His Last Chance at Redemption

by Michelle Conder

  Okay, so he wasn’t dead … Lexi let her gaze drift over the room in front of her and gasped at the size and understated opulence that greeted her eyes.

  It was a living room with a huge cream sofa and matching chairs that looked comfortable enough to sleep on. Large domed lamps flanked the sofa and gave the room an intimate, golden glow that set off the smooth polished cabinetry around the room to perfection. A flat-screen TV lined one entire wall and opposite that an open doorway led into what Lexi assumed was the bedroom Leo had just disappeared through.

  Before she could stop herself she crossed the carpeted floor, trying not to think about the last time she had entered Leo’s bedroom in his London apartment, and peeked inside. It was his bedroom and it was dominated by a huge bed facing curved floor-to-ceiling windows that looked onto a private deck. Clearly the man liked his views.

  Lexi saw him sprawled on one of the sun loungers outside and wandered to the open doorway; the light of the moon casting him in shadows.

  ‘What do you want?’

  He didn’t turn and Lexi hovered there, uncertain as to whether she should stay or go, some inner instinct telling her that he needed her right now. ‘I wanted to make sure you were okay.’

  Stars twinkled overhead in the navy sky and the only sound was that of water slapping as it broke against the side of the yacht. ‘Still trying to solve the problems of the world, angel?’

  Lexi returned her gaze back to him. He wasn’t looking at her, but lay with his eyes closed and his hands folded behind his head. ‘No. I thought you might like company.’

  He opened his eyes, his gaze raking her from head to toe before closing them again. ‘You’re wearing too many clothes for the company I need right now.’

  ‘It might help if you talked about what’s wrong.’

  ‘Really.’ His voice was snide and Lexi questioned her decision to interrupt him. ‘Let’s give it a try, shall we. I don’t want Amanda to be married and to leave me in charge of the care of my son.’ He bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. ‘Net. Still married. What a surprise.’

  Lexi moved out onto the balcony and shivered as she felt the chill in the air descend on her bare skin. Or was that just the frost coming off the brooding man with his eyes now fixed on some dark spot in the distance? She perched on the matching chair beside his. ‘I know you’re upset at the news.’

  ‘Upset? I’m not upset, angel. I’m furious.’

  ‘Because you love her?’ she acknowledged ruefully.

  ‘You think that’s what’s going on here? You think that I love Amanda Weston?’

  ‘You seemed devastated by the email she sent and—’

  His sneer stopped the rest of her words. ‘And you thought it was a love gone wrong. I don’t do love, angel.’

  ‘If it’s not love you feel for Amanda, then … I’m confused. Why do you act as if Ty doesn’t exist?’

  ‘Because to me he doesn’t.’

  Lexi’s breath caught in her throat. She wouldn’t believe that. She couldn’t. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  He paused and she didn’t think he was going to answer her.

  ‘You want to know what happened with Amanda, I’ll tell you. She came onto me at the Brussels Airport when all flights were grounded and we had sex. It was never going to be anything more than one night but she was looking for a rich husband and we used her condom—which I later found out she had already tampered with. It was a one-night fluke but she hit the jackpot.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  Leo looked at Lexi’s shocked face. Why had he told her that? He’d never told anyone before. Was it because he was sick of her thinking that he’d abandoned Ty for nothing? ‘Poor Lexi. Doesn’t that fit in with your ideal world where two parents love their children beyond measure?’ He shook his head dourly and turned back to the ocean.

  ‘I don’t live in a fantasy world, Leo, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I know that sometimes one loving parent is better than two who can’t get along.’

  Leo glanced back at her averted face. Her chin was angled defiantly, her spine rigid. He knew instantly that whatever had gone on in her own childhood had affected her deeply and, despite his never having been interested in a woman’s past before, he couldn’t hold back his curiosity. ‘You’re talking about your father’s double life, I take it.’

  She stared at her hands for a minute and then her eyes met his. ‘Yes. My father was a mildly successful golfer who travelled the world and my mother accepted that as part and parcel of loving him. She was a very understanding person and she never pushed to travel with him—mainly, I think, because she would have found it hard with Joe and I—but nor did she push to marry him. Then one night her world fell apart when the daughter he had fathered with his long-time mistress had an accident and his mistress gave him an ultimatum. Mum or her.’

  Leo looked over and saw that Lexi’s jaw was tight. ‘And he chose the other woman.’

  ‘He did try to visit Joe and I but … somehow he never seemed to make it.’ She gave a forced laugh. ‘For years we would dutifully dress in our best clothes once a month in the hope that today would be the day he would keep to his promise. Only it rarely was and soon Joe stopped dressing up altogether.’

  ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Did you stop dressing up?’

  She fingered the necklace, a move he had noticed her do countless times before when she was nervous, and wondered who had given it to her. ‘I’m a bit of an optimist.’ She laughed a little self-consciously. ‘I might have given him more of a chance than Joe.’

  ‘A bit of a dreamer, you mean,’ he said, but there was no harshness behind the words. Just resignation that he could never be as forgiving. ‘Who gave you that?’

  His eyes dropped to the necklace she was drawing back and forth across her bottom lip and wished it was his tongue.

  ‘My father gave it to me on my tenth birthday.’

  ‘And you’ve never taken it off since,’ he guessed.

  She let it drop back down between her breasts and when she spoke her voice was choked. ‘You make me sound pathetic.’

  ‘Not pathetic. Just someone who believes in happy ever afters.’

  ‘Is that such a bad thing?’

  Leo wasn’t particularly comfortable with the turn of the conversation and contemplated telling her to leave. If only he didn’t want her so damned much. ‘Only if it means you don’t see things for what they really are,’ he said, raising a mocking eyebrow, willing her to deny that she didn’t.

  ‘What makes you think that I don’t?’

  His eyebrow climbed higher. ‘You wear a necklace to keep a connection with a man who deserted you and you need to ask that?’

  Lexi’s hand rose to her neck. ‘I just … I never …’

  ‘You never wanted to accept that he chose the other family?’

  Her hand dropped and she pushed off the lounger and walked to the railing, gripping it firmly and leaning slightly forward as she gazed down at the sea. ‘You’re very astute.’

  Leo didn’t respond. He could see that she was deep in thought and he was struggling with his own desire to go to her. Comfort her. Then she glanced back over her shoulder and the delicate muscles around her shoulder blades shifted alluringly.

  ‘Children are innocent. They don’t ask to be born. They deserve proper care. And …’ she paused and he watched her throat work as she swallowed ‘… I guess I always hoped he’d come back. I hated that his selfishness caused my mother to have to work two jobs, because that was hard on us all.’ She paused. ‘I don’t know why I still wear the necklace.’

  ‘So you became a childcare worker to provide care for kids whose parents have to go to work?’

  She looked surprised, as if she hadn’t made that connection before. But it explained why she was so keen for him to have a relationship with Ty and why she was so wary of him. A wariness she was right to feel.

  ‘What’s your relationship with your father like now?’ he asked soft
ly.

  ‘We don’t have one.’ Her eyes connected earnestly with his. ‘It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Now is the time to get to know Ty. I haven’t seen my father in ten years and Joe even longer than that.’

  Leo looked away as she came to sit back down opposite him. He had more than just Amanda’s subterfuge keeping him away from Ty.

  ‘You should be thankful he left, angel. Sometimes a man who is forced to marry because he gets a woman pregnant makes everyone’s life hell.’

  She looked at him curiously. ‘That sounds like you’re speaking from experience.’

  Leo didn’t know if it was the lateness of the hour, the shock of Amanda’s defection or Lexi Somers soft compassion but he found himself wanting to tell her things he’d never told another living soul.

  He sighed. Maybe if he did tell her some of it she would understand why Ty was better off without him. ‘My father married my mother because she was pregnant with me and he spent the first ten years of my life making it a living hell.’

  Lexi looked at the taut lines of Leo’s neck and knew he was speaking the truth, but it was a long way from what she’d read about him. ‘I thought you had a happy childhood?’

  ‘Ah, my bio. Nice story, isn’t it.’

  ‘What’s the real story?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Why do you want to know? Hoping to earn a few extra dollars by selling an exposé?’

  ‘Of course not. I just want to help.’

  ‘Like I said. You have too many clothes on for that. Not that I don’t love that dress. You know what it makes me want to do?’ He swung his legs to the side and twisted in his seat so that he was facing her, his knees wide, his feet firmly planted either side of her legs. ‘It makes me want to grab those two triangles of fabric barely covering your gorgeous breasts and rip it straight down the middle. Does that shock you, little Lexi?’ He paused and all Lexi could hear was the sound of her own heart beating too fast. ‘Or excite you?’

  She knew he was trying to distract her. That he didn’t want to talk about his life story. She also knew that she wanted him to tell her. She wanted to know him. Know the real Leo Aleksandrov. As if seeking to put distance between them, he moved abruptly to stand at the railing, staring off into the balmy distance.

  Lexi moistened her lips before asking, ‘What’s the real story, Leo?’

  He turned his head and looked down at her. ‘Like horror stories do you?’ His voice was a low growl and Lexi sensed the pain he was trying desperately to hold at bay.

  He had the look of a lost child about him and Lexi was reminded of Ty the first time she had met him, mistrust stamped all over his beautiful face. But she wouldn’t push Leo any further. It would be beyond arrogant of her to assume that just because she found it better to talk through her issues, he would too.

  He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and for a minute she didn’t think he was going to say anything. Then he flopped back down on the chair and stared at the starry sky. ‘I grew up in the Tundra—a hellhole of a place where nothing grows and it’s so bitterly cold in winter you feel like your bones are freezing. My father was a miner with Mafioso connections and my mother was a shop girl who let love turn her blind. When my father drank he turned violent and my mother bore the brunt of his loss of control. At times I tried to stop him but I could never protect her from his brute strength.’

  ‘How could you—you were just a child?’ she cried.

  ‘No child wants to see their mother hurt. Of course every time I tried to help he thought it was a great joke and tried to challenge me. Taunted me until I gave in.’

  Lexi felt sick and it took a great deal of effort to control the emotion in her voice. ‘How old were you when this started?’

  ‘Six, seven. I don’t remember.’ He gave a telling shrug.

  He remembered all right. Too well, Lexi guessed.

  ‘I do remember his favourite modus operandi was a sly backhand just when you thought the jibes and beltings had finished.’

  Lexi swallowed and made an inarticulate sound of distress. ‘Do you still see him?’ she asked, her breathing ragged and uneven where his was almost meditatively calm.

  ‘No.’ His eyes when they fixed on hers were empty. ‘He died in prison.’

  ‘Was that when you were ten?’

  He looked at her warily.

  ‘You said the first ten years were awful. I just wondered if that was when your father went to jail.’

  ‘Got a sharp brain, haven’t you, angel?’

  ‘So … things got better after that?’

  ‘Things did get better. My father went to prison and I went to live with my uncle.’

  ‘Where was your mother?’

  ‘She couldn’t look after me. I was too wild. Used to get into fights all the time. Very bad news.’

  Lexi was still trying to comprehend that his mother had sent him away when she noticed that his tone had darkened. ‘Your mother sent you away?’

  ‘Oh, Lexi, with the bleeding heart. Don’t be so outraged.’ He touched her face briefly and then stood up and paced across the balcony, unable to keep still. ‘She had her reasons and it was the best decision she could have made. My uncle wasn’t at all like my father. He was gruff and proud, but he controlled his emotions. Until I came to stay, he had lived his adult life alone. He taught me how to contain my rage.’

  Lexi wondered if Leo realised that he had made himself over in his uncle’s image. A man facing the world alone. Her heart went out to him. ‘Do you still see him?’

  ‘He died. A work-related accident.’

  ‘On a building site,’ Lexi guessed.

  ‘Da. And now you know.’ He spread his arms wide. ‘All the dirty details of who I really am and why I can’t be a father to Ty.’

  ‘No—’ Lexi shook her head ‘—I don’t know that at all.’

  He huffed out a laugh. ‘Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were. I’m not a good bet, Lexi. I can’t be responsible for Ty.’

  Was that it? Was that why he was so determined that Ty was better off without him? Not because he was afraid of losing his lifestyle, but because he was afraid of becoming his father. Afraid of hurting those who relied on him.

  ‘Leo, that’s fear talking. It’s not who you are,’ she said, catching her breath at his fierce expression as he swung around to face her again.

  ‘Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said? I’m a violent man.’

  ‘You think you’d hurt Ty?’ Lexi shook her head. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘My father couldn’t help it. Who’s to say I’ll be any different?’

  ‘Your father could help it. He chose not to.’

  Lexi’s heart went out to Leo trapped as a young child in a world with such a damaged adult, but she forced herself to focus on what still needed to be said.

  ‘Leo, I don’t know who your parents were but I’d say they were two people who shouldn’t have been together. They brought out the worst in each other and maybe didn’t have the maturity to see the error of their ways. But whatever their story is—it doesn’t have to be yours.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Lexi. I’m empty inside. I have nothing to give.’

  Lexi frowned. ‘You think you can’t love?’ How much this man had suffered!

  ‘Not think. I don’t.’

  ‘What about your uncle?’

  ‘Yes, maybe. I cared for him. But …’ His voice trailed away and he rubbed the back of his neck. ‘There’s no point talking about this.’

  ‘Because it hurts too much?’

  ‘Because I am what I am.’

  Leo gripped the railing more tightly and Lexi went to him and laid her hand on his arm. ‘Spend time with Ty. Just the two of you. I haven’t seen you take any time off since we got here.’

  ‘No.’ He moved his hand out from under hers and flopped down on the sun lounger, his hands dangling between his wide-spread knees.

  Lexi could feel him closing off and she didn’t know what els
e to say to him. ‘He needs you, Leo.’

  ‘He needs a decent father.’

  Lexi placed her hands on her hips, determined to get through to him on this point. ‘Yes. You. And you need him.’

  He shook his head slowly and the look in his eyes as they swept over her changed, became heated. ‘What I need is for you to go to bed.’

  ‘I—’

  He shook his head, his eyes becoming guarded. ‘No more. There’s only so much happy reminiscing a man can take. Especially when the woman he’s reminiscing with is only half dressed.’ His lips twisted into a wry smile.

  ‘I’m not half dressed.’

  ‘Tell me you’re wearing a bra beneath that dress.’

  ‘Well, no, but—’

  ‘Like I said. Half dressed.’

  She sensed the air thicken between them and couldn’t look away. It was like being on the beach again, just before he’d kissed her. His blue eyes dark, his features taut, but not with pain now—with something her body instantly recognised. And wanted.

  ‘I think you’re trying to change the subject.’

  ‘Smart and quick.’

  He stared at her. Lexi became aware that the only sound on the balcony was the beating of her own frantic heart. She couldn’t have moved even if she’d wanted to and he recognised her hesitation for what it was.

  He shook his head slowly. ‘You don’t do casual sex.’ His voice was heavy, low, laden with sensual restraint.

  Lexi swallowed. Kissing him had shaken her to her core. As had his revelations. He was right. She didn’t do casual sex. Or at least she never had before, but would indulging in it once be so wrong? She wasn’t deluding herself that sex with Leo would be more than that. But he made her feel things she’d never felt before. She couldn’t help wanting more of that. But could she risk her self-esteem on it?

  She stared at him. He looked predatory. Hungry. For her?

  Her nipples tingled and a hollow aching feeling made her lower body clench. With sudden alarm Lexi realised that her body was already readying itself to make love with him. Just the thought made the throbbing worse and her heart kicked up. It seemed, from her body’s point of view, she couldn’t not risk it. ‘You said the sex wouldn’t be casual.’ Was that breathless, seductive voice really hers?