Claimed for the Leonelli Legacy

Max groaned out loud, for that naïve question said it all as far as he was concerned. He had taken cruel advantage of her innocence, he conceded grimly. ‘I assume that thump on the head left me disorientated. I didn’t use contraception with you.’

Belated comprehension striking her, Tia froze and her complexion turned pale and clammy. ‘Oh,’ she framed in dismay.

‘As I’m regularly tested there is no risk of disease,’ Max assured her, his intonation brusque. ‘Believe it or not, I have never before had sex without using protection. Obviously one doesn’t want consequences...’

‘Consequences...you mean, me getting pregnant,’ Tia gathered, her brain still struggling to handle the deeply unwelcome surprise he had dealt her.

How could she have been so foolish? She had got so carried away that she hadn’t even considered the risk of pregnancy and the acknowledgement that she could be that irresponsible was even more of a shock.

‘Clearly that’s a risk,’ Max spelt out flatly, having watched her pale and flinch from that reality. ‘We’re both young and healthy. There could definitely be consequences.’

Only that morning, Tia had wakened in the convent, still naïve and ignorant about matters that other young women took for granted at her age. Now all of a sudden it felt as though she was being subjected to a frightening crash course on what adulthood demanded and she was appalled by her carelessness. She had forgotten all common sense, everything she had been taught about how to look after herself and stay safe. She couldn’t even recall how many years it was since she had been assured that purity was the only certain way to avoid an unplanned pregnancy. So informed, her classmates had giggled and exchanged superior glances while whispering remarks about modern birth control. But, Tia told herself unhappily, her hindsight and regret came a little too late to the table to be helpful. It was done; wrongly or rightly, it was done.

‘We’ll have to get married,’ Max informed her without hesitation. ‘Immediately. In this situation where I was entrusted with your care, it’s the only possible remedy. Your grandfather trusts me. If there’s the smallest chance that you could be pregnant I need to marry you now.’

In silent disbelief, Tia stared back at him. Perspiration beaded her brow. That was the moment that Tia registered that, not only did she not want to be pregnant, but she also didn’t want to be married either. No, not even if Max resembled a Renaissance prince and took her to heavenly heights in bed. What Tia had dreamt of for so many years, what she had always craved was...freedom and independence. And nobody needed to warn her that there was little wriggle room for freedom in either matrimony or motherhood.

CHAPTER FIVE

BENEATH MAX’S INTENT, measuring gaze, Tia had lost all her natural colour and her bright eyes veiled as she studied the highly polished wooden floor instead of him. He realised instantly that Tia was not receptive to the idea of marrying him and it was a shocking wake-up call for a man who had spent years on the social scene being relentlessly pursued by ambitious young women in search of a rich husband. Tia had slept with him but she didn’t want to marry him.

It was a revelation and it hit Max’s ego hard because, he realised angrily, he had placed too much importance on her obvious attraction to him. Very possibly right now she did not feel much different than he did after a one-night stand. She might have enjoyed herself but that didn’t mean she was eager for a repeat.

‘You have a very expressive face,’ Max murmured grimly.

‘That’s why I’m trying not to look at you!’ Tia protested with emphasis. ‘Mother Sancha always knew what I was thinking almost before I did. It’s just...what you said about getting married startled me. I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘As I see it, we don’t have much of a choice,’ Max intoned, his delivery bordering on curt in tone. ‘Bringing you home to Andrew unmarried and pregnant would be a disaster, possibly more for me than you I’ll admit. I fully believe that your grandfather would forgive you for anything but he has higher expectations of me...and I’m not a member of his family.’

The gruff note on which he completed that very honest little speech unexpectedly touched Tia’s heart. For possibly the first time she appreciated that, while he might not be a relative, Max was undeniably fond of Andrew Grayson.

‘I have no idea how you even know my grandfather or what your relationship with him is,’ Tia reminded him uncomfortably. ‘Do you work for him? Are you a neighbour? A friend?’

Max breathed in deep, already inwardly monitoring what he was willing to tell her and all the many things that he planned to take to the grave with him. ‘I was born in a small Italian village. My background is poor and rather sleazy,’ he admitted starkly. ‘When, for reasons I won’t go into, my parents were no longer able to look after me, my mother’s sister, Carina, who worked in England for Andrew, agreed to give me a home. She became my guardian when I was twelve. Your grandfather generously paid for my education. I lived under his roof during the holidays, not as a guest, though, but as the housekeeper’s nephew in the housekeeper’s apartment.’

Tia was taken aback by all that he revealed, having assumed that Max came from much the same sort of privileged and financially comfortable background as her father. Her lashes fluttered rapidly as she absorbed that new information, for it did put a different complexion on their situation. Clearly, Max felt he owed Andrew Grayson a debt for his kindness and did not feel that he could afford to rely on the older man to forgive or overlook any mistakes he made. Did Max think that getting entangled with Tia counted as a mistake? Suddenly, she was very much afraid that that was exactly how he viewed their passionate encounter.

‘Everything that I am today I owe to Andrew’s generosity,’ Max confessed harshly. ‘I don’t want to do anything that distresses him. He’s eighty and he’s...’ unusually he hesitated ‘...frail.’

‘Our getting married could distress him,’ Tia suggested.

‘No. Don’t forget that Andrew is from an earlier generation of men. He still sees marriage as the best source of happiness and security for a woman,’ Max told her flatly.

‘So, you’re willing to marry me simply on the off chance that I could conceive,’ Tia recapped. ‘I understand that but I would pr

efer a husband who wanted to marry me for a more conventional reason like love.’

‘I won’t lie to you,’ Max murmured in a tone of frustration. ‘I can’t offer you love. I was only in love once in my life when I was very young and I hated the effect it had on me. But I can promise to be caring and supportive...and, assuming it’s a normal marriage, faithful.’

Inwardly reeling from that declaration, Tia plonked herself down in a corner armchair and gazed back at him. Her body still ached from his possession and that spur of recollection sent a snaking coil of heat down into her pelvis when she studied his lean, strong face. She respected his honesty even if she didn’t like his embargo on love because she strongly suspected that, given sufficient time, she could fall for Maximiliano Leonelli like a ton of bricks. After all, he was offering her almost everything that she would eventually want...only she hadn’t wanted to find it quite so soon after leaving the convent.

She should have thought of that reality before she’d shared her body with him, she reflected guiltily, should have thought of who he was and who she was and how her grandfather might react to that intimate connection. But she hadn’t thought one sensible thought since Max had exploded into her safe little world, she conceded. He was lean and dark and beautiful and his sophistication and charisma had stolen her wits. She suspected that from the outset she had been behaving rather like an infatuated teenager, all overexcited and encouraging, wildly impulsive while never counting the cost. Or even considering the question of repercussions. What if she were to conceive a child?

Wasn’t that the real bottom line? Wasn’t she being horribly short-sighted and selfish when she thought regretfully of the freedom she had planned to embrace in England? The putative career choices and socialising she had dreamily envisaged? In their own way, weren’t such aspirations rather similar to the single-minded selfishness that had persuaded her own parents to abandon her? A dependent baby hadn’t fitted in with either her father or her mother’s plans. Once their marriage had broken down, Tia had become an unwelcome inconvenience to Paul and Inez Grayson. Was she to take the same attitude to her own baby, were there to be one?

Everything strong and ethical in Tia cried out against that attitude. If there was to be a baby, that baby’s needs should be placed central and first, not sacrificed to her self-interest. She would behave better than her parents had, she told herself urgently. She could make sacrifices if necessary and rearrange her own priorities if she became a mother. But naturally all of that would be easier to do if she had the father of her child by her side to help. Whether she liked to admit it or not, Max’s proposal could be a lifeline and one that she would very much need if she had a baby.

‘Can’t we wait and see if we have anything to worry about first?’ Tia asked, her colour high.