‘I thought we’d covered that subject.’ Leo glanced across at her. ‘Made a mistake, didn’t make a mistake…There’s just so much conversation two people can have on the subject of a kiss. We’re not talking a national catastrophe here, Heather.’
She pursed her lips and stared straight ahead. Leo, focused on the road, couldn’t see her expression, but he didn’t have to. She had been thrown off-balance and this time she was finding it a little more difficult to dismiss. She couldn’t duck and dive behind some phoney rubbish about being the horrified victim, and she couldn’t even pretend that she had been caught off-guard and had therefore been the reluctant participant before coming to her senses. The lady had been his for the taking. But he wasn’t going to indulge her very female need to discuss it to death, possibly to the point where she decided that flight, yet again, was the preferred response.
‘No,’ she said stiffly.
‘We need to sort out the practicalities of what happens now,’ he told her smoothly.
For a few seconds, Heather thought that he was talking about them. She felt a sickening lurch inside her as she realised that she wanted to talk about them, that she wanted to be persuaded to abandon every principle she had held dear for all these years, because her attraction to the wretched, inappropriate, totally unsuitable man was just too overwhelming.
When Heather had met Brian as a teenager she had been attracted to him, but it had been a girlish crush which had morphed over time into a relationship. Yes, she had always known that he was an attractive man, but she had never felt physically out of control when she had been around him. Leo did that to her. She didn’t like it, but she could no longer deny it.
‘Practicalities?’ she asked faintly and he spared her another sidelong glance.
‘Daniel?’
‘Oh, right. Yes. Sure.’ Heather sternly marshalled her thoughts. ‘Well, what’s there to discuss? I mean, of course I’ll be around if you need me at all, but I guess now that you’ve decided to adopt a hands-on approach to the situation it’s pretty much sorted. Daniel sometimes trots over so that I can help him with some of his homework, and I don’t mind that, especially if you’re busy…’
‘No can do.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’ve shifted my base, that’s true, but my lifestyle is still going to be a little…erratic, shall we say?’ They had cleared the town, and the open spaces around them seemed in harmony with his upbeat mood. It was odd, but in all his time coming here he had never really noticed his surroundings. Having always considered St James’s Park to be the equivalent of the countryside, he was waking up to the reality that it was little more than a confined patch of green in the middle of a concrete jungle. So it was a pleasant eye-opener to be cruising along the winding little lanes, appreciating the scenery flashing past, not to mention the woman glowering in the seat next to him. That, likewise, was rather pleasant.
When he returned to the house, he knew that everything would be in place for him to slot neatly into an office that would be better equipped than most.
‘Why should it be erratic?’
‘Emergencies occasionally occur that require my presence. This afternoon, for example, I’m going to have to go to London to sort out some last-minute concerns from a small IT company I’m in the process of buying. Also, I may have set up camp in my mother’s house, but that isn’t to say that I’ll be available for comment one hundred percent of the time. I would still like you to collect Daniel from school and feed him, by which time I will have done my utmost to make sure that my work’s wrapped up for the evening. I know none of this is ideal for either of us, but it’s for a limited period of time. Once it’s over, we can both return to normality.’
‘So you want me to spend the night at Katherine’s?’
‘If you don’t mind?’
‘No, that’s fine.’ While her head was still in a crazy spin, he, she couldn’t help but notice, was as cool as a cucumber, super-polite and the last word in courteous. Heather was dismayed to find that she preferred the passion and heat of his anger.
‘In fact,’ Leo thought aloud, ‘it might be altogether more convenient if you do as I’ve done—move in, just for a week or so. My mother should be back home by then, and I will get my housekeeper in London to come up and take care of all the chores as soon as she’s back in the house. She’ll need full-time help, and whilst Katrina’s here she can also take care of the chores. She’s an excellent cook in addition to everything else.’
A week or so… Temptation which would have had her bolting for cover a few weeks ago now dangled in front of her eyes like a banquet placed in front of a starving man. That second kiss had been a revelation. That little preaching voice that should have emerged and given her a strong lecture about keeping away from the man had gone into hiding, and in its place was a much more seductive voice, telling her that there was nothing wrong in snatching a little excitement. Was there?
‘Sure.’
‘Good,’ Leo murmured with soft satisfaction. ‘It’s nice to know that we finally agree on something.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
LEO wasn’t sure what demon possessed him. He really hadn’t meant to return to his mother’s house that evening. Who in his right mind would get in his car in the dead of night to commence a laborious drive into the country, when he could stay in the comfort of his own place which was a stone’s throw away from his office?
In fact, he actually returned to his apartment, poured himself a whisky which he didn’t drink and then came to the conclusion that for reasons unknown, the cool, undemanding, clutter-free confines of his penthouse apartment, which had been his sanctuary for all these years, now felt inadequate.
At which point he abandoned the untouched drink, switched off the banks of overhead spotlights which cruelly contoured every line and angle of the pale leather-and-chrome furniture and headed for his car.
This was the first time in living memory that Leo had undertaken the trip to his mother’s house without first clearing his diary. Under normal circumstances, the visit would be arranged beforehand and he would arrive, usually running late because of work commitments, to a well-ordered and preplanned weekend. He would undertake his paternal duties, which would involve expensive dining, and the purchase of at least one super-watt gift which Daniel would accept without a great deal of relish. Goodbyes would be said and he would return, with some relief, to the sanity of what he knew best: his work. His apartment. London.
He felt curiously light hearted as the car ate up the miles between London and his mother’s house. He was looking forward to the change of environment, he told himself. His makeshift office had worked out even better than he had imagined. It wasn’t the clinical, distraction-free zone to which he was accustomed, but it still felt weirdly comfortable.
Then there was Daniel. He had eventually broken through the barrier of his own reluctance and had had the little heart-to-heart chat which Heather had recommended. It had lasted all of fifteen minutes. He had awkwardly reassured his son that Katherine would be back in no time at all, and also that he would be at hand, making sure that everything was all right. Then they had talked about football. In between there had been glimpses of boyish charm, which had made Leo uneasily aware of the truth that life was never as clear cut as you might expect. As he might expect.
Now, cutting through the night, he found himself looking forward to seeing Daniel in the morning. He had managed to get a couple of tickets to a football game in London; prime spot. He figured they might strike a note, which none of his previous presents had, and he was looking forward to seeing his son’s face when he was presented with them. With that in mind, he could push back the poisonous surge of regret, which was in a place he knew he was ill advised to visit.
And then there was Heather.
Heather, who would be moving in while Katherine was still in hospital. Heather, who had been at such pains to avoid him, now deciding to set up camp under his roof. Two and two, in Leo’s opinion, made four. Right now, he was playing with the pleasurable conclusion that, having fought to keep her attraction at bay to the point where she had knocked him back with a few snappy remarks about ‘being disillusioned’ and ‘waiting for the right guy’—who, incidentally, would never be him—she had finally cracked under the weight of the inevitable. Namely, she wanted him, and she was now willing to compromise her principles.
As far as Leo was concerned, it made perfect sense. Her principles might be laudably high minded, but they were totally unrealistic. She had talked scathingly of his lack of interest in emotional involvement, thereby putting herself on a moral pedestal. Not only would it be satisfying personally to see her step off that pedestal, he was also doing her a favour, he reckoned.
She might have been hurt, but hell, what sort of life was she condemning herself to? Did she imagine that she could escape all hurt by withdrawing from the process of living? He was reintroducing her to the notion of involvement: you had to stick your hands in and get dirty or else what you would be living was a non-life.