Romance of a Lifetime by Carole Mortimer

enjoy this holiday.
    How much Marcus Craven was starting to mean in all that she didn't want to hazard a guess.
    The kiss he had given her earlier, just before they parted, came back in full force. It shouldn't have come as any surprise to her, when he had insisted on seeing her back to her room, that he had claimed the time-honoured salute to the end of their evening. And yet somehow it had caught her off balance, her reaction instinctive rather than controlled. And, although she had responded only briefly, she had returned the caress.
    What would have happened if her mother hadn't telephoned at that moment?
    Nothing, she told herself firmly. She had learnt the hard way that she shouldn't trust her instincts, that they let her down when she most needed them.
    But her first instinct had been to mistrust Marcus Craven; should she ignore that? She didn't know any more.
    She had trusted her instincts three years ago, had ignored her mother's warnings about Charles, had felt almost shy about meeting him again after all those years.
    She had spent most of her life living quietly on the Isle of Man with her mother, had received terse birthday and Christmas cards along with a suitable present for her age-group on each occasion every year from her father. She had always written a polite thank-you note in return, and that had been their only contact for all those years. There had been no visits, no telephone calls.
    But shortly after she had turned twenty-one it had been different. Her father had telephoned her, asking her to visit him in London. Beth had been so taken aback she hadn't known what to say. Her mother had known exactly what she had wanted to say, and yet she had accepted it when Beth's curiosity got the better of her and she arranged to meet her father in London the following week.
    She and her mother had lived very quietly on the island, commuting from their home in the south of the island to the boutique they ran together in the capital, Douglas. They had made occasional buying trips to London, but this visit to her father in London was to be nothing like that. Her mother had held her tongue when Beth told her of the invitation, although knowing Charles as she did she must have been sorely tempted to discourage her from going anywhere near him. But as a mother she had realised that Beth had to learn these things for herself, that she couldn't protect her any longer.
    Her father had been charm itself. Tall, and, at fifty, still very attractive, his hair iron-grey, his eyes the same inflexible colour of steel. Beth had been bowled over by him from the first.
    That first weekend had been spent in a whirlpool of dinner parties and social occasions, and at all of them her father had proudly introduced her to his friends as his daughter.
    Always hovering on the edge of their group at these social occasions had been Martin Bradshaw, her father's assistant, smoothly stepping in at her side if her father should be called away anywhere. He was tall and blond, with deep blue eyes set in one of the most handsome faces Beth had ever seen.
    It had only been later that Beth had realised that was exactly what Martin was; her father's 'Blue-eyed Boy'!
    That weekend had been the first of several visits to her father in London, and on each visit she had met Martin agaitf too, quickly coming to look forward to those visits for that very reason.
    Her mother had gently tried to warn her to be cautious where both men were concerned, but it had been too late for that; she was completely charmed by her father and the attention he lavished on her, and more than halfway in love with Martin.
    When the invitations to London had become more and more frequent, her father asking that she come and be his partner or hostess at one function or another, she had been so thrilled that she had ignored her mother's warnings, quickly arriving at a stage where she had just wanted to see and be with Martin; and as he was her father's valued assistant she had