‘And yet you never once mentioned Rosie to them.’
‘I thought about it a couple of times... Many times, actually.’ He fingered the base of his glass again. ‘But in the end it was easier keeping that part of my life separate. Except, of course, when my father came to town.’
‘You were worried he would blurt something in his drunken state?’ Miranda said.
He gave her a world-weary look. ‘Anyone being drunk is not a pretty sight but my father took it to a whole new level. He always liked a drink but I don’t ever remember seeing him flat-out drunk as a child. Losing Rosie tipped him over. He numbed himself with alcohol in order to cope.’
‘Did he ever try and get help for his drinking?’
‘I offered to pay for rehab numerous times but he wouldn’t hear of it,’ Leandro said. ‘He said he didn’t have a problem. He was able to control it. Mostly he did. But not when he was with me, especially in latter years.’
Miranda’s heart clenched. How painful it must have been for him to witness the devastation of his father’s life while being cognisant that he was deemed responsible for it. It was too cruel. Too sad. Too unbearable to think of someone as decent, sensitive and wonderful as Leandro being tortured so. ‘It must have been awful to watch him slide into such self-destruction and not be able to do anything to help,’ she said. ‘But you mustn’t blame yourself, Leandro. Not now. Not after all this time. Your father made choices. He could’ve got help at any point. You did what you could. You can’t force someone to get help. They have to be willing to accept there’s a problem in the first place.’
He looked back at the glass of untouched wine in front of him, his brows drawn together in a tightly knitted frown. Miranda put her hand out and covered his where it was resting on the snowy-white tablecloth. He looked up and met her gaze with the dark intensity of his. ‘You’re a nice kid, Miranda,’ he said in a gruff burr that made the base of her spine shiver.
A nice kid.
Didn’t he see her as anything other than the kid sister of his best mates? And why did it bother her if he didn’t see she was a fully grown woman? It shouldn’t bother her at all. She wasn’t going to break her promise to Mark. She couldn’t. For the last seven years she had stayed true to her commitment. She took pride in being so steadfast, so strong and so loyal, especially in this day and age when people slept with virtual strangers.
Her words were the last words Mark had heard before he’d left this world. How could she retract them?
A promise was a promise.
Miranda lowered her gaze and pulled back her hand but even when it was back in her lap she could feel the warmth of Leandro’s skin against her palm.
The rest of the meal continued with the conversation on much lighter ground. He asked her about her work at the gallery and, an hour and two courses later, she realised he had cleverly drawn her out without revealing anything of his own work and the stresses and demands it placed on him.
‘Enough about me,’ she said, pushing her wine glass away. ‘Tell me about your work. What made you go into forensic accounting?’
‘I was always good at maths,’ he said. ‘But straight accounting wasn’t enough for me. I was drawn to the challenge of uncovering complicated financial systems. It’s a bit like breaking a code. I find it satisfying.’
‘And clearly financially rewarding,’ Miranda said.
He gave a slight movement of his lips that might have been considered a smile. ‘I do okay.’
He was being overly modest, Miranda thought. He didn’t brandish his wealth as some people did. There were no private jets, Italian sports cars and luxurious holidays all over the globe; he had invested his money wisely in property and shares and gave a considerable amount to charity. Not that he made that public. She had only heard about it via her brother Julius, who was also known for his philanthropy.
Just as they were leaving the restaurant, once Leandro had paid the bill, a party of people came towards them from down the lane. Miranda wouldn’t have taken much notice except a woman of about thirty or so peeled away from the group to approach Leandro.
‘Leandro?’ she said. ‘Fancy running into you here! I haven’t heard from you for a while. I’ve come over for a wedding of a friend. Are you here on business?’
‘How are you?’
Leandro gave the young woman a kiss on both cheeks. ‘Fine. You?’
The woman eyed Miranda. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ she asked Leandro with a glinting look.
‘Miranda, this is Nicole Holmes,’ he said. ‘We worked for the same accounting firm before I left to go out on my own. Nicole, this is Miranda Ravensdale.’
Nicole’s perfectly shaped brows lifted. ‘As in the infamous Ravensdales?’ she said.
Miranda gave a tight smile. ‘Pleased to meet you, Nicole.’
Nicole’s gaze travelled over Miranda in an assessing, sizing-up manner common to some women when they encountered someone they presumed was competition. ‘I’ve been reading all about your father’s secret love-child in the papers and gossip mags,’ she said. ‘Have you met your new sister yet?’
Miranda felt the muscles in her spine tighten like concrete. ‘Not yet.’
Nicole glanced at Leandro. ‘So are you two...?’ She left the sentence hanging suggestively.
‘No,’ Leandro said. ‘We’re old friends.’
Miranda knew it was silly of her to be feeling piqued that he hadn’t made their relationship sound a little more exciting. But the woman was clearly an old flame of his, by the way she kept giving him the eye. Why couldn’t he have pretended they were seeing each other? Or was he hoping for a little for-old-times’-sake tryst with Nicole? The thought of Leandro bringing someone like Nicole back to the villa made Miranda’s stomach churn. Nothing against Nicole, but surely he could do better than that? Nicole seemed...hard—too streetwise to be sensitive. But maybe that was all he wanted, Miranda thought. Sex without sensitivity. Without strings. Without attachment.
‘So what are you doing in Nice?’ Nicole said.
‘I’m seeing to some family business,’ Leandro said.
Nicole’s green eyes met Miranda’s. ‘And you’re helping him?’
‘Erm...yes,’ Miranda said.
Nicole turned her cat’s gaze back on to Leandro. ‘How about we meet for a drink while you’re here?’ she said. ‘I’m here another couple of days. Name the time and the place. I’m pretty flexible.’
I just bet you are, Miranda thought with a savage twist of jealousy deep in her gut.
‘I’ll give you a call tomorrow,’ Leandro said. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘At Le Negresco.’ Nicole lifted her hand in a girlish fingertip wave as she backed away to join her friends who were waiting for her at the end of the lane. ‘I’ll be seeing you.’
Miranda waited until Nicole and her cronies had disappeared before she turned to Leandro with a look of undiluted disgust. ‘Really?’ she said.
He looked down at her with his customary frown. ‘What’s wrong?’
She blew out a breath. ‘I swear to God I will never understand men. What do you see in her? No, don’t answer that. I saw the size of her breasts. Are they real? And is she really blonde or did it come out of a bottle?’
Leandro’s frown softened. ‘You’re jealous.’
Miranda cast him a haughty glare. ‘Jealous? Seriously? Is that what you think?’
‘She’s just someone I hang out with occasionally.’
‘Oh, I understand,’ she said with icy disdain. ‘A friend with benefits.’
‘You disapprove?’
Miranda didn’t want to sound like a Sunday school teacher from the last century but the thought of him hooking up with Nicole made her insides twist into painful knots. ‘It’s none of my business what you do. I’d just appreciate it if you’d spare me the indignity of having to hear your seduction routine while I’m under the same roof.’
His expression didn’t change. He could have been s
itting at a poker tournament but she still got the feeling he was amused by her reaction. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I never bring women like Nicole home. That’s what hotels are for.’
Miranda swung away. ‘I don’t want to hear about it.’
He walked alongside her. ‘Do you lecture Jake like this?’ he said after they had gone a few paces.
‘No, because Jake isn’t like you,’ she said. ‘You’re different. You have class—or so I thought.’
‘I’m sorry for being such a bitter disappointment.’
Miranda flashed him a glare. ‘Will you stop it?’
His look was guileless. ‘Stop what?’
‘You’re laughing at me. I know you are.’
He reached out and gently tucked an escaping tendril of her hair back behind her ear. ‘It’s just sex, ma petite. No one is hurting anyone.’
Miranda’s breath caught in her throat. His fingers had left the skin at the back of her ear tingling. Was he as tender with a casual lover? Did he touch that woman Nicole as if she were a precious piece of porcelain? Or was it wham, bam, thank you, mam? ‘How long have you been—’ she put her fingers up in air quotes ‘—seeing her?’
‘A year or two.’
A year or two? Did that mean he was serious about her? Miranda had always got the impression he was a casual dater. But if he’d been seeing Nicole for that long surely it must mean he was serious about her? Was he in love with her? He hadn’t looked like a man in love. He had kissed Nicole in a perfunctory way, and on the cheeks, not on the lips. He hadn’t even hugged her. ‘That seems a long time to be seeing someone,’ she said. ‘Does that mean you’re thinking of—?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not that sort of relationship.’
‘What if she falls in love with you?’ Miranda said. ‘What then?’
‘Nicole knows the rules.’
‘How often do you see her?’ Miranda didn’t really want to know. ‘Weekly? Monthly?’
‘When it’s convenient.’
She could feel her lip curling and her insides tightening as if an invisible hand was gripping her intestines. ‘So, how often is it convenient? Once a week? Twice a month? Every couple of months?’
‘I don’t keep a tally, if that’s what you’re asking,’ he said. ‘It’s not an exclusive relationship.’
Miranda couldn’t believe he was living his life in such a shallow manner. He was worth far more than a quick phone call to hook up. Didn’t he realise how much he was short-changing himself? Didn’t he want more for his life? More emotional intimacy? A deeper connection other than the physical? A casual fling every now and again might have been fine while he was young, but what about as he got older? He was thirty-three years old. Did he really want to spend the rest of his life alone? What about the women he dated? Didn’t they want more? How could they not want more when he embodied everything most women wanted?
‘Don’t you have any idea of how attractive you are to women?’ Miranda said.
His dark eyes were unreadable. ‘Am I attractive to you?’
She took a hitching breath, not quite able to hold his gaze. ‘I—I don’t think of you that way. You’re like...like a brother to me.’
He brought her chin up so she had to meet his gaze. ‘I’m not feeling like a brother right now. And I have a feeling you’re not feeling anything like a sister.’
Miranda swallowed. Was she that transparent? Could he see how much of a struggle it was to keep her gaze away from the temptation of his mouth? Could he sense how hard it was keeping her commitment to Mark secure when he looked at her like that? With that smouldering gaze burning through every layer of her resolve like a blowtorch on glacial ice? She sent her tongue out to moisten her sandstone-dry lips and saw his gaze hone in on its passage, as if pulled by a magnet.
She watched spellbound as his mouth lowered towards hers as if in slow motion. There was plenty of time for her to draw back, plenty of time to put some distance between them, but somehow she couldn’t get the message through to her addled brain.
She gave a breathless, almost soundless sigh as his lips touched hers. A touch down as soft as fairy feet sent a hot wave of need through her entire body until she felt a shudder go through her from head to toe and back again. She made another helpless noise at the back of her throat as she wound her arms up around his neck, pressing closer, pressing to get more of his firm mouth before it got too far away.
His lips came down harder this time, moving over hers in a possessive manner that made her knees weaken and her spine buckle. His tongue stroked the seam of her mouth, commanding she open to him, and with another little gasp she welcomed him inside. He came in search of her tongue, exploring every corner of her mouth with shockingly intimate, breath-taking expertise. She felt the scrape of his stubble against her chin as he shifted position. Felt the potent stirring of his body against her belly. Felt her own blood racing as desire swept through her like a runaway fire.
Miranda had felt desire as a teenager but it had been nothing like this. That had been a trickle. This was a flood. A tidal wave. A tsunami. This was adult desire. A rampant, clawing need that refused to be assuaged with anything but full possession. She could feel the urgent pleas of her body: the restless ache deep in her core, the tingling of her breasts where they were pressed up hard against his chest.
Kissing in a dark lane wasn’t enough. No way was it enough. She wanted to put her hands on his flesh—his gloriously adult, male healthy flesh—to feel his body moving over hers with passionate intent. To feel him deep inside her where she ached the most.
But suddenly he pulled away from her.
Miranda felt momentarily off-balance without his arms and body to support her. What was she doing, kissing him like some sex-starved desperado? Her whole body was shaking with the rush of pleasure his mouth had evoked—hot sparks of pleasure that reverberated in the lower regions of her body. Pulsing, throbbing sparks of forbidden, traitorous pleasure. How could she have let it happen? Why had she let it happen? But, rather than show how undone she was, she took refuge in defensive pride. ‘Happy now?’ she said. ‘Proved your point?’
He stood a couple of feet away, one of his hands pushing back through the thick pelt of his hair. It should have come as some small compensation to her that he looked as shell-shocked as she felt but somehow it didn’t.
Had he found kissing her distasteful? Unexciting? Not quite up to standard? A host of insecurities flooded through her, leaving a storm of hot colour pooling in her cheeks.
She hadn’t kissed anyone but Mark. He had been her first and her last. Their kisses had been nice. Clumsy at first, but then nice. The sex...well, it had seemed to be okay for Mark, but she had found it hard to get her needs met. They’d both been each other’s first lover so his inexperience and her shyness hadn’t exactly helped.
Then the chemotherapy had made things especially awkward. She hadn’t always cared for the smell of Mark’s breath or the fact that he was ill most of the time. It had made her feel guilty, being so missish. After Mark’s diagnosis she had shied away from sharing her body with him because in her youthful ignorance she had thought she might catch cancer. She had compensated in other ways, pleasuring him manually when he felt up to it. Her guilt over feeling like that had compounded—solidified—her decision to remain loyal to him.
But such inexperience left her stranded when it came to dealing with a man as experienced as Leandro. He was used to women who played the game. Used to hooking up for the sake of convenience before moving on. He wouldn’t want the complication of tangling with a technical virgin. Had he sensed her inexperience? Had she somehow communicated it with her response to his kiss?
Leandro let out a long, slow breath as if recalibrating himself. ‘That was probably not such a great idea on my part.’
Miranda pulled at her lip with her teeth. ‘Was I that bad?’
His brows drew closer together. ‘No, of course not. How could you think that?’
She gave a one-shoulder shrug. ‘I’ve only kissed one person before. I’m out of practice.’
He studied her for a long moment. ‘Do you miss it?’
‘Miss what?’
‘Kissing, touching, sex—being with someone.’
Miranda resumed walking and he fell into step beside her at a polite arm’s length distance. ‘I don’t think about it. I made a promise and as far as I’m concerned that’s the end of it.’
* * *
It wasn’t the end of it, Miranda thought as she got into bed half an hour later with her body still madly craving the touch and heat of his. She put her fingers to her mouth, touching where his warm lips had moved so expertly against hers. Her mouth felt different somehow. Softer, fuller, awakened to needs she had ignored for so long.
Needs she would continue to ignore even if it took every ounce of will power she possessed.
CHAPTER FIVE
LEANDRO SPENT AN hour or two over some accounts and files he’d brought with him but he couldn’t concentrate. He closed the laptop and got to his feet. Miranda had gone to bed hours ago and everything that was male in him had wanted to join her. He shouldn’t have kissed her. He still didn’t know why he had. He had been so determined to keep his distance and then it had just...happened. He had been the one to make the first move. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from leaning down to the lure of her beautiful, soft, inviting mouth. The taste of her, so sweet, warm and giving, had shaken him. Rocked him. Unsettled him.
Miranda had seemed upset at his on-off relationship with Nicole. But that didn’t mean he had the right to kiss her. She was just being protective in a sisterly sort of way.
Sisterly? There was nothing sisterly about the way Miranda had kissed him back. He had felt every tremble in her body as she’d leaned into him. Her gorgeous mouth had given back as good as he had served. The tangled heat of their tongues had made his body respond like a hormone-driven teenager. Since when did he lose control like that? What was he doing even thinking about doing more than kissing her?
Awakening the Ravensdale Heiress (The Ravensdale Scandals) Page 7