Hired for the Boss's Bedroom
CATHY WILLIAMS
Leonardo West: the most eligible single father on the glittering London social scene! But the Italian tycoon is simply not fatherhood material – so he hires Heather as a carer. Her dumpy curves are a mile away from those of the slim sophisticates who usually grace his bed…Heather’s heart has already been broken once, by a man whose roving eye overlooked her completely. She’s determined not to make the same mistake twice. But her inexperience proves the ultimate challenge for Leo. He’s hired Heather on a temporary contract, but now he wants her…permanently!
Leo pushed himself away from the doorframe and turned his back on her. ‘You should loosen up,’ he threw over his shoulder. ‘You might find that life’s less hard work when you’re not continually arguing the finer points. You might actually enjoy being subservient…’
‘Subservient? I—I can’t think of anything worse…’ she stammered.
‘No? Funny. Every woman I have ever known has ended up enjoying being controlled…not in the boardroom, of course…’
He was standing right in front of her and Heather took a couple of little steps back.
‘Good for them.’
‘You are not like them, however. That much I’ll concede. But I guarantee there’s one order I can give you that you’ll jump to obey.’
‘What?’ she flung at him defiantly, her nerves skittering as he produced a wicked grin.
‘Leave now, or else watch me undress.’
Cathy Williams is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their pet cat, Salem. She adores writing romantic fiction and would love one of her girls to become a writer—although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another!
Recent titles by the same author:
RUTHLESS TYCOON, INEXPERIENCED MISTRESS
RAFAEL’S SUITABLE BRIDE
BEDDED AT THE BILLIONAIRE’S CONVENIENCE
THE ITALIAN BILLIONAIRE’S SECRET LOVE-CHILD
KEPT BY THE SPANISH BILLIONAIRE
HIRED FOR THE
BOSS’S BEDROOM
BY
CATHY WILLIAMS
MILLS & BOON
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)
CHAPTER ONE
OF COURSE, Leo had known what his mother was thinking when she had said, without any hint of inflection in her voice, that they had hoped he might have arrived a little earlier—several hours earlier, she could have said, were she to have been absolutely precise. Instead, she had held back her obvious disappointment and had listened to his excuses without comment.
Meetings had overrun. An urgent call had come through just as he had been leaving the office. Inevitable Friday traffic. Leo had kept the excuses brief, knowing that his mother would never actually tell him exactly what she was thinking, would never express disapproval or condemnation. In fact, he doubted whether there had been any need at all to make excuses, but politeness had driven him to apologise just as politeness had driven his mother to respond as she had, without any hint of censure.
‘Daniel,’ she had said eventually, ‘has popped out to see Heather. Just next door. The quickest way is to walk across the fields to her house, but I expect you would rather drive. Or, of course, you could wait here. I told Heather that he was to be back no later than seven.’
‘I’ll walk.’ He would not take the car because, as a city gent, a billionaire who had no time for country walks, he would never choose to wait.
So now here he was, sampling at first hand the extensive acreage that surrounded the exquisite country house which he had bought for his mother over six years ago following his father’s death.
Leo had never stepped foot beyond the neatly manicured gardens surrounding the house. Naturally, he had known that the grounds stretched as far as the eye could see, encompassing fields and a thickly wooded area which became lush with lilac lavender during the warm summer-months. Hadn’t he, after all, carefully read the reports sent to him by the people he had commissioned to find the property in the first place? Hadn’t he duly noted the practicality of his mother living in a house which would not, in due course, find itself surrounded by housing estates due to greedy building contractors having no respect for open space?
But only now, as he tramped across the endless fields, inappropriately clad in handmade leather shoes and a pale-grey suit which had cost the earth, did he appreciate the true size of his investment. Surely his mother, now edging towards her seventies, didn’t ever explore the furthest reaches of the estate?
It occurred to him that in truth he had no real inkling as to what his mother did from one day to the next. He dutifully telephoned three times a week—or considerably more now that Daniel had landed on the scene—and was told that she was fine, Daniel was fine, the house was fine, life was fine. Then he would attempt to have a conversation with Daniel, which elicited much the same response but in a rather more hostile tone of voice. The details of this fine life were never painted in, so he was at a loss to know whether his mother actually realised just how much walking this hike to ‘the house next door’ entailed.
He cursed himself for thinking that he would enjoy the fresh air and exercise. Fresh air, he acknowledged—swatting past some brambles, while the summer sunshine reminded him of the folly of venturing out in the countryside wearing a jacket—was best confined to those brief mini-breaks called holidays which he took a couple of times a year—usually combining them with work, women or, more often than not, both. As for exercise, he got ample amounts of that at his London gym where he thrashed out the stress of his high-powered job on a punching bag and then cooled down with fifty-odd laps in the Olympic-sized swimming pool. No one could accuse him of being unfit. This, however, seemed to require a different sort of stamina. He found himself wishing that he had had the foresight to bring his mobile phone with him, because he could have usefully used the time to make a couple of calls, which he would now have to do when he returned to the house.
Heather’s house, his mother had assured him, couldn’t be missed—it was a small, white, cosy cottage and the garden was spilling over with flowers of every description. Her face had softened when she had said this, and he had wondered whether Heather was one of her pals from the village, someone with whom she shared gossip once a week over pots of tea.
Or something along those lines, at any rate.
It was a heartening thought. Somehow he felt less of the guilty older-son, knowing that his mother had someone virtually on her doorstep with whom she could pass the time of day. And less of the guilty absentee-father, knowing that this kindly neighbour had also bonded with his son.
The cottage in question leapt out at him without warning, and his mother was right; there was no danger of him missing it. ‘Strike out west and head for the house that looks as though it belongs in the pages of a fairy tale’. Leo hadn’t realised that so many types of flora existed, and he surprised himself by pausing for a couple of seconds to admire the profusion of colour.
Then he circled the cottage, noting the white picket-fence, the clambering roses, all those tell-tale signs of someone who was seriously into clichés. He almost expected to spot a couple of garden gnomes peering out from between the riot of flowers that bordered the little stone path to the front door, but fortunately he was spared that particular horror.
Leo himself was minimalist to the bone. His London penthouse apartment paid homage to the axiom ‘less is more’: black leather, chrome and glass. On the white walls, outrageously expensive, abstract paintings were splashes of colour that slowly appreciated in value even as they adorned his walls; it was why he had bought them in the first place.
The door knocker appeared to be some quirky, mythical creature. Leo banged on it twice, just in case he was dealing with someone hard of hearing.
He heard the sound of quickly approaching footsteps, and something that sounded like muffled laughter. Then the door was opened and he found himself staring down into the bluest eyes he had ever seen. A tangle of pure gold, curly hair framed a heart-shaped face, and as his eyes involuntarily travelled further downwards they took in the small, curvaceous figure that, in a society that prized the stick-thin figure, would be labelled ‘overweight’.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded without preamble, lounging against the door frame.
‘You must be Daniel’s dad.’ Heather stood aside to let him enter. She couldn’t help herself. Disapproval had seeped into her voice, and he must have noticed it, because his ebony brows pleated into a frown.
‘And you must be Heather. I was expecting someone…older.’
Heather could have told him that he was exactly what she had been expecting. Her neighbour Katherine had talked about him, of course, had told her all about his meteoric career in the city. And Heather had heard between the lines a description of a workaholic, someone who was driven to succeed, someone who had precious little time for the things that mattered most in life. A lousy son and an even lousier father.
Up close and personal, he was every inch the successful businessman she had expected.
He was also incredibly good-looking; this bit was doing its best to nudge a hole in her disapproval. A lot better looking than those grainy pictures she had been shown in the scrap book Katherine kept of all his achievements, in fact. Indeed, the man was drop-dead gorgeous. Raven-black hair framed a face whose perfect, chiselled symmetry was harshly, coolly sensational. His eyes were grey and watchful, eyes that chose to give nothing away. She felt a shockingly potent quiver of awareness, then thankfully the moment was gone, lost under the weight of her disapproval.
Charitable by nature, Heather knew that it was crazy to judge a book by its cover, but she had had more than a passing brush with arrogance and success. Some women might find all that power and wealth an incredible turn on, but she knew from first-hand experience the price that had to be paid for being attracted to such dazzling light: too high.
‘I have come for my son.’ Having cursorily inspected the tiny hall, with its cosy flag-stoned floor and bowls of flowers on the window ledges by the door, Leo swung back round to face the woman who appeared to be dithering by the front door.
It had been a hot day, and she was wearing what looked like a loose, flowing gypsy-style affair, the sort of outfit that had been fashionable once upon a time. She was also looking at him with the sort of expression that promised a lecture, given half a chance. Leo sincerely hoped she would keep whatever was on her mind to herself, and he had an inkling of an idea what it was. He had no time for lectures, well-intentioned or otherwise.
‘He’s just finishing his tea.’
‘His tea?’
‘Dinner, if you prefer.’
‘Why is he eating here? I told my mother that I would take them both out for something to eat.’
‘I guess he just got hungry.’ Heather refrained from adding to that statement. The fact was, Daniel had refused point-blank to have dinner with his father.
‘Well, thank you very much, but it might have been worth finding out first whether plans had been made.’
This was just too much. Heather slipped past Leo to the kitchen, where she told Daniel that his father was here, and registered his expression of scowling indifference. Then she quietly shut the kitchen door and folded her arms.
‘On the subject of plans…’ she delivered coldly, ignoring the forbidding expression on his face.
‘Before you go any further, I’m in no mood to listen to someone I don’t know from Adam climbing on a podium and giving me a lecture.’
Faced with such a blunt, arrogant dismissal of what she had been about to say, Heather’s mouth dropped open, and Leo took that as immediate and obedient closure on a subject about which he had little interest. He walked past her towards the kitchen but she caught his wrist. It was like being zapped with a very powerful electric charge, and it took all her will power to stand her ground and not cower. She suspected that this was a man who specialised in inspiring fear.
‘I think we should talk before you get your son, Mr West.’
‘The name’s Leo; I think we can dispense with the formalities, considering you’re apparently an honorary member of the family.’ He looked at her small hand circling his wrist and then back to her face. ‘And I guarantee that whatever you have to say is going to be of little interest to me. So why not spare yourself the sermon?’
‘I don’t intend to give you a sermon.’
‘Wonderful! Then what exactly is it you want to talk about?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But you’ll have to make it short, I’m afraid. It’s been a hellish trip up here, and I have work to do when I get back to the house.’
Heather took a deep breath. ‘Okay. I am a little annoyed.’
Leo made no effort to conceal his impatience. In that rarefied world in which he lived, people didn’t get annoyed with him—least of all women—but this one was practically pulsating, so he shrugged. He would let her have her say, and then he would clear off with his son. ‘Okay. Spit it out.’
‘In the sitting room. I don’t want Daniel to hear us.’
She led the way, acutely conscious of him behind her. Once they were both in the room, staring at each other like combatants in an arena, she said in a controlled voice, ‘I don’t think you realise how disappointed Daniel was that you didn’t make it to his Sports Day. It’s a big deal at the school, and he’d been practising for weeks.’
Leo flushed guiltily. Of course he had known that this would be flung at him but it still irked him, that this perfect stranger had the brazenness to stand there, staring at him with wide, accusing, critical eyes.
‘That, as I explained to my mother, was unavoidable—and, now you’ve got that off your chest, I think I’ll leave with my son.’
‘Why was it unavoidable?’ Heather persisted. ‘Don’t tell me that there was something more important than seeing your son come first in the hundred-metre sprint?’
‘Actually, I don’t have to tell you anything,’ Leo informed her coolly. ‘I don’t make a habit of explaining myself to anyone, least of all someone I’ve known for—what?—roughly fifteen minutes. I don’t recall my mother even mentioning your name in any of the conversations I’ve had with her.’
That came as no surprise to Heather. Daniel went to the local private school. He stayed in the house with Katherine, and occasionally, over the past eight months his father had deigned to visit, usually on a Sunday; a full weekend presumably was just too much for him. More often than not, he imported both Katherine and Daniel to London, sending his driver to collect them on the Saturday morning, and delivering them back to the country promptly on the Sunday afternoon.
Anyone would think that a man who had lost his son for years, when his ex-wife had disappeared off to Australia, would have wanted to spend as much time as possible making up for the wasted time!
Clearly not the man standing in front of her.
Katherine would not have mentioned Heather because her son would have had zero interest in finding out about the people who figured in his mother’s life. From what Heather had gleaned, Leo West was an utterly selfish money-making machine.
‘I realise I don’t have any right to tell you how to lead your life,’ Heather said, doing her best to be fair, ‘but Daniel needs you. He would never say so because he’s probably scared of you.’
‘Has he told you that he’s scared of me?’ This conversation was now becoming bizarre. He had expected to be greeted by a motherly lady, maybe to be offered a cup of tea, which he would, naturally, have refused; to leave with his son in tow, any sullenness over his absence at the wretched Sports Day to be forgotten when he presented him with the present he had bought. It was the very latest mobile phone, capable of doing pretty much anything bar washing the dishes and cooking the meals.
Instead, he was being held to account by a twenty-something girl with a challenged sense of dress who had probably never set foot out of the village.
‘He doesn’t have to. I can tell. He doesn’t see enough of you. I know it’s none of my business, but relationships have to be worked on. Daniel’s a very vulnerable little boy, and he needs his father. Especially now. He’s suffered the loss of his mother. He needs the security of his dad to see him through.’
‘You’re right—it’s none of your business.’
‘You’re not much into listening to what other people have to say, are you?’ Heather flared angrily.
‘On the contrary, I spend a good deal of my time listening to what other people have to say. I just have no interest in an interfering neighbour regaling me with amateur psychobabble—unless, of course, you have some kind of degree in child psychology. Do you?’
‘No, I don’t, but—’
‘Well, maybe you’re his teacher, hmm…?’
‘No, I’m not. But that’s not the—’
‘And you’re not exactly a lifelong friend of my mother’s, are you? I’m sure, if you were, I might just have a passing idea of who you are.’
‘No, but—’
‘In fact, when and how did you exactly come into contact with my mother?’
‘We met a while back, at a gardening convention at the village hall. A television celebrity was giving a talk about orchids, and we both just—’
‘Fascinating, but here’s what I’m wondering—what’s a young girl like you doing at gardening conventions? Isn’t that the luxury of retired people who have endless time on their hands to potter around in their gardens? Don’t you have more exciting things to do? You know, if you did, maybe you wouldn’t find yourself drawn to nosing into other people’s lives.’
Leo was in equal measure outraged that she’d dared to voice opinions that breached his personal boundaries, and borderline distracted by the rising tide of colour that was colouring her cheeks. The woman blushed like a virgin, and it struck him that he wasn’t very often in the company of a woman whose face was so transparent. He favoured the career woman, and it had to be said that career women weren’t given to blushing.
‘How dare you?’
‘Pretty easily, as a matter of fact,’ Leo commented smoothly. ‘Don’t go on the attack unless you’re ready for a fight—first law of success.’
Heather looked at the impossibly handsome man staring coolly at her, and wanted to fly across the room and punch him in his arrogant face. That reaction was so out of character for her that she closed her eyes briefly and blinked it away. She was placid by nature, not given to screeching hysterics. So who was this wild creature that had taken over her body?
‘Okay,’ she said tightly. ‘You’re right. Your relationship with your son is no business of mine. I’ll go and get him right now.’ She walked towards the door and only looked at him to say quietly, ‘And, for your information, I have a job and I don’t nose into other people’s private lives because I have nothing better to do with my life. I wanted to be helpful. I’m very sorry you misread my intentions.’
Instead of feeling like the victor in what had always promised to be a pointless exchange from where he was standing, Leo now felt like the villain. How had that happened? He had said what needed to be said, had told her to keep out of his business, she had agreed—so why did he now feel as though he had won the battle but lost the war?
Always the winner in any verbal showdown, Leo was unaccustomed to being caught on the back foot, and for the first time he was rendered temporarily speechless. He found that he was staring into space and hurried out, almost bumping into Daniel, who greeted him with a sulky glower.
‘I…I apologise for missing your Sports Day, Daniel,’ Leo began, very much aware of Heather standing in the background—probably committing this awkward little scene to memory so that she could bring it out at a later date and use it against him should the opportunity ever again arise.
‘Whatever.’
‘I hear you came first in the hundred-metre sprint,’ Leo said, trying to bring the tension down a notch or two. ‘Well done!’
He looked at Heather, and as their eyes tangled she felt a wave of sympathy for the man. Of course, he didn’t deserve her sympathy. From all accounts, he threw money at his son but rarely gave him the time that was so essential. But, her naturally warm nature reluctantly seeing the situation from both points of view, how hard it must be, she thought, for him to incorporate a young child into his life? Up until eight months ago, he had been completely unaware of his son’s existence, and had been accustomed to doing everything his own way, with no need to consider the welfare of another human being.
‘He’s a star,’ she interjected into the silence, moving forward and pulling Daniel towards her in a natural embrace. She wondered how his father couldn’t be charmed by his gorgeous, dark-haired seven-year-old son with those big brown eyes and skinny, vulnerable legs sticking out from his school shorts, which he had yet to change out of. ‘Aren’t you, Dan?’ She ruffled his hair affectionately and then said brightly, ‘You have a wonderful weekend, and don’t forget you can pop over any time if you want help with your English homework!’
Relegated to the sidelines, Leo saw that rarest of things, a shy smile of warmth and affection from his son. Naturally not directed at him, but a smile nevertheless. He looked at his watch and said briskly, ‘I think we should be heading back to the house now, Daniel; leave Heather to get on with…whatever she has to get on with.’
‘Can’t you come across on the weekend?’ Daniel suddenly turned to Heather with a pleading look, which of course immediately made Leo frown impatiently. Was his own company so dire that his son needed rescuing from any possibility of prolonged, unwanted bonding at all costs? Leo was uncomfortably reminded of Heather’s little talk, the first little talk he had had on the subject of his son since he had met him on that plane at Heathrow all those months ago.
‘We could go see that Disney movie,’ Daniel was now saying with a touch of desperation in his voice. ‘You know, you told me that you wanted to see it but you would have to rent a child to take along…’
‘I’m sorry, Daniel. I’ve got heaps of things to do, and I was just teasing when I said that I wanted to see that movie. I don’t actually like Disney movies.’
‘You’ve got lots of them in that cabinet in your sitting room,’ Daniel was quick to point out, with the unerring talent of a child to say precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Heather reddened, cleared her throat, could think of nothing to say, reddened a bit more and eventually broke the expectant silence. ‘I’ll think about it.’
Of course, she had no intention of going to a movie with them, or going anywhere else for that matter.
She had spoken her mind, for better or for worse, and had met with a resounding lack of success. Leo West was egotistical, driven to the point of obsession and would never take advice from anyone, least of all from a woman like her. Hadn’t he assumed that she busied herself meddling in other people’s lives because she had no life of her own?
She had a life. A very good one!
In the stillness of the cottage, which seemed unnaturally quiet when her warring visitors had disappeared, she considered the excellent life she had.
Wonderful job, doing the one thing she couldn’t have been happier doing, illustrating children’s books, getting inspiration from her garden which she translated into pictures that were slowly achieving notoriety as works of art in themselves. She worked from home, travelling into London once a month so that she could go through her graphics with her art editor. It was a real luxury.
She also owned her cottage outright. No mortgage; no debt owing, in fact, to anyone. Which made her as free as a bird.
True, there was no man in her life, but that, she told herself, was exactly how she wanted it.
Little snippets of her past intruded into her peaceful cottage: Brian, as she had first known him when she had still been a young girl of eighteen and he had been on the brink of his glittering career. Blonde hair, straight, thick and always falling across his face, until he had had it cut because, he had told her seriously, in his profession men all wore their hair short.
Heather blinked and shoved that little nest of bitter memories back into their Pandora’s box. She had learnt years ago that dwelling on things that couldn’t be changed was a waste of time.
Instead, she shifted her attention to the kitchen which still bore the remnants of Daniel’s hastily eaten meal of spaghetti Bolognese. His father, he had told her, had planned on taking them out to dinner but he hadn’t wanted to go. He hated those fancy restaurants they went to. He hated the food. As a postscript, he had added that he hated his father.
Which made her start thinking of Leo and, once she started, she found that she couldn’t seem to stop. That cold, ruthless face swam into her head until she was forced to retreat to her little office and try and lose herself in the illustration she was currently working on. She was peering at the detail of a fairy wing, every pore in her being focused on the minute detail of painting, when the bang on her front door sent her jerking back, knocking over the jar of water, which shattered into a thousand pieces on the wooden floor.
A second bang, more demanding this time, had her running to the front door before she had time to clean up the slowly spreading mess on the ground.
She pulled open the door before a third bang brought down the roof.
‘You! What are you doing here?’ He was no longer in his suit. Instead, he was wearing a pair of cream trousers and a navy-blue polo shirt. Behind him was a gleaming silver Bentley.
At nearly nine in the evening, the sun had faded to a dull, mellow, grey light.
Leo dealt Heather a grim nod. ‘Believe me, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to be here, but I have been put in the difficult position of having to ask you to accompany us to the cinema tomorrow. Daniel has dug his heels in and refused to budge. I’m being blackmailed by someone who hasn’t even graduated to books without pictures. It’s ridiculous, but it’s true, hence the reason I’m here when I should be reading over a due-diligence report that can’t wait.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Why don’t you let me in and I can explain?’
‘I’m sorry, but can’t this wait until tomorrow? It’s late, and I have stuff to do.’
‘Late?’ Leo made a show of consulting his watch. ‘It’s ten past nine. On a Friday night. Since when is that late?’
Heather heard the amused incredulity in his voice and felt her hackles rise.
‘I was working,’ she said stiffly.
‘Of course. You never got around to telling me exactly what you do for a living.’
‘You aren’t interested in what I do for a living.’
Leo thought that she was spot on with that, but circumstances had forced his hand. He had returned to the house with Daniel in frozen silence and had endured what could only be called silent warfare.
The mobile phone had been looked at and then refused, on the grounds of, ‘Thank you very much, but the teacher doesn’t allow mobile phones at school.’
And, ‘It’s a kind thought, but young children don’t need mobile telephones,’ from his mother.
Frustration had almost driven him to ask his mother what the hell was going on because surely, surely, this complete lack of co operation couldn’t just be caused by the fact that he had missed a Sports Day! But Katherine had taken herself off to bed at a ridiculously early hour, and so here he was, compelled to try and do a patch-up job with the amateur psychologist in the hope that the weekend might not end up a complete write-off.
‘You seem to have something on your face…’ He rubbed his finger along the blue streak adorning her chin and gazed in bemusement at his finger. ‘What is it? Paint? Is that how you spend your Friday evenings—painting your house?’
Heather pushed the door, but Leo wasn’t having any of that. He wedged his foot neatly into the open space and met her hostile stare with a grimly determined expression.
‘You can’t just come here and disturb me at this hour,’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘Needs must. Now, are you going to let me in?’ He stood back and raked his hands impatiently through his hair. ‘I don’t suppose,’ he said heavily, ‘that I was the only father who didn’t make it to the Sports Day.’ It was a concession of sorts and as close to an olive branch that Leo was going to offer.
Situation defused.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘No, I’m not. Every single parent was there, taking pictures. Daniel had asked me to come along to watch, pretended that he didn’t care whether you came or not, but I watched him, and he kept looking around for you, wondering if you were somewhere in the crowd.’
‘Are you going to let me in?’ Leo asked brusquely, not liking this image of himself as some kind of heartless monster.
Heather reluctantly opened the door and allowed him to stride past her. She hadn’t noticed earlier, but he dominated the space—not just because he was tall, but because of that aura he exuded, an aura of supreme power. He owned the air around him in a way that Brian never had, even though it had seemed so at the time. She shivered.
‘So, where were you painting?’ Leo asked, looking around him. He had quizzed his mother about Heather, ignoring her look of surprise at his interest, and had gleaned that she and Daniel trotted over to the cottage whenever they had a chance. Heather had, it would seem, become quite a fixture in the household. Little wonder that she had been polishing her soapbox in anticipation of his arrival.
He followed her into a room at the back of the house, and was confronted by walls on which hung every manner of artwork. Yet more were housed in an antique architect’s chest against the wall.
‘I broke my glass,’ Heather said, kneeling down so that she could begin carefully picking up the shards. ‘When you banged on the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone.’
‘You…paint?’
Heather looked briefly at him and blushed, suddenly feeling vulnerable as those flint-grey eyes roved over the artwork on her walls. ‘I told you that I had a job,’ she said, before resuming her glass-collecting task. It would take a heck of a lot more elbow grease to fully clean the ground, but the biggest bits had been collected; the elbow grease would have to wait until the morning, because right now she was finding it hard to think properly. She just wanted him out of her cottage so that she could get her scattered wits back into order.
Leo dragged his eyes away from the paintings and focused entirely on the woman standing in front of him. When she had told him that she had a job, he had assumed something along the lines of a secretary, maybe a receptionist somewhere, perhaps. But she was an artist, and it explained a lot. Her apparent lack of any recognisable fashion sense, her woolly-headed assumption that she could say whatever she wanted to say without thinking, her earnest belief that she could somehow solve a situation over a cup of tea and a good chat. Artists occupied a different world to most normal people. It was common knowledge they lived in a world of their own.
He refocused on the matter at hand. ‘I don’t know how you’ve managed to form such a strong bond with my son,’ he said, not beating about the bush. ‘But after the Sports Day…situation…it seems that the only way this weekend isn’t going to descend into a nightmare is if you…’ Leo searched around to find the right words. It wasn’t in his nature to ask favours of anyone, and having to do so now left a sour taste in his mouth. He especially didn’t like asking favours from a woman who got on his nerves. Moreover, he would have to be pleasant towards her.
Leo had tried his damnedest to form a bond with his son, but there was murky water under the bridge, and he had had time to reflect that it wasn’t Daniel’s fault. Without a great deal of difficulty, he could see any relationship he might have with his son sink without trace beneath a tide of remembered bitterness.
‘If I…what?’
‘Movies…lunch…dinner. I leave on Sunday afternoon,’ he felt compelled to tack on because he could see the dawning dismay spreading across her face.
‘You mean you want me to sacrifice my entire weekend to bail you out of a situation you can’t handle?’
‘Sacrifice?’ Leo laughed drily. ‘I don’t think there’s a woman alive who has ever seen a weekend spent in my company as a sacrifice.’
‘That’s the problem,’ Heather said. ‘Men like you never do.’
CHAPTER TWO
LEO decided to leave that half-muttered remark alone. Why get embroiled in a lengthy question-and-answer session with a woman who was an irrelevance in his life? On a more practical note, he needed her for the weekend, because he couldn’t face a day and a half of his son’s withdrawn sadness. If she could smooth things over, then far be it from him to invite further hostility from her. As far as he was concerned, though, all this interest in a kid who happened to live a couple of fields away from her spoke of an unhealthy lack of social life, but each to their own.
By lunchtime the following day—having spent the morning at the zoo, where his son had displayed an amazing knowledge of animals, rattling off facts to Heather and his mother while studiously ignoring him—Leo was beginning to feel his curiosity piqued.
She exuded warmth, and when she laughed, which she seemed to do often, it was a rich, infectious laughter.
Of course the laughter, like his son’s encyclopaediac knowledge of every animal, was not directed at him.
Over a cup of tea in the canteen at the zoo—which Leo could only describe as a marginally more savoury experience than if he had actually pulled his chair into one of the animal enclosures—he noticed that the woman was not strictly limited to conversations about dinosaurs, reptiles and computer games. When his mother asked him about work, in an attempt to include him in the conversation, Leo was taken aback to be quizzed about the politics of mergers and acquisitions in so far as they affected the lives of countless hapless victims of ‘marauding conglomerates’.
While his mother tried to hide her amusement, Leo stared at Heather as though she had mutated into one of the animals they had just been feeding.
Marauding conglomerates? Since when did country bumpkins use expressions like that?
He also didn’t like the way her mouth curled with scorn when she addressed him, but in front of his mother and Daniel there was nothing he could do but smile coldly at her and change the subject.
Now, with the animals out of the way, he was taking them all to lunch; that nasty little remark she had flung at him the evening before, the remark which he had generously chosen to overlook, was beginning to prey on his mind.
Just who the hell did the woman think she was? Did she imagine that because she was doing him a favour she could indulge in whatever cheap shot she wanted at his expense?
People rarely got under Leo’s skin. This particularly applied to women. He was astute when it came to reading their feminine wiles, and could see through any minor sulk to exactly what lay underneath. In short, they were a predictable entity.
As they headed for the Italian on the main street, he stuck his hands in his pockets and murmured, bending so that his words were for her ears only,
‘Artist and financial expert, hmm? A woman of many talents. I had no idea you had such a keen interest in the business world.’
Heather pulled back. Something about his warm breath against her face had made the hairs on the back of her neck tingle.
It had been a mistake to let him rattle her, and she had been unable to resist wiping that lazy, condescending expression off his face by parrying with him about finance. Against her will, she had once known those money markets until they were coming out of her ears—and, once learnt, always remembered. It had been worth it just to see the shocked look on his face when she’d thrown in a few technical terms that surely a country hick like her should never have known.
Now, with his gleaming eyes fixed on her, Heather was belatedly realising that she might have been better off keeping her mouth shut and letting him get on with thinking whatever he wanted to think of her.
‘I read the newspapers,’ she muttered stiffly.
‘You’d have to be a very avid reader of the Financial Times to know as much as you do about the global trading-market. So what’s going on here?’
‘Nothing’s going on, and can I just remind you that I don’t actually have to be here? I only agreed to come because I knew that Daniel would have been disappointed if I hadn’t—and he’s already had enough disappointment with you missing his Sports Day because of “unavoidable work commitments”.’
‘It’s not going to work, so you can forget it.’
‘What’s not going to work?’
‘Your attempt to change the subject. Who the hell are you really? That’s the question I can’t stop asking myself.’
Ahead of them, Daniel and Katherine were putting a bit of distance between them; when Katherine turned round and gesticulated that she and Daniel were going to pop into his favourite sports shop, Heather could have groaned with despair.
Leo was intrigued by her reaction to his remark. From not really caring one way or another who she was, he now seriously began to wonder about her provenance.
‘Are you always so suspicious?’
‘Comes with the territory.’
‘And what territory would that be? No, don’t bother answering that—I already know.’
‘Care to explain?’
‘No, not really. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just go and see what Katherine and Daniel are up to in there.’
‘Oh, I’m sure they won’t mind if we go ahead to the restaurant and wait there for them. It’s a beautiful day. Why rush?’
‘Because I have things to do at the house.’
‘What things?’
‘None of your business!’
‘I’m getting the impression that you don’t like me very much. Would I be right in that assumption?’ He went into the sports shop to tell his mother that he would wait for them at the restaurant with Heather. No rush; take as long as they wanted. ‘But don’t buy anything.’ He looked at his son, who stared back at him with grudging curiosity. ‘I want to see whatever you buy—an athlete like you needs the best equipment.’ He was rewarded with something approaching a smile.
The sports shop was an Aladdin’s den. Leo reckoned his son could spend a satisfyingly long time browsing with his mother and that, he decided, would give him sufficient time to put his sudden curiosity to bed.
He had no doubt that she would be waiting for him outside. If there was one thing Leo knew with absolute certainty, it was that no one ever walked out on him until he was finished with them.
Sure enough, there she was, peering through the window of the shoe shop, and he took a little time to look at her. The strange gypsy-skirt of the night before had been replaced by something equally shapeless, but it was a hot day and her tee shirt outlined the contours of breasts that would be more than a handful. What would they look like? What would she feel like?
That sudden thought seemed to spring from nowhere and Leo shoved it aside, disconcerted.
The woman was most definitely not his type. After his short-lived and disastrous marriage to Sophia, he had exorcised pretty little airheads from his repertoire of beddable women, and he hadn’t looked back.
Although…
The girl next door wasn’t exactly quite the airhead he had assumed. Nor was she exactly pretty, although he supposed that there were a fair few men who might look twice at her, with her unruly gold hair and her lush curves.
She turned to find him staring, and he watched that telltale colour bloom into her cheeks.
‘They’ll be a little while,’ Leo said. ‘I told them to take their time.’
Heather fell into step with him. Without the presence of Daniel and Katherine, she was suddenly conscious of how intimidating she found him. Even when he was at his most casual, as he was now, in a pair of faded jeans and a white polo-shirt that emphasised his olive complexion.
Five minutes later, which was about long enough for Heather to really feel her nerves go into over drive, they were at the restaurant. It was tucked away up one of the smaller streets in the trendy part of the little town, with wine bars and little boutiques that specialised in selling designer clothes and designer kitchenware. Tables were laid outside, but Leo ignored them, choosing to stroll into the restaurant and net them the quietest table at the very back.
‘So,’ he said, relaxing his long body into the chair and giving her the benefit of all his undivided attention. ‘You never explained your in-depth knowledge of the business markets. And I have to admit I’m curious. Were you a banker before you decided to throw it all aside and devote your life to painting little fairies?’
‘I don’t paint little fairies. I illustrate children’s books,’ Heather said mutinously. ‘And I don’t like the way you’ve manoeuvred me into being here alone with you.’
‘Why? You have a suspicious mind. What do you think I’m going to get up to?’
‘You have no right to question me about my private life.’
‘Of course I have. Until yesterday, I didn’t even know you existed. Now I’m to assume that you’ve become an integral part of my family.’
‘I’m not an integral part of your family,’ Heather protested. She looked at Leo’s dark, clever, shockingly good-looking face with dislike. He was like a shark, patrolling his waters and ready to pounce on anything that might possibly be construed as prey. In this case, her. Wasn’t it enough that she was helping him out? Obviously not.
Leo ignored that interruption. Without bothering to glance around, he summoned a waiter, who appeared as if by magic even though the restaurant was busy, and he ordered some wine, his eyes still focused on Heather’s face.
‘You’ve known my mother for a year or two, my son for considerably less time, and yet here you are—a vital part of this weekend’s activities because you’ve managed to ingratiate yourself. Furthermore, you dabble in pretty little pictures yet seem to have an astute business mind, and I know when someone’s lifting other people’s opinions from the business section of a tabloid newspaper. You appear to have some kind of inside knowledge about how stock markets operate. A little unusual for someone who paints fairies, wouldn’t you say?’
With a few bits and pieces of information, he had somehow managed to make her sound like a secret-service agent.
‘I don’t know where you’re going with this.’
‘Put it this way,’ he drawled, taking his time to taste some of the wine that had been brought to their table and keeping those fabulous grey eyes fixed on her. ‘In my position, it’s always a good idea to be wary of anyone who doesn’t fit their brief.’
‘And I guess,’ she said acidly, ‘that my brief is the unattractive country girl without a brain cell in her head?’
‘Do you think of yourself as unattractive?’ Leo pounced on that small, unthinking slip of the tongue, and she flushed with embarrassment.
She could have told him that she never used to. Sure, she had always known that she didn’t have the stick-insect glamour of some of the girls she had grown up with, but she had never had an inferiority complex about her looks. Not until she had moved to London with Brian.
However, the last thing Heather intended to do was bare her soul to the man sitting opposite her.
‘Do you think I’m after…what? Your mother’s money—do you think I might try to con her out of her fortune?’
‘Stranger things have been known to happen.’ He really couldn’t credit that, though. If the woman had a taste for high living, then she was doing a good job of keeping it under wraps. So far he had yet to see her in something that didn’t look as though its last home was a charity shop.
Heather didn’t say anything. She could have scoffed at his cynicism, but she understood it. Brian had gone from the good-looking boy who had stolen her heart with his floppy blonde hair and sweats to a cold-eyed stranger in expensive clothes. He had made his money and, as the money had rolled in, so too had the gold diggers, the people who’d always been there, wanting something from him.
She sighed and tried to appreciate his suspicions even though they were directed at her.
‘I guess so,’ she said with a shrug. ‘But not in this case. I think your mother’s a really sweet lady. We share a passion for plants and flowers, that’s all.’
‘Is there no one else on whom you could lavish your passion?’ Leo asked lazily. ‘For all things…horticultural?’
For a second there Heather could feel her skin prickling at what she had imagined he was asking her.
‘We get along, and I met Daniel quite by accident. He was exploring the fields; I guess he must have been lonely.’ This was the perfect time to turn the tables and do a little accusing of her own, but his presence was stifling, clogging up her brain, turning it to mush. ‘Anyway, I think he got lost. I asked him a few questions and he must have felt at ease because he came visiting again; I enjoy having him around.’
‘I guess you might,’ Leo mused thoughtfully. ‘You must get very lonely in that cottage of yours. Working from home is an isolated way of earning an income. I’m surprised someone as young as you is content to stay indoors all day. Don’t you crave to see what life in the fast lane is all about?’
‘No. I don’t.’ She lowered her eyes.
‘Really?’ What was she hiding? Leo thought. And didn’t she know that trying to keep secrets from a man was the one sure-fire way to fuel his curiosity? His curiosity was certainly on the move now…and he was beginning to enjoy the novelty. In fact, the weekend which had started on such an unfortunate note was definitely beginning to look up. Daniel had cracked one of those rare smiles of his, and even his mother seemed a little more relaxed than she normally did. The day so far had meandered in a more casual fashion than usual, and he had spent no time in front of his computer downloading his emails or generally continuing with business. It was proving to be all the more satisfying by the sudden challenge of ferreting out whatever Heather was keeping from him.
‘You never answered my question,’ he said, changing the subject so abruptly that she raised her startled blue gaze to him. ‘The one about your banking knowledge. And here’s another thing…’ Leo leaned forward, noticing the way she flinched back warily a couple of inches in her chair. ‘Last night you said that men like me take it for granted that women will want to spend time with them. What did you mean by that?’
‘I didn’t mean anything by it. In fact, I’m struggling to remember whether I made that remark or not.’ She looked at him resentfully.
‘If you deliver an insult, then you have to be prepared to back it up. What is a man like me?’
‘Self-assured,’ Heather told him bitterly. ‘Arrogant…accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. Ruthless, dismissive; the sort of man who doesn’t think it’s wrong to use other people.’
Leo would have taken offence, but for the fact that this was more than just a casual dismissal; this was personal experience speaking. Ferociously controlled as he was, he felt a flare of sexual curiosity which took him by surprise, but he didn’t fight it. He had a rich diet of very biddable women. Even women who could afford to pick and choose, women with both brains and beauty, had never been able to resist him. But he was without a woman at the moment, having parted company three months previously from the very delectable and very, very ambitious Eloise. Eloise had removed herself to New York, taking up a position with a hedge-fund company when it became obvious that their love affair wouldn’t be travelling down the altar any time soon.
And there was something refreshing about this woman’s candour as she glared at him with her cornflower-blue eyes, fully expecting him to hit the roof and duly confirm every scathing insult she had just listed.
‘To get to the top requires a certain amount of ruthlessness.’ Leo shrugged, sipped his wine and watched her over the rim of his glass.
‘Maybe so, but that still doesn’t make it acceptable. If you weren’t so busy being ruthless, you might find that you had the time to spend with your family.’
‘I will choose to overlook that,’ Leo said, his expression still impassive and mildly interested, but with a hint of steel in his voice. ‘Because what I really want to find out is why you’re hiding here, in the middle of nowhere. What are you running from?’
‘I’m not running from anything,’ Heather stammered. ‘And I’m not hiding. I happen to love living in the country! I don’t enjoy being trapped in a building surrounded by pavements and street lights that never go off.’ Behind him, Heather could see Katherine and Daniel finally making their long-overdue appearance. ‘They’re here,’ she said, resisting the urge to groan with relief.
‘Saved by the proverbial bell,’ Leo murmured, but he was enjoying himself in ways he had never expected to. It occurred to him, and not for the first time, that the pursuit of money was always more rewarding than the possession of it. Eleven years ago he had made financial success his one driving ambition in life. It had eluded his parents. It had certainly eluded his brother, the mere thought of whom brought a twisted scowl of displeasure to Leo’s mouth.
He had determined to prove to himself and to his parents that he could escape the cramped, stiflingly claustrophobic clutter of his lower middle-class background. Now, rich beyond his wildest dreams, he sometimes wondered whether he had managed to prove anything at all. Certainly not to his mother, even though he had been the one to bail her out of the massive debts which his father had incurred when he had chosen unwisely to invest his life savings on Alex and his ridiculous money-making ventures. He had provided her with enough financial security to last several lifetimes, and of course she was grateful—but years spent amassing his private fortune had left him with a jaded palate and a deep-rooted cynicism. Master of everything and everyone he surveyed, he had practically forgotten what it felt like to have someone ruffle his feathers.
Especially a woman—and, furthermore, a woman who could light up for seemingly everyone bar him. Right now, she was half-turned away from him, enthusing over a pair of football trainers, the must-have footwear for any aspiring footballer.
Leo leaned forward, invading her space. ‘I used to play football when I was your age.’
‘And you were a brilliant little footballer.’ Katherine looked at her son and half-smiled. ‘I remember your father taking you to your football game every Saturday morning. Do you remember that? I would stay at home with your little brother Alexander and you would trot off with your boots slung over your shoulder and a little packed lunch.’
‘I remember,’ Leo said gruffly. He did, now that the subject had been raised, but in truth that was a memory which had been well and truly buried.
He wasn’t given to reminiscing, but he had to admit that it certainly helped to carry the conversation along. Long-forgotten football stories were brought out for the benefit of his son. Every so often as the food was brought to them Heather chipped in, although never with a personal anecdote of her own.
‘You must have been to a football match or two,’ Leo said lazily, pushing his empty plate away and settling his body into the chair, feet extended at an angle and lightly crossed at the ankles. ‘Where did you grow up? Around here?’
‘Not a million miles away,’ Heather told him cautiously.
‘Which would be where, exactly?’
‘Reading. Near Reading, as a matter of fact.’
‘Good football team there.’ He looked to Daniel, including him in the conversation, making it impossible for her not to respond. ‘And your family…do they still live there?’
‘No. They don’t. My father died years ago, and my mother remarried and moved to Portugal. She lives there now. Has a little hairdressing business.’ No state secrets there, but Heather still didn’t like exposing her private life to him, and she didn’t know why.
‘Brothers? Sisters?’
‘Just me.’
‘So let me get this straight…’ Leo’s smile made her heart beat with sickening force. ‘You lived in Reading, no siblings, mother in Portugal with stepfather…What made you decide to move out here? Reading might not be one of the biggest cities in the UK, but it’s still a city—still has nightclubs, restaurants, theatres, all the things that would appeal to a person of your age. In other words, you must find life pretty dead out here.’
‘Stop interrogating the poor child!’ Katherine said sharply, and Leo looked at his mother in amazement. When was the last time she had ever snapped at him? Normally she tiptoed around him, treating him as though he inhabited a different plane. ‘You might have lots of money and power, Leonardo West, but that doesn’t give you the right to do as you please with other people. You must be able to see that Heather feels uncomfortable about your probing!’
Duly chastised, Leo flushed. He noticed that his son was smirking at him.
‘Which just goes to show—’ he took advantage of the temporary ceasefire to draw Daniel into a conspiracy of male bonding ‘—that no man is safe from a nagging woman. You’ll discover that for yourself in due course.’
One Disney movie and three bags of popcorn later, Heather was more than ready to make her excuses and get back to the safety of her cottage.
Her head was in a whirl. Before she had even met him, she had had some very strong, preconceived notions of Leo West: he was a selfish, egotistic workaholic who virtually ignored his mother and paid lip service to the fact that he had found himself in possession of a son, having been an absentee father for the majority of Daniel’s life.
When she had finally set eyes on him, she was honest enough to admit she had been a little taken aback by the force of his personality and good looks. Having likened him to Brian in her head, she had very quickly realised that Brian was a minnow next to a man like Leo West.
After a few hours in his company, watching as some of that ferocious, icy discipline began to thaw, she was confused to find herself actually beginning to see him as more than just a comforting cardboard cutout. He was a complex, three-dimensional human being, and she didn’t know whether she wanted to deal with that. Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to.
Once there had been less of a necessity for her to be roped in as mediator, she had no trouble in wriggling out of the remainder of the planned evening. Daniel might not have been transformed into the loving son, but at least he seemed to have forgotten the debacle of the missed Sports Day. And Katherine…
That little show of backbone, when she had soundly ticked off Leo and spared Heather the embarrassment of being cross examined like a criminal in the dock, had been a telling reminder that she was still a mother and Leo still a son.
All told, she’d been able to leave with a pretty clear conscience.
By seven-thirty she was back in her studio. Painting had never before let her down. In the aftermath of Brian, she had retreated back to her art, and it had been a soothing balm.
Its soothing, balm-like qualities were proving more elusive now. In fact, as she peered at the fairy she had just spent forty-five minutes painting meticulously, she could swear that he bore a striking resemblance to Leo. How had that happened? And what role could a cruel, money-obsessed, self-centred workaholic fairy have in a children’s book?
Having downgraded to the television—which was having a similarly non-remedial effect on her chaotic thoughts—she was startled when she heard a bang on the door.
Heather didn’t think for a moment that it would be anyone but Leo, and she was shocked and frightened to discover that her heart was doing all sorts of weird things. Her head was behaving pretty badly as well, forcing her to recall the way his mouth curved in that smile that was always not very far away from cynical; the way he tilted his head to one side when he was listening to something, giving the impression that he was listening intently with every fibre of his being.
Faced with the unpalatable truth that the man had somehow managed to spark something in her that she had convinced herself was long dead and buried, Heather yanked open the door, bristling for attack.
‘You’ve been painting again,’ was the remark that greeted her. ‘How are the fairies? All work and no play; you know what they say about that.’
‘You keep showing up on my doorstep!’
‘There’s a lot to be said for predictability. Hope I’m not interrupting anything—aside from a painting jag, that is?’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I come bearing gifts.’
She hadn’t noticed, but now he lifted both hands and she could see that he was carrying several carrier-bags.
‘What’s that?’ Heather asked suspiciously.
‘Food—Chinese. And a bottle of wine, of course. Today has worn Daniel out, and my mother has retreated to watch something on television. A historical romance; I didn’t think I’d be able to stomach it.’
‘And you didn’t decide to work?’
‘This seemed a more interesting option.’ Besides, he felt in holiday mode. The day had gone well, and more than that…Leo had found himself watching her, watching the way she laughed, closing her eyes and throwing her head back, giving it everything. He watched the way she related to his mother and his son, gentle and compassionate. He had also found himself watching the way her body had shifted under her clothes, the bounce of her breasts when she had reached across to get the salt on the table…
After that illuminating little chat about the stock market, there had been no more work-related discussions, although he was pretty sure that she would rise to the challenge given half a chance. No, the conversation had been light and amusing, and he had enjoyed himself.
He had a chequered love life behind him, which was just the way he liked it. But lately he had become bored with the relentlessly intellectual conversations provided by the women he dated; bored with trying to arrange dates, with each of the women consulting their BlackBerries, endeavouring to find a suitable gap in hectic timetables, bored with leggy brunettes.
A change was as good as a rest, he had decided, and that change came in the small, curvy figure of the woman looking at him as though he might very well be something infectious.
She was a challenge, and Leo was in a mood to take on a challenge.
Furthermore, it had crossed his mind that seeing his son, and his mother for that matter, had been a considerably less stilted business with Heather in the mix. They relaxed with her in a way that they never relaxed around him. Taking on this challenge might have more than just the expected rewards.
He surfaced to the tail end of something she had been saying, and when he frowned she said very slowly, as if she were talking to someone mentally challenged, ‘There was no need for you to come over here with food. You probably feel that this is a suitable thank-you gesture, but I don’t need thanking.’
‘Stop being so bad tempered and let me in. The food’s going cold. Cold Chinese food is never a good sight—congeals.’ He gave her a crooked smile. ‘Besides, what’s wrong with accepting a little thanks?’
It was the smile. Heather’s mouth went dry and she stared at him. The sight of him took her breath away. She was aware that she was gaping, and she snapped her mouth shut and reminded herself that being deprived of breath was not a good place to be. In fact, it was terminal.
‘It was a good day.’ He was still smiling, his shrewd eyes taking in her response to him and banking it. She fought like a wild cat, but he got to her and, considering she got to him as well, it seemed only fitting. ‘And you deserve credit for it.’
‘Why are you being nice?’
‘Maybe I want to show you that I’m not the self-centred, arrogant monster you seem to think I am.’
‘I never said you were a monster.’ She was struck by the thought that to turn him away would be to admit that her past still had a hold over her; that Brian—three years gone—still had a hold over her and could still influence the way she related to other people, other men.
‘Okay.’ She stood aside, making up her mind, realising that she had nothing to fear but herself and her stupid overreactions. Besides, he’d be gone in a few hours. ‘But I really have to get back to my painting some time tonight.’
Leo stepped inside, brushing her protestations aside, and headed for the kitchen. Unerringly he knew where it would be, and felt her walking behind him; he liked the anticipation of what the evening might bring. Sure there was a lot to be said for predictability, but there was a great deal more to be said for the thrill of the unknown, and her obvious reluctance to be anywhere near him had roused his hunting instincts.
He dumped the bags on the table. The wine was still cold from the fridge.
‘If you point to the plates…’
‘Don’t tell me that you’re Mr Domestic?’
‘You mean you wouldn’t believe me?’ He perched against the counter, arms folded, and laughed softly under his breath.
‘I mean—’ Heather had to take a deep breath to steady her sudden giddiness ‘—I’d quicker believe that there were lots of little green people dashing about on planet Mars.’
‘Okay. You win.’ He gave a mock gesture of defeat. ‘Domesticity doesn’t agree with me.’ He watched as she opened the bottle of wine and poured them both a glass. The ubiquitous flowing skirt was gone. She was wearing some grey jogging-bottoms and an off-white vest bearing the telltale signs of her painting. For the first time, he could really see something of her figure, and his eyes roved appreciatively over the full breasts, the flat stomach, the womanly curve of her hips. She was by no means thin, but her body was toned and surprisingly tanned. He wondered whether she had been taking advantage of the hot weather, tanning in her garden—tanning nude in her garden…?
When she swung round to give him a glass, he surprised himself by flushing.
‘And why is that?’ Heather asked. ‘Could it be that, the more money a person has, the more temptation there is to buy the services of other people who are a lot more handy at doing all those inconvenient chores like cooking?’
Instead of bringing down his shutters, that little undercurrent of belligerence sent a jolt of red-hot lust running through him.
‘Ah…’ He strolled towards her and took a sip of wine. ‘But just think, my little economist, of how many people I keep employed…’
Looking up at him, she could feel that breathing thing happening again. She forced herself to get a grip, to bring the conversation back down to a level she could handle.
‘Or maybe you’re just scared at the thought of putting down roots,’ she said wryly. ‘And if you never treat your house like a home then you never put down roots, do you?’
CHAPTER THREE
HUGE inroads had been made into the Chinese food, which was spread on the table between them. Noodles and other assorted bits of food had managed to escape the chopsticks and were hardening on the pine table-top. The bottle of wine was nearing its end, but Heather was barely aware of having drunk anything at all. It had taken a little while, but she had lowered her defences and was proud of how normal she was behaving. As far as exercises went, this was a pretty good result. Yes, she could talk to the man without pigeon-holing him. She knew him for what he was, but was not letting that get in the way of responding to him like an adult. She was smugly aware of a sense of personal achievement.
Of course, it had to be said that Leo was making things easy for her. He was no longer on the attack, no longer looking at her with narrow-eyed suspicion which made her hackles rise. The conversation was light, skimming the surface, avoiding any pitfalls.
And the wine was helping. Heather rested her elbow on the table, cupped her face in her hand and looked at Leo sleepily.
‘Don’t tell me that you’re going to doze off in the middle of my conversation?’ he said, sipping his wine and looking at her over the rim of his glass. ‘My ego would never recover.’
‘And we both know that you’ve got a very healthy one of those,’ Heather murmured. His eyes were hypnotic. She could stare into them for ever.
‘I’m going to say thank you, even though I have a sneaking suspicion that there wasn’t anything complimentary behind the observation.’
‘My head feels a little woolly.’
‘In which case, we’d better get you to the sitting room. Leave all this debris. I’ll tidy it up.’
‘You will? You’re domestically challenged—you said that yourself. Do you even know what a dishwasher looks like?’
Leo gave a low laugh and looked at her. She was as soft and full as a peach. Her hair was a riot of gold ringlets framing her face, giving her a look that was impossibly feminine. No hard edges there. Sitting across from her as they had eaten had required a lot of restraint. He had watched her as she tipped her head back, her eyes half-closed, so that she could savour the noodles on her chopsticks, and he had had to shift his body because it had been so damned uncomfortable dealing with his aching erection.
‘You seem to forget that I had a childhood,’ he told her drily. ‘And there was no one around then to do my bidding. My brother and I had our list of chores every day, and some of them included clearing the table after meals.’ Another memory that had not surfaced for a very long time.
‘I can’t imagine you doing chores. I bet you paid your brother to do yours for you.’ Heather had never met Alex. She knew that he was away somewhere distant and exotic and had been for a while.
‘Come on. I’m going to get you into the sitting room.’ The shutters had come down with the mention of his brother, and he stood up. But as she pushed herself away from the table he moved quickly around, and was sweeping her off her feet, taking her by surprise and therefore finding little resistance.
After a few startled seconds, Heather wriggled against him.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m carrying you into your sitting room. You look a little wobbly on your feet.’
‘I’m perfectly capable of walking three inches!’
‘Stop struggling.’
‘You’ll pull a muscle in your back, lifting me up! ‘After all her smug satisfaction at how amazingly adult she had been—chatting to Leo as though he was just another perfectly normal guy who didn’t rattle her cage—she could now feel every nerve ending in her body screaming in response to this physical contact. His chest was hard and muscular and the hands supporting her were strong and sinewy; all those stirrings, of whatever the heck they were that she didn’t want, were flooding through her in a tidal wave.
The more she wriggled, the more the stirring magnified, so she stopped wriggling and told herself to get a grip.
‘There.’ Leo deposited her gently on the squashy sofa in the sitting room and stood back, looking down at her. ‘Ordeal over.’ He wasn’t sure whether to be amused or disgruntled at her frantic efforts to bolt.
‘It wasn’t an ordeal,’ Heather told him, gathering herself into a sitting position. ‘I was—I was just concerned for you…’ Her heartbeat should have been returning to normal, but it wasn’t.
‘Concerned?’
‘I’m not the lightest person in the world.’ She spelled it out for him, willing herself to get back into sensible, protective mode.
Leo sat on the sofa and she immediately squirmed into a cross-legged position, her hands resting lightly on her knees.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘You do that.’
‘What?’
‘Introduce a topic and then suddenly decide to back off before you can explain what you’re talking about.’
‘There’s nothing to explain.’ She gave a careless shrug and linked her fingers together. ‘I just think that caveman gestures like that are probably better done with someone skinnier than me. Probably with one of those women who fall over themselves to be in your company.’
Leo, well skilled in the ways of women, could recognise a fishing expedition from a mile away. She was curious about him, wanted to know more, but was reluctant to frame her questions directly. Good sign.
‘I thought women liked the caveman approach.’
‘Not when it can lead to personal injury.’
‘Who on earth ever told you that you were…?
‘Fat?’ Heather supplied for him. ‘Overweight?’ She stared at her fingers. ‘In need of losing a few pounds? No one.’
‘No one. Well, you can tell no one that he was way off-target. You are neither fat nor are you overweight. And as for all those women who fall over themselves to be in my company…’ He noticed the way she inclined her head very slightly, as if stilling to hear some distant sound. This, he thought with satisfaction, was the sound of a woman who was sexually interested in a man. ‘They do tend to be on the skinny side,’ he admitted. He relaxed back on the sofa and crossed his legs.
‘I knew it.’
‘One more of those monstrously predictable things about me?’
‘Why is it that men with lots of money are always attracted to women who look as though they would have difficulty keeping upright in a strong wind? I mean, really, is there something attractive about a human being who doesn’t eat?’
Leo laughed, and when he was finished laughing he looked at her and shook his head, as if a little dazed by the woman sitting opposite him on the sofa.
‘No, there’s absolutely nothing attractive about a woman who doesn’t eat, and I have to admit that I’ve dated a lot of those.’
‘Brainless bimbos?’ She wanted to pull information out of him, and was guiltily aware that she was being as intrusive with him as he had been with her.
‘Brainless bimbos? No, definitely not that.’
Now, that did surprise her, and Leo laughed again, amused. ‘Why would I be attracted to a brainless bimbo?’ he asked.
‘Because she looks good on your arm?’
‘And what about when there’s no one around to see her looking good on my arm? What conversation could there possibly be with a brainless bimbo?’
‘So what sort of women do you go out with?’
‘Why do you ask?’
Why, Heather thought, do I ask? This wasn’t the sort of casual, skimming-the-surface conversation which was safe and unthreatening. There was an edge to this conversation, but like someone standing on the edge of a precipice, peering down, she found that it was irresistible.
‘No reason. Just making conversation. Really, though, you should go. I’m awfully tired. There’s honestly no need for you to tidy the kitchen. I can do that later, or better still in the morning.’
Leo had no intention of leaving, but it dawned on him that Heather was not like any other woman he had known. That bristly, belligerent spark wasn’t an act to get his attention. If she told him that he should go, then she meant it, and since Leo wasn’t going anywhere—at least not yet—he stood up and shook his head in his best bedside manner, something of which he’d had precious little practice.
‘You need some coffee.’ Before she could launch into another goodbye speech, he left the room, only throwing over his shoulder that maybe she should doze for a bit. The occasional catnap could work wonders, he told her. Not that he knew, but it was all part of the bedside manner.
In truth, Leo had forgotten the art of seduction, or at least the art of persuasion.
With women, the outcome was usually apparent within a matter of minutes: conversation of the intelligent variety, a certain type of eye contact and then the unspoken assumption that they would end up as lovers.
With Heather, he realised that one false move and she would run a mile—and of course, given that he was no more than a highly competitive red-blooded male, what more of a turn on could there be than an uncertain outcome?
Not for a minute did it occur to Leo that a deliberate seduction was anything less than perfectly reasonable. He took his time in the kitchen. Dishes were washed and precariously balanced on the draining board, because drying and putting them away seemed a senseless waste of time when they would be used again at some point in the future—and she had been right with the ‘dishwasher’ accusation. There was some sort of coffee-making machine with nozzles and a vaguely threatening glass jug, which he ignored. Instead, he made them both a cup of instant coffee and was gratified to find that she wasn’t dozing, as he’d suspected she might be, when he returned to the sitting room.
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