Joachim’s heart lurched as his daughter raced into the morning room. How like her mother she was! It was like looking at Isabel in her twenties.

      ‘If you think you’re going to sell this house, Daddy,’ Leah tossed at him with a feisty look as she sat down at the breakfast table, ‘then you can think again.’

      Joachim sighed. Like her mother in looks, but not in personality. Isabel had been a soft sweet woman, always deferring to him. Never making waves.

      Leah looked soft and sweet. When she’d been younger, she’d even been soft and sweet. But over the past eighteen months, she’d become much more assertive, and very independent. Not hard, exactly. But quite formidable and forthright.

      But who could blame her for turning tough, came a more sympathetic train of thought. Carl had a lot to answer for. Fancy leaving Leah when she needed him the most. The man was a weasel and a coward. Joachim wouldn’t spit on him if he was on fire.

      His daughter had had two alternatives during that awful time in her life. Go to pieces, or develop a thicker skin.

      For a while it had been touch and go. Joachim was very proud that Leah had eventually pulled herself together and moved on.

      ‘No, Leah,’ he told her with a reassuring smile. ‘I’m not selling the house. I know how much you love it.’

      Leah’s relief was only temporary. Then what did Daddy want to talk to her about?

      ‘What’s up, then?’ she asked as she reached for a slice of toast from the silver toast rack. ‘You’re not going to make a fuss about my working, are you? I thought you were proud of my getting a job.’

      Perhaps surprised would have been a better description of her father’s reaction. When Leah had first mentioned a year ago that she was going to find a job, her stunned father had asked her what on earth she thought she could do.

      ‘Even waitresses have to have experience these days!’ he’d told her.

      Leah understood his scepticism after she went to have her resumé done. Because there was nothing much she could put on it, except a very average pass in her Higher School certificate—studying had not been high on Leah’s society princess agenda—plus that very brief creative writing course. She had absolutely no qualifications for employment other than her social skills and her looks and a limited ability to use a computer.

      Which was why the only job she’d been able to find after attending endless interviews was as a receptionist. Not at some flashy establishment in the city, either. She currently worked for a company that manufactured beauty products, and had their factory and head office at Ermington, a mainly industrial suburb in western Sydney.

      ‘I am proud of your getting that job,’ her father insisted. ‘Extremely.’

      Mrs B., coming in with a plate piled high with scrambled eggs, hash browns, fried tomato and bacon, interrupted their conversation for a moment.

      ‘This looks delicious, Mrs B.,’ Leah complimented her father’s housekeeper as she placed the plate in front of her.

      Leah was privately thankful that she only had to eat Mrs B.’s breakfast one day a week, or she’d have a backside as big as a bus.

      ‘Just make sure you eat it all,’ Mrs B. said with a sharp glance at Leah. ‘You’re getting way too thin, missie.’

      ‘You won’t catch yourself another husband with that waif look, you know,’ her father agreed.

      Leah could have pointed out that she turned down several offers of dates every week. Instead, she smiled sweetly and tucked into the food till Mrs B. left the room. Then she put down her knife and fork and looked straight at her father.

      ‘I have no intention of getting married again, Daddy.’

      ‘What? Why not?’

      ‘You know why not.’

      ‘Not every man is as weak as Carl,’ he grumbled. ‘You’re a beautiful young woman, Leah. You should have a husband. And babies.’

      ‘I don’t want to argue about this, Daddy. I just want you to know my feelings on the matter so that I don’t have to put up with that kind of comment any more.’

      ‘You’ll change your mind,’ he said. ‘One day, you’ll meet the right man and fall in love and that will be that. Nature will have her way with you. You mark my words.’

      Leah suppressed a sigh. She’d been marking her father’s words all her life. She loved him to death, but over the past two years she’d come to realise he was an incredible bossy-boots who thought he knew what was best for everyone.

      ‘Can we move on, please?’ she said, picking up a piece of crispy bacon with her fingers, and munching into it. ‘You wanted to discuss something with me?’ she asked between swallows. ‘I presume it didn’t have anything to do with my remarrying. It sounded like it was about money. Which reminds me. Don’t start telling me what I can and cannot do with the income from my trust fund, either. It is my money to do with as I please. Mum made no conditions on her legacy in her will. If I want to give it all away, I can. Not that I am. Yet. At the moment, I have to keep some back each month to make ends meet.’

      ‘I don’t wonder,’ her father said. ‘From what I recall, you only earn a pittance.’

      ‘The women in the factory earn even less,’ Leah pointed out. ‘Yet some of them bring up a family on their salary. My aim is to support myself on my salary alone. It will do my character good to see how the other half lives. It’s just taking a while for my champagne taste to catch up with my beer income. Now, what did you want to talk to me about?’ she asked, and munched into the bacon again.

      ‘Eat your breakfast first. I see you’re enjoying it. We’ll talk over coffee afterwards.’