‘Self-assured,’ Heather told him bitterly. ‘Arrogant…accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. Ruthless, dismissive; the sort of man who doesn’t think it’s wrong to use other people.’
Leo would have taken offence, but for the fact that this was more than just a casual dismissal; this was personal experience speaking. Ferociously controlled as he was, he felt a flare of sexual curiosity which took him by surprise, but he didn’t fight it. He had a rich diet of very biddable women. Even women who could afford to pick and choose, women with both brains and beauty, had never been able to resist him. But he was without a woman at the moment, having parted company three months previously from the very delectable and very, very ambitious Eloise. Eloise had removed herself to New York, taking up a position with a hedge-fund company when it became obvious that their love affair wouldn’t be travelling down the altar any time soon.
And there was something refreshing about this woman’s candour as she glared at him with her cornflower-blue eyes, fully expecting him to hit the roof and duly confirm every scathing insult she had just listed.
‘To get to the top requires a certain amount of ruthlessness.’ Leo shrugged, sipped his wine and watched her over the rim of his glass.
‘Maybe so, but that still doesn’t make it acceptable. If you weren’t so busy being ruthless, you might find that you had the time to spend with your family.’
‘I will choose to overlook that,’ Leo said, his expression still impassive and mildly interested, but with a hint of steel in his voice. ‘Because what I really want to find out is why you’re hiding here, in the middle of nowhere. What are you running from?’
‘I’m not running from anything,’ Heather stammered. ‘And I’m not hiding. I happen to love living in the country! I don’t enjoy being trapped in a building surrounded by pavements and street lights that never go off.’ Behind him, Heather could see Katherine and Daniel finally making their long-overdue appearance. ‘They’re here,’ she said, resisting the urge to groan with relief.
‘Saved by the proverbial bell,’ Leo murmured, but he was enjoying himself in ways he had never expected to. It occurred to him, and not for the first time, that the pursuit of money was always more rewarding than the possession of it. Eleven years ago he had made financial success his one driving ambition in life. It had eluded his parents. It had certainly eluded his brother, the mere thought of whom brought a twisted scowl of displeasure to Leo’s mouth.
He had determined to prove to himself and to his parents that he could escape the cramped, stiflingly claustrophobic clutter of his lower middle-class background. Now, rich beyond his wildest dreams, he sometimes wondered whether he had managed to prove anything at all. Certainly not to his mother, even though he had been the one to bail her out of the massive debts which his father had incurred when he had chosen unwisely to invest his life savings on Alex and his ridiculous money-making ventures. He had provided her with enough financial security to last several lifetimes, and of course she was grateful—but years spent amassing his private fortune had left him with a jaded palate and a deep-rooted cynicism. Master of everything and everyone he surveyed, he had practically forgotten what it felt like to have someone ruffle his feathers.
Especially a woman—and, furthermore, a woman who could light up for seemingly everyone bar him. Right now, she was half-turned away from him, enthusing over a pair of football trainers, the must-have footwear for any aspiring footballer.
Leo leaned forward, invading her space. ‘I used to play football when I was your age.’
‘And you were a brilliant little footballer.’ Katherine looked at her son and half-smiled. ‘I remember your father taking you to your football game every Saturday morning. Do you remember that? I would stay at home with your little brother Alexander and you would trot off with your boots slung over your shoulder and a little packed lunch.’
‘I remember,’ Leo said gruffly. He did, now that the subject had been raised, but in truth that was a memory which had been well and truly buried.
He wasn’t given to reminiscing, but he had to admit that it certainly helped to carry the conversation along. Long-forgotten football stories were brought out for the benefit of his son. Every so often as the food was brought to them Heather chipped in, although never with a personal anecdote of her own.
‘You must have been to a football match or two,’ Leo said lazily, pushing his empty plate away and settling his body into the chair, feet extended at an angle and lightly crossed at the ankles. ‘Where did you grow up? Around here?’
‘Not a million miles away,’ Heather told him cautiously.
‘Which would be where, exactly?’
‘Reading. Near Reading, as a matter of fact.’
‘Good football team there.’ He looked to Daniel, including him in the conversation, making it impossible for her not to respond. ‘And your family…do they still live there?’
‘No. They don’t. My father died years ago, and my mother remarried and moved to Portugal. She lives there now. Has a little hairdressing business.’ No state secrets there, but Heather still didn’t like exposing her private life to him, and she didn’t know why.
‘Brothers? Sisters?’
‘Just me.’
‘So let me get this straight…’ Leo’s smile made her heart beat with sickening force. ‘You lived in Reading, no siblings, mother in Portugal with stepfather…What made you decide to move out here? Reading might not be one of the biggest cities in the UK, but it’s still a city—still has nightclubs, restaurants, theatres, all the things that would appeal to a person of your age. In other words, you must find life pretty dead out here.’
‘Stop interrogating the poor child!’ Katherine said sharply, and Leo looked at his mother in amazement. When was the last time she had ever snapped at him? Normally she tiptoed around him, treating him as though he inhabited a different plane. ‘You might have lots of money and power, Leonardo West, but that doesn’t give you the right to do as you please with other people. You must be able to see that Heather feels uncomfortable about your probing!’
Duly chastised, Leo flushed. He noticed that his son was smirking at him.
‘Which just goes to show—’ he took advantage of the temporary ceasefire to draw Daniel into a conspiracy of male bonding ‘—that no man is safe from a nagging woman. You’ll discover that for yourself in due course.’
One Disney movie and three bags of popcorn later, Heather was more than ready to make her excuses and get back to the safety of her cottage.
Her head was in a whirl. Before she had even met him, she had had some very strong, preconceived notions of Leo West: he was a selfish, egotistic workaholic who virtually ignored his mother and paid lip service to the fact that he had found himself in possession of a son, having been an absentee father for the majority of Daniel’s life.
When she had finally set eyes on him, she was honest enough to admit she had been a little taken aback by the force of his personality and good looks. Having likened him to Brian in her head, she had very quickly realised that Brian was a minnow next to a man like Leo West.
After a few hours in his company, watching as some of that ferocious, icy discipline began to thaw, she was confused to find herself actually beginning to see him as more than just a comforting cardboard cutout. He was a complex, three-dimensional human being, and she didn’t know whether she wanted to deal with that. Fortunately, she wouldn’t have to.
Once there had been less of a necessity for her to be roped in as mediator, she had no trouble in wriggling out of the remainder of the planned evening. Daniel might not have been transformed into the loving son, but at least he seemed to have forgotten the debacle of the missed Sports Day. And Katherine…
That little show of backbone,