Claimed for the Leonelli Legacy

‘How do you feel about all this?’ Max enquired almost lazily.

‘Andrew wanted you to inherit,’ Tia murmured with quiet emphasis. ‘It was his business and it was his right to dispose of it as he saw fit.’

His lean, strong profile taut, Max dealt her a frowning appraisal from glittering dark deep-set eyes as if questioning that she could really feel like that. Tia evaded his direct gaze because what had happened between them in Brazil was playing heavily on her mind and she knew she had questions to ask her husband before she was willing to bury the subject.

‘We’ll talk in here.’ Max flung open a door off the crowded drawing room. ‘By the way, don’t feel sorry for your cousins. Andrew made generous settlements on all of them before he died.’

‘Good to know.’ Tia preceded him into a small sitting room. Faded curtains and rather outmoded furniture attested to the fact that it had once been her grandmother’s favourite room. It had stayed unchanged for over a quarter of a century and the sight of it and the beautiful view out over the colourful rose garden never failed to touch Tia’s heart. Her grandfather had mentioned how he still liked to picture her grandmother sitting writing letters at her bureau and of how in the initial stages of his grief he had liked to sit there to feel close to her again.

‘How do you feel?’ Max prompted again, standing with wide shoulders angled back and legs braced as if he expected her to attack. ‘You can be honest...tell me.’

‘Did you know?’ Tia asked hesitantly, her luminous gaze welded to his devastatingly handsome, lean dark features.

‘What would be in the will? Andrew filled me in on the details only after we had married,’ Max admitted flatly, raking a frustrated hand through his tousled black hair. ‘Prior to that I assumed he would leave it all jointly to both of us.’

The will had shaken Max and it was ironic that, while the disposal of Andrew’s assets had made Andrew’s other relatives jealous, it had almost made Max groan. He didn’t need the ownership of Grayson Industries to feel good about himself or the future. As far as Max was concerned, Grayson Industries would always rightfully belong to Tia, who was a Grayson by birth. He was not sorry, though, to be left with complete autonomy over the business because he would not have enjoyed interference from any other source.

But what Max disliked most of all was the suspicion that Andrew’s will had muddied the water in his marriage and no matter what Tia said, she had to have serious doubts about how much she could trust him now. Did she secretly suspect that he had married her for her money? He needed to be more frank with her about why he was with her and why he had been willing to marry her, he acknowledged grudgingly.

The worst of Tia’s tension had already dissipated. ?

??It would never occur to me to think of you as a fortune hunter, Max,’ she confided ruefully. ‘I would never think that of you.’

‘Then possibly you should think again. I have to tell you the truth because I won’t lie about it. Before I came out to Brazil to collect you, Andrew told me how worried he was about bringing you home here when he was dying. He was worried sick about how you would cope as his heiress in a world so far removed from that of the convent and he asked me to marry you to protect you.’

All her natural colour draining away in the face of that unwelcome revelation, Tia fell back a step from him in consternation: Max had not freely chosen to be with her. It was as though her whole world lurched and spun around her because she suddenly felt sick and dizzy and disorientated. Her legs like woolly supports, she dropped down heavily into an armchair and stared back up at him, her cornflower-blue eyes huge in the white triangle of her face.

‘That is the one secret I won’t keep from you, bella mia,’ Max declared harshly. ‘Andrew came up with the original idea. You heard the family lawyer refer to it. It was news to me, however, that he was considering the idea years before he mentioned it to me. I said I’d consider it after I had met you but the minute I saw you, I stopped considering anything. I wanted you and I didn’t want any other man to have you.’

Tia gazed back at him in shock, never having associated such strong emotions with Max.

‘Right there and then, I became determined that you would be mine,’ Max continued in a harsh undertone. ‘I didn’t think about the business or the money. That didn’t come into it for me. I’m an ambitious man but prior to meeting you I had built up enough wealth to satisfy me and anything more was icing on the cake. Somehow in a very short space of time you became both the icing and the cake. Even so, I was intolerably greedy and selfish. I didn’t want any other man to have an excuse to come near you.’

‘Intolerably?’ Tia queried his choice of words shakily.

‘A more honourable man would have wanted you to come home and have the freedom to explore the dating scene. My blood ran cold at that prospect. I’m possessive. I didn’t want to run the risk of losing you to someone else. I didn’t want anyone to have the chance to take you from me. I knew I would meet Andrew’s expectations and look after you and, whatever happens, I will continue to do so. When I give my word, I stand by it, and you are my wife and I will always stand by that.’

And she recognised that stubborn strength and resolution in him and it cut her and made her bleed where it didn’t show, made her bleed for what she couldn’t have and what she would have given anything to possess. Had he loved her she would have forgiven him anything but he didn’t love her. He desired her. Yes, she understood that perfectly, for she had desired him with equal fervour when they had first met. But desire had steadily transformed into love where she was concerned, only it hadn’t happened that way for Max. She understood that he would do only right by her; that she could rely on him and that he had not married her only for the riches that that marriage would bring him.

But, that didn’t change the reality that she was married to Max now because Andrew had wanted Max to be with her, giving her the protection that Andrew had known he would not be around for long to give. Their sexual chemistry had persuaded Max that such a marriage could work but without the pressure of her grandfather’s emotional blackmail would it have ever occurred to Max to marry her?

Tia thought not. Furthermore, there was a huge unacknowledged elephant in the room—the baby Max had yet to mention in any shape or form. He had had three days to brood. Surely that was time enough for a man to deal with an unexpected and unwelcome development? And as Tia rested troubled eyes on Max, her heart was sinking because she knew they did not have a future together. He didn’t want their child. He would do what he had to do, say what he had to say but without the spur of love and genuine interest he would be a poor parent. Much as her own father had been, Tia decided wretchedly, bad memories pulling at her. She had spent a lifetime trying to please a man who could not be pleased. She had struggled endlessly to win his love and approval, writing him weekly letters to which he never responded and passing every exam that came her way. And her efforts had only been a thankless and heartbreaking learning experience and she would never impose that burden on her baby. Sometimes, she thought sadly, no father could be better than an uncaring, indifferent one.

‘Now isn’t the time for this,’ she breathed, rising with sudden decisiveness. ‘We have a house full of visitors.’

And Max thought, so much for the much-vaunted tactic of telling the truth and baring your heart. It hadn’t got him anywhere. Tia’s face was shuttered, eyes on lockdown, her lush mouth closed. Madonna diavolo! He wasn’t going to lose her—no way was he prepared to let her go! Particularly not now when she was carrying his child. His child, he reminded himself doggedly, striving valiantly to accustom himself to that astonishing idea. Some time soon when her grief was not so fresh he would tell her the whole story of his childhood and then she would understand his apprehension, wouldn’t she?

Right now he didn’t want to weigh her down with any more stress and worry. She looked fragile as a bird in her elegant black dress and he knew she was eating little more than a sparrow’s ration at mealtimes. The tension of anxiety settled into Max’s bones. So far he was dismayed by what pregnancy appeared to be doing to his wife. He knew that a pregnancy wasn’t an illness but Tia looked wan, thin and drained and her once buoyant spirits were at basement level.

Tia quickly discovered that gossiping tongues had been busy in the drawing room because her mother wasted no time in tracking her down to draw her into a quiet corner and say angrily, ‘We’ll take Andrew’s will to court. It’s a disgrace. Your inheritance has been stolen by your husband. He’s a fortune hunter! No wonder he doesn’t want me around!’

‘I’m not taking anyone to court, Inez,’ Tia countered in a firm undertone.

‘Can’t you call me Mamae like my other children?’ the blonde woman asked plaintively.

Tia breathed in deep. ‘I don’t want to be unkind but you were never my mother in the way you were a mother to them...and it’s too late now. We’re strangers. I needed a mother when I was a little girl. I’ve got used to not having one now.’

‘But it could be different...if I stayed here, if I lived with you,’ Inez argued vehemently, ‘then we could get to know each other.’