He wondered uneasily whether Heather was right, whether his mother had been storing up misguided ideas about him waiting to find ‘the right woman’. What was it with women and their pointless belief that a perfectly satisfactory life wasn’t possible unless there was some kind of soulmate hovering in the background?
‘So what do you suggest?’ he asked heavily. ‘And stop standing there by the door! You’re making me feel uncomfortable.’
‘Well, we can’t have that, can we?’ Heather said acidly, but she took up position on one of the chairs. ‘I don’t know what to suggest, except that we can’t carry on deceiving Katherine.’
‘We’re deceiving no one!’
‘Maybe you don’t see it that way, but I do.’
‘So, in other words, we either break things off right now or else we…what? Get engaged? Start looking for wedding rings?’ Just when he had got used to having her around, he could sense her gearing up to take flight. Again. What was it about this woman?
‘Of course not,’ Heather muttered. She harboured a warming image of Leo asking her to marry him. For her, he was her one and only love. The situation into which she had drifted with Brian had been based on what other people had expected of them. This was the real deal.
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Leo said softly, narrowing his eyes on her pinkened cheeks. Something was telling him to back away from this conversation; he ignored it.
‘I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Heather stammered as the ground threatened to open up under her feet.
‘It would have been easy to laugh off Katherine’s romantic notions. You could have shrugged your shoulders and told her that we were just having a bit of fun, nothing serious. My mother might well want to see me welded to the right woman, and I wouldn’t know about that because she’s never mentioned that to me, but she wasn’t born yesterday.’ Leo paused. ‘I don’t imagine she would be shocked at the reality that a man and a woman, sharing the same house, might have been attracted to one another, might have initiated a relationship. But maybe you didn’t want to bring her up to speed with the truth. Did it suit you to let her think that there was something serious going on between us?’
‘No!’ Had it? Had she been unable to conceal her starryeyed response to Katherine’s scrutiny? She had tumbled like a blindfolded idiot into love with Leo, and had his mother spotted that even before she herself had?
‘Are you sure about that, Heather?’ He was very slowly coming to terms with the inescapable truth that she had invested a great deal more into their relationship than she had cared to let on. He had originally thought that their mutual physical attraction was just too powerful for her to resist, had forced her down from her moral high-ground and ambushed all the goody-goody principles she had been so keen to spout when they had met. She had mouthed assurances that it was all about the physical attraction because he wasn’t her type, and, since that had made perfect sense to a man who was physical deep down to the core, he hadn’t stopped to question the apparent ease with which she had embarked on their affair.
Now, of course, he knew that she was not a woman to whom sex was the be all and end all of a relationship. Her principles were deeply ingrained in her, and only now was it dawning on him that she had fallen in love with him.
He should be running scared. This was the very last thing he wanted. Indeed, in the aftermath of his failed marriage, he had made a determined effort never to find himself in a situation such as this. He wasn’t scared—in fact, he felt weirdly pleased—but common sense put an immediate stop to that feeling.
‘I’m not up for grabs,’ he said in a cool, matter-of-fact voice. Leo could remember having this conversation before. There had been the occasional woman who had wanted more than he was prepared to give, and he had had to do the letdown speech, although by the time that had happened he had felt nothing. Frankly, by then, he had usually seen the signs of over-dependency and had dealt with the inevitable with a certain amount of relief. Not so now, although he wasn’t going to analyse that, because the net result was the same. He was shot through with bitter regret that he would have to forgo the splendours of her body. He was ashamed to admit to himself that he wasn’t ready.
Heather was mortified. ‘I know that,’ she said quickly.
‘Do you?’
‘Of course I do!’
‘Then why did you allow yourself to fall for me?’
Heather sought divine inspiration, but the ground refused to comply by opening up and swallowing her. Had she been that transparent? Humiliation spread through every part of her. She knew that her face was bright red, a sure giveaway that he had hit the jackpot with his remark.
‘You’re wrong,’ she whispered, looking everywhere but at him, although it was pointless, because she could feel those amazing eyes boring straight through her.
‘You knew the rules of the game.’
‘The game? The game? Since when is a relationship a game?’
‘You know what I mean, Heather.’
‘I didn’t see it as a game.’
‘But you did tell me that you were in it for the sex. If I recall, you didn’t think that we had anything in common except, of course, lust.’
At this point, Heather was faced with two options. The easy one would be to agree. To strenuously deny all his accusations, to somehow manoeuvre a strategic backtrack and just enjoy the very little remaining time that they had together. Katherine was due out of hospital at the weekend. It would signal Leo’s return to London, and why shouldn’t she just have her fill of him before he headed back down south? Why should she be held captive by her emotions? Okay, he had guessed the truth, had guessed that she was a lot more involved than she had let on. But just because she had admitted that what they had hadn’t been a game to her, didn’t necessarily mean that she was looking for love and marriage. At least, not if she talked her way out of his assumption.
When she looked at her future without Leo, all she could see was a gaping, black void. Wasn’t a couple of days of happiness worth it? She would be picking up pieces for the rest of her life, so why start now when she had the choice of putting it off just for a little while longer? Was she a masochist? Did self-denial win medals for anyone?
‘I did think that,’ Heather told him quietly. ‘At the time. I mean, when we first…when I…Well, I thought it was all about physical attraction, but then I got to know you.’ It was getting tricky, looking everywhere but at him, and eventually Heather raised her eyes to his face. His expression was still, shuttered. She knew that this would be a nightmare for him but she wasn’t going to skirt round the truth because it was easy. If he didn’t like what she was about to say, then tough.
‘Or maybe,’ she continued thoughtfully, ‘I was just kidding myself. Maybe I felt that pull towards you even before I realised—before I realised that I had feelings for you.’ She smiled weakly. Even in her discomfort, she was agonisingly aware of his potency, of that strong, masculine pull that emanated from him in dangerous waves. It made her feel giddy, breathless and horribly, horribly weak. She had to draw in a deep, steadying breath before she could continue in the face of his stony silence.
Leo bitterly regretted having brought the subject up. Frankly, he hadn’t expected her to confirm his suspicions. Any other woman would have taken refuge in denial, making sure that the way was clear for a dignified exit. Not so this woman—but hadn’t he already come to the conclusion that she was a one off?
Unfortunately, the more she said, the faster she would bury what they had. Did he want it buried? Strangely, no. Not that he wanted commitment. He just didn’t want things to finish quite yet, and he was hellishly annoyed that she was the one doing the finishing. Role reversals and learning curves were two things he considered pointless in so far as they pertained to him personally.
He raised his hand to stop her mid-flow.
‘There’s no need to do the whole psychoanalysis thing,’ he interrupted, pacing the room, his brows knitted into a frown as he tried to marshall his thoughts. Not for the first time in her company, they were proving strangely rebellious.
‘Yes, there is. For me, at any rate.’ Mortified as she was, Heather was determined to stand her ground and speak her mind. Things left unsaid meant that closure was never achieved, and besides, why shouldn’t life be a little uncomfortable for him? Why should she slink away with a phoney smile and pretend that her heart wasn’t breaking?
‘Why?’ Leo stole a scowling, frustrated glance at her and raked his fingers through his hair.
‘Because I like honesty? Because I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t fallen for you? I have.’ She looked at him defiantly. ‘I know it doesn’t suit you to hear me say that, but it’s the truth. I haven’t told Katherine that, so you needn’t worry on that score. In fact, I didn’t encourage her to think that there was anything serious between us, despite what you said. I know this isn’t what you bargained for, but believe me it isn’t what I bargained for either.’