking about me, Mr Steele, but I assure you I am indeed your daughter’s biology teacher, Bethan Morgan.’

  ‘Mrs Morgan?’ he bit out harshly. ‘The widowed Mrs Morgan?’

  Beth felt a familiar ache in her chest at the description: ‘the widowed Mrs Morgan’.

  The accurate description.

  Her name was Morgan, and she was a widow.

  Only twenty-six years old, and already a widow.

  Shockingly.

  So much so that Beth still sometimes had difficulty in believing it herself. In accepting that all of Ben’s incredible happy-go-lucky life force, along with that of Beth’s parents, had been wiped out in a single moment. Gone for ever, when Ben had crashed the car he had been driving the three of them in two years ago.

  She and Ben had been the same age. Had grown up together in the same village. Attended school together. Gone off to university together. Become engaged, and then married once they had both attained their degrees— Beth in teaching, Ben in economics.

  Losing both her parents and Ben in that sudden way had been as painful for Beth as she imagined having a limb severed might be.

  She certainly didn’t appreciate having Nick Steele—a man who had been less than sympathetic after knocking her down two days ago—call and invite ‘the widowed Mrs Morgan’ to spend Christmas with him and his daughter. As if Beth were some sort of charity case. A lonely widow in need of his pity!

  Beth might spend a lot of time alone, might be lonely on occasion, but it was a loneliness of choice; she had spent the past two Christmases alone because she wanted it that way, not because she had nowhere else to go. She had plenty of aunts and uncles, grandparents too, that she could have spent the holidays with. She had just chosen not to—too aware, still, of their sympathetic glances, the awkward omissions in conversation of all mention of both her parents and Ben.

  ‘Bethan…?’ Nick prompted when the woman’s silence became uncomfortably long. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I seemed less than polite just now, but—’ He broke off with an impatient shake of his head. ‘Surely you can understand my surprise at discovering that Bekka’s teacher, Mrs Morgan, and the woman from two days ago are one and the same?’

  ‘I perfectly understand, Mr Steele,’ Bethan Morgan came back softly. ‘I also accept, given the circumstances, that Bekka must have somehow forced you to make the invitation for me to join the two of you on Christmas Day.’

  ‘I rarely allow anyone to force me into doing anything, Mrs Morgan!’ Nick cut in; he preferred to think that Bekka had coerced rather than forced him!

  ‘I— Excuse me.’ Beth broke off as she was beset by a sudden fit of coughing.

  ‘Have you seen a doctor about that?’ Nick frowned at the realisation that this woman’s spill onto the icy wet road two days ago was probably responsible for the cold she had now.

  That her huskily sore throat was the reason Nick hadn’t immediately recognised her voice on the telephone a few minutes ago…!

  ‘Believe it or not, I feel a lot better today,’ she dismissed gruffly once the coughing had ceased.

  ‘Look, I’m coming to school later this afternoon to attend the Nativity Play.’ Nick frowned his impatience, aware that the minutes were ticking by; he hadn’t expected this telephone call to take as long as it was. ‘Perhaps we could discuss this again then…?’

  ‘I assure you there’s nothing more to discuss, Mr Steele,’ Beth said hoarsely. ‘I’m aware of the honour you’re bestowing by issuing the invitation, of course, but—’

  ‘Honour?’ Nick echoed sharply. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

  Beth gave a weary sigh, longing to get back to the hot cup of tea she had left in the staffroom. ‘Bekka is a lovely little girl, with a kind heart, and I like her tremendously.’ In fact she still found it hard to believe that Bekka was this particular man’s daughter! ‘But those things don’t change the fact that your invitation is completely inappropriate.’

  There was a brief, chilling silence. ‘In what way “inappropriate”…?’ Nick Steele finally snapped.

  ‘In that it’s totally unsuitable for a teacher to spend Christmas Day at the home of one of her pupils.’

  ‘I also happen to be one of the school governors,’ he pointed out impatiently.

  ‘Exactly,’ Beth said with feeling.

  ‘Miss Sheffield, your esteemed headmistress, thinks that your joining Bekka and I for Christmas Day is “a charming idea”…’ Nick Steele drawled derisively.

  Beth gave an inward groan. ‘You told her the reason you needed to speak to me?’

  ‘I told you I had,’ he said irritably.

  ‘But—’ Beth gave a dazed shake of her head. She might have more of a problem getting out of this if Miss Sheffield already knew that one of the school governors, and the school’s ‘most influential parent’, was asking one of her teachers to join him and his daughter for Christmas Day. ‘You had absolutely no right to do that, Mr Steele.’

  ‘Bekka assured me that you don’t have anywhere else to go on Christmas Day, but maybe she was wrong…?’

  Beth bristled. ‘My plans for Christmas are none of your concern, Mr Steele.’

  ‘Look, Mrs Morgan, I have several meetings I have to get through this morning so that I can be free to attend the Nativity Play later today. Why don’t you come out with Bekka and me for a meal afterwards and we can—?’

  ‘No, Mr Steele,’ Beth cut in firmly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Again, it would be…inappropriate.’

  ‘I’ll let you pay the bill if you think that would make it more appropriate,’ he came back mockingly. ‘Or maybe you imagine that this invitation to dinner is just a preliminary to my trying to get you into bed…?’

  ‘Really, Mr Steele!’ Beth gasped.

  ‘Don’t tell me that I’ve actually succeeded in rendering you speechless!’ he taunted.

  ‘You’re being utterly ridiculous—’

  ‘No more so than the reasons you’ve given for refusing my invitation to join Bekka and me on Christmas Day,’ he retorted.

  Perfectly legitimate reasons as far as Beth was concerned. Besides, she didn’t want to spend Christmas Day with Nick Steele—

  She didn’t want to spend Christmas Day with Nick Steele…? Not Bekka, but specifically Nick Steele?

  He unnerved her, Beth realised. All that forceful energy and sexual magnetism disturbed her in ways she couldn’t explain. In ways she didn’t want to explain!

  She straightened impatiently. ‘I’m not some sort of charity case, Mr Steele—’

  ‘My invitation has nothing to do with charity. In fact, you would be doing me a favour if you agreed to come,’ he continued heavily. ‘This will be our first Christmas since Bekka’s mother died of cancer, and—’ Nick broke off with a self-disgusted grimace; he was starting to sound as wheedling as Bekka now!

  Damn it, he hadn’t even wanted Bekka’s biology teacher to spend Christmas Day with the two of them. He’d been protesting against that happening for days now.

  When he had believed he was having a complete stranger foisted on him…

  When he had thought Mrs Morgan was an elderly and possibly bewhiskered widow.

  Instead she was a young woman in her twenties. A young and beautiful woman in her twenties.

  A very prickly young and beautiful woman in her twenties…!

  ‘And…?’ Beth prompted as Nick’s continued silence began to stretch awkwardly between them.

  ‘And having a third person around may just make it less of an ordeal for both of us,’ he finished.

  Beth moistened dry lips. ‘I hadn’t realised your wife had died so recently.’

  ‘Ten months ago. And Janet and I had been divorced for over two years before she died,’ Nick Steele explained stiffly.

  It didn’t sound as if it had been an amicable divorce, Beth recognised ruefully. Even so, it would still have been a
shock to Nick, as well as to his young daughter, when Janet Steele died.

  Was Beth allowing the sudden and painful death of Ben and her own parents to emotionally draw her in…?

  If she was, then it wasn’t on Nick Steele’s behalf but Bekka’s, Beth told herself firmly. The arrogantly forceful Nick Steele was a man who gave every indication of being well able to take care of himself. And his emotions. If he had any…

  She was being unfair now, Beth recognised irritably. Allowing her own prejudice towards the man to colour her opinions; Nick obviously loved his young daughter very much if he was willing to put up with having a stranger in his home on Christmas Day in an effort to make it as pleasant as possible for Bekka.

  Beth had preferred it when she had just been able to think of Nick Steele as being impossibly arrogant!

  ‘I suppose I could go out for a meal with the two of you this evening—’

  ‘That’s settled, then.’ Nick cut briskly across her tentative acceptance. ‘I have a meeting to go to now, so we’ll sort out the details later this afternoon,’ he dismissed, before ringing off abruptly.

  Leaving Beth feeling slightly dazed as she stood alone in the corridor, staring down at her mobile as if it were all the inanimate object’s fault that she now found herself in this uncomfortable position!

  ‘I HAVE TO STAY HERE AND MAKE sure none of the girls forgets anything, and then help tidy away before I’ll be able to join you and Bekka,’ Beth told Nick after he had sought her out backstage once the school Nativity Play had ended.

  Her shoulder-length hair, now it was dry, was a deep rich auburn, Nick noted admiringly. A deep rich auburn that was a perfect foil for her pale complexion and those blue eyes surrounded by thick dark lashes.

  Eyes that somehow managed to avoid looking directly at Nick as he leant casually back against the wall, well out of the way of the crowd of excited and chattering girls as they came out of the dressing room before hurrying off in search of their parents.