Champagne Girl by Diana Palmer

Author:Diana Palmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460383650
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-03-16T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Matt left later that evening. Hal didn’t say another word to his brother. He went to bed early and didn’t show his face the whole of the next day.

“He worries me.” Betty sighed the following day as she finished her lunch and poured a second cup of coffee for Catherine, who was taking her lunch hour at home instead of going out with the office girls.

“Who?”

“Hal,” her mother replied. “He isn’t himself lately.”

“He’s just miserable, that’s all,” Catherine told her. “He isn’t happy with what Matt’s making him do.”

“Poor Hal. I’m sorry for him, but nobody wins against Matt. I just hope Hal doesn’t go back to his old ways and start trying to get back at Matt. He used to pull some of the most horrible tricks. Oh, well, maybe I’m worrying for nothing.” She smiled at Catherine. “How’s it going at the office?”

“Very well,” the younger woman replied, smiling back. “I’ve just gotten the programs compiled. I let Angel check them to make sure I hadn’t done anything unforgivable. Now I’m going to get some ads ready for the newspapers, and some radio spots, and I’m going to compose a letter to send to selected buyers. Then I have to organize a barbecue.…”

“It sounds so complicated!” Betty said.

“It is. But it will prove to Matt that I’m capable of making my own way,” she replied. “That’s something Hal and I have in common, I suppose. We’re both trapped here by Matt.”

“For vastly different reasons, I imagine,” Betty said enigmatically.

“I doubt that.” Catherine put down her coffee cup. “I hate to, but I have to get back to work. I want to take a minute and call the public realations agency in New York to see if they’ll wait another month for me. It will take at least that long to get this show on the road.”

“Do you think they’ll wait to fill the vacancy?” Betty asked.

Catherine shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope so,” she said wistfully. “But you know how Matt is when he digs in his heels. I have to prove myself to him.”

“Maybe he’s just trying to make sure you know what you’re doing. He doesn’t think you’d be happy in New York.”

“Well, I’ll never find out from here, will I?” came the exasperated reply. “Honestly, sometimes I think Matt just has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. But he’s got to let go sometime!”

“Yes. I suppose so.” But Betty didn’t sound enthusiastic herself.

“I’ll write you,” her daughter coaxed. “And phone you. I’ll come home on holidays.”

“It won’t be the same. And who’ll make Matt smile? He never does except for you. When you’re away, he’s a different man.”

That puzzled Catherine. She’d wondered for a long time about the stranger who appeared from time to time, the hard-faced man with the cold eyes. That wasn’t her Matt.

“Have to run, darling,” she told her mother. “My computer awaits without.”

“Without what?” Hal asked from the doorway, all eyes.

“Without a program, that’s without what,” Catherine teased. “Feeling better?”

“Not really, but it’s stifling up there alone.

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