shortness of his dark hair, his hard, chiselled features and firm, unsmiling mouth. In fact, the man didn’t look as if he found much in life to smile about!
Brianna’s irritation with the receptionist turned to pity as she imagined having to work with the Ice Man day in and day out...!
‘No, not really, Mr Nathan,’ the receptionist assured him in a voice that seemed suddenly breathless, sounding more like a little girl’s than that of a mature woman in her fifties. ‘It’s only that Miss Gibson doesn’t have an appointment—’
‘Gibson?’ He repeated the name in a clipped voice, once again looking through those dark-rimmed glasses down his thin, aristocratic nose at Brianna. ‘Exactly who is it you are wishing to see, Miss Gibson?’
Her father was right about her temper, and, as this man not only looked down at her but spoke down to her too, she could feel it rapidly rising. ‘Landris, Landris or Davis,’ she returned, as coolly as he had spoken to her.
Irritation flickered across his aristocratic features, his mouth twisting mockingly. ‘That’s rather a generalisation,’ he drawled derisively.
Her eyes flashed. ‘I can’t be any more specific than that. The letter I received from this office was just as ambiguous,’ she returned scathingly.
‘Letter?’ Those icy blue eyes narrowed behind the glasses. ‘What letter is that? Maybe if I could see it—’
‘I have it here, Mr Nathan,’ Hazel offered eagerly, holding out what was turning out to be a much-read letter.
‘Mr Nathan’ took it. His hands were long and slender—far too artistically sensitive for such a man, Brianna decided critically.
She realised she had taken an instant dislike to him. She usually got on with most people, that was why her job at the hospital was so interesting and enjoyable. Maybe it was just that she was already so emotionally strung-cut. After all, she didn’t even know him, although a part of her said she didn’t want to, either!
‘Hmm.’ When he looked up again, his. gaze was even more chilly than before. ‘It states quite clearly here that—’ He broke off as an elderly couple entered the reception area. ‘Would you like to come to my office, Miss—Gibson?’ This time he added her name after another glance at the letter, which he still held. ‘We can talk more privately there.’
The receptionist looked alarmed. ‘You have an appointment at two o’clock, Mr Nathan.’
‘Plenty of time, Hazel,’ he dismissed with a wave of his hand, before taking a firm hold of Brianna’s arm. ‘If you would like to come this way, Miss Gibson,’ he suggested as the elderly couple approached the receptionist desk. ‘I’m sure you will be more comfortable in my office.’
And not such a visible nuisance, Brianna guessed wryly. It simply wasn’t done, at the offices of Landris, Landris and Davis, to have altercations, no matter how mild, in their reception area.
She wasn’t sure that ‘comfortable’ exactly described the room he took her into; grand and imposing sprang to mind, but not comfortable! The walls were panelled halfway up in the dark oak, and above hung paper the colour of a deep blue sky; there was a much darker blue carpet on the floor, and one of the walls was completely lined with books, all of them of legal origin, if the titles were anything to go by. In the centre of the room a huge bay window, edged with dark blue velvet curtains the same colour blue as the carpet formed the backdrop to a very wide oak desk. A high-backed dark blue leather chair sat behind it; a smaller chair in the same leather faced it.
Mr Nathan moved to sit in the large chair, indicating she should sit opposite him, her letter still firmly in his possession. He laid it down on the desk in front of him, reading it again quickly before looking up at her once again. ‘You really have no idea what this letter is about?’ he prompted.
She had only the guesswork of her father to go on, which she wasn’t sure was accurate. She had been put up for adoption when she was only two months old, so why on earth should her real parents be interested in her now?
Although that first letter sent to her father by this firm of lawyers three months ago was still a puzzle...
‘None,’ she replied quickly.
He pursed his firm, unsmiling lips. ‘I see,’ he murmured thoughtfully.
‘And I really think, Mr Nathan—’ Brianna sat forward in her chair ‘—that if you don’t know either, then you’re wasting my time as well as your own!’
She felt the embarrassed colour enter her cheeks after this outburst, realising instantly that she owed him an apology; after all, he hadn’t needed to bother with her at all, he could just have left her for the receptionist to deal with—which she was sure, without this man as an audience, the other woman was more than capable of doing!
‘I’m sorry, Mr Nathan.’ She sat back with a heavy sigh. ‘It’s just that letters like that one—’ she indicated the letter in front of him ‘—arriving in the post without warning, can be quite unnerving.’
‘I’m sure they can,’ he returned smoothly. ‘But could I just set the record straight on one thing before we continue this conversation?’
She looked across at him expectantly. ‘Yes?’
He gave a small inclination of his head, the late spring sunlight coming through the window behind him showing a slight touch of red in the darkness. ‘My name is not Mr Nathan.’
‘But it’s what the receptionist just called you,’ Brianna protested confusedly.
His mouth quirked, not quite into a smile, but into something—in this man’s case, Brianna felt—that came very close to it. ‘It’s what she has always called me.’
‘But I don’t see why, if it isn’t your name.’ Brianna frowned. ‘You—’
‘If you will just allow me to finish?’ the man continued imperiously. ‘Are you usually this—impetuous, Miss Gibson?’ He frowned at her darkly, as if she were a species he very rarely came into contact with! And she didn’t mean women; she was sure there was a wife in the background somewhere, someone as stiffly formal and haughty as he was. He obviously just wasn’t used to someone as bluntly forthright as she was.
Well, that was okay, because she had never met anyone quite this stuffy and arrogant before, either. It wasn’t even as if he was that old; possibly he was in his mid-thirties, and yet he talked and behaved like someone so much older than that. What he really needed was to—
Never mind what he needed, she impatiently admonished herself; she would never see him again after today, anyway. She wasn’t going to get anything out of him at all if she didn’t curb her impetuosity a little.
‘Probably,’ she conceded with a grimace. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have come here today at all, would I?’ she added with a shrug.
His face showed his irritation with her levity. ‘As I was saying...’
‘Before you were so rudely interrupted!’ Brianna couldn’t control the facetious mental ending to his statement—or the smile that threatened to curve her lips and bring a sparkle to the deep blue of her eyes. The first she stifled by biting her bottom lip, the latter she could do nothing about, although she
