Having heard only the bare skeleton of her eavesdropped conversation, Heather was silent at this unexpected fleshing out of the detail.
‘Well?’ Leo prompted, because her silence was unnerving. She was a woman who had opinions on just about everything, up to and including things which were outside the boundaries which he had silently but firmly laid down between them.
Heather looked at this clever, complicated, beautiful man who had stolen her heart without even trying, and she did her best not to be utterly transparent.
‘Was that when she…um…?’
‘Decided that an absentee husband wasn’t good enough? Realised that infidelity was just the thing? Began screwing around?’ Leo gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘No idea. The end result was the same, and thrown into that wonderful hotpot was Daniel. She was determined that I not get close to him. I don’t think she could stand the thought that there reached a point when I just didn’t really give a damn about her any longer. I wanted my son, but as far as I was concerned she could have disappeared off the face of the earth. When I told her that I wanted a divorce, she went crazy, and she went even crazier when I didn’t react.’
Heather had no difficulty in imagining the scenario. Leo, at the height of his indifference, was a formidable sight. She shivered. Was this story just a prelude to telling her why he had asked her to marry him? She could feel herself clinging to the miserable hope that he must care something for her if he was going to all this trouble, divulging details he had probably never shared with anyone else in his life before. She firmly squashed the feeling.
‘You know what happened next, don’t you?’ Leo was finally standing in front of her, a towering presence that sucked the breath out of her. Heather nodded slowly, because ‘what happened next’ had been the very first words she had accidentally overheard. Leo dragged the small, upholstered footstool across so that he could perch on it. A big, brawny, muscular man on a dainty pink footstool—it was a comical sight, but the last thing Heather felt like doing was laughing.
Giving in to feelings of sympathy that were beyond her control, she reached out and rested her hand lightly on his shoulder, although it seemed an inadequate way of expressing her compassion. Which, it struck her, he may or may not even want.
How else could she let him know that she was appalled at the wickedness that had motivated his ex-wife to take Daniel to the furthest reaches of the universe, and not before she had constructed her cleverly woven lie that the child wasn’t Leo’s?
‘She was evil, Leo. I realise you probably don’t want to hear this cliché but the past is over and done with, and today and tomorrow are all that matter.’
‘Sometimes clichés can be very helpful.’ He looked directly at her, and as their eyes tangled she felt her breathing sharpen into staccato bursts; typically, she thought, ambushing the cool demeanour she was so intent on portraying. ‘It’s unforgiveable that I have waited this long to confront my brother, but then that was probably what motivated Sofia to tell me that Alex was Daniel’s father. She knew that it was the one thing I would find impossible to deal with, although I carried on attempting to maintain contact. Three times I made elaborate attempts to visit, and three times Sofia made sure that she went AWOL with Daniel. Then came the pictures of her and Alex, supposedly playing happy families behind my back.’
He released one long sigh, closed his eyes and swept his fingers through his hair. ‘History now. Alex was there all right. He was in Australia, passing through, apparently, on one of his many “let’s see as much of the world as I can” escapades, and he managed to corner her to find out what the hell was going on. At which point she played for the sympathy vote and implied all manner of things.’
‘I’m…I’m really glad that you sorted everything out with your brother, Leo.’ In fact, whilst it had taken time for him to warm to his son, big bridges had been built, and they had a relationship which she suspected would only get stronger and stronger.
She made to pull her hand away but Leo prevented her from doing so, placing his on top, a warm, heavy weight that made her pulses race. In a minute, Heather thought that he might pat her gently on her arm and give her a fond, brotherly peck on the cheek before sending her on her way.
‘But I still think it was pretty inconsiderate of you to stick me in the middle of your argument. I guess when you were still of the mind that he had slept with your ex-wife that was just your way of telling him that he wasn’t about to take what was yours again—but, hey, I was never yours.’
‘That’s not the impression you gave me a few days ago when you told me that you—’
‘I don’t want to talk about that!’ Heather looked away, her cheeks flaming under his searching, narrowed eyes.
‘Why not?’
‘Because…’
‘Because confession, you now realise, is not necessarily good for the soul? Because you’ve finally realised that love is an overrated option that comes with too many unpleasant side-effects? Because you’ve met Alex and realised that the world is full of more suitable candidates?’
‘What does Alex have to do with anything?’
Leo’s mouth tightened. He stood up, his body language speaking volumes for his tension. He wasn’t sure how to manoeuvre the conversation to a place that felt more comfortable. He had just told her things which he would never have repeated to another woman in a million years, but how was she supposed to know that? In her world, people were honest and open and didn’t have secrets that they kept to themselves for years on end, allowing lives to be damaged.
‘I am nothing like my brother.’ Leo shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and scowled darkly at the ground as he paced the floor. ‘Alex has always been the sensitive one.’ It was a description which, over the years, Leo had fine-tuned into an insult. Now, he was beginning to see the positives behind it.
‘Some guys are,’ Heather said softly.
‘And no doubt you find that very endearing.’ He paused to shoot her a frown.
‘Are you jealous…?’
‘I’m not the jealous type,’ Leo grated, but dull colour slashed his high cheekbones. ‘Did he try anything on when he was busy listening to you and providing a handy shoulder to cry on? No, scratch that question. I never asked it.’
‘You are jealous!’ Heather breathed, hardly daring to explore that wonderful concept too hard just in case it shattered under scrutiny.
Leo sat back down, because pacing up and down was making him feel even more like a caged animal, and decided to bite the bullet.
‘I have a problem thinking of you with another man,’ he admitted in a driven undertone.
‘Why?’
‘Why do you think?’
Heather struggled to find a suitable answer to that demanding question, but the drag of her senses to the man now staring down at her was wreaking havoc with her thought processes.
‘Some people, some men, have a dog-in-the-manger attitude towards women,’ she ventured uncertainly. ‘Even if they don’t want a woman, they don’t want anyone else to have her.’
‘That theory doesn’t just apply to men. Anyway, you’re wrong.’
‘Why, then?’
‘I didn’t ask you to marry me because I wanted to assert proprietorial rights over you.’ Leo side-stepped the direct question in favour of taking a more leisurely path to what he needed to say. For once, the preferred direct route with which he was accustomed to dealing with everything and everyone was not working for him.
‘Why, then?’ She was no longer trying to squash that little bud of hope that had taken root and was squirming steadily upwards.
Between them, the silence vibrated. Leo flexed his fingers and looked down at them before raising his eyes to her face.
‘I never thought that I would love a woman. I’d been through hell on earth with Sofia, and as far as I was concerned commitment was for the birds. When you told me that you loved me, I didn’t stop to think. I just assumed that it wasn’t on the cards. O
nly…’ He thought back to the way she had continued to prey on his mind, the way he had thought up excuses for contacting her again, the way he had subconsciously never contemplated a future without seeing her in it somewhere.
Heather was holding her breath.
‘When I saw you there on the sofa, I saw red. I didn’t stop to think, and even when I did I still couldn’t stand the thought of you being in a two-metre distance of Alex. I figured that he was more your type than me.’
‘He’s a sweet guy, but he’s not you, Leo. I didn’t want to fall in love with you but I did, and there’s no way I could ever fall out of love with you, no matter who else comes along.’
‘No one else is going to come along,’ Leo told her, locking his eyes to hers with fierce possession. ‘Will you marry me, Heather? As soon as possible? Tomorrow?’
Heather laughed, light-headed with happiness, and she flung her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. This was one dream she was not going to be letting go of any time soon…
‘As soon as possible’ turned out to be four months. It would have been cruel, she gently told Leo, to deny Katherine the chance of really enjoying the day, not to mention Daniel, and of course Alex, who had decided at long last to put down roots. Literally roots, as he was in the process of opening a garden centre just outside the village with the help of his mother and, naturally, Leo, whose financial acumen would be essential to its success, he had asserted the minute the idea had first been broached.
Their wedding had been a quiet affair and afterwards had come the process of moving. Although thankfully, as far as Heather was concerned, not to London but to a village slightly more accessible for road and rail links and not very far away from Katherine so that Daniel could continue at his school.
Heather hadn’t believed Leo when he had told her that he was a changed man, that his workaholic days were over, but he was true to his word, and only left the country when absolutely necessary. She felt blessed to be on his learning curve with him as he forged deep bonds with his son, finding shared interests in the most unlikely places.
And now…
She looked at the kitchen clock and her heart gave its familiar little lurch as she heard the click of the front door opening. When he walked into the kitchen, bringing with him that wonderful scent that was so peculiarly him, she walked straight up to him and curved into his open arms. Two whole nights away from him because he had had to go to New York to close a deal. Nearly three nights, when you worked out that it was almost ten in the evening.
‘Next time you’re coming with me,’ he growled, smothering her in kisses, feeling as though he was finally coming home where he belonged as her body pressed against his. He tenderly unbuttoned her shirt and sighed with gratification as he saw that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
‘Don’t you want to eat first?’ Heather breathed, blissfully happy when he said that he had other things on his mind to eat that had nothing to do with food. The passing of time had not diminished their craving for one another, and their bodies were so finely tuned to each other’s needs that his light touch against her thigh had her parting her legs, offering every inch of her body for his exploring hands.
‘No panties,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘Just the way I like it…’ He had long ceased to marvel that every time he touched her he felt as aroused as if he were touching her for the first time. Sometimes they could not even make it to the bedroom, and tonight was one of those times.
‘You and Daniel,’ he said with raw honesty, ‘are the lynchpins of my entire life.’
‘And soon you’ll have another…’ The news which she had been hugging to herself for the past day brought a radiant smile to her lips. ‘I’m pregnant.’
A new life beginning, a new journey, and there was no one in the whole world she would rather share both with.
Copyright
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
First published in Great Britain 2009
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Cathy Williams 2009
ISBN: 978 1 408 91289 8
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