I have no idea how he managed the school fees, and the fact that my mother lived on the breadline didn’t worry him a bit. He went from debt to debt. He lied, schemed, swindled-conned his way through life. I didn’t know it all. My mother kept it from me and she died when I was twelve, so it’s only in the last few years I found out just what his lifestyle was really like.’

‘And this baby?’

‘This little one was the result of an affair with a woman forty years his junior,’ he told her. ‘She left a letter this morning, explaining all. Apparently he set her up as he always set up his women-in the height of luxury. He lavished the best on her, and she had no reason to believe there wasn’t heaps more cash to come. She became pregnant and had their baby, she must still have been attracting him because he somehow kept supporting her-and then, a month ago, he died.’

Wendy grimaced. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ he said grimly. ‘There was no love lost between my father and me. Once I was old enough to realise how he got his money I never accepted another cent. Lindy, however, depended on him, and I gather she depended on him totally. He’s lied to her, he’s dead and now she’s been evicted from her gorgeous apartment and been left to her own devices.’

‘I see.’ Wendy couldn’t help herself. Her eyes swung to the window again. To the car. And her eyes asked a question.

He got it in one. Understanding flashed into his eyes, and with it, anger. ‘I’m a futures broker,’ he snapped, following her line of thought exactly. ‘So sure, I’m wealthy, but the money I earn is earned honestly. It’s nothing to do with my father.’

‘But you’re not sharing? With, who did you say, Lindy?’

‘I’ve hardly had a chance,’ he snapped. ‘Even if the idea of supporting my father’s mistress appealed to me-which it doesn’t-I wasn’t asked. I was overseas when my father died and I had no idea Lindy even existed. There’s been no contact between me and my father for years. I paid for the funeral and I thought that was it. Then today…’