Her Christmas Fantasy & The Winter Bride (27 page)

‘Tell me one thing…' she whispered tautly without turning her head again. ‘What changed you from a friend I trusted into an enemy?'

Drew gave her a sullen look. ‘You've finally noticed, have you? Haven't you worked it out yet?' he prompted thinly. ‘Two and a half years ago, I was in love with you!'

Stunned, Angie jerked as if he had struck her. ‘No…'

‘Oh, yes,' Drew countered, with a bitter edge to the assurance that was horribly persuasive. ‘I wasn't too proud to take on my lofty cousin's left-overs but, unfortunately, Leo didn't leave much of you intact, did he? You were like a walking, talking shell with nobody home inside. You just used me to save face with Leo!'

Angie felt sick to her stomach with shame. It was true. In a sense, she had. She had been every bit as obsessed with her own agony as he accused her of being, wholly blind, it seemed, to what was happening right under her own nose.

‘I'm sorry, Drew…I really am,' she managed through the thickness of tears clogging her throat as she forced herself back round to look at him.

‘Forget it. If you hadn't been pregnant by him, I might have persuaded you to marry me.' Drew grimaced as he drew level with her. ‘And what a huge mistake that would have been! No, don't bother to apologise…if you'd married me, I would've had to lock you up and throw away the key every time Leo came to visit. You've been his so long I don't think you could ever learn to be anyone else's.'

‘It's not like that any more!' she protested instantaneously.

‘Isn't it?' Drew studied her ashen colour and bruised eyes with a superior smile that savaged her already battered ego. ‘All you've got left now is your pride, Angie. That's the real
reason why you don't want to tell Leo that he's the father of your son. And even I have sympathy for what you've got ahead of you. Scratch an inch beneath Leo's tough hide and you'll uncover the rigid moral values of a far from swinging dinosaur. An illegitimate son will hit his ego where it really hurts, and he is one of the most unforgiving bastards I've ever come across!'

As Drew strode off down the corridor, Angie steadied herself on the door handle and then pressed her burning brow against the cold glass pane.

A careful arm drew her back. ‘You should be in bed…you're running one of those crazy temperatures you always run when you catch a cold.'

Woozily, Angie focused on her father's concerned face. ‘Dad?' she said, frowning with disconcertion.

‘I like to keep my personal life private,' Samuel Brown admitted stiffly as he supported her uncertain steps down the dimly lit corridor. ‘It's been over two years, Angie. I didn't want to greet my daughter and meet my grandson for the first time in front of my employer. It wasn't the time or the place. But you're still my daughter, and nothing can change that.'

Tears drenched her already strained eyes. ‘I thought you were so a-angry with me…'

‘We all make mistakes, Angie. Me…you,' he responded stiltedly. ‘Perhaps if you'd talked to me before you ran away I could have helped.'

Briefly, she angled her head down awkwardly on his shoulder. It was difficult. He was so much smaller than she was, but it was the closest she dared come to giving him a grateful hug. He was not a demonstrative man and emotional displays embarrassed him. Possibly that more than anything else had served to keep them in their separate corners when she'd first arrived in his life as a grieving and undeniably resentful teenager. Yet now she sensed the alteration in him, the softening
of his rigid outlook and values, and absently wondered what on earth could have brought about such a change at his time in life.

‘I'll send Emily up, shall I?' he offered as they reached the top of the service staircase he had used as a short cut. ‘She could help you into bed.'

Angie stiffened and drew away from her father into the bedroom corridor. ‘No…don't bother Em; I'll be fine now. Goodnight, Dad…and thanks,' she completed, almost as stilted in her careful restraint as he was.

Her head was spinning round and round. She felt nauseous and cold and horribly dizzy. She trailed a hand along the wall as a guide, and then that hand became a necessary brace to keep herself upright as she stopped, dimly registered the sound of hurrying footsteps, and turned her swimming head.

Leo seemed to be striding towards her in slow motion. She swayed and then a pair of hands caught her as she began to slide inexorably down. But it was Leo who snatched her up into his arms, Leo whom she saw last before the blackness folded in, and Leo whom she heard say grimly, ‘All right, Brown…I'll deal with this.'

 

‘Angie wouldn't thank you for calling a doctor, sir,' Samuel Brown was saying in his most distant voice when Angie surfaced in what felt like a delirious dream. ‘She hates a fuss being made, and she'll probably be right as rain by the morning—'

‘Probably?'
Leo interrupted, sounding exasperated. ‘She could have pneumonia—'

‘I don't think so, sir. The first time she ran a temperature like that, she gave us quite a fright too, but it's just the way she is. Please don't concern yourself. Emily's got her into bed now, and she'll stay with her tonight—'

‘I said I would…do I need a chaperon?' Leo enquired grittily.

‘Mr Wallace once said that my daughter needed a full-time bodyguard in this household. In my capacity as a parent, I agreed with the concern he expressed, sir.'

In the electric silence which followed, Angie focused hazily on Leo. His hard, classic profile had all the yielding qualities of granite. She sensed his outrage, and marvelled at her father's comeback.

‘I was concerned about her,' Leo breathed tautly.

‘Most kind of you, sir…but there's really no need for you to disturb yourself.'

No, no need at all for him to disturb himself, Angie thought wretchedly. If Drew was right, Leo already had another far more suitable woman in his life. Angie drifted away again into an uneasy slumber.

The next time her eyes opened, her head no longer swam and she felt infinitely more normal, but she was desperately thirsty. Daylight was filtering through a gap in the curtains, outlining the dark shapes of the furniture and framing the male poised by the tall window. Leo, immaculate in a fabulous silver-grey suit worn with a pale shirt and dark tie. As she began to sit up, he swung fluidly round and looked right at her.

Her heart slammed against her breastbone so hard, she couldn't breathe. Those brilliant dark eyes of his, full of such restive energy and such fierce strength of will. Those eyes pierced her like a hot knife sinking into honey, made her burn and ache and crave…made her so very, very weak. And she knew then—could no longer lie to herself—that she still loved Leo. Drew's sharp tongue had penetrated her defences and forced her to accept that truth. No cure, just endure, she reflected painfully.

‘I found your stepmother asleep in the chair in the early hours. I sent her to bed.'

Angie had a dim recollection of Emily fussing round her at some stage of the night, silently offering her a refreshing drink and then retreating as fast as she possibly could back into the shadows. Both of them felt uncomfortable with each other now. That was hardly surprising after what had happened, but Angie knew that she would need to seal that breach with her stepmother if she didn't want her father to notice that there was something wrong.

‘I'm heading back to London for a couple of days tomorrow,' Leo continued without any expression at all.

Heart and hope hit the floor with a resounding crash and she hated herself, snatching at the glass of water by the bed with a clumsy hand, cupping the cold tumbler between spread fingers and sipping with all the finesse of a toddler at a plastic cup.

‘Drew's girlfriend, Tally, will be arriving soon…'

Tell him he's Jake's father; get it over with, common sense urged. Why bother? Why cause all that trouble? a little voice enquired more seductively. Tell Wallace, let the old man do what he will with that news and then leave while Leo is away. Her father would loan her some money to get by on…

‘So I suggest that you return to London with me,' Leo completed quietly.

‘No!' Her tortured eyes flew back to him in reproach.

Leo vented a soft, chilling laugh. ‘Not to share my bed, or even to share the same roof. I did assume that I'd been sufficiently frank last night, but apparently not. I've withdrawn from the fray, Angie… But I
was
responsible for bringing you here and I don't think it's a very good idea for you to remain.'

A tide of unbearable pain engulfed Angie. ‘So I'm being thrown out.'

‘Rescued, saved from yourself,' Leo contradicted her drily. ‘Do I really need to spell it out? You, Jake, Drew and his girlfriend round the same table… Currently, Wallace appears to be remarkably indifferent to everything but his own over-weening desire to make Drew sweat blood. At heart, however, he's still fond of my cousin, and, while he may well make provision for Jake in his will, I seriously doubt that Drew will lose much by it.'

Those thefts, those wretched, ghastly thefts, she reflected in anguished resentment. Naturally, Leo believed that she would hang around like the spectre at the feast if there was any prospect of eventual profit. And the truth would never come out now; how could it? Emily would take her guilty secret to the grave with her and, for her father's sake, Angie had urged that secrecy on her terrified stepmother.

She turned very pale. ‘You think that money really matters to me, don't you?'

Leo studied her with glittering dark eyes, his high cheekbones and his faintly blue-shadowed jaw taut and hard as steel. ‘I think you're dangerous, and that as my mistress you would be even more dangerous and quite capable of tearing this family apart.'

‘I won't
be
your mistress…there was never any chance of that!' Angie swore on the back of an angry sob.

A black brow rose in arrogant disagreement. ‘Wasn't there? But that's immaterial now. I still refuse to stand back on the sidelines and watch you with Drew.'

A phone buzzed, preternaturally loud in the oppressive silence. Leo dug a portable out of his pocket, frowned and strode to the door. ‘I'll see you later,' he told her flatly.

‘Leo…!'
Angie called after him in frustration.

But the door closed and, just as suddenly, Angie had had enough of her charade. As soon as she was dressed, she would face Leo and get it over with. With that decision made, she
scrambled out of bed, ran herself a bath, decided that her hair simply had to be washed and finally emerged to pull on a straight denim skirt and her favourite black sweater. Only while she was drying her hair did she realise that she had slept in and that it was already almost ten in the morning.

The nursery was empty, both Jake and his nanny absent. Angie descended the stairs and, espying her father in the hall below, leant over to ask, ‘Where's Jake?'

‘Out on a walk with Harriet and the dog.'

‘Leo…?'

‘Business. He's gone for the day, I should think.'

Angie groaned. She should have thought of that, shouldn't have baulked at racing down the corridor after him in her nightie and bare feet. ‘Do you have the number of his mobile phone?' she asked abruptly.

Her father went poker-faced as if he had been asked for the crown jewels.

‘Dad, don't be silly.'

In possession of the number, Angie went into the study to use the extension there.

‘Demetrios,' Leo answered impatiently, and she could hear male voices talking somewhere in the background.

‘It's Angie…' She sucked in a deep, audible breath. ‘I've been thinking and…I really do need to talk to you.'

‘This is not the most convenient moment,' Leo responded coolly. ‘What is it?'

‘Leo, this isn't something I could discuss on the phone…it's something very…well, very—'

‘Very, very
what
?'

‘Private, personal…' Angie almost whispered, twisting the phone cord round and round her restive fingers. ‘It concerns you and…er…me.'

The silence on the line thundered.

‘Really…?'
Leo breathed very low, his deep, dark
drawl roughening to send a curious buzz down her tense spinal cord.

‘I just wanted to be sure of seeing you alone as soon as you get back. I thought we could meet in the Orangery.'

‘Make it my private suite. The Orangery struck me as distinctly over-populated last night.'

‘When?' Angie muttered tautly.

‘I'll use the helicopter…expect me within the hour,' Leo murmured huskily, and then she heard him say quite distinctly, ‘Gentlemen, this meeting is dismissed,' before he cut the connection.

Within the hour? That
was
a surprise, but a very welcome one. She would feel much better once this confrontation with Leo was over, she told herself staunchly. She was incredibly grateful that he had evidently recognised her anxiety and grasped that she had something very important to tell him.

As Wallace rarely made a public appearance before noon and Drew had never been an early riser, Angie breakfasted alone in the cosy morning room where she flipped nervously through the newspapers and drank coffee like a caffeine addict. She wondered about Marisa Laurence and resisted the temptation to try and pump her father for information. That sort of request would put him in an awkward position and he would resent it. And, very probably, Drew had only named Marisa out of pure malice. Leo could not be heavily involved with the other woman, she decided.

When Jake came surging in to see her, Angie swept him up in a fierce hug. Twenty minutes later, her father put his head round the door to ask if he could take Jake downstairs to meet the staff.