‘Why should I need an appointment?’ Meryl asked in surprise. ‘He’s my godfather, as well as my trustee. Besides-I have something to say to him.’

‘Yes, but you can’t-’ She found herself talking to empty air. Meryl didn’t recognise the word ‘can’t’.

She flung the door open and stopped on the threshold, surveying the man inside. ‘So there you are,’ she purred.

Lawrence Rivers, a large, greying man with a jowly face, rose from behind his desk and smiled with implacable geniality. ‘Meryl, my dear-what a delightful surprise.’

Meryl raised one elegant black eyebrow. ‘You’re surprised that your outrageous letter brought me here? I don’t think so. Larry, how often do I have to tell you not to interfere in my private affairs?’

‘And how often do I have to tell you that the disposal of a large sum of money isn’t your private affair?’ he retorted.

‘I’m twenty-four years old and-’

‘And until you’re twenty-seven I can prevent you tossing money away as though it was going out of fashion. Your father knew what he was doing when he made that will.’

‘Dad was under your influence or he wouldn’t have thought of it,’ she flung back.

‘True. Craddock Winters knew everything about oil wells and machinery, and nothing about anything else, including his daughter. You were headstrong at fifteen and you haven’t grown any better. When you tell me you want to waste ten million dollars on a man of no account like Benedict Steen I know I was right to protect you.’

‘Benedict is not a man of no account-’

‘Well, I know what I think of a man who spends his life making frocks,’ Larry Rivers declared complacently.

‘He does not “make frocks”,’ Meryl said indignantly. ‘He designs high fashion, and he needs a backer to put him at the very top of the tree. It wouldn’t be a waste of money; it would be an astute business investment.’

‘Ten million dollars on a dress shop?’ Larry demanded. ‘You call that an astute business investment?’