Amer was standing at the window, looking down into the garden. Just for a moment as he turned his head, she thought he looked strained. But at her words he raised his eyebrows in surprise.
‘Run that past me again.’
The look of surprise was almost Leo’s undoing.
Remember his own words, she told herself. He had been quite specific in that little piece of satire. Any opportunity for seduction should be pursued. With any woman. She had handed him the opportunity on a plate and he had not even bothered to seduce her. Would it have been better if he had?
Leo swallowed. ‘I’ve got to go.’
She scrabbled for her clothes.
‘Hey.’
He skirted the great tumbled bed and strolled over to her, stopping her search by the simple expedient of putting one hand round her wrist and holding it. In spite of herself, Leo shivered with lust. How could he do that, just by touching her arm? When he didn’t even want her. It was cruel.
‘What’s the matter?’
He was smiling. He didn’t think it was serious. Well, of course, for him it wasn’t serious.
Or for her, either, Leo told herself feverishly. It was all over emotional nonsense at the end of a highly charged day. She would see that in the morning.
As long as she was alone in the morning, of course.
‘I must get home. Things to do. Work,’ said Leo.
The excuses floundered but the desperation was evident. Amer let go of her wrist and stood back, frowning.
‘I thought we would spend the evening together.’
He encountered a look of such horror from Leo that he blinked.
‘Evidently not,’ he answered himself drily.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Leo, in disarray.
She grabbed her clothes and dived back into the bathroom. She was crying again.
She scrambled rapidly back into her dress. There was nothing she could do about her hair or—she winced at her reflection—the softly swollen mouth. There was no disguising the fact that she looked like a woman who had made love. At least she did until you got to her eyes.
They looked like a woman who had walked into a nightmare and could not find her way back.
Leo looked away. She tidied her dress, trying to reduce its plunge without much success.
‘I am never,’ she promised herself, ‘going to wear this dress again.’
She ran her hands through the tangle of hair, trying not to remember how it had felt running through Amer’s fingers. She could not put it up again—she had no idea what had happened to her hairpins and she was not going to go rummaging among tumbled bedclothes to find out—but at least she could make it lie flat to her head.
She thrust her feet into the sophisticated shoes and felt a measure of normality return. She picked up his robe, straightened her shoulders and went back to face Amer.
He had no smile for her.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Of course,’ said Leo, not looking at him.
He put an arm round her shoulders. Just for a moment she felt protected. It was heavenly.
It was also an illusion. She twitched away from him and bolted for the stairs. Amer let her go without comment. But his frown deepened as he went after her.
Leo dived back to the salon where they had supper. The garden beyond the window was now completely dark. Someone had turned on the lights but they were dim and atmospheric. Breathy saxophone music whispered from hidden speakers. There was another tray of coffee—this time with a vacuum coffeepot—on the table.
Leo stopped dead in the doorway.
‘A real Don Juan’s box of tricks,’ she said bitterly.
At her shoulder, Amer stopped, a look of comprehension flashing across his face. For a moment he was disturbed. Then he took a decision.
‘Don Juan?’ he murmured, ushering her into the room. ‘Unfair. Have you forgotten we’re going to be married?’
Leo recoiled as if she had burned herself.
‘Nonsense.’
‘Well, you asked me,’ he reminded her evenly. ‘Have some coffee and let’s discuss it.’
She looked at him with hot eyes. ‘There’s nothing to discuss. And I don’t want any coffee. I want to go home. Will you call me a cab?’
Amer was shocked. ‘Of course not.’
Leo glared. ‘You mean I’ll have to make a break for it and pick one up in the street?’
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Leonora, what’s wrong?’
She shook her head, blinking away tears.
‘Did I rush you? I thought if—’
But she stopped him with a gesture so despairing that he could not push her. He sighed.
‘If you insist on going I will drive you. Of course. Only—’ he gave her his most winning smile ‘—I hope you’ll stay.’
The smile did not work. It was almost as if she did not see it. As if she would not allow herself to see it.
To Amer’s deep disquiet, he found himself driving through the electronic gates of the Wimbledon mansion forty minutes later.
‘Yours?’ he said, genuinely disconcerted by the mansion confronting him.
Leo gave a sharp laugh. ‘My father’s. I have the extension.’
‘Ah.’
It was no more than a sound but Leo detected patronising, even criticism.
‘What?’ she said, bristling. ‘What?’
Amer did not answer. Or not directly.
‘Are you allowed to ask me in?’
‘It’s quite self-contained,’ Leo retorted. ‘We don’t police each other.’
He was noncommittal. ‘Really.’
‘Come in, if you don’t believe me,’ said Leo goaded.
He did not need a second invitation.
She switched on all the lights defiantly. No seducer’s shadowy atmospherics here. He looked round, interested. Leo had not realised how untidy her sitting room was before. The desk, computer and television were islands among the flotsam—magazines, newspapers, open books, unanswered letters, theatre programmes, the dry cleaning she had dumped on the sofa two days ago…
‘I see you live alone,’ said Amer with quiet satisfaction.
‘You knew that.’
‘I thought Simon Hartley might have acquired residency rights.’
‘No,’ said Leo shortly.
‘So I see.’ He sounded inordinately pleased about it. ‘What are you going to do about him?’
Back on her home territory Leo was feeling braver. She was also feeling appalled at her own conduct this evening.
‘It’s already done. Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘Of course it is. I can’t have another man thinking he’s engaged to my fiancé.’
She found she could not parry his teasing any more. She felt deathly tired suddenly.
‘Oh go away,’ said Leo, at the end of her tether.
‘All right,’ Amer said peacefully. He touched her cheek briefly. ‘But don’t forget you asked me to marry you.’
Leo ground her teeth. ‘I’m not likely to forget that piece of insanity.’
‘And I accepted.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense.’
His eyes sparkled but he shook his head reproachfully. ‘You can’t get out of it that way. You’re mine now.’
‘Get out,’ Leo yelled.
He smiled deep into her eyes, kissed the air between them and went.
Leo did not sleep well. Well, that was not for the first time and, in the circumstances, not surprising. She had even expected it. What she had not expected was that work would not be the all-engrossing antidote that it usually was. Twice she found her concentration drifting away from the papers in front of her. And once she forgot a meeting altogether and had to be smuggled in late. The only time she came fully into the present was when her secretary buzzed to say that Mr el-Barbary was on the phone for her.
‘I’m not taking his calls,’ snapped Leo.
By the end of the day Leo’s temper wa
s on a hair trigger and her secretary was torn between panic and tears. When Gordon Groom stormed into the office, it was the last straw. He only ever came out of the Chief Executive’s suite when there was a crisis but, Joanne thought she had never seen him in a rage like this.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ he shouted, steaming straight into Leo’s room without even checking whether she was alone.
‘Hello, Pops,’ said Leo. ‘You got back from Singapore quickly. Did Simon call for backup?’
She twirled her executive chair round a couple of times and grinned brazenly. ‘I’m free.’
Gordon was white with temper. ‘Simon rang me and I came at once. What is this nonsense all about?’
‘I’m sure Simon told you. We decided to break our engagement.’
‘But you’ve only just got the bloody ring.’
‘That,’ agreed Leo gravely, ‘is true.’
‘It’s no laughing matter.’ Gordon was furious.
Leo tilted her head on one side thoughtfully.
‘Oh I don’t know. I got away without ruining my life. That must be worth a mild titter. I could have married a man who thought it was part of his job description.’
Her father’s face darkened. ‘That’s not funny.’
‘I don’t think so, either.’ She stood up. Suddenly she let her own fury run out on its leash. It was a heady feeling. ‘In fact I think the whole thing with Simon was seriously unfunny. And all because I let myself be manipulated by the two of you.’
He gobbled.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Leo in a light, hard voice. ‘I don’t blame you. I blame myself. I should have had the guts to make my own choices. From now on I’m going to.’
Gordon realised that, for the first time since she was a small child, he was probably not going to get his Leo to do what he wanted. Shock and affront made him lose what little command over himself he had left.
‘You needn’t think you can stay on here as my pensioner,’ he raged. ‘If you want to make your own choices, fine. And pay your own bills while you’re at it.’
In the act of pushing back her chair, Leo stopped dead. She stared at him, breathing hard.
‘Your pensioner?’
‘You don’t think you earn the damned great salary I pay you, do you?’ said Gordon cruelly.
She was suddenly very pale.
‘No,’ she said very quietly. ‘Any more than I earned the right to live in the Wimbledon house. I take it this is a notice to quit?’
‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Gordon was scathing. ‘Spare me the melodrama.’ He strove for control. ‘Look, can’t we sit down and discuss this rationally?’
‘There’s nothing to discuss, Father.’ Her voice was almost inaudible but quite composed. ‘When it come to my marriage you don’t get a vote.’
‘Then—’
She flung up a hand. ‘No more threats, please.’
To tell the truth, Gordon was shaken by what he seemed to have done. Leo had never turned on him like that before. He was temperamentally incapable of backing down but he did realise he had gone too far.
‘We’ve both said things we’ll be sorry for,’ he said heavily. ‘Grooms is the only future you’ve got, one way or another. Go home and think about it. We’ll talk in the morning.’
Leo did not answer him. He gave an exasperated exclamation and stalked out.
She sank back into her chair, shaking.
What am I going to do, Leo thought. What in the wide world am I going to do?
It did not take long for Amer to deduce that Leo was not talking to him. No one could be that busy. He frowned. In spite of what she had said last night, in spite of his own careful strategy, he was not entirely surprised.
He looked unseeingly at the file that Major McDonald had left. What went wrong last night? He had thought he’d done well, in the circumstances.
He had seen at once that it was more than the champagne that had sent Leo into that raging temper. But the champagne had fired a recklessness which he did not need his investigator’s report to tell him was out of character. And he had so nearly taken advantage of it.
‘I should have done. Then she would really have a reason for not taking my calls,’ Amer said savagely.
He did not quite know why he had not. He was not used to denying himself. And God knows she had been alluring, in her wide-eyed amazement at how he made her feel.
And yet…And yet…
There had been something heartbreakingly unguarded about her last night. When she touched his face she seemed so young; as if she had found herself in wonderland and could not believe what she was doing here.
Quite suddenly he had wanted to keep that look of wonder on her face. To give, for once, without taking. It had seemed like a way of taking care of her.
Now he shifted uneasily. He was not used to that protective urge, either. It was disconcerting. Oh yes, he had been right when he told Hari he would go to any lengths to make her listen to him. Though he had not realised himself then, quite how much he meant it.
He opened the file again. The notice of her engagement stared out at him. Amer frowned, furious again.
And then—he read it again. “Daughter of blah, blah and Mrs Deborah Groom of Kensington.” Unless he was much mistaken he had already met Mrs Deborah Groom of Kensington. And she had lied to him, too. So she owed him, didn’t she?
He reached for a telephone directory.
The first thing, Leo knew, was to get out of her father’s house. Even though the flat was theoretically self-contained, Gordon Groom still thought of it as his territory.
She rang her mother.
‘Darling,’ said Deborah. ‘How lovely. Do you want to get together and talk weddings?’
Leo laughed so hard that she could barely speak. When she controlled herself enough to explain, her mother was unusually silent.
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I thought I might come and stay?’ Leo said tentatively.
Deborah was brisk. ‘Out of the question. I’m off to Spain and the flat is being completely remodelled while I’m away. No power, no water. Uninhabitable. Sorry darling.’
But she did not, thought Leo shrewdly, sound sorry.
‘Well, I could always stay with Claire…’
‘When you’re running away from her brother?’ Deborah gave a shriek of shocked laughter. ‘Leo, you’re the end.’
‘But—’
‘What you need,’ said her mother sapiently, ‘is a nice foreign holiday. Get yourself a tan and let your hair down a bit. You’ll come back a new woman.’
Leo knew it was exactly what her mother would do in similar circumstances. For the first time since Gordon had marched into her room, she smiled, albeit faintly.
‘Thanks. But I’m not sure it would work for me.’
‘Works for everyone, darling,’ Deborah assured her blithely. ‘Especially if you can find a nice man to help you have fun.’
Unbidden, unwelcome, the thought of Amer, his face contorted with triumph, flashed across Leo’s inner eye. She shuddered.
‘I’ve had all the men I can handle in the last week,’ she said unwarily.
Deborah chuckled. ‘Oh well, there’s your answer,’ she said pleased. ‘Have fun, darling.’ She rang off.
Amer did not make the mistake of telephoning again. He established Leo’s movements by means of various devious and highly expensive means. What he learned, caused him to suck his teeth and make a number of international phone calls.
And then he plotted his strategy.
Leo was throwing things into suitcases when the bell rang. For a moment she thought it was her father and almost did not answer. But a quick look at her watch reassured her. Even for a major domestic crisis, Gordon Groom would not be home before seven.
So she smoothed her hands down the side of her dusty jeans and went to open the door. For a moment she did not recognise the tall, casually dressed man in dark glasses.
‘You’re home early,’ said Amer displeased.
He did not wait to be invited but, taking off his dark glasses, walked past her into the sitting room. At the sight that met his eyes, he halted, his brows rising at the chaos.
‘I thought it could not get more untidy than when I first saw it,’ he remarked. ‘I see I was wrong.’
Leo was in no mood to provide the cabaret.
‘Packing,’ she said shortly. ‘I’m moving out.’
He nodded approvingly. ‘I’m flattered you took my words to heart.’
Leo was speechless.
‘Living in your father’s pocket,’ he explained kindly. ‘Not healthy. Believe me, I speak from experience.’
Leo did not want to hear about his experience. She said so.
Amer beamed, not a whit offended. ‘I hear you’ve made it a clean break all round. Excellent.’
Leo was not given to self-pity. She would have said the last thing she wanted was sympathy from Amer or anyone else. But somehow this cheery acceptance that losing her home and her job in one day was somehow life enhancing was too much to bear. For a wild moment she nearly launched herself at him, screaming.
But one look at the gleam in his eyes made her realise that this was exactly what he hoped for. She drew on all her reserves of self-control and kept quiet. Still, she retired behind a small coffee table in case the temptation to hit him became too great to resist.
‘How did you know that?’ she said acidly. ‘Have you been spying on me again?’
Amer smiled. This was clearly a question he had anticipated.
‘Interested enquiries into your welfare,’ he said smoothly. ‘I wondered if your father would give you grief after your bid for freedom.’
Leo winced. ‘Shrewd of you.’
He laughed but his expression was sympathetic. ‘When it comes to overbearing fathers, mine wrote the book,’ he said wryly. ‘Listen to the voice of experience. What you need now is a cooling off period.’
‘Why do you think I’m packing?’ snapped Leo.
‘Got anywhere to go?’
She hesitated.
‘I thought not. That’s why I’m here.’
Leo regarded him with deep suspicion. ‘I don’t understand.’
Amer offered her a blinding smile. ‘I’m offering you sanctuary.’
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