Lexi sat down and for the next hour became more and more overawed as he took her through one cost-saving idea after another.
‘Wow, I’m impressed. If I was a bank, I’d lend you a million dollars.’
His smile was wolfish. ‘How do you think I bought my first scaffolding company?’
‘Why scaffolding?’
‘Honestly, I wanted to avenge my uncle by closing down the company that had been responsible for his senseless death. Then one night, after I got into yet another fight I was sitting in the hospital waiting room nursing a broken nose when the richest man in Russia came on the news. There was something about the way he stood and the way others treated him … I wanted to be him. So I changed tack. Bought the company, sacked the incompetent management team and the rest, as they say, is history.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘Eighteen!’ She frowned. ‘So you never went to university either?’
Leo looked up from the laptop and realised what he’d just said. He couldn’t remember ever suffering from a loose tongue before but, ever since he’d told her his ‘charming’ childhood story, he could feel that he had become less guarded around her. Which wasn’t great because he didn’t want to slip up and tell her about Sasha and the selfish part he had played in his death.
He thought about the email from Amanda and wondered why it no longer angered him as much as it had last night. The circumstances were still the same and yet he felt different. Tossing the ball with Ty and Lexi in the pool this morning hadn’t been as hard as he had thought it would be. In fact it hadn’t been a hardship at all.
Lexi’s conviction that he wasn’t like his father—that he had a choice—played over in his head. Was she right? Logically it made sense, and he certainly didn’t feel like he could physically hurt Ty, but could he take that risk and look after him full time on his own? No. It was too great a responsibility and if he got it wrong—the outcome could be fatal.
With past memories forcibly tamping down on his previous enjoyment of working alongside Lexi, he closed the lid of her laptop.
‘No,’ he said curtly. ‘And now I have a hotel to view on Santorini.’ He stood up. ‘I think you’ll find what we did this morning helpful.’
He was about to walk off when he made the mistake of glancing down at her. She wasn’t looking at him but he could see that his churlishness had hurt her and something twisted in his gut. It was because of last night. It was because some bastard had hurt her and he didn’t want to add to the damage he had done to her self-confidence. In fact last night he’d gone out of his way to make her feel cherished. Hardly a hardship, given how turned on she made him feel. But she also made him feel other things he’d rather not name, let alone face.
‘Why don’t you come with me?’ The words were out of his mouth before he’d fully formed the thought and she looked at him with surprise.
‘Seriously?’ The smile she shot at him was beyond beautiful.
‘I don’t see why not. It’s a tourist destination. You’ve never been. You can look around while I work.’ He made it sound like a no-brainer but he was questioning his own sanity in making the offer.
‘Okay. Great.’
‘Meet me at the tender in twenty minutes,’ he said sharply.
Fifteen minutes later, Leo marched towards the lower deck, snapping instructions into his phone, and stopped dead as he saw Ty bouncing up and down on the white leather seat of the tender. His eyes flew to Lexi’s and he blanked out his moment of disquiet. When he’d extended the invitation he had meant it to be just for her.
‘I hope it’s ok
ay if Ty comes along,’ she said.
‘Of course.’ He inclined his head, remembering at the last minute that his agreement was to spend time with his son.
But he’d already put in an hour today.
The skin on his forehead pulled tight. If he wasn’t careful he’d be spending every minute of every day with both of them. And why didn’t that thought fill him with as much dread as it would have a week ago?
‘No. Absolutely not.’
‘But why not?’ Lexi persisted. ‘You’ve finished looking at the hotel and the beach is straight down that path. Have you ever been to a black sand beach?’
‘No, and I don’t want to.’
Lexi put her hands on her hips and stared straight into Leo’s aviator glasses. She knew he didn’t want to go to the beach and she hadn’t missed the look on his face when he’d approached the tender earlier and spotted Ty seated beside her. She knew he didn’t really want him here either but he’d made a promise to her yesterday that he would spend time with his son and she didn’t want to think that his promises were as hollow as her father’s.
Leo’s phone rang and he turned away to answer it and Lexi rolled her eyes.