‘I suppose I could work from here...’ Abigail flicked a sideways glance at him. He was just so...perfect. If they moved here, would she be letting herself sink ever deeper into a situation from which it would be more and more painful to extract herself? Would this cottage existence with the man of her dreams, the man who didn’t love her, just feed the illusion that what they had might end up being the real thing?
Another, darker thought hit her.
Was this his way of removing her from London so that he could gradually resume the life he had put on hold? Was this step one in distancing her from him?
‘I expect you’ll find it pretty tough to commute from here yourself,’ she said lightly, making sure not to look at him, because she didn’t want to see her worst suspicions confirmed.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Well, it’s not exactly next to a railway line, is it?’ She forced herself to laugh carelessly. ‘If I can’t commute easily to Central London, then you won’t be able to either, will you? I mean, you’ll have the same problems as I have.’
‘I own the company,’ Leandro pointed out gently. ‘I can work whatever hours I want, and I have a driver to accommodate the travel situation. There isn’t the same necessity to get in and leave by certain times. I also don’t go to work just to prove a point.’
‘I’m not doing that!’ Abigail flushed angrily and glared at him.
‘Aren’t you?’ he said wryly and she had the grace to remain silent.
‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I just want you to know that.’
‘Sorry, but you’ve lost me. What doesn’t matter?’
‘If you need to stay in London overnight.’
‘If I need to stay in London overnight?’
‘Yes. If we both decide that this is the best place for Sam to grow up, then I don’t want you to feel that you have to come home every single evening out of a sense of obligation.’
‘It’s no obligation when it comes to seeing my son,’ Leandro grated, enraged at the not-very-subtle dismissal in her voice.
‘I just thought I’d mention it,’ Abigail pointed out. ‘It’s going to be inconvenient for you to be travelling back and forth each day, every day.’
‘Why don’t you let me decide for myself what I find inconvenient and what I don’t?’
She shrugged. ‘Sure. Maybe I’ll go and have another quick look around before we go.’ She sprang to her feet, angry with him for no reason whatsoever.
When he talked about obligation it only reinforced her suspicions that the glue that was temporarily binding them together wasn’t going to last longer than the blink of an eye. But, whilst being out here would give him ample opportunity gradually to break free, didn’t it work both ways? She would gradually get accustomed to having him around less and less. She would be able to distance herself and pull back.
She lost herself in reviewing the cottage all over again and finished up back in the kitchen, and was looking around, when Leandro surprised her from the doorway.
‘It’ll need work.’
Abigail turned around and looked at him across the width of the kitchen. Due to the lack of furniture, their voices echoed. She hugged herself and raised her eyebrows in a question.
‘The cottage,’ Leandro said patiently, moving towards her. ‘There will be work to be done on it.’
‘It’s perfect the way it is!’ Abigail said immediately, wanting an argument.
‘I’m taking it that you have decided that you’re happy with the place?’
‘I can see myself living here with Sam,’ she conceded. ‘But I don’t want you getting some interior designer in who will get rid of all the traditional features and turn it into a replica of your apartment.’
‘Why would I do that?’ He strolled towards her and curled his fingers into her silky hair. ‘Are you trying to have an argument with me?’
‘Of course not. Why would I do that?’
‘You chose not to change anything in the apartment.’
‘I didn’t feel comfortable doing that.’
‘Your choice. You can do what you like with this place and, for your information, it will be entirely in your name so you don’t have to feel that I own the roof over your head.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’ Abigail wondered whether that was another sign of him distancing himself from her.
‘I want you to feel secure,’ Leandro said gently. ‘And I know you’re proud, so I don’t want you to feel as though you’re indebted to me. You’re the mother of my child and I intend to look after you.’
He tilted her chin and feathered a kiss on her mouth, at which point her defence system was well and truly knocked for six. Of their own accord, her arms lifted, curved around his neck and pulled him towards her.
Sex. It always came back to this. Aside from his sense of duty, it was the thing that powered their relationship but, oh, how it left her feeling vulnerable. Yet, she couldn’t help but take what was on offer, torn between making the most of what she had while she had it and trying to resist so that she could start building her defences for when they parted company.
And there were times, such as now, when he was just so nice that she didn’t have it in her to resist him.
He could be so tough, so ridiculously forceful, yet at other times so unbearably tender that it took her breath away and left her feeling as helpless as a kitten.
She kissed him back, holding his face in her hands, and whispered guiltily, ‘We can’t.’
‘But I’m hungry for you, Abigail. Ravenous.’
‘Is sex the only thing you think about?’ she half-joked.
‘Is it my fault that you continue to do crazy things to my libido?’ He drew back and smoothed her hair with slightly less steady hands than he would have liked.
She was wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved red tee shirt under a trench coat and she looked amazing. Fresh, wholesome, shockingly pretty and absolutely lacking in artifice.
‘I admit it wouldn’t be right to make love here,’ he conceded with obvious reluctance. ‘What sex on the ground gains in reckless impulse, it loses in sheer discomfort.’ He grabbed her hand and headed out of the cottage, carefully locking the door behind them and putting paid to any impulse she might have had to do another quick turn round the place.
He reversed at a pace back into the road. ‘But I can’t wait until we get back to London.’
‘Don’t be outrageous, Leandro.’
‘You make me outrageous.’ He shot her a look that was bone-meltingly sincere, and Abigail shivered and wondered whether he knew just how achingly addictive he could be without even realising it.
Soon he was gunning along the lanes, dusk falling steadily around them. With no traffic to speak of, they would have been back in London in less than two hours, so she was surprised when he swung the snazzy silver sports car into the courtyard of a country pub that was as picture-postcard perfect as the cottage had been.
‘I said I couldn’t wait,’ he growled.
Not even stopping to enjoy a glass of wine, they headed for the room he had rented for the sake of an hour and made love, wild, passionate love, that left her weak and clinging to him and crazily, stupidly happy.
‘That was such a decadent use of money,’ she giggled as they headed back down to London. ‘And what must that poor hotel manager be thinking?’
‘That he got a good deal,’ Leandro remarked wryly. ‘He rented us his most expensive suite and we were there for under an hour. He’s laughing all the way to the bank. Tomorrow I’m going to seal the deal with the house.’ He reached out and covered her hand with his. ‘Will you leave the job, Abby?’
Was that why he had made that very unusual detour? she wondered with unexpected cynicism. He knew that she was putty in his hands when the
y made love. But, no, she couldn’t credit him with that amount of deviousness, even though he was a man who was accustomed to getting what he wanted at whatever the cost.
‘I guess I will,’ she said at last, knowing that she truly did want to spend her time with Sam, even if it meant giving Leandro his way. ‘But I shall miss working there. Vanessa has been very good to me and I owe her a huge debt of gratitude.’
‘So do I,’ Leandro said gravely and she looked at him in surprise.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ he glanced at her briefly, ‘It’s bad enough thinking of you broke and down on your luck while you were pregnant, but it’s worse when I think of what might have happened if you hadn’t had that lifeline extended to you.’
* * *
Sam was asleep by the time they returned to Leandro’s apartment at a little after seven-thirty. The nanny—a lovely young woman who absolutely adored the baby—spent a few minutes telling them what escapades he had got up to in their absence, and as soon as she had gone they both went into the room which had been turned into his nursery and gazed down at their son.
Typically, no expense had been spared in the decoration of the room. The walls were a pale blue with a hand-painted scene from a popular children’s movie on one of the walls. In the corner of the room, a tepee had been erected with a sheepskin rug in which he could cocoon himself. Next to the tepee was a giant stuffed toy—a surprise present from Leandro, bought a couple of weeks previously.
Leandro gazed down at Sam and Abigail gazed furtively at Leandro. The only light in the room came from a tiny night light. Her heart clenched, for this was what it looked like to see him shorn of his toughness. His face was softened in the mellow glow. He had never looked at her like that, with open tenderness, and once upon a time she might have thought that he was incapable of that depth of emotion. He wasn’t. She squeezed his arm and he glanced across at her.
She padded down to the kitchen, where food had been prepared for them by the housekeeper who came in daily to make sure that the apartment always resembled something you would see in a fancy interior-design magazine.
For some reason, the thought of leaving London made her feel all shaken up. She had burrowed into a comfort zone here, in this apartment, with one foot still connected to her old life working at the jewellery store and another placed squarely here, surrounded by this unbelievable luxury.
But now everything was changing and that unsettled her. The future seemed shakier than ever and she realised that, without even being aware of it, she had rooted herself into the pretence of thinking that what they had was a real relationship instead of a stitched-together one for the sake of their child. She had subconsciously latched on to the changes she had seen in Leandro—his attentiveness, his consideration, his real efforts at being a dad—and had translated them into something they weren’t.
Not once had he ever expressed any feelings towards her. He knew how to make her feel sexy, and he was eloquent on the subject of her physical attributes and what effect they had on him, but that was where it all ended.
Now, she would be moving out of London, giving up her job, and whatever Leandro said now about being able to handle the commute she knew that it wouldn’t be long before he settled into a pattern of overnighting at the apartment when he had to work late. And how long before he was tempted to relax in his apartment with a woman to massage away the stress of the day?
Of course, he would still see Sam, but it wouldn’t be long before he would suggest having Sam on his own, and by then Sam would be old enough to stay overnight with him.
Abigail knew that she should be taking one day at a time instead of projecting down the road but, as she began dealing with the food that had been prepared, she could feel a thousand possible scenarios zipping in and out of her mind like angry, buzzing wasps.
She surfaced to find Leandro lounging in the doorway, arms folded, his amazing eyes fastened to her face.
‘Spit it out,’ he said without preamble. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing!’
‘Then why are you looking as though you’ve suddenly realised that the sky might start falling down?’
He strolled towards her but before she could scrabble to provide a reason for her sudden, unexpected shift of mood his mobile phone buzzed in his pocket and he held up one hand to silence her.
Standing only inches away from him, Abigail heard a woman’s voice and all the fears which had been playing out in her head congealed into the certainty that this was why Leandro was suddenly so keen to shift her out of London to the house of her dreams.
Not only was he talking to a woman, but he had lowered his voice and was leaving the kitchen.
He was on the phone to a woman and he didn’t want her to overhear the conversation.
Gripped with a sickening sense of apprehension, she remained glued to the spot until he reappeared in under five minutes, shoving the phone back into his pocket as he strode back into the kitchen. He should have been looking as guilty as the worst of sinners but there wasn’t a trace of guilt etched on those devastating features.
Abigail kicked herself for even thinking that she should expect him to feel guilty because he had been talking to a woman on the phone, having an intimate conversation he hadn’t wanted her to overhear. But still...
‘Who was that?’ she was horrified to hear herself ask, in an accusatory voice, and Leandro stilled and looked at her with veiled eyes.
Every instinct in him rallied and railed against the querulous note in her voice. ‘No one that should concern you,’ he offered coolly.
Trembling, because as fast as that he had become a stranger just because she had asked him something he hadn’t wanted to hear, Abigail dug her heels in and stood her ground.
‘You were talking to a woman,’ she flung at him.
‘I do not want to get into this, Abigail.’
‘But you were, weren’t you?’
‘Would you say that that’s a crime?’ Leandro asked tautly. Unaccustomed to having to justify his behaviour, he had reverted to type. Did he want to argue with her? No. ‘You need to calm down and not over-excite yourself about it.’
‘Who was she?’ Abigail demanded. ‘No!’ She held up an imperious hand, shaking like an engine at full throttle. ‘Don’t bother telling me. You don’t have to. You can do exactly as you please. I don’t care!’
‘Don’t you?’ he asked with considerable intent, eyes narrowed on her flushed face.
‘Of course I don’t!’ She spun away to gather herself, took a few deep breaths and then looked at him with a lot more control than she felt. ‘I apologise for having questioned you,’ she offered. ‘We don’t owe one another anything and I realise that.’
‘Even though we’re lovers?’ Leandro questioned and she waved that aside.
‘We both know that that doesn’t mean anything.’ She cleared her throat. ‘You can do as you please.’
‘So you wouldn’t mind if that woman on the phone was someone I intended to sleep with?’
Pain slithered through her as sharp as broken glass. ‘Of course, I would expect you to break off our relationship before you start hopping into bed with someone else.’
‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ Leandro muttered darkly.
Abigail ignored him. In fact, she barely heard what he’d said. She was far too taken up with the images racing through her head, like a cinematic reel on fast-forward.
‘How long will it take before I can move into the cottage with Sam?’ she asked, already settling on that as the only way to break the catastrophic effect he had on her. If he wanted to carry on with some other woman, then she wasn’t going to be around to witness it in the shape of late arrivals back and unavoidable meetings.
It was astounding that he could seem so preoccupied wit
h her, so crazily in lust with her, and still make time to start playing the field. Just thinking about it ripped her to shreds and she could feel tears beginning to glaze the back of her eyes.
‘Well?’ she demanded forcefully and his lips thinned.
‘I will sort out the finances tomorrow and I can have the whole place brought up to scratch in record time. You can be in within the fortnight.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
LEANDRO STARED OUT of his office window, brow pleated in a frown of dissatisfaction.
He couldn’t concentrate and he loathed that. He had cancelled three meetings in the past ten days and had rescheduled his trip to New York for the following month. Right at this moment, his secretary was under strict instructions to hold all outside calls, even though the documents he should be getting through while all those calls were being conveniently held were still sitting in front of him on his computer, waiting to be checked.
Scowling, he vaulted upright and strolled towards the window to gaze down at an unseasonably fine spring afternoon.
Everything was coming along a pace. The cottage had been bought and without a chain, or the thorny problem most people faced of having to get a mortgage, he had been able to rush things along and work had already started on some essential renovations.
He had discussed those renovations with Abigail in the atmosphere of cool politeness that had characterised the time they now spent together.
She’d made a fuss over that phone call and had assumed the worst of him and when he had, quite rightly, put his foot down at launching into a grovelling explanation of a simple phone call, she had resorted to the oldest female trick in the book. The cold shoulder.
And no sex.
God only knew exactly what was going through her head but it didn’t take the IQ of a genius to figure out that whatever outlandish scenario she was conjuring up probably involved him in a compromising position with a woman.
Frustrated beyond measure, he cursed softly under his breath.
The Secret Sanchez Heir Page 11