Secrets of a Ruthless Tycoon

by Cathy Williams

  Brianna dawdled behind him as he strode towards the front door and stooped to recover a key which had been placed underneath one of the flower pots at the side of the front step. What the hell was going on? She took a deep breath and realised that, although they were only a matter of forty-five minutes out of West London, the air smelled different. Cleaner.

  ‘This isn’t just any house.’ He turned to look at her and was pleased at the expression on her face, which was one of rapt appreciation. ‘Bar the technicalities, I’ve bought this house.’

  ‘You’ve bought this house?’

  ‘Come in and tell me what you think.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Shh...’ He placed a finger gently over her parted lips and the feel of his warm skin against hers made her tremble. ‘You can ask all the questions you want after you’ve had a look around.’

  Despite the fact that he had only looked around the place once, Leo had no hesitation on acting as tour guide for the house, particularly pointing out all the quaint features he was certain she would find delightful. There was a real fire in both the sitting room and the snug, an Aga in the kitchen, bottle-green bedrooms that overlooked an orchard, which he hadn’t actually noticed on first viewing, but which he now felt qualified to show her with some pride. He watched as she dawdled in the rooms, staring out of the windows, touching the curtains and trailing her finger along the polished oak banister as they returned downstairs, ending up in the kitchen, which had a splendid view of the extensive back gardens.

  The owners had clearly been as bowled over by his over-the-top, generous offer as he had anticipated. There was a bottle of champagne on the central island and two champagne glasses.

  ‘Well? What do you think?’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Brianna murmured. ‘I’d never have thought that you could find somewhere like this so close to London. Is it going to be a second home for you?’

  ‘It’s going to be a first home for us.’

  Brianna felt as though the breath had temporarily been knocked out of her. Elation zipped through her at the thought of this—a house, the perfect house, shared with the man she loved and their child. In the space of a few seconds, she projected into the future where she saw their son or daughter enjoying the open space, running through the garden with a dog trailing behind, while she watched from the kitchen window with Leo right there behind her, sitting by the big pine table, chatting about his day.

  The illusion disappeared almost as fast as it had surfaced because that was never going to be reality. The reality would be her, stuck out here on her own, while Leo carried on working all hours in the city, eventually bored by the woman he was stuck with. He would do his duty for his child but the image of cosy domesticity was an illusion and she had to face that.

  ‘It’s not going to work,’ she said abruptly, turning away and blinking back stupid tears. ‘Nothing’s changed, Leo, and you can’t bribe me into marrying you with a nice house and a nice garden.’

  For a few seconds, Leo wasn’t sure that he had heard her correctly. He had been so confident of winning her over with the house that he was lost for words as what she had said gradually sank in.

  ‘I didn’t realise that I was trying to bribe you,’ he muttered in a driven undertone. He raked his fingers through his hair and grappled with an inability to get his thoughts in order. ‘You liked the house; you said so.’

  ‘I do, but a house isn’t enough, just like sex isn’t enough. That glue would never keep us together.’ The words felt as though they had been ripped out of her and she had to turn away because she just couldn’t bear to see his face.

  ‘Right.’ And still he couldn’t quite get it through his head that she had turned him down, that any notion of marriage was over. He hesitated and stared at the stubborn angle of her profile then he strode towards the door. He was filled with a surge of restlessness, a keen desire to be outside, as if the open air might clear his head and point him towards a suitably logical way forward.

  It was a mild evening and he circled the house, barely taking in the glorious scenery he had earlier made a great show of pointing out to her.

  Inside, Brianna heard the slam of the front door and spun around, shaking like a leaf. The void he had left behind felt like a physical, tangible weight in the room, filling it up until she thought she would suffocate.

  Where had he gone? Surely he wouldn’t just drive off and leave her alone here in the middle of nowhere? She contemplated the awkward drive back into London and wondered whether it wouldn’t be better to be stuck out here. But, when she dashed out of the front door, it was to find his car parked exactly where it had been when they had first arrived. And he was nowhere to be seen.

  He was a grown man, fully capable of taking care of himself, and yet as she dashed down the drive to the main road and peered up and down, failing to spot him, she couldn’t stop a surge of panic rising inside her.

  What if he had been run over by a car? It was very quiet here, she sternly told herself; what called itself the main road was hardly a thoroughfare. In fact, no more than a tractor or two and the occasional passing car, so there was no need to get into a flap. But, like a runaway train, she saw in her mind’s eyes his crumpled body lying at the kerbside, and she felt giddy and nauseous at the thought of it.

  She circled the house at a trot, circled it again and then...she saw him sitting on the ground under one of the trees, his back towards the house. Sitting on the muddy ground in his hand-tailored Italian suit.

  ‘What are you doing?’ She approached him cautiously because for the life of her she had never seen him like this—silent, his head lowered, his body language so redolent of vulnerability that she felt her breath catch painfully in her throat.

  He looked up at her and her mouth went dry. ‘You have no intention of ever forgiving me for the lie I told you, have you?’ he asked so quietly that she had to bend a little to hear what he was saying. ‘Even though you know that I had no intention of engineering a lie when I first arrived. Even though you know, or you should know, that what appeared harmless to me at the time was simply a means towards an end. I was thinking on my feet. I never expected to end up painting myself into the box of pathological liar.’

  ‘I know you’re not that,’ Brianna said tentatively. She settled on the ground next to him. ‘Your suit’s going to be ruined.’

  ‘So will your jeans.’

  ‘My jeans cost considerably less than your suit.’ She ventured a small smile and met with nothing in response, just those dark, dark eyes boring into her. More than anything else she wanted to bridge the small gap between them and reach for his hand, hold it in hers, but she knew that that was just love, her love for him, and it wouldn’t change anything. She had to stand firm, however tough it was. She had to project ahead and not listen to the little voice in her head telling her that his gesture, his magnificent gesture of buying this perfect house for her, was a sign of something more significant.

  ‘You were right,’ he admitted in the same sort of careful voice that was so disconcerting.

  ‘Right about what?’

  ‘I was trying to bribe you with this house. The garden. Anything that would induce you to give us a chance. But nothing will ever be enough for you to do that because you can’t forgive me for my deception, even though it was a deception that was never intended to hurt you.’

  ‘I felt like I didn’t know who you were, Leo,’ Brianna said quietly. ‘One minute you were the man helping out at the pub, mucking in, presumably writing your book when you were closeted away in the corner of the bar...and then the next minute you’re some high-flying millionaire with a penthouse apartment and a bunch of companies, and the book you were writing was never a book at all. It was just loads of work and emails so that you could keep your businesses ticking over while you stayed at the pub and used me to get information about Bridget.’

  ‘God, Brianna it wasn’t like that...’ But she had spelt out the basic facts and strung them
together in a way that made sense, yet made no sense whatsoever. He felt like a man with one foot off the edge of a precipice he hadn’t even known existed. All his years of control, of always being able to manage whatever situation was thrown at him, evaporated, replaced by a confusing surge of emotions that rushed through him like a tsunami.

  He pressed his thumbs against his eyes and fought off the craven urge to cry. Hell, he hadn’t cried since his father had died!

  ‘But it was,’ she said gently. ‘And even if I did forgive you...’ and she had ‘...the ingredients for a good marriage just aren’t there.’

  ‘For you, maybe’ He raised his head to stare solemnly at her. ‘But for me, the ingredients are all there.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  HE LOOKED AT her solemnly and then looked away, not because he couldn’t hold her stare, but because he was afraid of what he might see there, a decision made, a mind closed off to what he had to say.

  ‘When I came to search out my mother, I had already presumed to know what sort of person she was: irresponsible, a lowlife, someone without any kind of moral code... In retrospect, it was a facile assumption, but still it was the assumption I had already made.’

  ‘Then why on earth did you bother coming?’

  ‘Curiosity,’ Leo said heavily. Rarely given to long explanations for his behaviour, he knew that he had to take his time now and, funnily enough, talking to her was easy. But then, he had talked to her, really talked to her, a lot more than he had ever talked to any other woman in his life before. That should have been a clue to the direction his heart was taking, but it had been a clue he had failed to pick up on.

  Now he had a painful, desperate feeling that everything he should have said had been left too late. In his whole life, he had never taken his eye off the ball, had never missed connections. He had got where he had not simply because he was incredibly smart and incredibly proactive but because he could read situations with the same ease with which he could read people. He always knew when to strike and when to hold back.

  That talent seemed to have deserted him now. He felt that if he said one wrong word she would take flight, and then where would he be?

  ‘I had a wonderful upbringing, exemplary, but there was always something at the back of my mind, something that needed to fill in the missing blanks.’

  ‘I can get that.’

  ‘I always assumed that...’ He inhaled deeply and then sat back with his eyes closed. This was definitely not the best spot to be having this conversation but somehow it felt right, being outside with her. She was such an incredibly outdoors person.

  ‘That?’

  ‘That there must be something in me that ruled my emotions. My adoptive parents were very much in love. I had the best example anyone could have had of two people who actually made the institution of marriage work for them. And yet, commitment was something I had always instinctively rejected. At the back of my mind, I wondered whether this had something to do with the fact that I was adopted; maybe being given away as a baby had left a lasting legacy of impermanence, or maybe it was just some rogue gene that had found its way into my bloodstream; some crazy connection to the woman who gave birth to me, something that couldn’t be eradicated.’

  Brianna let the conversation wander. She wanted to reassure him that no such rogue gene existed in anyone, that whatever reasons he might have had in the past for not committing it was entirely within his power to alter that.

  Except, she didn’t want him to leap to the conclusion that any altering should be done on her behalf. She was still clinging to a thread of common sense that was telling her not to drop all her defences because he seemed so vulnerable. He might be one-hundred per cent sincere in wanting her to marry him, but without the right emotions she would have to stick fast to her decision. But it was difficult when her heart wanted to reach out to him and just assure him that she would do whatever it took to smooth that agonised expression from his face.

  ‘As you know, I’ve been biding my time until I made this trip to find her. I had always promised myself that hunting down my past would be something I would do when my parents were no longer around.’

  ‘I’m surprised you could have held out so long,’ Brianna murmured. ‘I would have wanted to find out straight away.’

  ‘But then that’s only one big difference between us, isn’t it?’ He gave her a half-smile that made her toes curl and threatened to permanently dislodge that fragile thread of common sense to which she was clinging for dear life. ‘And I didn’t appreciate just how good those differences between us were.’

  ‘Really?’ Brianna asked breathlessly. The fragile thread of common sense took a serious knocking at that remark.

  ‘Really.’ Another of those smiles did all sorts of things to her nervous system. ‘I think it was what drew me to you in the first place. I saw you, Brianna, and I did a double take. It never occurred to me that I would find myself entering a situation over which I had no control. Yes, I lied about who I was, but there was no intention to hurt you. I would never have done that...would never do that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t?’

  ‘Never,’ he said with urgent sincerity. ‘I was just passing through then we slept together and I ended up staying on.’

  ‘To find out as much as you could about Bridget.’

  ‘To be with you.’

  Hope fluttered into life and Brianna found that she was holding her breath.

  ‘I didn’t even realise that I was sinking deeper and deeper. I was so accustomed to not committing when it came to relationships that I didn’t recognise the signs. I told myself that I was just having time out, that you were a novelty I was temporarily enjoying but that, yes, I’d still be moving on.’

  ‘And then you met her.’

  ‘I met her and all my easy black-and-white notions flew through the window. This wasn’t the lowlife who had jettisoned a baby without any conscience. This was a living, breathing human being with complexities I had never banked on, who overturned all the boxes I had been prepared to stick her in. I wanted to get to know her more. At the back of my mind—no, scratch that, at the forefront of my mind—I knew that I had dug a hole for myself with that innocuous lie I had told in the very beginning—and you know something? I couldn’t have chosen a more inappropriate occupation for myself. Reading fiction is not my thing, never mind writing it. I didn’t like myself for what I was doing, but I squashed that guilty, sickening feeling. It wasn’t easy.’

  ‘And then Bridget had that fall and...’

  ‘And my cover was blown. It’s strange, but most women would have been delighted to have discovered that the guy they thought was broke actually was a billionaire; they would happily have overlooked the “starving writer” facade and climbed aboard the “rich businessman” bandwagon. I’m sorry I lied to you, and I’m sorry I wasn’t smart enough to come clean when I had the chance. I guess I knew that, if there was one woman on the planet who would rather the struggling writer than the rich businessman, it was you...’

  Brianna shrugged.

  ‘And, God, I’m sorry that I continued to stick to my facade long after it had become redundant... I seem to be apologising a heck of a lot.’ His beautiful mouth curved into a rueful, self-deprecatory smile.

  ‘And you don’t do apologies.’

  ‘Bingo.’

  ‘What do you mean about sticking to your facade after it had become redundant?’

  ‘I mean you laid into me like an avenging angel when you found out the truth about my identity and what did I do? I decided that nothing was going to change; that you might be upset, and we might have had a good thing going, but it didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t going to get wrapped up in justifying myself. Old habits die hard.’

  He sighed and said, half to himself, ‘When you walked out of my life, I let you go and it was the biggest mistake I ever made but pride wouldn’t allow me to change my mind.’

  ‘Biggest mistake?’ Brianna said encouragingly.


  ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ He slanted a glance at her that held lingering amusement.

  ‘Err...’

  ‘I can’t say I blame you. We should go inside.’

  ‘We can’t sit on anything, Leo. We’re both filthy. I don’t think the owners would like it if we destroyed their lovely furniture with our muddy clothes.’

  ‘My car, then. I assure you that that particular owner won’t mind if the seats get dirty.’ He stood up, flexed his muscles and then held out his hand for her to take.

  She took it and felt that powerful current pass between them, fast, strong and invisible, uniting them. He pulled her up as though she weighed nothing and together they walked towards his car, making sure that the house was firmly locked before they left and the key returned to its original hiding place.

  ‘No one living in London would ever dare to be so trusting,’ he said, still holding her hand. She hadn’t pulled away and he was weak enough to read that as a good sign.

  ‘And no one where I live would ever be suspicious.’

  He wanted to tell her that that was good, that if she chose to marry him, to share her life with him, she would be living somewhere safe, a place where neighbours trusted one another. If he could have disassociated himself from his extravagantly expensive penthouse apartment, he would have.

  She insisted that they put something on the seats and he obliged by fetching a rug from the trunk, one of the many things which Harry had insisted would come in handy some day but for which he had never before had any use. Then he opened the back door of the car so that he wasn’t annoyed by a gear box separating them.

  Brianna stepped in and said something frivolous about back seats of cars, which she instantly regretted, because didn’t everyone know what the back seats of cars were used for?

  ‘But you liked the house; you said so.’ Had he mentioned that before? Was he dredging up an old, tired argument which she had already rejected? ‘It’s more than just the house, Brianna, and it’s more than just marriage because it makes sense. It’s even bigger than my past, bigger than me wanting to do right by this child because of what happened to me when I was a baby.’ He rested back and sought out her hand without looking at her.