‘I know you’re not that,’ Brianna said tentatively. She settled on the ground next to him. ‘Your suit’s going to be ruined.’
‘So will your jeans.’
‘My jeans cost considerably less than your suit.’ She ventured a small smile and met with nothing in response, just those dark, dark eyes boring into her. More than anything else she wanted to bridge the small gap between them and reach for his hand, hold it in hers, but she knew that that was just love, her love for him, and it wouldn’t change anything. She had to stand firm, however tough it was. She had to project ahead and not listen to the little voice in her head telling her that his gesture, his magnificent gesture of buying this perfect house for her, was a sign of something more significant.
‘You were right,’ he admitted in the same sort of careful voice that was so disconcerting.
‘Right about what?’
‘I was trying to bribe you with this house. The garden. Anything that would induce you to give us a chance. But nothing will ever be enough for you to do that because you can’t forgive me for my deception, even though it was a deception that was never intended to hurt you.’
‘I felt like I didn’t know who you were, Leo,’ Brianna said quietly. ‘One minute you were the man helping out at the pub, mucking in, presumably writing your book when you were closeted away in the corner of the bar...and then the next minute you’re some high-flying millionaire with a penthouse apartment and a bunch of companies, and the book you were writing was never a book at all. It was just loads of work and emails so that you could keep your businesses ticking over while you stayed at the pub and used me to get information about Bridget.’
‘God, Brianna it wasn’t like that...’ But she had spelt out the basic facts and strung them together in a way that made sense, yet made no sense whatsoever. He felt like a man with one foot off the edge of a precipice he hadn’t even known existed. All his years of control, of always being able to manage whatever situation was thrown at him, evaporated, replaced by a confusing surge of emotions that rushed through him like a tsunami.
He pressed his thumbs against his eyes and fought off the craven urge to cry. Hell, he hadn’t cried since his father had died!
‘But it was,’ she said gently. ‘And even if I did forgive you...’ and she had ‘...the ingredients for a good marriage just aren’t there.’
‘For you, maybe’ He raised his head to stare solemnly at her. ‘But for me, the ingredients are all there.’
CHAPTER TEN
HE LOOKED AT her solemnly and then looked away, not because he couldn’t hold her stare, but because he was afraid of what he might see there, a decision made, a mind closed off to what he had to say.
‘When I came to search out my mother, I had already presumed to know what sort of person she was: irresponsible, a lowlife, someone without any kind of moral code... In retrospect, it was a facile assumption, but still it was the assumption I had already made.’
‘Then why on earth did you bother coming?’
‘Curiosity,’ Leo said heavily. Rarely given to long explanations for his behaviour, he knew that he had to take his time now and, funnily enough, talking to her was easy. But then, he had talked to her, really talked to her, a lot more than he had ever talked to any other woman in his life before. That should have been a clue to the direction his heart was taking, but it had been a clue he had failed to pick up on.
Now he had a painful, desperate feeling that everything he should have said had been left too late. In his whole life, he had never taken his eye off the ball, had never missed connections. He had got where he had not simply because he was incredibly smart and incredibly proactive but because he could read situations with the same ease with which he could read people. He always knew when to strike and when to hold back.
That talent seemed to have deserted him now. He felt that if he said one wrong word she would take flight, and then where would he be?
‘I had a wonderful upbringing, exemplary, but there was always something at the back of my mind, something that needed to fill in the missing blanks.’
‘I can get that.’
‘I always assumed that...’ He inhaled deeply and then sat back with his eyes closed. This was definitely not the best spot to be having this conversation but somehow it felt right, being outside with her. She was such an incredibly outdoors person.
‘That?’
‘That there must be something in me that ruled my emotions. My adoptive parents were very much in love. I had the best example anyone could have had of two people who actually made the institution of marriage work for them. And yet, commitment was something I had always instinctively rejected. At the back of my mind, I wondered whether this had something to do with the fact that I was adopted; maybe being given away as a baby had left a lasting legacy of impermanence, or maybe it was just some rogue gene that had found its way into my bloodstream; some crazy connection to the woman who gave birth to me, something that couldn’t be eradicated.’