The two men watched in silence as she put on her dress and carefully closed the door behind her. When she was gone, Robert drew himself up to his full height and clasped his hands behind his back.
‘How many times are we going to be in this situation, Miles?’ he asked.
‘I’m twenty-one, Father,’ he replied defiantly as he pulled on his jeans. ‘I don’t need you telling me how to live my life.’
‘Evidently you do.’
‘Dad, it’s just a joint ...’
‘I mean about you marrying this tart on some beach in Thailand. Did you think for one minute how it would affect the family?’
Miles narrowed his eyes. ‘She is not a tart,’ he hissed. ‘She is my wife!’
Robert chuckled, a cruel smile on his face. ‘I was being polite. Whore might be nearer the mark.’
r />
‘Don’t you dare speak about her like that!’ yelled Miles. ‘You don’t know anything about her.’
‘I know she didn’t work at the Coral Cay hotel,’ said Robert in a superior tone. ‘I phoned them an hour ago and they had no record of her. Where did you meet her, Miles? A go-go bar? A sex show?’
Miles could feel every muscle in his body tense, a thudding headache building in his temples. He’d been here before, right on the edge of control, and he knew that if he let himself, he could walk across the room and tear his father apart. Not now, not this way, he said to himself. There were other ways to hurt a man like Robert Ashford, ways which would wound him far deeper than a punch ever could. You’ve just made yourself a dangerous enemy, Father, he thought. He took a long ragged breath, clearing his vision.
‘She was a dancer,’ he said finally.
Robert was looking at him as if he was some unpleasant worm he’d found crawling across his path.
‘Is she pregnant?’ he asked.
‘No,’ sighed Miles, suddenly weary of the whole charade.
‘Was this ceremony legal?’
‘Do you mean were we married by a witch doctor who blew smoke rings into the air when we said “I do”?’
‘Well was it?’
‘Yes, it was legal. We were married in Vegas.’
‘Damn,’ muttered Robert.
Miles barked out a harsh laugh. ‘You are a horrible snob,’ he said, shaking his head.
Robert laughed with an air of self-righteousness. ‘Speaks the boy who walked around Oxford for twelve months in a gown . . .’ He trailed off as Connie Ashford walked into the room.
‘What’s going on?’ she said irritably. ‘I’ve just found poor Chrissy crying on the stairs.’
Robert waved an angry hand through the air. ‘Poor Chrissy?’ he mocked. ‘She’s a gold-digger, an opportunist. She is a destructive influence and Lord knows Miles doesn’t need any help in that department.’
He glanced at his watch, as if this was all taking up too much of his precious time.
‘On Monday morning I am speaking to Peter Murray, family law expert at Farrar’s. Preferably this so-called marriage can be annulled rather than go through divorce proceedings. The last thing I want is to give her any money, but if that’s what it takes for her to clear off, I suppose we can arrange something.’
Miles looked at his father with cold hate. Chrissy made him feel like a man in bed and out of it; there was no way he was giving her up.
‘I am not divorcing Chrissy,’ he said evenly.
‘I’m not asking, Miles.’