Love's Duel

by Carole Mortimer

  Leonie knew the the occasion to which she alluded. ‘Maybe,’ she admitted curtly. ‘Although things aren’t always what they seem.’

  ‘I know that, dear,’ she said gently. ‘That’s why I had to tell Giles about your seeing Jeremy Lindsay. Not that I knew who he was at the time, but Giles was able to recognise him by my description of him.’

  Leonie’s eyes were wide as she turned to look at Giles. ‘You know why I saw Jeremy?’

  ‘Not until my mother turned up.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Leonie,’ Mrs Burroughs spoke to her, ‘but I didn’t like that man’s tone at all.’

  ‘You were Giles’ other source…’ she said dazedly.

  ‘I was?’

  ‘Yes. You see—’

  ‘You should have told me, Leonie,’ Giles interrupted angrily, ‘instead of letting me jump to conclusions.’

  ‘Conclusions you were only too happy to jump to,’ she accused.

  ‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘I’ll admit to doing that a lot where you’re concerned, but you’ve never tried to help matters.’

  ‘Help them?’ she scorned. ‘You didn’t believe me when I did tell the truth. You enjoy thinking the worst of me, you always have.’

  ‘No,’ he said intently. ‘Leonie, I—’

  ‘It isn’t going to work, Giles,’ she told him angrily. ‘Not even to save your mother embarrassment will I—’

  ‘Oh, I’m not embarrassed, Leonie,’ Mrs Burroughs smiled her pleasure. ‘It’s a change to see Giles not getting his own way.’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘You don’t frighten me, Giles,’ she smiled. ‘And you don’t intimidate Leonie either. She seems perfectly capable of standing up for herself.’ she said happily.

  ‘She is,’ Giles admitted grimly. ‘So perhaps you wouldn’t mind leaving us so that she can do exactly that.’

  She raised her eyebrows at Leonie. ‘Not very tactful, is he?’

  ‘Or polite,’ Leonie agreed with a glare in his direction.

  ‘How the hell can I be polite when you’re driving me quietly out of my mind?’ he rasped.

  ‘Giles!’ She looked pointedly at his mother.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind me, dear,’ Mrs Burroughs said happily.

  ‘But I do,’ Giles said grimly. ‘Would you mind leaving Leonie and me alone?’

  She stood up with a certain amount of reluctance. ‘Just as the conversation was getting interesting too!’

  ‘I’m sure it was,’ he said grimly.

  ‘If you take my advice, Giles—which you never have,’ she added without rancour, ‘then you’ll marry this perfectly charming young lady.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘And if she won’t have me?’

  ‘I’ve never known you to be negative, Giles,’ his mother chided. ‘Make her marry you.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to do,’ he sighed. ‘And with Leonie that method doesn’t work.’

  ‘It might have done,’ Leonie told him vehemently, ‘if you hadn’t been cruel and sadistic too.’

  ‘Giles!’ his mother cried in dismay. ‘What have you been doing to this child?’

  His expression darkened. ‘Trying to show her that she belongs to me,’ he said fiercely.

  His mother tutted. ‘That’s where you’ve been going wrong. Really, Giles, I’m surprised at you! I would have thought you knew women better than this. Stake a claim on a woman and she’ll fight you to hell and back.’

  Giles grimaced. ‘Your terminology leaves a lot to be desired.’

  His mother gave him an impatient look. ‘What does it matter, as long as my meaning is clear? The way to get a woman to marry you is to tell her you love her, not tell her she belongs to you.’ His mother left the room with a quiet click of the door.

  ‘Whew!’ Leonie breathed. ‘Now I know who you get it from.’

  Giles’s mouth was tight. ‘You believe I’m like my mother?’

  ‘Exactly like her,’ she nodded. ‘If only she realised you don’t know how to love, that you were only marrying me at all because you couldn’t possess me any other way.’

  He moved to pour himself a drink, swallowing the whisky in one gulp. ‘Couldn’t I?’ he said tautly.

  ‘No!’ Colour flamed her cheeks.

  Giles breathed deeply. ‘Yes, Leonie. And that wasn’t the reason at all. I didn’t want to marry you for any other reason than that I—I love you.’ He put a hand up over his eyes. ‘I love you so much that I can’t live without you. Why do you think I’ve been acting like a madman, why I came after you even though you said you’d been with Jeremy?’

  Leonie had gone very white, wishing he would take his hand away so that she could see his face. ‘Giles…?’ she said disbelievingly.

  His hand snapped back, his face haggard. ‘Yes, laugh if you want to, I think I deserve that.’

  She swallowed hard, her gaze fixed on his haggard features. He wasn’t being sarcastic, or cruel, or any of the things he had been the last few weeks, he was being completely honest. Giles loved her! ‘I—I’m not laughing,’ her voice faltered. ‘I think I may be going mad, but I’m not laughing. Giles, do you mean what you’re saying?’

  ‘That I love you?’ he rasped harshly. ‘Of course.’

  ‘But—but how?’

  His mouth twisted into a self-derisory smile. ‘Most women ask when, not how.’

  ‘All right,’ she quavered. ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as I saw you in the courtroom four years ago,’ he revealed dully.

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ she shook her head. ‘I don’t care what game it is you’re playing now,’ she said angrily, ‘but I’m not interested. I’d like to leave now.’

  ‘No!’ His cry was agonised. ‘I won’t let you go. You can’t leave!’

  ‘Watch me.’ She spun on her heel.

  ‘No, you can’t go, Leonie!’ He spun her round, deep grooves of tension beside his nose and mouth. ‘I won’t let you,’ he choked, pulling her close against him. ‘Don’t leave me, Leonie. For God’s sake don’t go.’ He trembled against her, his face buried in her throat.

  He couldn’t be playing, even he wasn’t this good an actor. ‘Giles, I—I don’t know what to say.’ Her arms went about his waist, her head resting againt his shoulder. ‘You—I—Tell me about it.’

  ‘I love you,’ he groaned. ‘Whatever else, please believe that.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ she said huskily.

  Giles drew a ragged breath, and put her firmly away from him. ‘I can’t think straight when I hold you, and I think if I was at least comprehensible when I talk to you it may help.’

  She gave a jerky smile. ‘It may do.’

  ‘All right.’ He ran an unsteady hand through his already tousled hair, his usual impeccable appearance noticeably absent. ‘I’ll start from the beginning. When Jeremy asked me to take his case I accepted because he was a friend. During the next few weeks I listened to him telling me what a devious, money-grasping little bitch you were. By the time of the trial I felt I knew you almost as well as he did. Then I saw you for myself…’ He shook his head. ‘I’d never even believed in love, let alone love at first sight. And yet one look at you and I was lost.’

  ‘You told me I should have been given life,’ she recalled bitterly.

  ‘Life with me. I wanted to marry you, tie you to me for a lifetime.’

  ‘I hated you.’

  ‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘Which was why I left you alone when the court case was over. By the time I decided you might be able to look at me without spitting in my face you’d moved from your flat, and you hadn’t left a forwarding address. Shortly after that you must have got married, because I couldn’t find you anywhere.’

  Leonie frowned. ‘Did you try?’

  ‘God, yes. But I had to give up in the end. It just never occurred to me that you were married.’

  She bit her bottom lip. ‘Tell me, do you still believe what Jeremy told you about me?’

  He shook his head. ‘
I don’t think I ever did. Although it threw me a bit when you turned up at my aunt’s and it looked as if the same thing was going to be tried on me.’

  ‘I wasn’t—’

  ‘I tried not to believe it, but when I kissed you you responded. And considering that you hate me I considered that a suspicious reaction.’

  Leonie looked down awkwardly at her hands. ‘Maybe I just liked to be kissed by you.’

  Hope kindled in his eyes ‘Did you?’

  ‘Go on,’ she said hardly.

  Giles sighed. ‘Well, I liked kissing you anyway. I still do. As soon as I saw you again I knew I had to have you. Marry you,’ he hastily explained as she frowned. ‘Then you said that you had a price for letting me make love to you, and that that price was marriage. I rebelled against that, fought against being trapped into what I really wanted to do anyway. Then I thought I overheard you proposing to Phil!’

  ‘He’s my brother. He always has been.’

  Giles nodded. ‘So he explained. I like your brother, Leonie.’

  ‘I think he likes you too,’ she said dryly.

  ‘I hope so. He made a mistake in his youth, but I think everyone is entitled to one mistake.’

  ‘I wasn’t!’ she recalled indignantly.

  ‘That was different, I’m in love with you. I don’t allow any faults in the people I love. My mother—’

  ‘Obviously hurt you very much. But that was years ago.’

  He shrugged. ‘It made a lasting impression. It made me even harder on the woman I finally fell in love with.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Leonie shook her head. ‘I never stood a chance.’

  ‘Not in the circumstances in which we met, no. But I fell in love with you anyway.’

  ‘And made me suffer for it!’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted heavily. ‘But you didn’t help. You did everything you could to make me think badly of you. When you asked for that money I could have wrung your neck.’

  ‘You deserved that,’ she said with feeling. ‘You were high-handed and insulting—as usual.’

  ‘But you still agreed to marry me.’

  Her eyes sparkled angrily. ‘You didn’t give me any choice in the matter.’

  ‘You know I did. You could have denied me in front of all my friends. But you didn’t, and you continued to take my insults. Why was that, Leonie?’ His piercing grey eyes probed her flushed and heated cheeks, her lashes lowering to shield her revealing eyes.

  ‘Why, Leonie?’ he repeated shakily.

  ‘Because I—Maybe I thought you should suffer a while longer.’

  ‘I’ve suffered, I’m still suffering.’

  She could see that, could see the raw pain in his grey eyes, the tension about his mouth. She took a deep breath, deciding to tell him of her own love, of her own pain. ‘Giles—’

  ‘How could you still love Jeremy?’ he suddenly exploded, banging his fist down on the table. ‘How can you, after all that he’s done to you?’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘God, I know I’m a swine, but at least I genuinely love you.’

  ‘So does he, in his own way,’ she said bitterly. ‘He was going to divorce Glenda and marry me.’

  Giles gave a defeated sigh. ‘Then that’s that. I—I hope you’ll be happy with him.’ He turned away.

  Leonie couldn’t stand it any more, wanted the nerve-shattering lovemaking that only Giles could give her. She put her hand on his arm, and felt him flinch. ‘Do you really mean that?’

  His expression was fierce as he looked down at her. ‘I’ll see him in hell first!’ he snarled.

  Her mouth twitched and then she began to laugh, at last beginning to believe in his love.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he growled.

  ‘You are,’ she smiled. ‘I’m not going to marry Jeremy, Giles. I hope I never see him again.’

  ‘Leonie—’

  ‘I don’t love him and I’m not marrying him,’ she insisted firmly.

  Giles frowned. ‘But you do love him. I saw you the night of the dinner-party, saw your reaction to him.’

  ‘Not him,’ she contradicted softly, looking up at him with unflinching eyes, her hand moving up to caress his hard cheek. ‘That night I looked at you and realised I love you.’

  He swallowed hard. ‘You—love—me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she gave a relieved laugh, ‘I love you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really,’ she smiled.

  His breath left his body in a hiss, his mouth turning to probe her palm as his gaze searched the glow of her face. ‘Will you marry me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed happily.

  ‘Did you say—yes?’

  ‘I did,’ she nodded.

  Giles eyes closed. ‘I can’t believe this. I’ve wanted—loved you for so long, I can’t believe you’ll really be my wife.’

  ‘But I will. And when we’re on our honeymoon you can tell me about how you and Phil became friends.’

  The glimmer of a smile lightened his strained features. ‘I think we might have things to do other than talk about your brother!’

  Leonie blushed. ‘I hope so.’

  She woke to find the dawn just breaking over the rooftops of Paris. And she was alone, only the warmth of the sheet next to her telling her that Giles had been beside her until a few minutes ago. Her husband of only a few hours!

  She sat up, searchingly the gloom for him, seeing his silhouette against the window as daylight penetrated the room.

  ‘Giles?’ She frowned as he didn’t answer. ‘Giles, what’s wrong?’ She stood up, moving hurriedly to his side, unconcerned with her nakedness, feeling no shyness with the man who now knew her body more intimately than he knew his own, just as she knew every hard contour of his. ‘Giles!’ she cried her concern.

  He looked down at her, the tears still wet on his cheeks. ‘I didn’t know,’ he choked. ‘I couldn’t have known,’ he groaned, burying his face into her scented throat.

  She didn’t even pretend not to know what he was talking about. Giles knew of her innocence now, knew her to be untouched by any man but him. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you,’ she said softly.

  ‘You mean you knew I wouldn’t believe you even if you did tell me.’ He was visibly shaking. ‘Your husband…’

  ‘Was an invalid. He married me for companionship, and I married him because—well, because he needed me and I loved him. Oh, not like I love you. Tom was a father figure. I liked and respected him very much. I—I think I made him happy.’

  ‘And Jeremy told me nothing but lies!’ Giles said savagely.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Leonie soothed him. ‘Nothing else matters now that I’m your wife.’

  ‘But the things I said to you, the accusations—’

  ‘Are all in the past.’ She pouted provocatively. ‘It’s very lonely in that big bed.’

  ‘Leonie, how can you still want me?’ he groaned with self-loathing.

  She smiled confidently at him. ‘It’s quite simple, I can’t not want you. Now, are you going to come back to bed with me?’

  ‘Tonight and every other night.’ His words were in the form of a vow.

  * * * * *

  Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of USA Today bestselling author

  Sharon Kendrick’s next book,

  THE PREGNANT KAVAKOS BRIDE

  The most recent instalment of the Wedlocked! miniseries

  Ariston Kavakos makes impoverished Keeley Turner a proposition: a month’s employment on his island, at his command. Soon her resistance to their sizzling chemistry weakens! But when there’s a consequence, Ariston makes one thing clear: Keeley will become his bride…

  Keep reading to get a glimpse of

  THE PREGNANT KAVAKOS BRIDE

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE WAS EVERYTHING he hated about a woman and she was talking to his brother. Ariston Kavakos grew very still as he stared at her. At curves guaranteed to make a man desire h
er whether he wanted to or not. And he most definitely did not. Yet his body was stubbornly refusing to obey the dictates of his mind and a powerful shaft of lust arrowed straight to his groin.

  Who the hell had invited Keeley Turner?

  She was standing close to Pavlos, her blonde hair rippling beneath the overhead lights of the swish London art gallery. She lifted her hand as if to emphasise a point and Ariston found his gaze drawn to the most amazing breasts he had ever seen. He swallowed as he remembered her in a dripping wet bikini with rivulets of water trickling down over her belly as she emerged from the foamy blue waters of the Aegean. She was memory and fantasy all mixed up in one. Something started and never finished. Eight years on and Keeley Turner made him want to look at her and only her, despite the stunning photographs of his private Greek island which dominated the walls of the London gallery.

  Was his brother similarly smitten? He hoped not, although it was hard to tell because their body language excluded the rest of the world as they stood deep in conversation. Ariston began to walk across the gallery but if they noticed him approach they chose not to acknowledge it. He felt a flicker of rage, which he quickly cast aside because rage could be counterproductive. He knew that now. Icy calm was far more effective in dealing with difficult situations and it had been the key to his success. The means by which he had dragged his family’s ailing company out of the dust and built it anew it and gained a reputation of being the man with the Midas touch. The dissolute reign of his father was over and his elder son was now firmly in charge. These days the Kavakos shipping business was the most profitable on the planet and he intended to keep it that way.

  His mouth hardened. Which meant more than just dealing with shipbrokers and being up to speed with the state of world politics. It meant keeping an eye on the more gullible members of the family. Because there was a lot of money sloshing around the Kavakos empire and he knew how women acted around money. An early lesson in feminine greed had changed his life for ever and that was why he never took his eye off the ball. His attitude meant that some people considered him controlling, but Ariston preferred to think of himself as a guiding influence—like a captain steering a ship. And in a way, life was like being at sea. You steered clear of icebergs for obvious reasons and women were like icebergs. You only ever saw ten per cent of what they were really like—the rest was buried deep beneath the self-serving and grasping surface.