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himself in such wildly unexpected terrain were wiped out by the knowledge that she was
now his.
Predictably, he felt his body harden as his imagination ran amok, conjuring up
pleasurable images of exploring her naked body, tasting her, losing himself in her
fabulous curves. His eyes smouldered in anticipation of touching her, but for the moment
he interrupted her stupefied, gaping silence to say quietly,  I ll leave you to think about it,
hmm? He reached out and curled a finger into her hair, and admitted what he had been
so strenuously denying for days that, yes, she took his breath away.  Because now there
are things that have to be said between my brother and me.
Think about it? Heather was in a daze. She felt as though, if she probed too deeply
into his extravagant proposal which seemed so out of keeping with everything she had
assumed about him then it would disappear like dew on a hot summer day.
 But 
 No buts. He kissed her parted mouth, a kiss that was both chaste and deeply,
deeply sexy at the same time.
 Okay. Heather sighed when his lips finally left hers.
 And we ll talk& later.
Afterwards, a mere three hours that felt like three decades, Heather wondered what that
promised land would have looked like had fate not decided to show her, had not guided
her foolish steps back to that sitting room with two mugs of coffee to find that the door
was ajar, just a slither. Just enough for her to overhear a conversation that was as
destructive as a hammer shattering a pane of glass.
Sitting in her cottage while the clock chimed midnight she wished she could cry, but
she was all cried out for the moment although she suspected that, when the tears finally
came, they would never stop. She would just drown in her own self-made misery.
CHAPTER TEN
THE past three hours had been cathartic for Leo. Indeed, he felt as though he had been
sucked into a whirlpool, spun around at dangerous speed and then spat out. He had been
stripped of his cynicism; of course it would return in time, because that was part and
parcel of his personality, but right at the moment he felt weirdly exposed.
He also still had to talk to Heather. He was looking forward to it. In fact, he couldn t
wait.
Having become accustomed to her being under the same roof as him, it was only
when he was virtually outside the door to the room she had used while she had been in
his mother s house that it struck Leo that she wouldn t be there. She naturally had
returned to her cottage. He spun round on his heels and took the stairs two at a time,
leaving the house as quietly as he could and choosing to walk to her place, giving himself
a head start on collating his thoughts.
Although it was after two in the morning, he didn t feel in the least tired. In fact, he felt
fantastically alive, and filled with a driving sense of purpose. Although it made more sense
to wait until morning, because she would probably be fast asleep at this hour, Leo felt
compelled to see her as soon as was physically possible. He didn t doubt for a single
second that she would feel exactly the same way about seeing him.
As expected, her cottage was in complete darkness, but he didn t hesitate to ring the
doorbell, and was slightly surprised, although pleasantly so, when she answered the door
within minutes. Nor did she look as though she had been dragged out of bed. In fact, she
looked as alert as he felt, which was great.
Leo grinned and stepped forward.  I didn t wake you, did I?
Wake her? Not much chance of that when she had spent hours replaying in her mind
those stolen snippets of revealing conversation which she had overheard before she had
fled. No, she had had no more chance of sleeping with so much on her mind than if Daniel
had set up camp in her bedroom to play his drums.
Besides, it seemed a moot point whether he had woken her or not, because he was
already inserting himself beyond the door, shouldering his way into the cottage.
Heather cravenly wished that he would just disappear, leaving her some more time to
sort out in her head what she was going to say to him. When fate decided to play games,
she thought, heart beating a frantic tempo, it certainly didn t cut corners. Leo was the
opposite of the disappearing man he was standing in her hallway, one hundred percent
vital, insanely sexy male.
 I m glad you came. Heather found her voice and made it sound as cool as possible,
although her fingers were knotted nervously behind her back as she watched him remove
his weatherbeaten, tan leather bomber-jacket and sling it over the banister.
In the cold light of reality, she had taken time to consider his extraordinary marriage
proposal. It had been the last thing she had expected, and she was ashamed now at how
eagerly she had allowed herself to believe that he had really meant it. Leo had never once
talked to her about a future, not even when their relationship had been at its rosiest. In
fact, he had been positively scathing about such a concept applied to him and any
woman. Nor had he given her any inclination, when she had told him about his mother s
assumptions when she had confessed her love that he was willing to commit to what
they had and give it a fair go to see where it ended up. No, he had been more than willing
to walk off into the sunset, leaving her to deal with her broken heart.
She was retrospectively incredulous that she had succumbed to his phoney, soft
voice and honeyed words and had actually believed that he had come to some kind of
wondrous realisation. She couldn t now comprehend how she had been so stupid. The
man didn t love her, never had and never would. Really, how on earth could he have come
to a wondrous conclusion that he had made a mistake, that he wanted her in his life?
Even when he had uttered that preposterous proposal he had significantly failed to say
anything about love. She had let herself believe what she d wanted to believe, and it
wouldn t be the first time she had made that particular mistake around him.
 We need to talk, she told him in a stilted voice, solving the problem of looking at him
by turning her back and walking towards her sitting room. She waited as he followed her
in, but when he sat down, patting the space next to him, she remained standing by the
door until he finally caught her mood and frowned.
 You are upset because I should have come sooner, he said as an apology.  There
were things that needed to be said between my brother and myself.
 Yes. I know. Heather swallowed hard. She was so alive to his presence that it hurt. It [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]