‘Naturally.’
‘It seemed as good a time as any to pack up and see the world.’ Her smile was wry. ‘I left before I could change my mind.’
Leonidas nodded thoughtfully. ‘Have you spoken to him since you left?’
‘No. There’s nothing more to say there.’
‘You were friends before you became engaged?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t miss his friendship?’
Hannah thought of Michelle and Angus and her life in Australia and dropped her gaze. ‘I miss a lot of things. It’s hard, having the rug pulled out from under you.’ She lifted her eyes to his, sympathy softening her features as she remembered his own harrowing past. ‘As you would know.’
A warning light glinted in his eyes. Don’t go there.
‘Who was the other woman?’ His voice was gruff.
Hannah’s heart constricted with now familiar pain. ‘That was the really hard part.’
‘Harder than your fiancé cheating on you?’
‘Yeah.’ She angled her face, so Leonidas had a perfect view of her profile, delicate and ethereal.
‘Who was she?’ he repeated, and Hannah sucked in a soft breath.
‘My cousin, Michelle. More like a sister, really. After Mum and Dad died, I went to live with my aunt and uncle, and Michelle.’
He let out a soft whistle. ‘Christós.’
‘Yeah.’ Her laugh was a low rumble. ‘You could say that, and I did—worse, in fact. I was devastated.’
Admitting that felt good. Saying the word aloud, Hannah recognised that she hadn’t spoken to another soul about the affair.
‘I lost everything that afternoon.’
‘What did your aunt and uncle say?’
Hannah lifted her gaze to his, and a ridiculous sense of shame made it difficult to maintain eye contact. Hannah shook her head, that awful afternoon burned into her brain like a cattle brand. ‘Do you mind if we don’t go down this particular memory lane?’
She flicked her gaze back to his face, catching surprise crossing his features. But it was banked down within a moment, and he stepped back, almost as though he hadn’t realised how close they were, how he was touching her.
‘Of course.’ His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Have a seat.’ He gestured towards the table. ‘There is much we have to discuss.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘WHAT WORK WERE you doing in London?’
Hannah sipped her fruit juice, a pang of guilt scrunching her chest when she thought of her boss, Fergus, and how she planned to leave him completely in the lurch.
‘I’m a legal secretary.’
‘Have you done this for long?’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Since I left high school. My aunt and uncle lived in a small town. There weren’t a lot of options for work. I would have loved to go away to university but it just wasn’t practical.’
‘For what reason?’
‘Money, mainly.’
‘I thought universities in Australia were subsidised?’
‘They are,’ she agreed, lifting a piece of fish from the platter. ‘But I’d have had to move to the city, found a place to rent. Even with governmental assistance, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to live out of home, to cover textbooks and rent.’
‘Your parents left you nothing when they died?’
She felt censure in his voice and her back straightened, defensiveness stirring inside her. ‘They left a little. My aunt and uncle took a stipend each year, and what’s left I can’t claim until I’m twenty-five.’
At this, Leonidas was completely still. ‘Your aunt and uncle took money from you?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said quietly. ‘They took money to cover the cost of raising me.’
His face showed pure contempt.
‘You think that was wrong?’
A muscle jerked in his jaw and she felt he was weighing his words, choosing what to say with care. She didn’t know him well and yet she felt for herself how uncharacteristic that care was.
‘I do,’ he said finally. ‘Were they struggling financially?’
Hannah shifted her shoulders and repeated the line she’d frequently been given. ‘An extra person is an extra expense.’
He studied her thoughtfully for several seconds, but he evidently decided not to pursue this line of questioning, and she was glad.
Glad because she didn’t like to talk about it, much less think about it.
As a teenager, she’d been able to ignore her niggling doubts, but as she’d grown older, and met more people, she had come to see more and more at fault with the way her aunt and uncle had treated her. A desire to defend them didn’t change reality, and the reality felt an awful lot as if they simply resented her presence in their lives.
She felt it in her heart, but to confess that to Leonidas was too difficult.
‘What would you have studied?’
She relaxed visibly. ‘That’s easy.’
He waited, his eyes not shifting from her face, so that even when their conversation was smoother to navigate, her pulse was still racing.
He had beautiful eyes, but she doubted many women told him that. There were too many other things about him that required mention. His body, his lips, his clever, clever hands. But his eyes were breathtaking. Dark, rimmed with thick black lashes, and when the full force of their focus was given to one’s face, concentration was almost impossible.
‘Am I to guess?’ he prompted, after several seconds.
Heat flooded her cheeks. ‘I wanted to be a lawyer,’ she said, curling her fingers around the stem of her orange juice–filled champagne flute, feeling its fine crystal. ‘Law degrees take years and cost a bomb. The textbooks alone would have bankrupted my aunt and uncle.’ She said it with a smile, as though it were a joke. ‘Becoming a legal secretary was the next best thing. There was a conveyancing firm in another town, just a half-hour drive away. Angus worked there.’ She cleared her throat, sipping her drink. ‘That’s how we met.’
‘I see.’ If it were possible, his expression darkened even further.
‘I loved working at the firm, and I’m good at what I do.’ Pride touched her voice. ‘So maybe everything worked out for the best.’
‘I can’t say I agree with that,’ he drawled, after several long moments. His eyes roamed her face. ‘However, you no longer have any kind of financial impediment to you undertaking a law degree. You will obviously be based here, on the island, but there are many universities that offer degrees via distance. You could enrol in one to start next semester.’
Hannah’s eyes were huge, and she was struck dumb, for many reasons.
‘This island is beautiful,’ she said thoughtfully, trying to imagine her future. ‘But very remote.’
His expression glittered. ‘Yes. By design.’
She nodded, the loss of his family naturally having made him security conscious. Nonetheless, the idea of being stuck here sat strangely in her chest. She liked a tropical paradise as much as the next person, but not without an easy escape route.
Not necessarily for ever. She shelved her thoughts, though. They’d only just arrived. There was time to find her groove as they adjusted to this new life.
‘I love the idea of studying law as much as ever,’ she said sincerely. ‘But I’m kind of going to have my hands full for the next little while...’
‘A baby is not an excuse to turn your back on your dreams,’ he said simply. ‘You will want for nothing, and help will be available whenever you need it. I will be available,’ he added. ‘This is our daughter, not your burden alone.’
Her heart turned over in her chest and his completely unexpected show of support and confidence had her opening a little of herself up to him.
‘I’m nervous, Leonidas.’ She lifted the fish
to her mouth, chewing on it while she pulled her thoughts into order. ‘The idea of becoming a mum scares me half to death.’
‘Why?’
‘How can it not? I have no idea what to do, or if I’ll be any good at it. I mean, it’s a baby. I’ve never even had a pet.’
His laugh was just a dry, throaty husk of a sound. ‘A baby is not really anything like a pet, so I wouldn’t let that bother you too much.’
‘You know what I mean. I’ve never had the responsibility of keeping something alive, something totally dependent on me.’
She heard the words a second too late, before she could catch them, but as soon as they landed in the atmosphere she wished she could gobble them right back up. ‘I’m sorry.’ She leaned across the table and put a hand on his, sympathy softening her expression while his own features tightened to the point of breaking.
‘Don’t be. I know what you meant.’
She nodded, but the easy air of conversation had dissipated.
‘Being nervous is normal. You just have to trust that you will know what to do when our baby is born.’
‘And you have experience,’ she said, watching him carefully.
‘Yes.’ He nodded, curtly, placing his napkin on his side plate and sipping his wine. Then, he stood, fixing her with a level stare. ‘Marina will show you to your room when you are finished. In the morning, a stylist will arrive to take your clothes order, and then a jeweller will come to offer you some rings to choose from.’
She blinked up at him, his abrupt change of temperament giving her whiplash. He was obviously hesitant to discuss his first wife and son, but jeez!
‘Leonidas...’ Hannah frowned, not sure what she wanted to say, knowing only that she didn’t want him to walk away from her like this. ‘I can’t ignore the fact you had a family before this. I get that you don’t like talking about it, but I can’t tiptoe around it for ever. You had a son, and I’m pregnant with your daughter. Don’t you think it’s natural that we’ll talk about him, from time to time?’
‘No.’ He thrust his hands into his pockets and looked out to sea, the expression on his face so completely heartbroken that something inside Hannah iced over, because it was clear to her, in that moment, how hung up he still was on the family he’d lost.
And why wouldn’t he be? They’d been wrenched from him by a cruel twist of fate, by the acts of a madman. Nothing about this—his situation—was by his choice.
Nor was it Hannah’s, she reminded herself. She knew more than her fair share about cruel twists of fate.
The sky was darkening with every second, but pinpricks of light danced obstinately through, sparkling like diamonds against black sand. She followed his gaze, her own appetite disappearing.
‘I don’t want to force you,’ she said gently, standing to move right in front of him. ‘It’s your grief, and your life. But I will say, as someone who’s spent a very long time bottling things up, that it’s not healthy.’ She lifted a hand, touching the side of his cheek. He flinched, his eyes jerking to hers, showing animosity and frustration.
Showing the depths of his brokenness.
It called to Hannah; she understood it.
‘You are an expert in grief, then?’ he pushed, anger in the words.
‘Sadly, yes,’ she agreed quietly.
‘Do not compare what we have experienced,’ he said. ‘To lose your parents is unbearable, I understand that, and I am sorry for you, what you went through. You were a child, robbed of the ability to be a child. But I caused my wife and son’s death. As sure as if I had murdered them myself, I am the reason they died. Do not presume to have any idea what that knowledge feels like.’
* * *
That Hannah slept fitfully was hardly surprising. Leonidas’s parting shot ran around and around her mind, the torment of his admission ripping her heart into pieces. To live with that guilt would have driven a lesser man crazy.
But it wasn’t only sadness for the man she’d hastily agreed to marry.
It was worry.
Fear.
Panic.
Stress.
And something far, far more perplexing, something that made her nipples pucker against the shirt he’d given her to sleep in, that made her arch her back in her dreams, and meant she felt warm and wet between her legs when she finally gave up on trying to sleep, before dawn, and stood, pacing to the window that overlooked the ocean.
Memories.
Memories of their one night together and fantasies of future nights were all weaving through Hannah’s being, bursting upon her soul and demanding attention.
The sun had just started to spread warmth over the beach. Darkness was reluctantly giving way to light, and the morning was fresh.
It was Hannah’s favourite time of day, when the air itself seemed to be full of magic and promise.
She had only the clothes she’d worn the day before, and the shirt she’d slept in, which was ridiculously big even when accommodating her pregnant belly. Still, it was comfortable and covered her body. Besides, it was a private island. Who was going to see her?
Pausing only to take a quick drink of water in the kitchen, Hannah unlocked the front door of the mansion and stepped out, breathing in the tangy salt air.
Excitement and a sense of anticipation rushed her out of nowhere, like when she was a small girl, around six or seven, and her parents had taken her away on their first family vacation. They’d gone to the glitzy beachside resort of Noosa, in tropical Queensland, and Hannah had woken early and looked out on the rolling waves crashing onto the beach, the moon still shimmering in the sky, and her stomach had rolled, just like this.
There’s something elemental and enlivening about the sea, and this island was surrounded by a particularly pristine shoreline and ocean.
Without having any real intention of going to the beach, she found herself moving that way quickly, her bare feet grateful when they connected with cool, fine sand, clumps of long grass spiking up between it every now and again. Dunes gave way to the flatness of the shore. She walked all the way to the water’s edge, standing flat-footed and staring out to the sea, her back to Leonidas’s mansion, her eyes on the horizon.
This was not the tropical water off the coast of Queensland. Here, there were no waves, only the gentle sighing of the sea as the tide receded. With each little pause, each undulation back towards the shore, the water danced over Hannah’s toes; the cool was delicious given the promise of the day’s heat.
She could have stood there, staring out at the mesmerising water, all day, were it not for the sudden and loud thumping from directly to her left. She turned just in time to see Leonidas, earphones in and head down, eyes trained on the shore, galumphing towards her. There was barely enough time to sidestep out of his way.
He startled as he ran past, jerking his head up at the intrusion he’d sensed, then swore, pulling his earphones out and letting them dangle loose around his neck.
She wished he hadn’t.
The simple act drew her eyes from his face to his body. There was nothing scandalous about what he was wearing. Shorts and a T-shirt—only the T-shirt was wet with perspiration and the firmness of his pecs was clearly visible.
She took a step backwards without realising it, not to put physical space between them but because she wanted to see him better. Her aunt would have told her to stop staring, but Hannah couldn’t. As much as the tide couldn’t cease its rhythmic motion, Hannah found it impossible to tear her eyes away.
She remembered everything about him and yet...seeing him again sparked a whole new range of wants and needs.
Thick, strong legs covered in dark, wiry hair looked capable of running marathons but she couldn’t look at him without imagining him straddling her, pushing her to the sand and bringing his body over hers, his hard arousal insistent between her legs. Without remembering the feeling of h
is weight on her body, his strength, power and skill in driving her to orgasm again and again.
Her throat was dry and the humming of the ocean was nothing to the furious pounding of her own blood in her ears.
She dragged her eyes up his body, over dark shorts that showed nothing of his manhood, even when she was suddenly desperate to see it—to see all of him again, in real life, not her very vivid dreams.
She prepared to meet his gaze, knowing he must surely be regarding her with mocking cynicism, only he wasn’t.
He wasn’t looking at her face, wasn’t looking at her eyes to see the way she’d been eating him alive. No, he was performing his own slow, sensual inspection and it was enough to make her blood burn.
His eyes were on her legs, desire burning in the depths of his gaze as he lifted his attention to the curve of her breasts and, finally, to her lips. They parted under his inspection as she silently willed him to kiss them. To pull her into his arms and remember how well that worked between them.
And when he didn’t, she took a step forward herself, knowing it didn’t matter who moved first, knowing it was imperative only that they touch once more.
It broke the spell. His gaze slammed into hers, surprise there, confusion and, yes, desire. So much desire that it almost drowned her. He made a deep, husky sound and stood completely still, his body hard like steel.
Hannah moved closer, her eyes holding a silent challenge. Stop me if you dare.
He didn’t.
One more step and their bodies connected, just like that first night in the bar, when fate had thrown them together and passion had held them there.
The air around them cracked and sizzled as though a localised electrical storm had touched down. He was so much bigger than she was. Hannah stood on the tips of her toes, which brought her body flush to his, her womanhood so close to the strength of his arousal that she echoed his own guttural moan with a soft whimper.
‘Hannah.’ Her name on his lips wasn’t a request, nor was it a surrender. He spoke her name as though he simply couldn’t resist and she lifted higher onto her toes and kissed him, hungrily.
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