‘That’s why you have me, though. So you don’t have to.’
‘I know. But I’m interested. And I might not get another chance. To watch you at work, I mean.’ He stopped. Frowned. Ran a hand through his hair and for one heart-stopping second seemed a little unsure of himself, before he gave himself a quick shake and looked at her steadily. ‘I also wanted to apologise.’
‘For what?’
‘You know for what.’
A pang of the hurt that she’d done so well to bury broke free and Abby stifled a sigh. ‘Look, Leo, can we please not go there just now?’ she said, suddenly a bit weary of it all. ‘Whatever’s going on, I’m at work here and I need to focus. So I’d really appreciate it if we could leave things at that for the next day or two.’
While Leo considered this she could see his jaw tightening, a clear indication that he wasn’t happy with her request, but that was tough, because she was here in a professional capacity and, however temporarily, she was calling the shots.
‘Fine,’ he said eventually. ‘But just so as you know, I do
want to apologise.’
‘If you think you can.’
‘I plan to give it a shot. Are you going to come in?’
‘Sure,’ she said, stepping over the threshold and stiffening as her arm brushed against his chest and what felt like a bolt of electricity shot through her.
‘Is my being here really a problem, Abby?’
She stopped in the hallway and turned to find him watching her, his face utterly unreadable.
Of course it was a problem, she thought. It was a huge problem because how on earth was she going to concentrate if he insisted on sticking around, wanting to apologise? But she shook her head and kept her smile pinned to her face. ‘Of course it isn’t. Not at all. As you pointed out, it’s your house. I can hardly order you to leave.’
‘Do you want me to leave?’
Absolutely she did, but what possible grounds could she have for asking him to do so? It wasn’t as if this party were a surprise to him. ‘I don’t mind what you do,’ she said with a cool nonchalance that she managed to drum up from who knew where, ‘as long as you don’t get in the way.’
He gave her the glimmer of a smile. ‘I won’t.’
* * *
But he did.
Not in the way of the streams of people who turned up over the next couple of days, and not, literally speaking, in her way. No, when he wasn’t holed up in his study, he took great care not to interfere. He remained very much out of the way, only fully joining in when it came to lunch. Then he’d come over and chat to her about how things were going and ask what was happening next. When lunch was over and everyone got back to work he melted away again. Nevertheless, she knew he was around—somewhere—and that was plenty enough of a distraction.
Vans came and went, disgorging giant urns, a dozen tables and ten times as many chairs, enough linen to sail a tall ship, kitchen equipment, speakers and miles of cabling. Delivery men arrived, dropped off and left. Her subcontractors were everywhere, whirling about, watching the clock and issuing instructions to their teams. Abby herself hovered around, keeping an overall watchful eye on what was going on, clipboard pretty much permanently in hand.
And all the while Leo was there. In her head and in her peripheral vision. Chatting easily to anyone he came across and helping out wherever muscle was needed.
Which was all very well and good but she never knew when or where he was going to pop up next, and as a result she was on edge and slowly going nuts.
However, what could she say without totally giving herself away? What could she do? Absolutely nothing.
Until this morning, that was, when she’d thought she’d had something of a brainwave. Figuring that if she could at least keep him in one place she could be sure to be elsewhere so she wouldn’t keep catching sight of him unexpectedly, she’d got him lending a hand to the guys who were putting up the marquee.
But that plan, which had started out successfully enough, had well and truly backfired because an hour or so after she’d given him his orders she’d accidentally seen him and any hope of keeping it together had gone to hell in a handcart, because he’d joined the others in taking off his shirt. And the sight of him pulling on ropes, hammering in pegs, his back bending and flexing, his muscles bunching and twisting, nearly made her pass out with longing.
From then on it had been hard to avoid that area. So hard.
Didn’t he know what the sight of his bare torso did to her? she wondered, heading into the kitchen to see about making tea for whoever wanted it. Surely he had to. So was it deliberate? Perhaps another rotten attempt to get her to yield to his desires and to hell with the apology?
Maybe he did and maybe he was, she thought with a sigh as she filled the tea urn with water and switched it on. She no longer knew which way was up when it came to him, although to be fair it was warm out there and it wasn’t as if he were the only one who’d gone shirtless.
Thank goodness there was only a little over twenty-four hours to go till the party. Thank goodness come Sunday morning this horrible confusion hammering away in her head and the awful pressure building inside her would be gone because, frankly, she didn’t know how much more of any of it she could take.