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  ‘Well, what?’ They stared at each other. Heather could hardly breathe, and she was holding her body so still that she could very well have grown roots. Eventually, she said quietly, ‘Would you like another cup of coffee?’

  For a split second, Leo hesitated. He had done more than was acceptable to him. Unbelievably, he had been rejected in his advances, and worse than that had not turned and walked away. It was what he should have done and what he would have expected himself to do. It wasn’t as though there weren’t other women around. In fact, he had files of them. But this one…Something about her turned him on so massively that he gave a curt nod and followed her into the kitchen, watching as she fiddled with the ridiculous coffee-making gadget so that she could produce two cups of superior coffee in a matter of seconds. It tasted nothing like the dishwater he had produced for her.

  The fact that she had offered him the cup of coffee, which even now he was accepting with a slight inclination of his head, led him to believe that his words had struck a chord with her.

  As they ought to! he considered.

  ‘What did your wife do to leave you so bitter?’

  ‘Details are unimportant.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ Heather said sadly. ‘Sometimes I think they’re the most important things.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll tell you. My dearest wife enjoyed the fruits of my labours, but not the work entailed in providing them. She needed more than just a limitless bank account. She needed constant, round-the-clock flattery, and when I wasn’t around to provide it she found others who could. She was beautiful. She was rich. She had a great deal of choice. Hence my scepticism about the wonders of love and marriage.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It must have been awful for you. But when Daniel was born didn’t you both try to…stitch things together? Give it a go?’

  But Leo was done with answering questions and dwelling on his miserable, short-lived marriage. Instead he turned his mind to the glorious, contrary woman sitting opposite him, her brow knitted in a compassionate frown.

  This sordid story, one which he had never told a soul, would have fractured her rosy picture of human relationships. It also would have made her see that what he had offered her—a satisfying relationship based on the one thing that made any sense—was not to be discarded. In fact, he was pretty sure that she had come to that conclusion herself even before his unprecedented confession.

  The option of having her step down from her high horse and come to him, only to taste the same rejection that she had dished out to him, wasn’t even considered.

  He wanted her and he wasn’t going to play any games. But the sound of her acquiescence would be truly sweet indeed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LEO relaxed. When it came to relationships, things had a disturbing tendency to become mundane once that brief pursuit was over, but he had a feeling that Heather would be different. Maybe it was because she was unwittingly involved in a side of his life to which none of his other women had been introduced. He had always made sure to keep London and the country very far apart. He bedded and entertained his women in the city. The country was for the family side of him, which had been hugely sidelined over the years, but which would always be there, more so now that Daniel had arrived on the scene. It was the first time he had ever considered the possibility of dating someone who knew his family. Frankly, he had never been in the country long enough to meet anyone, but even if he had he would have run a mile. He had never seen that, all things considered, there were certain advantages to the situation, especially now that Daniel was around.

  High on the plus side would be the fact that dates wouldn’t have to be made with the precision timing of a military campaign. Investment bankers and barristers were all well and good, but trying to arrange dates was usually a hellish business. He was busy, so were they and there had been more than one occasion when, having met and invariably spent the evening discussing aspects of work, he’d just been so damned tired that he could hardly be bothered to enjoy what should have been the highlight of the evening.

  With Heather, it would be different. She was anchored in the country. He had a rosy image of her waiting there for him, waiting for her man. The idea of a roast in the oven was taking things a little too far, but it would really make a pleasant change to down-pedal a bit. He didn’t know how much experience she had of city life but he would bet that the closest she had ever come to it would have been on television. The simplicity of what she had to offer would be a breath of fresh air. Heck, he might even bring her up to London now and again, take her to a play or some such thing, open her eyes to the big, bad world out there.

  The more Leo thought about it, the more he figured that he needed a restful relationship, at least for the time being. What could be more restful than an artist, someone in tune with Nature? And yet wrapped up in such a sexy package that just thinking of her sent his mind further south.

  Add to that the fact that time spent with his mother and Daniel was infinitely easier when she was in the mix, and Leo was satisfied that he had done the right thing in accepting the cup of coffee that was even now going slightly tepid. He took a sip and made some inconsequential remark about her being right, that the complicated coffee-making machine really did live up to its spec.

  At the same time, his eyes lingered over her flushed face tinged with pink, the full breasts…God, when he thought about touching them again—not just a schoolboy grope under a tee shirt, but stripping her of her clothes and lavishing them with his full, undivided attention—spending time, taking those rosebud nipples into his mouth and hearing her moan as he suckled on them…

  ‘I’m surprised we didn’t meet sooner.’ He tore himself away from his erotic, meandering thoughts.

  ‘Are you? Why?’

  ‘You live just round the corner, so to speak. I would have expected Katherine to have invited you up to the house for a meal.’

  ‘You mean on a weekend? When you happened to be down?’

  Leo didn’t much care for the way she said that—when you happened to be down—but he let it go. He was in an extremely good mood now and he wasn’t going to jeopardise it over a dodgy tone of voice.

  ‘You weren’t down very often, though, were you? I mean, how often did you visit your mother before Daniel arrived?’

  ‘I have a lot of work commitments, as I think I’ve mentioned to you before,’ Leo said, standing up to pour himself another mug of coffee and then returning to the chair, angling it to one side so that he could stretch out his legs. He could think of better things to do than talking, now that their differences were settled, but since talking seemed to be on the agenda he might just as well make himself as comfortable as he could. ‘It’s always very difficult finding time. I’m abroad a lot. I’ve never been a nine to five kind of guy. Sure, some are content with that, but there’s no gain without pain.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s just the way it is.’

  Heather knew that all too well. That kiss, that mistake that she had allowed to happen, had caught her off-balance, but she was back in control now. She had to be. She also had to explain to him why she had pushed him away, and not so much because she was a fair-minded creature who felt some deep need to justify her actions. Heck, she doubted Leo West had ever justified his actions to anybody on the face of the earth! If there was one man to whom she need never justify herself, it was him. No, she had to explain because she had to hear herself verbalise all the reasons why she would never, ever have anything to do with a man like him. She had started seeing little sides to him, and every small glimpse had lowered her defences, and that just wasn’t going to do.

  It surprised her that he had taken rejection so well. In fact, she was astounded that he had actually agreed to come into the kitchen, have a cup of coffee and hear her out. She could only think that he must have the attitude of ‘win a few, lose a few’. Or maybe he was so unaccustomed to any form of rejection from a woman that he felt compelled to hear her explain her behaviour.

&nbs
p; Heather had no real idea why he had made a pass at her in the first place. She wasn’t his type. She could only conclude that it was because he was a highly sexed male and he had tuned in to her unconscious fascination with him and interpreted that as availability. Available women were the curse of the wealthy man. He probably hadn’t even stopped to think that he might not be able to just reach out and take whatever he saw and happened to want at that particular point in time, like a kid in a sweet shop with too much pocket money to spend.

  ‘Why did you decide to send Daniel to school here?’ she asked, changing the subject, wanting him to confirm with every sentence why she had been crazy to allow him to creep between the chink in her armour. ‘I mean, why didn’t you keep him with you, in London? There must have been hundreds of schools you could have sent him to.’

  Leo frowned. ‘Where are we going with all this?’

  ‘We’re having a conversation. Is there something wrong with that? I’m just expressing curiosity about the choices you made.’

  ‘I couldn’t have Daniel in London with me,’ Leo told her abruptly. ‘You have to understand that my life there is not tailored for the inclusion of a child.’

  Heather was nodding. She could believe that one, all right.

  ‘Even if there had been a permanent au pair on tap, there would still have remained the question of my working hours. I’m out of the country fifty percent of the time. Empires don’t run themselves; they need a captain at the helm. I’m that captain, and I’m steering a vast ship. I have offices in New York, Madrid and China, to name but a few. There would have been no consistency and that wouldn’t have been fair to Daniel. I felt it far better that he settle in the country where he could have the benefit of my mother being permanently there for him.’

  ‘That sounds incredibly convenient for you.’

  ‘It made sense at the time.’ Leo fought down his impatience, which he knew would get him nowhere fast.

  ‘Did it make sense to Daniel?’

  Leo’s eyes narrowed. ‘Maybe we could leave the question-and-answer session for another day?’

  ‘Is that because you just don’t fancy answering my questions because they make you feel uncomfortable?’

  ‘You’ve already shared your thoughts with me on my relationship with Daniel. Frankly, I don’t see the point of going over old ground.’ He sought to hang on to his good humour, to think of what lay ahead. ‘Today was a good day. The best day I’ve had with him since he came to England, in fact. Why analyse and dissect the past when it’s so much more worth-while to build on the present?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Leo relaxed. This was more like it. Bit of a shame that they were separated by the width of the kitchen table. If they hadn’t been, he would have translated his relaxation into something a little more tangible, would have drawn her into him, seduced her with his mouth and his hands and smothered all her nagging concerns with his lips. Of course, she would have her nagging concerns. She had made those perfectly obvious the first time they had met, and they wouldn’t have evaporated just because it had been a successful day out. He strove to understand and make allowances for someone whose personality was so wildly different from his own.

  She was an innocent, someone whose lack of life experiences had given her a childishly disingenuous outlook on life. It was both charming and disconcerting at the same time. Add to that the sort of bluntness that would send most men running a mile, and the combination was incendiary. Since he wasn’t most men, though, he felt well equipped to deal with her. In fact, it was all part and parcel of the package that was so irresistibly attractive. Those first signs of irritability vanished before the pleasing prospect of harnessing all that fire and making it his; a change from cool, intellectual, sophisticated power women was long overdue.

  ‘Good,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘So…where do we go from here? I suggest somewhere a bit more comfortable than the kitchen.’

  Heather looked at him, at the lazy smile curving his lips, at the unspoken suggestion behind his fabulous eyes, and the vague questions she had asked herself were suddenly answered in an instant of comprehension.

  Leo hadn’t politely taken rejection because he was indifferent, and he hadn’t accepted a cup of coffee because he was eaten up with curiosity to hear why she had pushed him away.

  How could she have been foolish enough to think that? He just wasn’t built that way. He had accepted a cup of coffee because he had assumed it heralded her acquiescence, and he wouldn’t have been in the least surprised at that because he was so used to getting what he wanted.

  ‘Where do you have in mind?’ she asked with a shuttered expression.

  ‘Well…we could start in the sitting room and progress to the bedroom. Although, if you’re really stuck on staying here…’ He shot her a wolfish smile that made her stomach do a back flip and reminded her powerfully of why, exactly, he was so dangerous for her.

  ‘If we stay in here?’ she prompted. ‘What? A quick romp against the kitchen units?’

  The smile dropped from Leo’s face. ‘Poor use of words.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how you wrap it up, that’s what you’re suggesting, isn’t it? Or we could go upstairs to the bedroom. Might last a bit longer there.’ She thought of them together on her king-sized bed with its floral duvet; she thought of the floral duvet being kicked off in the heat of the moment and shakily closed the door on the image. It was way too easy for her imagination to break its reins and run rampant.

  ‘Why don’t you let me show you? You can tell me afterwards whether you have any complaints. I guarantee you won’t.’

  ‘Because you’re so sure of yourself?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Conceited, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not conceited. I just don’t see the point of hiding behind false modesty.’

  Two patches of bright colour had appeared on her cheeks, and the hand wrapped round the mug was trembling. She set the mug down and clasped her hands together on her lap out of sight. The atmosphere between them sizzled like a live wire. She had expected him to be enraged by her slurs on his skills as a lover, and was now disproportionately shaken by the fact that he hadn’t been.

  ‘And then, after we’ve made love, what happens next? You return to London, feeling refreshed? Just out of interest, do you return to London to share your fabulous love-making skills with another woman? Maybe more than one?’

  ‘Do you want a fight, Heather? Is that it?’

  ‘I’m just curious.’

  ‘Well, to satisfy your curiosity, I don’t happen to be involved with anyone else at the moment, and in case you’re not getting the message loud and clear I don’t spread myself thin when it comes to women. The idea of having a harem of women on the go is repugnant.’

  ‘So what does happen, in that case—after today?’

  ‘Is that what’s worrying you? You think that you might be a one-night stand? Well, let me put your mind to rest on that score—I don’t do one-night stands. I don’t do flocks of women because they happen to be available. I have a libido but I also have self-control.’

  ‘But you don’t do permanence, either.’

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  ‘And how have all those women you’ve dated felt about that? Have they all conveniently shared your aversion to taking the plunge?’ Like a dog with a bone, she was finding it difficult to let it go. She wanted him gone, but she didn’t. She wanted to tell him her point of view, but she couldn’t curb her desire to hear his. She hated her curiosity, but it was like an itch that needed to be scratched. She was desperate to get her anger to boiling point, because she would really have liked to despise him, but little pieces of him that didn’t fit in with the stereotype kept sabotaging all her efforts, and her body was betraying her mind and ambushing her good intentions.

  ‘I make it clear from the outset that a wedding ring isn’t part of the agenda. If some of them have nursed any hopes in that direction, then they haven’t said. I do
n’t go out with women who throw hissy fits if they think they’ve been let down, and I don’t go out with women who think that marriage is the inevitable conclusion to a relationship. Does that answer your question?’

  ‘So all’s fair in love and war?’

  ‘Get to the point, Heather.’ The tepid coffee was now stone cold. Leo pushed it aside and looked at her. Having dived into the water, he was only now realising that there were icebergs under the surface. He’d never had to put this amount of effort into a woman before, he thought ill-temperedly.

  ‘The point is…’ There was a jumble of words in her head and she was temporarily silenced as she tried to sift through them, find the words that were important and discard the ones that weren’t.

  She could feel his cool, watchful eyes on her and she wished that she could read what he was thinking. Why did he have to be so damned complex? Why couldn’t he have done her the favour of just fitting into the handy box in her head?

  ‘The point is…’ She stood up awkwardly. ‘Look, I can’t have this type of conversation here.’

  ‘Oh, but I thought the kitchen was the best bet.’

  ‘If you don’t want to hear what I have to say, then that’s fine. You know where the door is.’

  ‘Oh, don’t think you’re going to get off that easily,’ Leo grated. ‘I can’t wait to hear what you have to say.’

  He followed her into the sitting room where she proceeded to stand by the window, hugging herself and keeping as far away from him as possible. Outbursts and melodrama were two things he had no time for, but for some reason wild horses wouldn’t have dragged him away from whatever lame story was about to unfold. If this was some kind of ruse to inveigle him into making promises he would inevitably fail to keep, however sexy her body was, then she was barking up the wrong tree, and he would enjoy telling her so in no uncertain terms. He should have guessed that she was all about flowers, chocolate and romance. He should have guessed it from the home-spun furnishings and the picture-postcard garden. She didn’t know how the real world worked, but how could she, caught up in her own imaginary world of illustration, living in the middle of the countryside where life evolved at such a slower pace?