by Sarah Morgan
Silence closed in on them.
‘If you’re going to cry, you can leave now,’ Leandro drawled softly. ‘If you choose to wait in my bedroom, you deserve to get hurt.’
‘I’m not going to cry over you. And I’m not hurt,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m past being hurt.’
Then she’d done better than him, Leandro reflected grimly. ‘Why are you here?’
‘You know why I’m here. I—I’ve come to take the baby.’
Of course, the baby. He’d been a fool to think anything else, and yet for a moment…
Leandro curled one hand into a fist, surprised to discover that his thick protective layer of cynicism could still be breached.
‘I was asking what you’re doing in my bedroom at midnight.’ Strolling across to the bedroom door, he pushed it shut. He trusted his staff, but he was also sharp enough to know that this story was the juiciest morsel the media had savoured for a long time. They were slavering outside his house, waiting for something to feast on.
And everyone had their price.
He’d learned that unpalatable truth in the harshest way possible, and at an age when most children were still playing with toys.
‘I’m intrigued as to how you got past my security.’
‘I’m still your wife, Leandro. Even if you’ve forgotten that fact.’
‘I haven’t forgotten.’ Keeping his gaze neutral, he looked at her. ‘You really pick your moments. Thanks to you, my night of hot sex just walked through that door.’
Her slender shoulders stiffened, her back rigid. ‘I’m sure you’ll find a replacement fast enough. You always do.’ Her chest rose and fell as she breathed rapidly and then her eyes flew to his, bright with accusation and pain. ‘You are a complete and utter bastard, she’s right about that.’
‘I’ve never heard you use bad language before. It doesn’t suit you.’ Leandro strolled across the bedroom and lifted a bottle of whisky from a small table. Funny, he thought, that his hand was so steady. ‘And I don’t understand why you’re angry. You walked out on our marriage, not me. I was in it for the long haul.’
‘Only you could make it sound like an endurance test. It’s nice to know you had such a positive view of our relationship. No wonder it didn’t last five minutes. You’re even more unfeeling than I thought you were—’ She broke off, as if she was trying to control herself. ‘You’re horribly, horribly insensitive.’
‘I’m living my life. What’s insensitive about that?’ Leandro’s hand remained steady as he poured. ‘There was a vacancy in my bed and I filled it. In the circumstances, you can hardly blame me for that. Drink?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Such perfect English manners.’ Leandro gave a humourless laugh as he lifted the glass. ‘Don’t tell me—alcohol is fattening and you’re watching your weight.’
‘No. I’m watching my tongue. If I drink, I’ll tell you exactly what I think of you and right now that might not be a good idea because what I think of you isn’t very flattering.’
His hand stilled on the glass. ‘Don’t hold back on my account. It’s interesting to know you’re capable of expressing what you’re feeling providing you’re sufficiently provoked. Just for the record, I actually prefer confrontation to retreat.’
She closed her eyes, misery visible in every angle of her pretty face. ‘I hate confrontation. I didn’t come here to argue with you.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t.’ Leandro examined the golden liquid in his glass. ‘You don’t talk about problems, do you, Millie? And you were certainly never interested in fixing the problems in our relationship. It’s so much easier to just walk away when things become awkward.’
‘How dare you say that to me when you’re the one who—?’ She broke off as if she couldn’t even bear to say it, and his mouth tightened.
‘I’m the one who what?’ His silky soft voice was in direct contrast to the passion in hers. ‘Spell it out, Millie. Come on—let’s hear what I’m guilty of.’
‘You know what! And I didn’t come here to talk about that. ‘You’re a—a…’ She appeared to struggle with her breath and he gave her a long look.
‘You really must learn to finish your sentences, agape mou.’ His tone bored, he offered no sympathy. As far as he was concerned, she deserved none. He’d given her a chance. He’d given her something he’d never offered a woman before. And she’d thrown it back in his face. ‘I’m cold and heartless, isn’t that right, Millie? Wasn’t that what you were going to say?’
‘I wish I’d never met you.’
‘Now, that’s just childish.’ Leandro suppressed a yawn and she looked away.
‘Our relationship was a disaster.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. For a short time you were a revelation in bed, and I was reasonably entertained by your gift for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.’
‘It’s called telling the truth.’ She glared at him through lashes spiked with rain. ‘Where I come from, that’s what people do. They tell it like it is and that way there’s no confusion. When someone says, “Lovely to see you,” they mean it. In your world when someone says, “Lovely to see you,” they certainly don’t mean it. They kiss you even though they hate you.’
Leandro added ice to his glass. ‘It’s a standard social greeting.’
‘It’s superficial—everything about your world is!’ She sprang off the bed and walked towards him, her eyes flashing fire. ‘And that included our relationship.’
‘I’m not the one who called time on our marriage.’
‘Yes, you did!’ Angry and hurt, she faced him. ‘You blame me for walking out, but what did you think I’d do, Leandro? Did you think I’d say, “Don’t worry, that’s fine by me”?’ Her voice rose, trembling and thickened by pain. ‘Did you think I’d turn a blind eye? Maybe that’s what women do in your world, but that isn’t the sort of marriage I want. You slept with another woman and not just any woman.’ Her breathing was jagged. ‘My sister. My own sister.’ Her distress was so obvious that Leandro gave a frown.
‘You’re working yourself up into a state.’
‘Please don’t pretend you care about my feelings because you’ve already amply demonstrated that you don’t.’ Holding herself together by a thread, she wrapped her arms around her body and met his gaze.
Brave, he thought absently, part of him intrigued by the sudden strength he saw in her. Yes, she was upset. But she wasn’t caving in, was she? He hadn’t known that she possessed a layer of steel. By the end of their relationship he’d come to the conclusion that she was so lightweight that the only thing preventing her from being blown away was the weight of his money in her handbag.
Leandro’s hand tightened on his glass and then he lifted it to his lips and drained it. Then he placed the glass carefully on the table in front of him.
‘Given the circumstances of your departure, I’m surprised you chose to come back.’
Sinking back onto the side of the bed, the fight seemed to go out of her and she suddenly looked incredibly tired. Tired, wet, beaten. ‘If you thought I wouldn’t then you know even less about me than I thought you did.’
‘I never knew you.’ It had been a fantasy. An illusion. Or maybe a delusion?
‘And whose fault is that? You didn’t want to know me, did you? You weren’t interested in me—just in sex, and when that—’ She broke off and took a breath, clearly searching for the words she wanted. ‘I wasn’t right for you. To start with you liked the fact that I was “different”. I was just an ordinary girl, living in the country, working on her parents’ farm. Unsophisticated. But the novelty wore off, didn’t it, Leandro? You wanted me to fit into your life. Your world. And I didn’t.’
Watching her so closely, he was able to detect the exact moment when anger turned to awareness.
Her eyes slid to his bare, bronzed shoulders and then back to his. It was like putting a match to kerosene. The chemistry that had been simmering exploded to dangerous levels and she turne
d away with a murmur of frustration, although whether it was with herself or him, he wasn’t sure. ‘Don’t you dare, Leandro! Don’t you dare look at me like that—as if everything hasn’t changed between us.’
‘You were looking at me.’
‘Because you’re standing there half-naked!’
‘Does that bother you?’
‘No, it doesn’t.’ She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to warm them. ‘I don’t feel anything for you any more.’
‘Oh, you feel plenty for me, Millie,’ Leandro said grimly, ‘and that’s the problem, isn’t it? You hate the fact that you can feel that way. A woman like you shouldn’t find herself hopelessly attracted to a bad boy like me. It’s not quite decent, is it?’
‘I’m not here because of you.’
‘Of course you’re not.’ His tone caustic, he watched as she flinched away from his words. ‘You wouldn’t have made the journey for something as trivial as the survival of our marriage, would you? That was never important to you.’ Filled with contempt, Leandro lifted the glass, wondering how much whisky it was going to take to dull what he was feeling.
‘Are you drunk?’
‘Unfortunately, no, not yet.’ He eyed the glass. ‘But I’m working on it.’
‘You’re totally irresponsible.’
‘I’m working on that, too.’ He was about to lift the glass to his lips when he noticed that the sole of her boot was starting to come away. Remembering how obsessive she’d been about her appearance, he frowned. ‘You look awful.’
‘Most people would look awful compared with the cream of Hollywood,’ she said tartly. She lifted her hand and he thought she was going to smooth her damp hair, but then she let her hand drop as if she’d decided it wasn’t worth the effort. ‘She’s very beautiful.’
He heard the pain in her voice and gritted his teeth. ‘Jealousy was the one aspect of our relationship at which you consistently excelled.’
‘You’re so unkind.’
Leandro discovered that his fingers had curled themselves into a fist. ‘Unkind?’ His mouth tightened. ‘Yes, I’m unkind.’
‘Do you love her?’
‘Now you’re getting personal.’
‘Of course I’m getting personal! Did my sis—?’ Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. ‘Did…Becca know you were seeing the actress?’
The mention of that name made Leandro want to drain the bottle of whisky, as did the unspoken accusation behind her words. ‘Are you blaming me for the fact that your sister crashed the car while under the influence of drink and drugs?’
‘She drank because you rejected her! She was suffering from depression.’
Thinking about what he knew, Leandro gave a humourless smile. ‘I’ll just bet she was.’
She sprang to her feet and crossed the room with the grace of a dancer. ‘Don’t you dare speak about the dead like that! If anyone was responsible for my sister’s fragile mental state, it’s you. You broke her heart.’
And Leandro committed the unpardonable sin. He laughed. And that grim humour cost him.
She slapped him.
Then she put her hand against her throat and stepped backwards, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d done. Her skin was so pale she reminded him of something conjured from a child’s fairy story.
‘I should probably apologise but I’m not going to,’ she whispered, her fingers pressed against her slender neck. ‘Do you know the most hurtful part of all this? You don’t even care. You destroyed our marriage for sex. It didn’t even mean anything. If you’d loved her maybe, just maybe, I would have been able to understand all this, but for you it was just physical.’
‘As a matter of interest, did you say any of this to her?’
‘Yes. Actually, I did. I went to see her just after she was admitted to that clinic in Arizona. I…’ She rubbed her fingers across her forehead. ‘I needed to try and understand. She confessed that she was so madly in love with you that she wasn’t thinking clearly.’
‘She knew exactly what she was doing,’ Leandro said flatly. ‘The only person your sister ever loved was herself. That was probably the only thing we ever had in common.’
‘That’s a very cynical attitude.’
‘I’m a cynical guy.’
‘So you wrecked our marriage for a woman you don’t even care about.’
‘I didn’t wreck our marriage, agape mou,’ Leandro spoke softly, his eyes fixing on her white face, as he hammered home his barb. ‘You did that. All by yourself.’
If he’d hit her, she couldn’t have looked more shocked. ‘How can you say that? What did you expect? I’m not the sort of woman who can turn a blind eye while her husband has an affair. Especially when the woman involved was his wife’s sister. You made her pregnant, Leandro! How was I supposed to overlook that?’ Visibly distressed, she turned away. ‘What I don’t understand is why, if you wanted my sister, did you bother with me at all?’
Leandro let that question hover in the air. ‘And does the fact that you don’t understand help you draw any conclusions?’
His question drew a confused frown and he realised that she was too upset to focus on the facts.
She’d seen. She’d believed. She hadn’t questioned. Hadn’t cared enough to question and the knowledge that she hadn’t cared left the bitter taste of failure in his mouth.
In a life gilded by success, she’d been his only failure.
Leandro flexed his shoulders to relieve the tension and the movement caught her attention, her eyes drifting to the swell of hard muscle. Her gaze was feather light and yet he felt the responding sizzle of sexual heat and almost laughed at his own weakness.
It seemed his body was nowhere near as choosy as his mind.
Millie stared at him for a long moment and then sank her teeth into her lower lip. ‘Leandro, do me a favour.’ Her voice was strained. ‘Put your shirt on. We can’t have a proper conversation with you standing there half-naked.’
‘This may surprise you, but I’ve been known to conduct a conversation even when naked.’ His sardonic tone masked his own anger and brought a flush to her cheeks.
‘I’m sure. But if it’s all the same with you, I’d like you to get dressed.’
‘Why? Is the sight of my body bothering you, Millie?’ His tone silky smooth, Leandro strolled across the bedroom and retrieved his shirt from the floor. ‘Are you finding it hard to concentrate?’ He shrugged the shirt back on, discovered that there were no buttons and spread his arms in an exaggerated gesture of apology. ‘She was a bit over-eager, I’m afraid. This is the best I can do.’
‘It’s fine.’ She averted her eyes, but not before both of them had shared a memory they would rather have forgotten. ‘The media have been running the story for days now, and it’s awful. Somehow they know about you and my sister, and they know the baby’s been brought here.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘Where…?’
‘Asleep on the next floor.’ His voice terse, Leandro strolled over to the window that overlooked the garden. ‘Someone from the clinic brought the baby to me. Your sister left him alone and uncared for while she went for her little drive. He was found crying and neglected.’ The anger in him was like a roaring beast and he was shocked by the strength required to hold it back. Control was a skill he’d mastered at an impossibly young age, but when he thought of the baby his thoughts raced into the dark. ‘Evidently she didn’t have a maternal bone in her body.’ Another woman, another place.
‘She was sick.’
‘Well, that’s one thing we agree on.’ Infested with greed. Aware that the past and the present had become dangerously tangled and the conversation was taking a dangerous turn, Leandro changed direction. ‘Why do you think they brought the baby here, Millie?’
‘The clinic said she left a note saying that you were the father. She wanted the baby to be with family.’
He made an impatient sound, marvelling at her naivety. ‘Or perhaps she just wanted to make sure there was no chance of
reconciliation between us. Her last, generous gift to you.’ His carefully planted seed of suggestion landed on barren ground.
‘There never was any chance of reconciliation.’ She didn’t look at him. ‘Where’s the baby? I should be going.’
Leandro stilled. ‘Where, exactly, are you planning to go?’
‘It’s already past midnight. I’ve booked into a small bed and breakfast near here.’
‘A bed and breakfast?’ Leandro looked at her with a mixture of disbelief and fascination, realising just how little he knew about this woman. ‘Are you suggesting what I think you are?’
‘I’m taking the baby, of course. What did you think?’
‘So you’re planning to take in your sister’s baby and care for it—this is the same baby that is supposedly the result of an affair between your own sister and your husband. Whether you think your sister was lying or telling the truth—’
‘Telling the truth.’
Leandro’s jaw tightened. ‘Whichever. Your sister wrecked your marriage. She hurt you. And you’re willing to take her baby? What are you, a doormat?’
Her narrow shoulders were rigid. ‘No, I’m responsible. And principled. Qualities that you probably don’t recognise. Am I angry with my sister? Yes, I’m angry. And that feels really horrible because even while I’m grieving I’m hurt that she could have done that to me.’ Her voice shook. ‘She behaved terribly. Some people wouldn’t forgive that. If I’m honest I’m not sure that I’ll ever forgive that. She betrayed my trust. But at least she was in love with you. And I think at the end she was truly sorry.’
Leandro raised an eyebrow but she ploughed on.
‘It was the guilt that pushed her into depression. And whatever had happened, I would never have wanted her to…’ Her voice trembled. ‘We were sisters. And as for the baby—well, I don’t believe that a child should be held responsible for the sins of his parents. My sister is dead. You can’t bring up a baby, so I will have him. He will have a loving home with me as long as he needs one.’
‘So you’re proposing to love and care for your husband’s bastard, is that right?’
‘Don’t ever call him that.’ Her eyes blazed. ‘And, yes, I’m intending to care for him. He’s three months old. He’s helpless.’