She hadn’t really expected it to be unlocked and now she was faced with the dilemma of whether to just close it and leave or … close it definitely!
‘Remind me to station security outside my door.’ Leo’s gruff words carried across the room and nearly gave her a heart attack and Lexi let the door swing further open, just in time to see Leo disappearing into the opposite doorway.
Okay, so he wasn’t dead … Lexi let her gaze drift over the room in front of her and gasped at the size and understated opulence that greeted her eyes.
It was a living room with a huge cream sofa and matching chairs that looked comfortable enough to sleep on. Large domed lamps flanked the sofa and gave the room an intimate, golden glow that set off the smooth polished cabinetry around the room to perfection. A flat-screen TV lined one entire wall and opposite that an open doorway led into what Lexi assumed was the bedroom Leo had just disappeared through.
Before she could stop herself she crossed the carpeted floor, trying not to think about the last time she had entered Leo’s bedroom in his London apartment, and peeked inside. It was his bedroom and it was dominated by a huge bed facing curved floor-to-ceiling windows that looked onto a private deck. Clearly the man liked his views.
Lexi saw him sprawled on one of the sun loungers outside and wandered to the open doorway; the light of the moon casting him in shadows.
‘What do you want?’
He didn’t turn and Lexi hovered there, uncertain as to whether she should stay or go, some inner instinct telling her that he needed her right now. ‘I wanted to make sure you were okay.’
Stars twinkled overhead in the navy sky and the only sound was that of water slapping as it broke against the side of the yacht. ‘Still trying to solve the problems of the world, angel?’
Lexi returned her gaze back to him. He wasn’t looking at her, but lay with his eyes closed and his hands folded behind his head. ‘No. I thought you might like company.’
He opened his eyes, his gaze raking her from head to toe before closing them again. ‘You’re wearing too many clothes for the company I need right now.’
‘It might help if you talked about what’s wrong.’
‘Really.’ His voice was snide and Lexi questioned her decision to interrupt him. ‘Let’s give it a try, shall we. I don’t want Amanda to be married and to leave me in charge of the care of my son.’ He bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. ‘Net. Still married. What a surprise.’
Lexi moved out onto the balcony and shivered as she felt the chill in the air descend on her bare skin. Or was that just the frost coming off the brooding man with his eyes now fixed on some dark spot in the distance? She perched on the matching chair beside his. ‘I know you’re upset at the news.’
‘Upset? I’m not upset, angel. I’m furious.’
‘Because you love her?’ she acknowledged ruefully.
‘You think that’s what’s going on here? You think that I love Amanda Weston?’
‘You seemed devastated by the email she sent and—’
His sneer stopped the rest of her words. ‘And you thought it was a love gone wrong. I don’t do love, angel.’
‘If it’s not love you feel for Amanda, then … I’m confused. Why do you act as if Ty doesn’t exist?’
‘Because to me he doesn’t.’
Lexi’s breath caught in her throat. She wouldn’t believe that. She couldn’t. ‘I don’t believe you.’
He paused and she didn’t think he was going to answer her.
‘You want to know what happened with Amanda, I’ll tell you. She came onto me at the Brussels Airport when all flights were grounded and we had sex. It was never going to be anything more than one night but she was looking for a rich husband and we used her condom—which I later found out she had already tampered with. It was a one-night fluke but she hit the jackpot.’
‘That’s terrible.’
Leo looked at Lexi’s shocked face. Why had he told her that? He’d never told anyone before. Was it because he was sick of her thinking that he’d abandoned Ty for nothing? ‘Poor Lexi. Doesn’t that fit in with your ideal world where two parents love their children beyond measure?’ He shook his head dourly and turned back to the ocean.
‘I don’t live in a fantasy world, Leo, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I know that sometimes one loving parent is better than two who can’t get along.’
Leo glanced back at her averted face. Her chin was angled defiantly, her spine rigid. He knew instantly that whatever had gone on in her own childhood had affected her deeply and, despite his never having been interested in a woman’s past before, he couldn’t hold back his curiosity. ‘You’re talking about your father’s double life, I take it.’
She stared at her hands for a minute and then her eyes met his. ‘Yes. My father was a mildly successful golfer who travelled the world and my mother accepted that as part and parcel of loving him. She was a very understanding person and she never pushed to travel with him—mainly, I think, because she would have found it hard with Joe and I—but nor did she push to marry him. Then one night her world fell apart when the daughter he had fathered with his long-time mistress had an accident and his mistress gave him an ultimatum. Mum or her.’
Leo looked over and saw that Lexi’s jaw was tight. ‘And he chose the other woman.’