But once in her bedroom her courage deserted her, her legs feeling shaky as she made her way across the room to sink down onto the bed, burying her face in her hands.
Had she known from the first moment she saw Luke Richmond that something like this was going to happen? Was this the real reason, that complete awareness she had of Luke, for her uncertainty about coming here and working with Rachel on the biography?
How could she possibly have known?
Because she had known! She had felt the draw of Luke from the first, had known then that she wanted no part of it, or of him, that she liked her life the way it was, and that Luke Richmond, with his lethal brand of sensual charisma, could destroy all that, that he somehow had the power to invoke in her a dissatisfaction with everything in her life she held dear.
For example, she already knew that the lukewarm relationship she had with Jeremy was going nowhere, that if she had been going to fall in love with him then she would have done so by now.
As she already had with Luke…?
No!
Love was putting too fine a word on what she felt towards Luke! Sexual attraction. Fascination. Head-spinning awareness. Yes, all those. But not love. She couldn’t possibly love a man who was so determined never to let anyone behind the defences he had built around his own heart…
* * *
’I really do apologise for Luke’s behaviour last night.’ Rachel’s irritation with her son was still evident in her voice as she faced Leonie across the breakfast table the next morning. ‘He’s trying to frighten you off, of course,’ she added impatiently. ‘I do hope you aren’t going to let him do so, my dear?’ She looked anxiously.
Leonie had only come downstairs a few minutes ago, deliberately late, in the hopes that she might be able to breakfast alone. Before making her excuses and leaving.
But apparently Rachel had been late to bed last night, unfortunately had only just come down to breakfast herself…
Leonie eyed the other woman frowningly over the top of her coffee-cup. Maybe she had missed something—it was quite possible; lack of sleep made her head feel as if it were full of cotton wool this morning!—but she had no idea what Rachel was talking about.
‘I had a talk with Luke last night after you had gone to bed,’ Rachel carried on irritably. ‘I had thought he had acquiesced too willingly to my decision concerning the biography,’ Rachel acknowledged impatiently. ‘But I had no idea he would stoop to such lengths—that he would—All I can say is that I’m very sorry, my dear.’ She gave Leonie one of her warm smiles. ‘That I shall endeavour to make sure such a thing doesn’t happen again. Not under my roof, anyway,’ she added hardly.
The cotton-wool effect seemed to be clearing slightly as Rachel’s meaning became clear. Crystal clear! Rachel had talked to Luke last night, ascertaining he had kissed her deliberately, in an effort to get her to leave, to frighten her off doing his mother’s biography…!
Of all the—!
‘It would have served him right if I had taken him seriously and turned into a drivelling idiot in front of his eyes, declaring eternal love, and demanding marriage and babies!’ she snapped angrily, inwardly so furious that if Luke had been in the room at that moment she might have been tempted to hit him!
Rachel looked nonplussed for several seconds after this outburst, and then she burst out laughing. ‘Now that I would have liked to see!’ she gurgled girlishly. ‘Luke would have been the one doing the running then!’
‘Exactly,’ Leonie acknowledged with hard satisfaction, not at all pleased it had been so obvious last night that she had been the one doing the running.
All that soul-searching too once she’d reached her bedroom! All that self-condemnation! For nothing! For the simple reason that Luke Richmond was still determined to stop this biography going ahead. By any means available to him…!
‘I’m afraid I have to leave in half an hour or so—nothing at all to do with Luke,’ Leonie assured her hostess—not exactly honestly!—as Rachel began to frown.
She needed to get away from here today, away from Luke, and the fool he had made of her the previous evening. But she would be back.
‘I have a few things of my own I need to do this weekend.’ She smiled at the other woman. ‘But if it’s okay with you I would like to take some of the photograph albums with me and possibly work on them through the week?’ At least this way the other woman could feel reassured that Leonie would be back the following weekend!
‘It’s fine with me.’ Rachel nodded with obvious relief that Leonie would be returning. ‘I really am sorry this weekend turned out to be such a disaster for you.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll make sure that we have a lot more time together next weekend to get down to some serious work,’ she promised warmly.
Leonie hoped that included not inviting a dozen or so guests for dinner; she really didn’t want to spend every Saturday evening caught up with Rachel’s theatrical friends. Not that there was anything wrong with the people she had met last night, it was just that, as a historian, she was as much of an oddity to them as they were to her. She would never get any research done on this book if every weekend turned out to be as unproductive as this one had!
Although it hadn’t been completely unproductive, Leonie acknowledged hardly; she now knew exactly where Luke was coming from with his sudden friendliness. He wouldn’t find her quite so gullible the next time!
If there ever were a next time…
She stood up abruptly, deciding not to bother with croissants, after all; they would probably choke her anyway, the way she felt right now! ‘I’ll just go upstairs and collect my things. If you could have those albums ready for me to take with me…?’
‘Of course.’ Rachel smiled at her warmly.
Leonie made good her escape. Rachel hadn’t mentioned where Luke was this morning, but with any luck he might already have left himself. If not, Leonie certainly didn’t intend seeing him again before she left!
It was just her luck that as she turned from putting her overnight bag into the boot of her green MG sports car Luke should come strolling out the front door, carrying a bag of his own!
‘Leaving us already?’ he drawled mockingly as he walked across the gravel to join her beside her car, wearing faded blue denims today with a dark blue tee shirt.
Leonie gave him a scathing glare even as her pulse leapt just at the sight of him, a blush darkening her cheeks. ‘I do have a life of my own to live, you know,’ she bit out caustically.
His eyes narrowed. ‘So I believe,’ he murmured dryly. ‘Rachel seems to be of the opinion that I owe you an apology for last night?’ he added in a bored voice.
Leonie swallowed hard, wishing—not for the first time—that Rachel hadn’t been a spectator to what had happened between Luke and Leonie the previous evening. That way Leonie could have dealt with the situation in her own way. Namely, by pretending it had never happened!
She gave Luke a perplexed frown as he added nothing to his previous remark. ‘Well?’ she finally snapped when she could stand the tension no longer.
He raised dark brows. ‘Well, what?’
Leonie gave a sigh of impatience. ‘Obviously you aren’t of the same opinion as your mother!’ She glared at him.
Luke shrugged unconcernedly. ‘I’m more interested in whether you think I owe you an apology for last night,’ he drawled. ‘Do you?’ He frowned darkly.
When he put it as bluntly as that—probably not! After all, she hadn’t exactly been fighting him off, had she? After talking to Rachel this morning she did at least know what Luke was up to, could make sure something like last night never happened again.
‘No,’ she bit out dismissively.
His expression brightened. ‘You don’t?’
She shook her head. ‘As long as we both do everything we can to ensure it doesn’t happen again,’ she told him hardly.
‘Ah.’ Luke looked less pleased by this statement. ‘I was just about to ask if you would care to have dinner
with me in town one evening during the week…?’
He had just been about to—!
‘No, thank you,’ Leonie bit out forcefully, shaking her head incredulously at the sheer nerve of the man. Have dinner with him, indeed!
Luke frowned. ‘No?’
‘No!’ she said again exasperatedly.
‘Something else your boyfriend wouldn’t like?’ he drawled with obvious sarcasm.
Her mouth tightened. ‘Let’s leave my personal life out of this, shall we?’ she told him tautly.
‘I don’t see how we can—I’m certainly not interested in pursuing a conversation about your professional one!’ Luke told her bluntly. ‘Not while it continues to include my mother’s biography, at least!’ he added.
Leonie gasped at the sheer audacity of the man, the arrogance, the nerve, the—‘Then it appears we have nothing at all to say to each other, doesn’t it?’ She slammed closed the boot of her car with obvious finality.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ Luke prompted huskily.
‘I’m just about to go back inside and say goodbye to Rachel,’ she assured him impatiently; as if she would just leave, without making her hostess aware of her departure. Luke might have forgotten what good manners were, but she certainly hadn’t!
‘My mother’s apologies; she asked me to explain to you that she has a headache, which has necessitated her going back to bed,’ Luke informed her evenly.
A headache that would no doubt leave Rachel as soon as her objectionable son had returned to London!
Although that was probably being unfair, Leonie conceded contritely. Despite Rachel’s obvious exasperation with her son at times, she obviously also adored him, and was also extremely proud of him.
Not that those feelings made Rachel blind to his faults!
Leonie frowned. ‘Your mother had some things she was going to give me…’
‘They’re in here,’ Luke drawled derisively, holding up the bag he had carried outside with him.
Hence his reference to her having ‘forgotten something’!
‘Just throw them into the passenger seat,’ she told him irritably before moving round to the driver’s side of the car. ‘Thank you,’ she muttered tightly as he did exactly that, the bag teetering precariously before settling on the seat. ‘Please tell your mother that I hope she feels better soon,’ Leonie added lamely.
He nodded abruptly. ‘I’ll do that.’
Leaving Leonie with no other course of action than to get in behind the wheel of her car. Not that she wanted another course of action, she hastily assured herself. The sooner she was away from here, away from Luke, the better she would feel!
Luke leant down beside the open passenger door. ‘Drive carefully,’ he advised hardly, green eyes almost translucent—and totally unfathomable.
‘It’s the way I live most of my life, Luke,’ she returned tartly.
‘Really?’ He grimaced. ‘The dash of impetuosity in your choice of car seems to indicate otherwise…’ He eyed her, and the sporty car, speculatively.
‘It was a twenty-first birthday present from my grandfather,’ she informed impatiently.
‘Hmm,’ he mused. ‘Meaning you had no part in the choice of model?’
Actually, no… Her grandfather had announced his intention eight years ago of buying a car for her birthday, but the choice of car, and colour, he had left entirely to her, only accompanying her to the garage to buy the car once she had made her choice. But she didn’t like Luke’s implication that the car she drove was indicative of a more impulsive nature than she cared to admit to…!
’I told you, it was a present from my grandfather,’ she returned unhelpfully. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind closing the door, I would like to begin my drive back to London.’
‘By all means,’ Luke taunted, stepping back from the car. ‘I’ll see you next weekend, then,’ he added mockingly before closing the passenger door.
Not if she had anything to do with it, he wouldn’t, Leonie decided firmly as she put the car in gear and drove away from the house down the long driveway to the road. She couldn’t exactly ask Rachel to keep her son away from the house while Leonie was there working, but that didn’t mean Leonie couldn’t ascertain Luke’s whereabouts before committing herself to coming down here again herself. Perhaps, with her own upcoming work commitments in town, Rachel could even meet up with her in London during the next few weeks, rather than Leonie having to go to the house.
Coward, mocked a little taunting voice inside her head.
Not at all. This weekend had proved how difficult it was going to be to work at Rachel’s home, for a number of reasons. Neutral ground, with no outside distractions, might suit both women better.
Leonie’s mood brightened by the second as she approached London, making her wonder if she hadn’t just overreacted to the whole weekend. After all, Luke had deliberately set out to put her off working for his mother. It was up to Leonie, by continuing with the biography, to show him he hadn’t succeeded.
In fact, by the afternoon, sitting in her own little pocket-handkerchief of garden, going through the photograph albums Rachel had let her bring away with her, she was back to her usual, confident self. Luke Richmond—pah! If he thought he was going to scare her off with his outrageous behaviour, then he was mistaken. She—
There were several photographs missing from the album she was looking through…
Leonie flicked back to the pages preceding the two she had been looking at. Each had four photographs neatly stuck to the page with adhesive corners. The pages following also had the requisite number of photographs. In fact, apart from these two pages, with two photographs missing on each, the album was complete. And the adhesive corners were still in place, only the photographs had been removed.
Who had removed them?
And why?
More to the point, when had they had been removed? Before Rachel had given the albums to Luke? Or before Luke had later given them to Leonie…?
CHAPTER 7
‘SO YOU think perhaps those photographs may have been of Luke Richmond’s father?’ Jeremy frowned across the table at her the next evening, as the two of them sat drinking coffee together in a coffee bar across from the cinema where they had just been to see a film.
‘I’m never going to know one way or the other, am I?’ Leonie shrugged ruefully.
‘You could always try asking Rachel Richmond,’ Jeremy suggested interestedly.
She had already thought of that. But if Rachel was the one who had removed those four photographs, then she had obviously done so for a reason. If the actress wasn’t the one who had removed them, that only left Luke, and Leonie had no wish to be the cause of any more strain between mother and son by bringing Rachel’s attention to the missing photographs.
‘They probably aren’t important, anyway,’ she dismissed lightly, wishing now that she had never mentioned the missing photographs to Jeremy.
It was just that this evening she was finding being with Jeremy wasn’t as comfortable as it had been in the past, that conversation between them seemed slightly stilted. On her part, at least. That, she was all too well aware, was her guilty conscience about what had happened between herself and Luke over the weekend; she knew that Jeremy was his usual cheerful self. She just didn’t feel as relaxed with him as she usually did.
Which was a pity, because in the past she had always looked forward to their evenings together.
‘Is something else bothering you?’ Jeremy prompted gently as he seemed to pick up on some of her troubled thoughts.
Only some of them, thank goodness! It would be too embarrassing if Jeremy were to realise what an idiot she had made of herself with Luke Richmond over the weekend.
‘Not at all,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘It’s just that, with these missing photographs as an example, I’ve realised this biography is going to be even more—complex, than I first suspected it might be.’ She sighed. ‘It’s going to take months of hard work.�
�� Especially if she did as little work on it as she had over this weekend!
Jeremy reached out and lightly covered her hand with his. ‘I told you not to worry on our account,’ he reassured her brightly. ‘You’re the sort of woman no man in his right senses would mind waiting for,’ he added huskily.
Leonie’s eyes widened in dismay at this uncharacteristic display of intimacy by Jeremy, verbally as well as physically. Now he decided to show that he was serious about her, after all!
Maybe it was true that absence did make the heart grow fonder! In the past she had usually been available for whatever outings Jeremy had suggested for the two of them; the fact that she was no longer quite so accessible seemed to have deepened Jeremy’s interest.
Wonderful!
Having decided, in view of her confusion of emotions concerning Luke Richmond, that perhaps she ought to start seeing a little less of Jeremy, she was more confused than ever now that Jeremy finally seemed to be declaring himself.
Leonie couldn’t quite meet his gaze as she gently but firmly removed her hand from beneath his. Even that intimacy seemed too much when her own emotions were so confused.
If she were in love with Jeremy, as she had half thought herself to be before this weekend, then she wouldn’t—couldn’t—have responded to Luke’s kisses in the way that she had. Could she…?
She had no idea. After years of dedicating herself to her studies, her experience in relationships wasn’t that extensive. A couple of friendships with fellow students during her own university days that had gone nowhere, several random dates during the following years, and these dates with Jeremy the last few months, were basically the limit of that experience. None of that had allowed for the force that was Luke Richmond!
‘It’s getting late, Jeremy,’ she told him with forced lightness. ‘I’m a working girl, remember?’ she added to take some of the sting out of her abrupt end to the evening.
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