discovered the real Flavia beneath the freezing exterior.
But if that were a fiction—a lie? What if the damning portrait her father had painted at was true? What if Flavia had been running a play the whole time they were together?
The knife in his side twisted again.
He looked about him. Looked down the length of the perfectly proportioned Georgian façade flanked by gardens. Oh, yes, this place was a jewel, all right!
‘So,’ he said slowly, ‘this is Harford.’
His gaze came back to her. She was standing, had paused, consternation still in her face, but there was something new, too—a tension netting about her. A wariness.
‘How … how did you find it?’ she faltered.
Her first joy at seeing Leon—the rush of pleasure in running into his arms—had gone. When he had put her aside it had been like a douche of cold water. Now she realised that she had no idea how it was he came to be here.
He doesn’t know anything about Harford! Doesn’t even know it exists, let alone that I live here!
Yet here he was, standing right in front of her. And with an expression on his face that was sending cold all the way through her.
‘The courier company you used to fetch your passport gave me the address,’ he said.
His voice was distant. Dark eyes rested on her. She could not read their expression, and that of itself made the chill in her veins deepen.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Harford, Flavia? Why the big secret?’
She swallowed. ‘I … I was going to tell you,’ she began, then could go no further.
‘But you didn’t, did you? Did you think it would scare me off?’
Before his doggedly impassive gaze he could see a dull flush stain her face. Revealing to him that he had hit home.
The knife twisted in him again.
His eyes swivelled away—it seemed easier than watching her colour in front of him, betraying herself. He looked about him.
‘It’s a gem of a place,’ he said slowly. It was, too—a flawless example of a miniature country house, at one with its landscaped gardens, a beautiful, peaceful haven from the world.
He thought of his own upbringing in the fetid, rat-infested favela—an ocean away from here! Oh, Flavia Lassiter came from a different world—a different universe! Bitterness filled him, and anger, and a deep, numbing cold that iced all the way through him.
All masked an emotion that went much, much deeper. That bored into him with every twist of that knife in his side.
Flavia was speaking, her voice low and faltering. He made himself listen, made his gaze go back to her, though her image seemed to burn on his retinas. Her beauty assaulted him. She was dressed as soberly as she had been in London: her narrow skirt black, her neat high-necked blouse lavender, a jet brooch at the collar, her hair back in its chignon, her face bereft of make-up. There were dark circles under her eyes, he noted with a strange pang, as if she were not sleeping well.
He thrust the observation aside, making himself listen to what she was saying so haltingly. Was she trying to find words to counter that revealing flush? Was that it? His jaw tightened.
‘… so sorry. I’m so very sorry I left you like that. But—’
He held up a hand, silencing her. ‘I understand the reason,’ he said.
Urgent family matters—and now he knew just what those were …
She looked puzzled. ‘You do?’
‘Yes. It’s very simple, after all.’ His voice was expressionless. ‘You didn’t bother to wait for me in Palma because by then you knew there was no need to. Your father had already contacted you about the new white knight he’d flown off to have discussions with. So there was no reason to hang around with me any more, was there? It wasn’t me who was going to save his skin—or this place. So you could dispense with me—which you very promptly did.’
She had gone pale. White as a sheet. Leon could feel his emotions lash through him like the tip of a whip.
‘What?’