After that illuminating little chat about the stock market, there had been no more work-related discussions, although he was pretty sure that she would rise to the challenge given half a chance. No, the conversation had been light and amusing, and he had enjoyed himself.
He had a chequered love life behind him, which was just the way he liked it. But lately he had become bored with the relentlessly intellectual conversations provided by the women he dated; bored with trying to arrange dates, with each of the women consulting their BlackBerries, endeavouring to find a suitable gap in hectic timetables, bored with leggy brunettes.
A change was as good as a rest, he had decided, and that change came in the small, curvy figure of the woman looking at him as though he might very well be something infectious.
She was a challenge, and Leo was in a mood to take on a challenge.
Furthermore, it had crossed his mind that seeing his son, and his mother for that matter, had been a considerably less stilted business with Heather in the mix. They relaxed with her in a way that they never relaxed around him. Taking on this challenge might have more than just the expected rewards.
He surfaced to the tail end of something she had been saying, and when he frowned she said very slowly, as if she were talking to someone mentally challenged, ‘There was no need for you to come over here with food. You probably feel that this is a suitable thank-you gesture, but I don’t need thanking.’
‘Stop being so bad tempered and let me in. The food’s going cold. Cold Chinese food is never a good sight—congeals.’ He gave her a crooked smile. ‘Besides, what’s wrong with accepting a little thanks?’
It was the smile. Heather’s mouth went dry and she stared at him. The sight of him took her breath away. She was aware that she was gaping, and she snapped her mouth shut and reminded herself that being deprived of breath was not a good place to be. In fact, it was terminal.
‘It was a good day.’ He was still smiling, his shrewd eyes taking in her response to him and banking it. She fought like a wild cat, but he got to her and, considering she got to him as well, it seemed only fitting. ‘And you deserve credit for it.’
‘Why are you being nice?’
‘Maybe I want to show you that I’m not the self-centred, arrogant monster you seem to think I am.’
‘I never said you were a monster.’ She was struck by the thought that to turn him away would be to admit that her past still had a hold over her; that Brian—three years gone—still had a hold over her and could still influence the way she related to other people, other men.
‘Okay.’ She stood aside, making up her mind, realising that she had nothing to fear but herself and her stupid overreactions. Besides, he’d be gone in a few hours. ‘But I really have to get back to my painting some time tonight.’
Leo stepped inside, brushing her protestations aside, and headed for the kitchen. Unerringly he knew where it would be, and felt her walking behind him; he liked the anticipation of what the evening might bring. Sure there was a lot to be said for predictability, but there was a great deal more to be said for the thrill of the unknown, and her obvious reluctance to be anywhere near him had roused his hunting instincts.
He dumped the bags on the table. The wine was still cold from the fridge.
‘If you point to the plates…’
‘Don’t tell me that you’re Mr Domestic?’
‘You mean you wouldn’t believe me?’ He perched against the counter, arms folded, and laughed softly under his breath.
‘I mean—’ Heather had to take a deep breath to steady her sudden giddiness ‘—I’d quicker believe that there were lots of little green people dashing about on planet Mars.’
‘Okay. You win.’ He gave a mock gesture of defeat. ‘Domesticity doesn’t agree with me.’ He watched as she opened the bottle of wine and poured them both a glass. The ubiquitous flowing skirt was gone. She was wearing some grey jogging-bottoms and an off-white vest bearing the telltale signs of her painting. For the first time, he could really see something of her figure, and his eyes roved appreciatively over the full breasts, the flat stomach, the womanly curve of her hips. She was by no means thin, but her body was toned and surprisingly tanned. He wondered whether she had been taking advantage of the hot weather, tanning in her garden—tanning nude in her garden…?
When she swung round to give him a glass, he surprised himself by flushing.
‘And why is that?’ Heather asked. ‘Could it be that, the more money a person has, the more temptation there is to buy the services of other people who are a lot more handy at doing all those inconvenient chores like cooking?’
Instead of bringing down his shutters, that little undercurrent of belligerence sent a jolt of red-hot lust running through him.
‘Ah…’ He strolled towards her and took a sip of wine. ‘But just think, my little economist, of how many people I keep employed…’
Looking up at him, she could feel that breathing thing happening again. She forced herself to get a grip, to bring the conversation back down to a level she could handle.
‘Or maybe you’re just scared at the thought of putting down roots,’ she said wryly. ‘And if you never treat your house like a home then you never put down roots, do you?’
CHAPTER THREE
HUGE inroads had been made into the Chinese food, which was spread on the table between them. Noodles and other assorted bits of food had managed to escape the chopsticks and were hardening on the pine table-top. The bottle of wine was nearing its end, but Heather was barely aware of having drunk anything at all. It had taken a little while, but she had lowered her defences and was proud of how normal she was behaving. As far as exercises went, this was a pretty good result. Yes, she could talk to the man without pigeon-holing him. She knew him for what he was, but was not letting that get in the way of responding to him like an adult. She was smugly aware of a sense of personal achievement.
Of course, it had to be said that Leo was making things easy for her. He was no longer on the attack, no longer looking at her with narrow-eyed suspicion which made her hackles rise. The conversation was light, skimming the surface, avoiding any pitfalls.
And the wine was helping. Heather rested her elbow on the table, cupped her face in her hand and looked at Leo sleepily.
‘Don’t tell me that you’re going to doze off in the middle of my conversation?’ he said, sipping his wine and looking at her over the rim of his glass. ‘My ego would never recover.’
‘And we both know that you’ve got a very healthy one of those,’ Heather murmured. His eyes were hypnotic. She could stare into them for ever.
‘I’m going to say thank you, even though I have a sneaking suspicion that there wasn’t anything complimentary behind the observation.’
‘My head feels a little woolly.’
‘In which case, we’d better get you to the sitting room. Leave all this debris. I’ll tidy it up.’
‘You will? You’re domestically challenged—you said that yourself. Do you even know what a dishwasher looks like?’
Leo gave a low laugh and looked at her. She was as soft and full as a peach. Her hair was a riot of gold ringlets framing her face, giving her a look that was impossibly feminine. No hard edges there. Sitting across from her as they had eaten had required a lot of restraint. He had watched her as she tipped her head back, her eyes half-closed, so that she could savour the noodles on her chopsticks, and he had had to shift his body because it had been so damned uncomfortable dealing with his aching erection.
‘You seem to forget that I had a childhood,’ he told her drily. ‘And there was no one around then to do my bidding. My brother and I had our list of chores every day, and some of them included clearing the table after meals.’ Another memory that had not surfaced for a very long time.
‘I can’t imagine you doing chores. I bet you paid your brother to do yours for you.’ Heather had never met Alex. She knew that he was away somewhere distant and exotic and had been for a while.
‘Come on. I’m going to get you into the sitting room.’ The shutters had come down with the mention of his brother, and he stood up. But as she pushed herself away from the table he moved quickly around, and was sweeping her off her feet, taking her by surprise and therefore finding little resistance.
After a few startled seconds, Heather wriggled against him.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m carrying you into your sitting room. You look a little wobbly on your feet.’
‘I’m perfectly capable of walking three inches!’
‘Stop struggling.’
‘You’ll pull a muscle in your back, lifting me up! ‘After all her smug satisfaction at how amazingly adult she had been—chatting to Leo as though he was just another perfectly normal guy who didn’t rattle her cage—she could now feel every nerve ending in her body screaming in response to this physical contact. His chest was hard and muscular and the hands supporting her were strong and sinewy; all those stirrings, of whatever the heck they were that she didn’t want, were flooding through her in a tidal wave.
The more she wriggled, the more the stirring magnified, so she stopped wriggling and told herself to get a grip.