She had a temper, but an impish sense of the absurd was constantly undermining it, and if she possessed one charm greater than her beauty it was her ability to laugh at herself. Nobody knew where that gift came from for her mother had been a gentle melancholy lady, and her father had been too busy making money to laugh. It had grown out of her own nature, and it occurred to nobody that it might be a defence. Why should the beautiful, privileged Meryl Winters need defences?

After her explosion at the bank she’d stormed off to see Benedict and they’d been wrathful together, until she’d repeated Larry’s remark about ‘making frocks’. Then Benedict had produced an explosion of his own, which had reduced Meryl to laughter.

Now she was asking teasingly, ‘How’s your lady-killing charm working on Amanda these days?’

‘Don’t mention that woman,’ Benedict snapped. ‘The worst mistake of my life was to marry her, and my best decision was to leave her.’

‘Says who? She threw you out. I heard your neighbours were kept awake by you banging on the door pleading to be let in.’

‘Lies. All lies.’

‘And don’t forget you called her from my apartment with your speech of reconciliation all worked out, and she slammed the phone down as soon as she heard your voice.’

‘Don’t upset me when I’m pinning,’ he begged. ‘There could be an accident.’

‘Not if you want my ten million dollars.’

‘Well, I’m not going to get it, am I?’ he reminded her peevishly. ‘Not until you’re twenty-seven. And not even then if Larry Rivers has anything to do with it.’

‘He won’t. Absolute control passes to me on my twenty-seventh birthday-unless I marry first. Then I get it on my wedding day. But I’m blowed if I’m waiting another three years. I’m fed up with Larry controlling my life.’

‘He hardly controls it. You’ve got that apartment on Central Park, another one in Los Angeles, you spend a fortune on clothes and cars, and he pays the bills without question.’