At that exact moment, he heard a strange scratching coming from behind him. Ettie froze, her eyes wide. He cocked his head and narrowed his gaze on her. ‘What’s that?’
‘Hmm?’ she mumbled.
‘Ettie?’
The noise sounded again and there was no hiding the guilty look in her eyes—her face was far too expressive.
Now she pressed her lips together in an oddly nervous manner. ‘I’ve done something,’ she blurted. ‘I got you a present.’
He stilled. ‘You what?’
‘I got you a present. I hope you don’t mind.’
Why would he mind? He actually couldn’t remember the last time anyone had got him a present. He didn’t have a bunch of friends he did birthday celebrations with and his parents definitely didn’t send him anything. Not at Christmas either.
There was another scratching sound. And then a high-pitched yelp. Not Ettie. Not human.
Leon spun around. ‘Ettie?’
She scuttled past him and he watched her hunch down by a box he’d not noticed before because he’d only had eyes for her. Leon couldn’t move. It was a big box.
Then Ettie stood and walked towards him and she was holding—
‘He was the runt,’ she said all in a rush. ‘I don’t know quite what breed he is…a mix of many, and I know he’s not handsome like Toby, but he wasn’t going to have a chance otherwise.’
Leon stared at the creature in Ettie’s arms. ‘You got me a puppy?’
His heart beat too fast; his lungs felt as if they were in a swiftly tightening vice.
‘You have space here.’ She sounded as breathless as he felt. ‘You could train him to go to the office with you, or he can stay here and play in the garden, or he could come to the Cavendish with me…we can make it work. I just thought you’d like him.’ She stepped closer and literally shoved the puppy into his arms.
Leon instinctively grabbed the animal but inside he’d frozen.
‘You said you’d not had a dog, but I thought you’d quite wanted Toby. I thought…’ She trailed off as she finally looked up at him. ‘I don’t really know what I thought.’ She stared into his eyes, her own growing more concerned by the second. ‘Do you mind?’ It was a whisper.
Leon couldn’t move. He couldn’t actually breathe. That pressure crushing his chest was too heavy on his lungs.
‘He’s about four months old, they think,’ she said. ‘All vaccinated. If they couldn’t rehome him they were going to—’
‘He’s a rescue puppy?’ he croaked, determinedly pushing past the immobility to glance down at the puppy who’d settled so quickly in his arms. Small, with bottomless brown eyes that had a heart-wrenching hint of sadness, mostly black hair but with patches of silvery white…he was ridiculously cute.
‘Yes.’
Leon cleared his throat. ‘Does he have a name?’
She shook her head. ‘You’ll have to give him one.’
He didn’t want to do that. He couldn’t.
Memory washed over him. He’d held a tiny puppy like this only once before years ago. It had been small and fragile like this one. It had been his…but only for a little while.
He stilled as past and present blurred and the reality of their future hit hard. He didn’t know if he could do this. Any of this.
‘Leon? Don’t you like him?’
He huffed out a hard-caught breath. Of course he liked him. How could he not?
‘What is it?’ she asked softly. ‘Leon?’ Her eyes suddenly filled. ‘Did I do the wrong thing?’
‘No,’ he muttered quickly. She was so sweet, she didn’t realise. ‘No.’
‘Then what is it?’ She wasn’t just sweet, she was astute. She saw right through him.
And he couldn’t bear that. ‘It’s not important,’ he snapped, needing to shut her down.
‘If it’s not important, it won’t matter if you tell me, will it?’
He almost smiled at her simple logic, but he was stuck, unable to escape the most painful of memories. ‘You don’t want my poor-little-rich-boy sob story.’
‘Yes—’
‘It is what it is,’ he interrupted awkwardly. ‘I can’t change it.’
He didn’t want questions, didn’t want to remember. His mouth was dry and he felt too big to be holding something so small. He didn’t want to hold it close. He didn’t want to feel. He needed time to think. But Ettie kept looking at him with those beseeching sea-green eyes and when she did that he couldn’t seem to think at all.
‘Leon—’
‘My neighbour gave me a puppy,’ he growled before she could say anything else in that husky, sweet voice. She was so frustratingly curious. ‘But my mother got rid of it after a few weeks.’
‘Got rid of it?’ Ettie frowned. ‘You don’t mean—’
‘Yeah, I do mean.’ The words just fell out. A bald, uncontrollable burn of memory. The disappearance. The shocking silence and the absolute emptiness inside him. ‘They weren’t interested in me—I was their tick-the-box baby. They were busy with their careers. Their affairs. They just wanted a trophy and heir. They didn’t want the actual child. The actual child was…’ He broke off, tearing his gaze from Ettie to focus on the small dog that had nestled so easily into his arms. It was so trusting. But he hadn’t been able to protect that first puppy…
He dragged in a harsh breath. He shouldn’t have said anything, but now he’d started, ripping open that old wound so it oozed poison and pus. He couldn’t stop the truth of it spewing out.
‘One child was more than enough for my mother to handle and, as I was a child of privilege, it was her duty to educate me on my duty and ensure I wasn’t spoiled.’
‘Not spoiled?’ Ettie echoed softly.
He looked back into her expressive face and watched as understanding dawned.
‘She was cruel?’ she said.
Leon couldn’t bear the sympathy in her eyes. Why had he said anything? He hated remembering how weak he’d once been. He never wanted anyone to have power over him again. Not physical. Not emotional. Not contractual. Never again would he be that vulnerable. That powerless.
‘Leon…’
‘I was extremely fortunate.’ He tried to plug the information leak, tried to squash all that horror back in the depths of his ribcage. ‘I had the best education.’
Never show weakness. Never admit to failure. Always fight.
‘But she hurt you. Not just your puppy. She hurt you.’
So many times, in so many small ways. He froze but was still unable to think, unable to hold back that pressure bursting within him.
Ettie stepped closer. ‘She hit you?’
‘Too obvious.’ The words escaped, heedless of his battle to keep silent. ‘She’d force me to shower in freezing water. Five minutes. Reciting equations, verbs, some poem. Whatever lesson I needed to be drilled in. I had to say it aloud over and over again. That was one of the many…’ He paused, drawing in a hard breath. ‘Just little things she did to…’
‘Torture you.’
‘Toughen me up.’ He grimaced. ‘Cold showers, barefoot runs in the frost, two hours locked in a dark cupboard if I answered back or worse…all things that left no physical mark, but would teach me to control myself. Not cry. Not show weakness.’
Not anger. Not love either. Not any emotions. He’d learned calm instead—to close down, stay still, breathe, think. Except he couldn’t do any of that now with the way Ettie was looking at him.
‘It worked,’ he said, stubbornly rejecting what he saw in her eyes. ‘I grew resilience. Definitely gained independence. Didn’t rely on anyone else for anything.’
‘You couldn’t tell your father?’
The last sliver of Leon’s heart shrivelled. ‘He knew.’ And he’d done nothing.
‘You couldn’t tell anyone else?’
There hadn’t been anyone else. There’d never been any physical marks left on him. But he had the feeling his old neighbour at their summer house suspected. That was why she’d given hi
m that puppy. Calix had been the runt of the litter, just like this little guy.
His mother had relented too easily—said yes to that nice old neighbour. She’d said yes so swiftly, bubbling with faux gratitude. He should’ve known it was too good to last. He was to perform. He was to lead. He was to remain in charge of everything. The loss she then subjected him to was to build his fight—the puppy was a mere tool for him to learn pain and to protect himself from feeling it again. Never to lose again.
It hurts when important things are taken from you. The dog isn’t important. Our company is.
He’d never trusted again either.
‘That’s why you were happy to go away to school,’ Ettie whispered.
‘It was a relief.’ Leon wanted nothing more than to freeze back up inside. ‘But she’d hit me in other ways. When you’re told something over and over and over, you begin to believe it, especially when the person telling you is supposed to be your protector.’ She’d shut him off from everyone. Her words echoed in his head.
‘They only want to be friends because of your money. They want to use you. But you haven’t done anything to deserve what you have. You don’t deserve it.’
He realised far too late that he’d said it all aloud. Ettie’s expression was appalled. He turned away, unable to look at her any more. If he didn’t look at her he might get himself back under control.
‘My mother was determined to make me strong enough, good enough to take over the specific challenges of a multimillion-dollar empire. To become the tough, decisive boss I’d need to be. I tried hard to please her.’ To please both his parents. He’d tried for so long. ‘Eventually I realised I was never going to. Nothing would make her happy. So I decided that I’d never be the heir they’d worked so diligently to raise. Not by going off the rails—that would have pleased her, I think. It would have proven that I was as “weak” as she’d said I was. So no drugs, no booze-fuelled parties, no threesomes…’ He almost smiled. ‘I turned my back on that “duty” and rejected the inheritance they offered. I’ll never work for the company, or take charge of it. Instead I worked alone and earned more, just to spite her. I worked every holiday and left home the second I was old enough.’
‘To make your own way.’
He’d pushed to the top relentlessly—taken huge risks, worked insane hours. Because he didn’t want a cent of his parents’ money. Didn’t want the ‘glory’ of running their empire. After all, he’d not deserved it—so he’d built his own.
He didn’t need them. He didn’t need anyone.
Now he carried the sleeping puppy back to the box and saw the small bed Ettie had got for it inside. He carefully put the puppy in. Why had he said anything? He never talked to anyone about this. Bracing himself against the silence, he turned back and saw her face. His body tightened.
‘I don’t want your pity.’ All that emotion emptied again. He couldn’t stand to see the sympathy in her eyes. ‘I cannot be pitied. Look at everything I have, everything I’ve done.’
‘Yeah, you’re amazing,’ she whispered. ‘But you don’t let people in.’
‘Why would I want to?’ He turned to look back at the sleeping dog.
Yet he knew he had to—his own child was the game changer. And it was happening too soon. He’d never wanted one, but now one was on the way and he wanted it to have everything he hadn’t and still didn’t have. Self-sufficiency was key to his own existence, yet he was human enough not to want that for his own child. Thank goodness the baby had Ettie.
He tried to be calm, to breathe, to think. But his heart thundered and his lungs hurt. His whole chest was still bound in tension.
Leon stood so still, Ettie almost believed he wasn’t breathing. But as she neared, she could feel the vibrations rolling off him. She sensed the power he was exerting to hold back and press everything back down deep. He’d been appallingly hurt and she’d had absolutely no idea. He’d hidden it so well, for so long.
She might not have had a father, but she’d had a mother who’d loved her, who’d at least wanted the best for her. And she’d had her sister.
Leon had been utterly isolated. The witch hadn’t even let him keep his dog. His father hadn’t stood up for him. The horror of it broke her heart. That he’d been treated as a project, not a person.
While she’d grown up with nothing but love, he’d grown up with everything but. No wonder he was remote and controlled and untrusting. And right now she knew he regretted saying anything at all. While there mightn’t have been physical marks, there were definitely emotional scars. Five minutes beneath a frigid torrent of water must’ve felt like an eternity. Two hours in a dark cupboard for a small boy must’ve been pure hell.
‘Leon—’
‘Don’t.’
She knew he was withdrawing. Rebuilding his walls to shut her out again. She couldn’t let that happen. Not yet.
‘Don’t think that this is going to change everything just because you’ve told me a few things,’ she said, trying to reach him. ‘We’re just getting to know each other, that’s all. That helps build trust.’
‘Don’t actions speak louder than words, Ettie?’ The strain was evident in his hoarseness. ‘Can’t you trust me already? I’m not your dad or your ex. I haven’t left you.’
Not physically. But emotionally he was walking out of that door. And he was turning the focus from himself to her, to help his escape.
‘Leon—’
‘Have I betrayed you?’ he flared.
‘No.’ She welcomed the resurgence of his emotion and stepped closer. ‘But there’s action and there’s action.’
His default response was to close down all intimacy other than the physical. It was the only way she could think to keep him here with her.
‘Look,’ he cleared his throat, ‘you’re going to make a wonderful mother, Ettie. I know you’ll care for this child in a way I was never cared for. But I can only do what I do.’ He frowned as if he was struggling to think. ‘I’m good at taking control in a crisis.’
Yes. Because his whole life had been a crisis. He’d been locked for ever in a fight for survival, to win, to be free. When had he last taken the time to just breathe? When had he ever let someone else make the calls and shoulder even a little bit of his burden?
‘You have to take control because you’ve never had anyone you could count on.’ She placed her hand on his chest.
He didn’t reply. The agony churning in his eyes, the blistering beat of his heart beneath her fingers, said it all. He didn’t trust anyone. She didn’t blame him; she had trust issues of her own. But maybe in time he could learn to trust her? Maybe—eventually—they could be a true team?
‘Can’t you relinquish control to me?’ she asked softly, spreading her hand wider and slowly sliding it down his chest. ‘Just once?’ She felt his muscles tighten beneath her touch, saw awareness flare in his eyes.
‘Are you still feeling insecure about your sexual experience?’ he asked gruffly.
No. This wasn’t about her. But this was the language she knew he understood and it could be their starting point, right?
‘Don’t you know what you do to me?’ he asked harshly as she slid her hand to his belt and twisted her fingers to release the buckle.
She shook her head. That was what she wanted most of all—to see him. To know him. ‘Let me see.’ She lifted her chin and dared him, unfastening the buttons of his shirt without hesitation. ‘Let me do it.’
He didn’t stop her. But he didn’t help. Like a statue ablaze—the tension thrummed from him as she pushed back the two halves of his shirt so she could see—touch—his burning skin.
‘Just let me,’ she whispered.
She reached up on tiptoe and kissed along his jaw, aching for the years of sufferance and isolation he’d endured. He didn’t lower his chin to meet her lips with his.
‘I don’t want your sympathy,’ he growled, rigid and angry.
‘Just as I don’t want your money,’ she answered.<
br />
He pulled back his head to look down at her then. ‘This isn’t about money.’
‘It isn’t about sympathy either. This is about caring, Leon.’ She cupped his jaw with one hand, and slid her other over his chest, tracing the strength and heat. Skin on skin. ‘This is about you opening up and letting me in. Let me in.’
‘You don’t need to take care of me.’
‘But you get to take care of me? Next you’ll try telling me not to breathe,’ she muttered back at him. ‘Screw your control, Leon.’
With a sudden forceful push, she pressed him against the wall. His eyes widened and his hands automatically spanned her waist.
‘I’m taking control.’ She kissed her way down his chest. Her own passion was unleashed. She wanted to truly touch him. She wanted to show him—
‘You think?’ He hauled her back up to kiss her hard and deep, his anger igniting.
‘I know,’ she said when she tore her lips free.
A crazy kind of confidence she’d never before felt fired through her veins. She knew what to do. What she wanted. She showered his body with kisses, with light, teasing touches of her fingertips, with swirls of her tongue, before letting her lips slide closer.
Her own heat increased the more she heard his uneven breathing, the more she felt his tension build. She stepped back for a moment to slide her own clothes off. Slowing when she saw the way he was leaning back against the wall, his feet planted wide apart, watching her strip. She was no real beauty, definitely no model-type, but clearly it didn’t matter.
Only when she was fully naked did she step forward again. She unzipped his trousers, pulled them and his boxers down. She knelt in front of him as he’d knelt before her only last night.
She heard his growl—of warning, of want. She smiled and kissed closer, closer, but she didn’t take him in her mouth. Not yet. It was enough to let him enjoy looking. She saw his hands curl into fists, his knuckles whitening. He liked what she was doing. But he was still holding back. She didn’t want him to hold back.
She licked up the length of him and then looked up. ‘Lie down.’
He shot her a look but complied with her request.
Ettie simply stared for a moment at the sheer magnificence of him outstretched on the floor before her. He still said nothing but his raging erection and ragged breathing were all the encouragement she needed. Her mouth watered and that confidence flooded her again.
Modern Romance May 2019: Books 5-8 Page 46