‘It doesn’t matter,’ Heather said, starting somewhere in the middle, ‘whether you fancy me or I fancy you.’
‘And why would that be? I’m all ears. Because there’s a higher plane somewhere? Some spiritual nirvana we should all be aiming for?’ He had sat down on the sofa, legs crossed. She had switched on a couple of lamps and the room was bathed in a warm, mellow glow. The shadows made her look all the softer, more vulnerable, more unbearably feminine. He looked past her to the mantelpiece, which was cluttered with pictures in various size of frame. A hallmark of the incurable romantic, he thought cynically. There was no mantelpiece in his penthouse apartment and, if there had been, it certainly wouldn’t have been groaning under the weight of photos.
‘Because I used to be married!’ There. It was out in the open now, and the silence that greeted her revelation was deafening. She could almost sense Leo’s brutally sharp mind trying and failing to take it in.
‘You were married?’ he asked. He didn’t know why he found that so shocking, but he did.
‘To a man called Brian.’ Having intended to leave out all extraneous detail, Heather was now overcome with the urge to divulge every miserable second of her disillusioning experience. ‘I…We were…I suppose you could say that we were childhood sweethearts. Went to the same secondary school, started going out when I was seventeen and he was eighteen, although we’d known each other long before then. Grew up together, you might say.’
Leo had said, in a voice that had been thick with sarcasm, that he was going to be all ears, that he couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say. He hadn’t expected this.
‘You were married,’ he repeated slowly.
‘Yes. Haven’t I just told you that?’
‘I’m finding it hard to take in.’
‘Why?’ Because, she thought, he didn’t think she really had what it took to get a guy for keeps? ‘No, scrap that.’
‘Because a husband isn’t usually something most women keep to themselves, even husbands who are no longer on the scene.’ He didn’t add that most divorced women were fond of getting the sympathy vote and complaining about husbands who had left them high and dry—or maybe that was just his cynicism speaking, having been out with a couple of divorcees in the past, neither of which had lasted longer than three months apiece. Who wanted to spend what little free time they had listening to a woman ranting about her ex? ‘Where is he now?’ Leo asked.
He was already envisaging the type of guy she might have married, working out why she was so keen on fighting him. Once bitten, twice shy.
‘In Hong Kong, as a matter of fact.’
‘Hong Kong? What the hell is your ex-husband doing in Hong Kong?’
‘You’re amazed that I was married. You’re amazed that my ex-husband lives in Hong Kong. You don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you?’ Heather asked coldly, although there were tears just below the surface. She was remembering how she had failed to fit in to city life. The higher Brian had climbed, the more she had been left behind. She just hadn’t been the right sort of woman. Why on earth was she feeling hurt because Leo was finding it hard to believe that she might ever have had a life outside the country cottage and the gardening interests?
‘It has nothing to do with whether or not I have a high opinion of you.’ Married? Hong Kong? He had managed to swallow his stupefaction that the woman had an ex in tow; had rapidly concluded that the hapless guy, the teenage sweetheart, must have been a country lad, had done whatever country lads did for a living—sheep farming, possibly—Heather would have become bored with him, with the monotony of being a farmer’s wife…The familiar story of two lives drifting apart.
Sheep farmers, however, did not usually emigrate to Hong Kong.
‘You portrayed yourself in a certain light,’ Leo told her evenly. ‘I took you at face value. You never once mentioned that you were married. You don’t wear a wedding ring. Believe it or not, my immediate conclusion wasn’t that you were a divorcee. Get where I’m going with this? If you can find the insult there, then please point it out.’
‘You think that this—’ she spread her arms wide to encompass everything inside the cottage and outside it ‘—is the sum total of my life? Is that why you figured that I was a safe bet to entice into bed with you—because I was so backward that I would be grateful and excited that a man like you, a man of the world, might condescend to show some interest in me? Interest of a passing nature, of course—because, as you’ve told me, you’re not into permanence. Not that I wouldn’t have guessed that.’
Leo recalled his ready expectations that the attraction between them would result in bed and had the grace to flush.
‘No one could accuse you of being backward,’ he muttered grimly.
Heather looked at him with fierce, angry eyes. It would have been helpful if she could have superimposed Brian’s face onto his, but no such luck. All she could see was his stupendous beauty, the lithe muscularity of his body. It made her more determined to have her say, to make sure that he knew in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t up for grabs. That way, he would avoid her as much as she was desperate for him to. She didn’t want to constantly feel fearful that she might just bump into him. She didn’t want to be tempted.
His expression was still and watchful. For a couple of seconds, her imagination took flight, and she wondered where they would be now if she had never said anything, if she had given in to that kiss completely and had let it take her to the step beyond. They would be upstairs in her king-sized bed. They would be naked and entwined, and she would be burning up with lust.
She closed her eyes briefly, feeling faint. She had to make a big effort to remind herself that a bit of pleasure would never be worth the loss of her self-esteem, which had taken such a long time to reconstruct.
‘How long have you been divorced?’
Heather opened her eyes and inhaled deeply. ‘A couple of years.’
‘What happened?’ Did this qualify as drama? Leo didn’t know. He just knew that he wanted her to finish whatever it was she had to say. If only, he told himself, so that he could walk away and thank his lucky stars for his near escape. A woman with baggage was never worth the hassle.
Besides, he still hadn’t found out what the sheep farmer was doing on the other side of the world.
‘What happened was that I married a guy who ended up making money his god.’
‘Not following you. What did you say he did?’
‘He was an investment banker. In the city. So, you see? I’m not quite the rustic country-bumpkin you thought I was.’
Like a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces were now slotting together at mind-boggling speed. So that was why she had been so knowledgeable about financial matters; why she had been so wary and distrustful of him. Did she think that she could just stand there and make comparisons?
Leo didn’t know the guy, but he was outraged that he should be compared to anyone.
‘Investment banker. Hence your knowledge of the stock market.’
‘Oh yes,’ Heather said bitterly. ‘There was a time when I knew everything there was to know about what was happening in the world of high finance.’ Her eyes glazed over. She forgot that Leo was there. ‘You see, I thought that if I took an interest in what he did, I mean really took an interest, then he might be able to see that I was more than just the teenager who came from his home town. So I read up on all that stuff, even though it bored me to death.’
Leo, listening intently, could pick up on the hurt lying just below the surface, and he felt an irrational desire to find this character and knock him into kingdom come.
‘’Course, it didn’t work.’ Heather refocused on Leo. If he had tried interrupting her, asking questions, then she might have abbreviated everything, but his silence was the equivalent of a key unlocking a box. She hadn’t poured her heart out to anyone, and a part of her was stunned that she should choose to do so now with the most unlikely of candidates. But then it wasn’t as though she risked se
eing him again. People bared their souls to their hairdressers, didn’t they? It was the same sort of thing, wasn’t it?
‘He was in less and less. How could I show off my knowledge of all things financial if he just wasn’t around?’
‘How old were you?’
‘Nineteen. Too young and too impressionable to see what was staring me in the face.’
‘He moved on,’ Leo said flatly, and she gave an imperceptible nod.
‘He was talented. A whizz kid. There was a whole list of “youngest ever” records which he’d broken, as he kept telling me. He had to work all hours, he also kept telling me, and fool that I was I accepted it. I busied myself with my art course and dashed back in the evenings to make meals that ended up in the bin most of the time.’ She glanced quickly at Leo but she couldn’t read what he was thinking. She had come so far with the sorry recital that there seemed little point in cutting it short now. And, besides, it was cathartic, spilling her guts.
‘I guess I knew it was all coming to an end, but I still hung on like an idiot until I got a call from an anonymous woman telling me that she was having an affair with my husband. She’d just been ditched in favour of a newer model, and I guess she decided that telling me was the best revenge she could have. ‘Course, I confronted Brian and, needless to say, he didn’t deny it. I think he was relieved, in a way.’
Watching her face was like watching a slideshow of emotions. He realised that he was clenching his fists and he slowly breathed out, unclenched them, and waited for her to continue.
‘You see, he was ashamed of me.’ Heather held her chin up and looked Leo squarely in the face. ‘Wrong clothes, wrong hair, not polished enough. The more money he earned, and the richer he became, the more his tastes changed. He no longer wanted small and plump and curly haired, he wanted leggy and blonde. Models. He was sorry, of course. And guilty too. He offered me as much money as I wanted, but all I took was enough to buy this cottage so that I could have a safe roof over my head while I kick-started my career back here. I didn’t know whether I’d find work or not, but it was a relief not to have to worry about meeting a mortgage while I looked. He got a transfer to Hong Kong, and good luck to him. As far as I’m concerned, he sold his soul to the Devil.’
‘And you’ve decided that I’m cut from the same cloth as a man who turned out to be an irresponsible philanderer.’
Put like that, Heather was uncomfortably aware that she might have been a bit liberal with her comparisons. But, when you looked at the bigger picture, weren’t they more or less the same—rich men who thought that they could buy whatever and whoever they wanted to? That their wealth entitled them to walk all over people without any regard to feelings? Leo and his ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ women were only a hop and a skip away from Brian and his ‘out with the old, in with the new’, weren’t they? Okay, so there might be some inconsistencies in the detail, but if you got bogged down in the detail, then you were lost.
She shrugged.
‘You were more than willing to use me,’ Heather began, but she faltered when she saw the thunderous, enraged expression on his face.
‘Use you? Use you?’
‘You think you can have whatever you want.’
‘You’re an adult. I’m an adult. As far as I’m concerned, sex between two consenting adults doesn’t involve exploitation of any kind, and believe me, I don’t need to coerce a woman into my bed. Your ex-husband may not have turned out to be the man you thought he was, but don’t even think of lumping me in the same category.’
‘You can’t deny that you’re cocooned by your wealth.’ Heather was angry that he was trying to trip her up, trying to use clever words to make her feel as though she had made a mistake about him. She hadn’t!
‘I don’t use it as an excuse to get women,’ he grated. ‘And that’s a despicable insinuation. Have I tried to buy you with gifts, in any way?’
‘No, but—’
‘But what? Are you going to eliminate every man from your life whose name begins with the letter B?’ he asked, his mouth twisting cynically. ‘Maybe it might just be safer to eliminate all men from your life. Then you can be guaranteed never to be hurt again.’ He stood up and noticed the way she cringed back, as though he posed some kind of physical threat to her. That was even more of a red rag as far as he was concerned.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said scathingly. ‘I won’t come near you.’
On his way to the door, Leo paused and turned to her. ‘An empty bed is a lonely place,’ he said coolly.
‘Better empty than littered with all the wrong kind of guys,’ Heather threw back at him. Her eyes were stinging. She knew that as soon as he left she was going to cry, because she could feel the tears pricking against her eyelids.
Leo swore softly under his breath. He should never have given in to this attraction, should never have seen her as a challenge. Challenge? The woman was more than a challenge! Had he forgotten how many thorns a rose could have? Damn it, the woman would have a hell of a time finding any man who wouldn’t run a mile in the face of that tongue of hers!
The fact that she was standing there, looking as though she would collapse like a rag doll the minute her strings were cut, was no concern of his. She had said what she wanted to say, wrapped up in the greatest insults possible, and he didn’t have time for this.
‘You had a bad marriage,’ she said tightly. ‘And the way you deal with it is by never getting close to anyone. You don’t want any woman to penetrate your fortress, so you just have affairs—nothing permanent, nothing that could get too emotionally messy.’
‘Spare me the analysis.’
‘Because that’s something else you’re not into? There are quite a few things you’re not into, aren’t there?’ Her skin felt hot and tight. She knew in some part of her that was still being rational that there was no need for her to start having a go at him, but she wanted to. She was just so angry that she had allowed herself to get in this situation in the first place.
‘I may have that lonely bed for a while, but at least I won’t be scarred for ever. At least I know that there’s someone out there who’s right for me, and I know that someone isn’t going to be a workaholic who doesn’t have time for the rest of the human race!’
‘This conversation,’ Leo drawled, stepping out of the door and reaching for his car keys in his pocket, ‘is officially closed.’
Heather watched as he let himself out of the room, out of the front door, out of her orbit. Success; she had said her piece. He wouldn’t try anything again.
She should have been sagging with relief.
Instead, she felt one tear dribble down her cheek, followed by another, as she contemplated the lonely bed waiting for her upstairs.
CHAPTER FIVE
AT TEN past nine on a Wednesday evening, Leo finally allowed himself to scan through the last of his emails, and swivelled his chair round so that he could stare at the uninterrupted view of skyline from his London office.
Like his apartment, his office was cool, uncluttered and furnished in the kind of uber-modern style that only real money could buy. One white wall was dominated by an abstract painting, subject incomprehensible. The carpet was pale and thick, and the furniture was a light, solid wood, handmade to stand the test of time, with very clever drawers that opened and closed without the benefit of handles. Leo had left it all to his design team and was still pleased with the result after five years. He could have had it stripped and updated but what would have been the point? He would still have gone for something similar.
A working environment should not indulge in the luxury of distractions.
And his private life should likewise be uncomplicated.
He frowned, very much aware that, since Heather Of The Background Issues had burst into his life a month previously, his private life had been anything but uncomplicated.
And this despite the fact that he hadn’t set eyes on her since their last encounter.
Twice he had vi
sited his mother and Daniel, even staying for the whole weekend, which he seldom did, as time was a commodity rarely at his disposal. On both occasions, Heather had been conspicuous by her absence. She was clearly avoiding him at all costs. After some casual questioning he had discovered, via Daniel and his mother separately, that she had variously been away on an art course or visiting friends up north.
‘Busy lady,’ he had remarked, at which point he had been subjected to an enthusiastic account of her good work in the community by his mother—art classes for the little kids; volunteer work helping with the gardens once a month at the local retirement homes; cake baking, apparently, whenever there was a cake to be baked.
‘But no guy in her life,’ he had murmured encouragingly. ‘All that domestic stuff probably makes them run a mile.’ Having taken minimal interest in the doings of the various people in his mother’s life, a habit born over time and cemented through the years, he had been amused to find himself assaulted with all the tittle tattle that seemed to comprise village life.
His mother had even tentatively suggested, without prompting, two visits to London, and had arrived with Daniel clutching a London guide with pages marked at various places they wanted to visit. Gone were the expensive meals out and in had come sightseeing on a major scale. Leo had found, close and personal, queues, cafés and tourist sights he had never clapped eyes on.
Now, staring out of his window, he cursed himself for the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about Heather. He had left her house weeks ago and had convinced himself that he had had a lucky escape. If she wanted to nurse her bitterness and bury herself in a solitary existence pretending that she was happy, then that was her affair. He wasn’t in the business of trying to persuade her otherwise. In fact, he wasn’t in the business of trying to persuade any woman into bed with him. He never had been, and he wasn’t about to start now.
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