Leo stopped, certain that whatever gem Shaw intended to impart wouldn’t be worth a dime. He turned. ‘What?’
‘There are two kinds of women in this world. Those who understand their place and those who don’t. Miriam always knew how to toe the line, but she coddled that girl far too much. If you want obedience in a woman you won’t find it in Helena. She’ll bring you nothing but trouble.’
Dio. The man was a raving misogynist. ‘You don’t know Helena.’
Shaw sneered. ‘And you do?’
‘Better than you.’
The sneer stretched into a bloodless smile that raised the hairs on Leo’s forearms.
‘In that case, since the two of you are so close, I assume you know about the baby?’
At that moment a grey-haired woman entered the room and headed for the kitchenette in the far corner.
Shaw stepped forward and Leo tensed, but the other man’s hands remained by his sides.
He leaned in to deliver his parting shot. ‘The one she buried nine months after you scarpered back to Italy.’
For a suspended moment Shaw’s words hung in the air, devoid of meaning, and then, like guided missiles striking their target, they slammed into Leo’s brain one after the other. His lungs locked. The skin at his nape tightened. And when Shaw walked away, his expression smug, Leo couldn’t do a damn thing to stop him. Because his muscles—the ones that had been so swift to react earlier—had completely frozen.
Through a dark, suffocating mist, he registered a touch on his arm. He looked down.
‘Are you all right, my dear?’ The elderly woman peered up at him through round,
wire-rimmed spectacles. ‘You’re as white as a ghost.’
* * *
‘Tell me about the child.’
Helena stared at Leo’s implacable face. ‘Stop standing over me.’
She wished she hadn’t sat down as soon as they’d entered the suite. She fought back a shiver. She’d thought his silence during the limo ride from the hospital had been unbearable. Having him tower over her now, like some big, surly interrogator, while she cowered on the sofa was ten times worse.
He gritted his teeth—she could tell by the way his jaw flexed—then visibly flinched.
‘You should ice that,’ she blurted, eyeing the livid bruise beneath his five o’clock shadow. She still couldn’t believe her father had punched him.
‘So help me, Helena, if you do not—’
‘I wanted to tell you.’ She jumped to her feet, unable to sit there a moment longer while he glowered down at her. She circled around the sofa, gripped the back for support. ‘I was just...waiting for the right time.’
Oh, God. How weak that sounded—how very convenient and trite. He’d never believe it. Not now. Not in a million years.
She searched his face, desperate for a glimpse of the warmth and tenderness she’d grown accustomed to in recent days. But all she saw was anger. Disbelief. Hurt. She thought of her father and his smug expression as he’d passed her in the hospital corridor. A flash of hatred burned in her chest. He’d ruined everything. Again.
‘You were waiting for the right time?’ Leo plunged his fingers into his hair. ‘Did you not think seven years ago that it was “the right time”?’
Her legs shook and she dug her nails into the sofa. ‘You left,’ she reminded him. ‘You went back to Italy.’
‘Because I had nothing to stay for. Your father had seen to that.’
‘You said you never wanted to see me again.’
‘I had no idea you were carrying my child.’
‘Neither did I.’