‘Again, you should have told me sooner.’
‘I didn’t think the builders would just up and disappear.’
‘You’re stressed, and stress is the last thing you need right now.’
And, he thought, she couldn’t accuse him of contributing to the source of her stress, considering he had done nothing but kick his heels for the past few weeks, gritting his teeth in silent frustration as she became more and more entrenched in her determination to prove how self-sufficient she was.
There were times when she seriously made him want to tear his hair out.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he said abruptly, coming to a decision and not giving himself time to have any rethink.
Maddie’s eyes widened. ‘For what?’
Leo looked at her in silence for a few seconds. ‘What would you like it to be for?’ he couldn’t resist asking, his voice as soft as silk.
He lowered his eyes, annoyed with himself and with the prompt response of his libido to the thought of having her. More than anything he would like to see her changing body...ripening with his child.
‘You’re going to pack your bags,’ he said gruffly, ‘because you’re leaving here today. With me.’
‘What?’
‘You recall I mentioned that my grandfather is cruising in the Caribbean and had stopped off to stay on one of the smaller islands? Well, the villa on that island belongs to me, and I intend on taking you there. Unfortunately there will be no meet-and-greet with him, as he’s now enjoying the splendours of the open seas, but it’s a great place to unwind—and you need to unwind.’
Leo couldn’t disguise a certain amount of relief that Benito had left the island. In due course he would meet the woman who would become his future granddaughter-in-law, as far as he was concerned, and Leo hadn’t disillusioned him. It was a bridge to be crossed when he got to it. But he would certainly be thrilled to think that they would be going to the villa together—as a couple.
‘Leo, that’s ridiculous! I can’t just...just leave for a holiday while everything here is in disarray!’
But the thought of doing that dangled like a carrot in front of her.
‘Leave everything to me,’ Leo said, rising to his feet and heading out towards the hall and the staircase while Maddie shot up and tripped along behind him.
‘I can manage just fine on my own,’ she said, dutifully registering a protest vote.
He spun round to stare at her with incredulity.
‘No, Maddie, you can’t. The house is a mess. You haven’t been eating. You’ve hired a team of builders who have obviously got the message that they can do as they please because you’re too stressed out to stand your ground. You’re too proud to ask for help. Whether you like it or not, you’re going to pack two bags of summer clothes and we’re going to fly out to my house first thing in the morning. Now, I can either pack those bags for you, or you can pack them yourself. When the bags are packed you’re going to come back with me to my place, spend the night, and forget every single worry that’s been dragging you down.’
‘Since when did you become so bossy?’
Leo dealt her an amused, crooked smile.
‘Sometimes being bossy is the only thing that works when you’re dealing with a woman who digs her heels in so far that she refuses to ask for help even when she discovers she can’t pull them out. Now, the bags...?’
* * *
Maddie gazed out of the window on the plane to the bank of clouds below. Everything had happened so fast that her head was still spinning. Put simply, Leo had taken over and, like a juggernaut, had bulldozed every single obstacle until she had left behind a trusted foreman who was going to supervise the work on the house with a rod of steel. And as far as the store was concerned he had moved in some of his own people.
‘The store is yours,’ he had told her before she’d been able to object, ‘but you need the right resources to run it. I’ll make sure you have them.’
Maddie had accepted without hesitation. Pride was one thing, but other people’s livelihoods depended on her doing what she had set out to do with the store, and it had been proving more time-consuming and difficult than she had imagined. Pregnant, and with her head not entirely focused on the store, she had been distracted. And in the evenings she was very, very tired. Too tired to commit to the gruelling hours necessary at this stage in the process of taking the store out of the doldrums. And there was a limit to how much she could ask her trusted employees to do.
Leo would not take advantage. She knew that. She’d spent the past few weeks coming to terms with the fact that he was a man who was true to his word—a completely different species from Adam, with whom she had first so rashly compared him.
Leo was honourable to a fault. His proposal to her had been the ultimate act of selflessness, because he didn’t love her, had never planned on having any sort of relationship with her after that one heady night of sex, and had never factored marriage to any woman into his agenda. He had his reasons, and she was guessing that he’d been hurt just as she had, but that aside she’d always known that he was not a guy in it for the long term. Yet, he’d bitten the bullet and proposed because he’d felt it was the right thing to do.
Not once over the past few weeks had he tried to bully her into marrying him either. He had obeyed all the Do Not Trespass signs she had posted without complaint. And that was pretty amazing, because she had thought that there was something fundamentally restless and impatient about him that would have had him crashing through any signs that didn’t suit him.
She would not come back to find that the store had been converted into an electronics shop. Not that there was any chance of that anyway, because they would only be away for ten days.
She sneaked a sidelong glance at him. He was working, frowning slightly as he read through whatever was on his screen. He was perfectly still and yet he exuded the sort of energy that made her think of a resting tiger.
Ten days in his company...
How on earth was she going to cope?
Her heart picked up speed. Being in his company was a balancing act, and only now, with all the usual distractions removed, was she recognising that balancing act for what it was. A breathless mixture of excitement and apprehension, a forbidden longing that defied logic, and a need to get close to the fire even though it was dangerous.
It was okay when she was only seeing him now and again, only hearing that dark, velvety voice a couple of times a day. It was okay when there were other people around to dilute the force of his personality. But she quailed at the thought of being with him in an empty house.
‘You never said...’ She cleared her throat. ‘Does anyone live in the...er...villa?’
Leo saved what he had been reading with the press of a key and angled his big body towards her in the first-class seat, which was generous but still somehow felt cramped to him.
‘Anyone like who?’ he drawled, amused by the delicate flush that had spread across her high cheekbones.
He’d expected her to fight him when it came to this trip because she seemed to want to fight him on everything, but she had conceded quickly and with a hint of relief.
Life was tough when you had no experience of the big, bad world of business—and when you’d made it your mission not to ask for help from the one person who could help you. Maddie was finding that out for herself and, whilst he was furious that she had allowed the situation to get out of hand before coming to him, he knew that he had finally found a way in to her.
He’d played the waiting game and he’d soon got fed up with it. It wasn’t his style. Now that waiting game was over. He would show her just how good her life could be with him in it.
There was no way he was going to let her go down any road that saw him being pushed into second place in the parent stakes—arranging visits and watching from the sidelines while some other gu
y took the reins.
But any threat of a custody battle wouldn’t do him any favours. Leo was very realistic about that. He worked long hours and, whilst he might have bottomless funds when it came to providing financial security, it would be crazy to think that a live-in nanny would be any match for Maddie. No sane judge would rule in his favour. He wouldn’t contemplate any such course of action. Because if he did, and subsequently lost, the price he would end up paying would be high.
Time had not been his friend. But he intended to make sure that it would be from now on, and being with her, a little voice said, wasn’t exactly going to be a hardship. She had the oddest talent when it came to lifting his spirits, even though accommodating and acquiescent were two words that could never be used to describe her. and he’d always plumped for those two things when it came to the opposite sex.
‘Staff?’ Maddie ventured, wondering what sort of staff manned a villa that was empty most of the year. ‘You haven’t really said much about it. How big is it? And why on earth do you have a villa on an island in the Caribbean if you hardly ever go there?’
‘Investment,’ Leo said succinctly. ‘I tend to use it as a company retreat. Occasionally as a bonus holiday for high achievers. So, yes, there’s staff. When it’s empty they come in twice weekly, to air the place and make sure nothing’s amiss, but it’s used fairly frequently so they’re kept busy much of the time. They’re all on hefty retainers, so they’re there whenever I need them.’
‘Wow. Sometimes...’
‘Sometimes?’
‘Sometimes when you say stuff like that—like when you said that you would stay in Ireland and buy a house and it wouldn’t be a problem because you could throw money at it—I realise just how different we are from one another.’
‘Different doesn’t necessarily mean incompatible.’
‘Leo, before I went to work for Lacey I scrubbed floors. My mum worked all the hours God gave to make ends meet. She didn’t get a penny from my grandfather...’
No surprise there, Leo thought. Old Tommaso, if his own grandfather could be believed, had forgotten how to spend money unless it was on drink or horses. He certainly wouldn’t have been sending any to the daughter he’d excommunicated because of her lifestyle choices.
He’d made it quite clear—and indeed Leo had read the letter sent to his grandfather years ago, after his last purchase attempt of the store had hit a brick wall—that selling the store was as pie in the sky as welcoming back his wayward daughter.
‘Too proud to ask, I’ll bet...’ Maddie said sadly.
‘Really?’
‘She could be stubborn.’
‘The family resemblance is duly noted,’ Leo remarked wryly.
Maddie blushed. ‘I’ve never had a holiday, and when I came over here it was the first time I’d been on a plane.’
‘We grew up in very different backgrounds,’ Leo conceded, ‘but we share some very similar traits. I’ve never known any woman as bloody stubborn as me, or as determined to set a course and stick to it.’ He looked at her narrowly. ‘Occasionally a person has to dig beneath the surface.’
‘You’re only saying that because I’m pregnant with your baby and you have to find some positives.’
‘If that bastard ex of yours was around,’ Leo said grimly, ‘I’d flatten him.’
Maddie pinkened with pleasure at the possessiveness in Leo’s voice. ‘He did me a favour. He made me careful about trusting people.’
‘He took away your confidence, and for that he deserves to be ripped apart limb by limb.’
‘I’m just being realistic. Anyway... You haven’t said... Will the house be staffed?’
‘There will just be the two of us.’ He shrugged, ‘So there won’t be any need to have the place swamped with staff. There will be a discreet service—a skeleton staff—and they, naturally, will not live in. No need for you to do anything at all on the domestic front, and I feel we’re perfectly capable of taking care of our own breakfasts,’
‘Of course,’ Maddie said faintly. ‘I’ve been doing that all my life. I think I’ve got my technique well-honed when it comes to putting some cereal in a bowl or boiling an egg and making some toast.’
Leo’s mouth twitched with amusement. ‘I find it tiresome if there are people hovering when I want privacy...’
Maddie wondered what sort of privacy Leo had in mind, and had to soothe herself with the timely reminder that he was no longer interested in her as a sexual being. She was carrying his child and had now entered a different category. He’d gone from wanting her to wanting to make sure she was okay—which was a completely different thing.
But she wanted him to care because of her and not just because of the fact that she was carrying his baby. She wanted to crawl into his arms and have him hold her because he wanted to—not because he was concerned about her stress levels because of the baby...
She pushed the thought away.
‘You won’t have to think about anything while you’re out there, Maddie,’ he continued.
‘That’s a big promise, Leo.’ She laughed, surprised at how relaxed she felt in his company—but then, when she’d first met him she’d felt relaxed as well.
For a moment he wasn’t Leo the billionaire, who’d wanted her store and was now stuck with her because of the pregnancy, but the Leo who had charmed her with his wit and humour and mind-blowing sex appeal.
‘I’ve never been in a situation where I haven’t had to think about something, so I’m not sure how I would cope with that.’
She blushed when he fixed his amazing eyes on her with thoughtful, speculative intensity.
‘You haven’t had an easy life,’ he conceded, ‘but now you’re pregnant, and your days of having to stress and worry are over.’
‘I’m not a piece of china.’ But the protest was half-hearted.
‘You are to me.’
Maddie blushed a little more, rattled because there was something intimate about what he was saying—even though she knew that he was just reiterating what he’d said from the beginning, which was that she was his responsibility now that she was pregnant, whether she liked it or not.
She cleared her throat but couldn’t quite meet his gaze. ‘I shouldn’t complain anyway. I have a lot to be thankful for, thanks to my grandfather’s legacy. I have the store, and a roof over my head, and sufficient money to have secured the bank loan. I just wish,’ she confessed, ‘that I could have met him.’
‘Tommaso?’ Leo looked at her, startled. ‘Why?’
‘What do you mean why?’ Maddie asked. ‘I never knew my dad. My mum ran away from her family—precious little of it as there was—and severed all ties. There was always just me and my mum. And, yes, she used to say that we were two against the world, but I would really have liked it to have been lots of us against the world. Two is such a lonely number... I knew I was never going to meet my father, and I never wanted to, but I would have loved to have met my grandfather—especially as I think that he probably wanted to meet me, to have Mum relent...’
‘What gives you that idea?’
‘He left everything to me,’ Maddie said flatly. ‘Why else would he have done that?’
‘Because it’s the Italian way,’ Leo said drily.
‘You’re so cynical, Leo.’
‘He was never going to leave his dwindling fortune to the local cat sanctuary.’
She looked away, her chin at a defiant angle, heated colour still tingeing her cheeks.
Leo could see that Maddie wanted to believe the best of Tommaso—was desperate to forge a link with the grandfather she’d never known—and taking care of the store was part of that. She obviously had no idea what the wily fox had really been like, and on the spot Leo decided that that was something he would never reveal. Let her keep her dreams.
Besides, instigating show-downs and argum
ents wasn’t part of his agenda.
He relaxed and said soothingly, ‘To the best of my knowledge, he was no animal lover. And perhaps you’re right—perhaps it was his way of reaching out to you from beyond the grave...’
‘You think so?’
The urge to burst out laughing died on his lips as he took in the earnestness of her expression, the hope. Not for the first time, he cursed the old bastard who had stubbornly refused to make amends with his only child—and with the grandchild he had never seen.
‘I’m sure that’s exactly how it was,’ he said gravely.
Leo had always wanted the store—had promised his grandfather he’d get it—but he knew that he wasn’t going to stamp out Maddie’s curiously romanticised dreams to get his way, and knew that his grandfather would understand. Frankly, the prospect of a great-grandchild would be a heck of a lot more exciting to the old man.
‘Mum never talked about any of it. She was way too proud. I sometimes wonder whether I should have pressed her more for answers.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I knew it would upset her.’
‘Understandable,’ Leo said in a low, roughened undertone. ‘And of course it’s only when we’re older that we have the confidence to tackle our parents on an adult footing. Respect often gets in the way of interrogation, and I guess by the time you came of age you were wrapped up in having to deal with much bigger issues because your mother was ill.’
Maddie looked astounded at his understanding of just where she was coming from.
‘Don’t beat yourself up over that,’ he said, more briskly. ‘I find it never pays to dwell on the past. In less than four hours you’re going to be at my villa, without a care in the world. I have everything at the store under control, and my team will be reporting daily on work to your house.’
Returning to his laptop—because there was such a thing as too much touchy-feely, let’s get the tissues out and have a good old cry bonding—he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and saw, with great satisfaction, that when she lay back and closed her eyes all traces of anxiety had been wiped clean from her face.
The Italian's One-Night Consequence Page 11
