Read Online City Girl by Patricia Scanlan - Free Book Online Page A

badly but neither his manners
nor his wealth impressed her and it had been a relief to her when he had started seeing Carol.
    Her mother gave one of her cultured sniffs. ‘You could have had that Gaynor fellow if you had wanted to, I must remind Cecilia of the fact the next time she starts on about Carol’s
marvellous match.’ Then the sound of a car coming up the drive sent Lydia to the bedroom window from where she could see the drive.
    ‘They’re here! Do brush your hair, Devlin, and don’t be long,’ she admonished before drifting downstairs, leaving the faint scent of
Je Reviens
wafting on the
air behind her. Automatically running a comb through her blond sunstreaked hair, Devlin washed her face and added a trace of lipstick to her mouth to please her mother, before dabbing some
Magie Noir
behind her ears.
    Glumly she descended the stairs and walked into the lounge. As she entered, she saw a dark haired man of tall muscular build talking to her father.
    ‘Hello, love,’ her father greeted her warmly as she raised her face for his kiss.
    Good God! thought Luke Reilly, his dark eyes narrowing, That’s the girl who was crying her eyes out on the South Wall. He felt a flicker of interest. Several times since she had bumped
into him he had wondered why a girl like her would be weeping in broad daylight in such a public place. He had never dreamt he would meet her again.
    Devlin turned to find a pair of amber eyes regarding her thoughtfully. Her father said swiftly, ‘Luke, I’d like you to meet my daughter Devlin. Devlin, Luke Reilly.’
    Her hand was taken in a warm firm handshake and his deep voice was saying ‘it’s a pleasure.’ Then Lydia was coming in, laughing and talking animatedly, and Devlin was content
to melt into the background to sip her soda water. She had turned down the offer of a drink. Now that she knew she was pregnant she might as well abstain.
    ‘But you’re going to have an abortion, so it doesn’t matter,’ her little voice interfered again. ‘And anyway you’ve probably turned the poor child into an
alcoholic already with all that gin you drank.’
    How she hated that taunting prying voice that was always there to torment her. It must be the voice of her conscience, she thought, unaware that Luke was studying her unobtrusively as he stood,
one hand in his pants pocket, the other holding his whiskey sour, his head bent attentively as he pretended to pay attention to Lydia over the pre-dinner drinks.
    The daughter fascinated him. Those darkly lashed eyes of such an unusual shade of blue were staring unseeingly out of the window as if she was deep in some private argument with herself.
Obviously she hadn’t recognized him. She was dressed simply in a peach tee-shirt mini dress that hugged her shapely figure and showed off her tan to perfection and he decided she was
stunning. And the thing was, she was completely unaware of him too, he mused wryly, not used to being ignored.
    The combination of dark, almost foreign looks, thanks to a Spanish mother, powerful personality and considerable wealth ensured that beautiful women invariably fell for Luke Reilly and
Devlin’s behaviour was a decidedly new experience for him. Usually he wasn’t attracted to young girls, preferring women to be a bit nearer his own age of thirty-three but there was
something different about this cool, distant girl that intrigued him.
    Over dinner, Devlin forced herself to join in the conversation. She didn’t wish to appear rude but she was certainly not her usual exuberant self, a fact her mother noticed.
    ‘Darling, I thought you were ravenous?’ Lydia remarked lightly, noticing Devlin picking half heartedly at the smoked salmon that lay appetizingly on her best fine bone Royal
Doulton.
    ‘Oh! . . . I . . . am,’ Devlin murmured, forcing herself to swallow a mouthful. Her eyes met the stranger’s and as she came under the scrutiny of those heavy lidded amber eyes
she felt that the word