The Bejewelled Bride. Lee Wilkinson

Bethany was still fumbling to fasten her seatbelt, they set off with a whoosh that threw her back in her seat.

      ‘Was that…?’ Her voice failed. She swallowed hard and tried again. ‘Was that your stepbrother?’

      ‘Yes, for my sins. And now you see what I mean?’ he went on as he joined the traffic stream. ‘See what a swine he is?

      ‘He’s always been an arrogant bastard, but now he holds the purse-strings he thinks he rules the world and other places.

      ‘Well, at the moment he might have the whip hand. But one of these days I’ll be my own master. I won’t have to kowtow to him any longer…’

      During the silence that followed, Bethany made an attempt to gather herself and come to terms with the almost unbelievable.

      It seemed so strange, so bizarre, that Joel was Michael’s stepbrother. She felt as if fate was playing the jester. Mocking her. Making fun of her. Having a game at her expense.

      Meeting him again out of the blue like that had shaken her to the core. But what had disturbed her even more was the way he had looked at her. As if she’d crawled from under a stone. As if he held her in contempt.

      Obviously he had heard Michael asking her to stay the night and presumed they were already lovers. After what had happened in the Lakes, he must have thought her immoral. A woman who had no principles, who would sleep with a man she knew nothing about, a man she had only just met.

      If he’d respected her at all, he wouldn’t have left the next morning without a single word.

      It was the old double standard. Yet somehow it still held sway.

      Her unhappy thoughts were interrupted when the car drew up outside her flat.

      Michael got out and accompanied her across the pavement. When she paused at the top of the area steps, he asked, ‘Can I come in?’

      It was the last thing she wanted. She felt much too churned up. Too agitated.

      She was about to make some excuse when he added, ‘God, do I need a brandy!’

      As a rule, when he was driving he made a point of not drinking but, glancing at his face in the glow from the street lamp, she could see that he really did need something to steady him.