Page 63 of Do Opposites Attract?

Melanie waited for Brianna to take down Catherine’s address and put the phone down before clearing her throat. ‘So, you’re not meddling, but you’ve now arranged to visit a very important lady in Mitch’s past without his knowledge.’

Slowly Brianna leant forward and put her face in her hands. ‘It would appear that way, yes.’

‘God Brie, I hope you know what you’re doing.’

Hysterical laughter bubbled out of her. ‘Of course I don’t.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

All through the following day Brianna could think of nothing but her pending visit to Catherine that evening. She guessed it made a welcome change from daydreaming about Mitch. Following the directions Catherine had given her, she pulled up outside an imposing town house in a very upmarket area of the city. No wonder Simon’s father had been keen to make sure the property didn’t go to a stranger. It was clearly worth several million.

The lady who greeted Brianna was far from the doddering old woman she’d been expecting. Yes, she was probably in her eighties, but she wore it really well. She was elegantly dressed, her white hair fashionably layered, and her face, though wrinkled, still had the fine bone structure of a beautiful woman.

‘You must be Brianna. Please, come in. Would you like a drink?’

Brianna accepted a coffee, and was shown into a grand living room. The furniture was antique, but homely. ‘This is my posh room, where I bring all my visitors. When it’s just me, I sit in a cosy little snug round the corner,’ Catherine confessed as she sat herself down on a high-backed chair by the fireplace. She smiled at Brianna. ‘My dear, since you called last night I’ve not stopped thinking about what you said. I’m anxious to hear everything you know.’

Brianna settled back against the sofa and wondered where she should start. ‘Last week I was at a party with Mitch and your nephew, Simon. At the party Mitch was accused of being a gold-digger, of preying on a rich woman. Your name was mentioned.’

Shock spread across the old lady’s face. ‘Mitch? A gold-digger? What a load of old nonsense. He never took a single thing off me I didn’t freely give.’

‘Catherine, I spoke to Simon last night and it appears that his father, your brother I believe, was concerned when he heardyou’d wanted to amend your will. Leaving your house to a stranger, rather than your family, was a big step.’

‘That was nobody’s business but mine,’ Catherine retorted sharply. ‘Mitch wasn’t a stranger. He was like a son to me. And that so-called family of mine would have known that if they’d ever bothered to visit. Why wouldn’t I want to leave him my house? He’d lived with me here for four happy years. I wanted to give him a family home, something he’d never had before.’

Brianna’s shoulders slumped in relief. It was only then that she realised she’d been harbouring a fear that maybe, just maybe, her instincts about Mitch had been wrong. But now she knew she was right, was whathadhappened really any of her business? Her desire to hear more about Mitch clashed fiercely with the knowledge she was prying into private matters.

She shifted in her seat. ‘Catherine, I feel a little awkward talking about your family like this. It has nothing to do with me. I probably shouldn’t have interfered at all, but when Mitch was accused of conning you out of money, I knew it couldn’t be true.’

‘It certainly wasn’t. What was it you said on the phone about a letter?’

‘Simon said his father instructed the solicitor to write to Mitch telling him never to contact you again, or they would call the police.’

Catherine rattled her cup down into the saucer. ‘Oh, my,’ she whispered, totally taken aback. ‘Poor Mitch, whatever must he have thought of me? No wonder he suddenly stopped writing.’ The old lady had gone as white as a sheet and slumped back against the chair. ‘I should have guessed there was more to it than him simply not being bothered. He was always so good to me, so caring. And now I think of it, around the same time Mitch’s letters stopped arriving, my brother started asking about him. He told me Mitch was all manner of horrid things I knew were lies so I simply ignored them. What I should have done wasrealise the connection. How stupid.’ Her voice began to break and tears slipped down her cheeks.

‘Oh, Catherine, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to upset you.’ Brianna was mortified. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t be meddling in things that don’t concern me.’ Wondering how she could comfort somebody she barely knew, Brianna walked over to the older lady and offered her a tissue. She was surprised when Catherine put a hand around her fingers, and clasped them tight.

‘Don’t you dare go apologising, my dear. You’ve just given me back the son I thought I’d lost. When I’ve got over the shock, I’ll feel so much better, so much happier.’ She paused to blow her nose. ‘I just wish I’d believed in him more. I wrote a few more times, asking him why his letters had stopped, but when I didn’t get a reply, I didn’t push it.’

Brianna put her arm around Catherine’s bony shoulders. ‘You loved him, Catherine. You chose to let him go, thinking that was what he wanted. You can’t blame yourself for that.’

Catherine wiped her eyes and gave Brianna a shaky smile. ‘Sorry, dear, I just needed to get that out of my system. Now tell me, how is he? Did he become a doctor in the end, like he’d always wanted to?’

Reassured that Catherine was over her tears, Brianna went to sit back down again. ‘You would be so proud of him. Yes, he’s a doctor. He spent some time in the army and now works for a charity that helps victims of natural disasters anywhere in the world that might need their expertise. He’s smart and very brave.’

‘And is he happy? Has he found love?’

Brianna looked down at her coffee cup for a moment, unable to hold the steady gaze of the other lady. ‘I think these are questions you’ll need to ask him.’

‘Brianna, you said you were his friend. Are you his girlfriend?’

‘No, not anymore.’ A ball of emotion lodged in her throat and she coughed to loosen it. ‘I was for a short while. But now, well, we work together at the same charity.’

‘But you love him, don’t you?’

This time Brianna couldn’t avoid the old lady’s astute look. ‘Yes, I do. Is it that obvious?’

‘Well, I don’t think anybody would stick their neck out like you have, or come to visit a stranger from his past, if they didn’t care.’

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