Claimed for the Leonelli Legacy

‘Lived with me? Why would you want to live with me when your home and your husband are in Brazil?’ Tia queried in genuine astonishment.

‘Francisco has replaced me with a younger woman,’ Inez admitted with a dismissive toss of her head and a shrug. ‘We’re currently going through a divorce and my children have elected to stay with their father and their future stepmother.’

Tia had a scornful urge to ask her mother what it felt like to be abandoned and was immediately deeply ashamed of that spiteful prompting. ‘I’m sorry. It must be very hard for you right now.’

‘But if I could move in with you, everything would be much easier,’ Inez confessed. ‘I would have no financial worries and I could live in comfort.’

And comprehension set in then with Tia. Her mother had only come to the funeral because she had decided that Tia might finally be useful to her, and of course she wanted Tia to take Max to court and fight Andrew’s will because the wealthier Tia was, the more useful she could be to her mother. Bitterness threatened to claim Tia. For an instant, she recalled the loneliness of convent life for a little girl who never got to go home to a family during the holidays like her classmates. Inez’s self-interest was not a surprise but what did surprise Tia was that her mother’s selfishness could still hurt and disappoint her.

‘That’s not possible,’ Tia responded deflatingly.

‘But this is your house now,’ Inez protested, making it clear that she had received that confidential information from someone present at the reading of the will. ‘You can have whoever you like to stay and who better than your mother?’

‘Her husband,’ another voice interposed and Tia glanced up in dismay to find Max towering over them, his lean, strong face formidable in its hard resolve. ‘Tia has me and right now she doesn’t need anyone else.’

Inez’s mouth took on a venomous twist but before she could say anything more, Tia stepped away. ‘It was good to see you today, Inez,’ she said politely as she walked away.

‘I feel awful,’ she whispered to Max. ‘I don’t feel anything for her. Well, actually, that’s another lie. At one point I felt angry, bitter and nasty and I hate feeling like that.’

Max shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘She made it that way when she walked out on you and never came back, bella mia. Don’t blame yourself for being human.’

And instantly, Tia felt soothed, gazing up into lustrous dark golden eyes, her tummy flipping a somersault in sudden excitement as that sliding sensation thrummed between her legs and she ached down deep inside. Every response seemed heightened by the rawness of her turbulent emotions. For a heady split second she craved his mouth with every fibre of her being, hunger threatening to roar up inside her like a raging fire. She sucked in a shuddering breath to calm her fevered body, wondering where she would focus that passion when she no longer had Max. On her baby? On some other interest?

Max swallowed with difficulty, his hand clenching into a fist and digging into his pocket. It was neither the time nor the place and her fine-boned face was etched with strain and fatigue. He didn’t want her to have to play hostess any longer; he wanted to scoop her up in his arms and lay her down to rest somewhere quiet and peaceful. Knowing she would do her duty, however, he stayed by her side, handling the more difficult conversations that roused her grief and brought tears to her eyes. He urged her to sit down whenever possible and was barely able to conceal his relief when people began leaving.

‘I think I’ll have an early night,’ Tia told him over a dinner in which she merely rearranged her food on her plate.

‘Good idea. It’s been a very long day.’

‘I miss him,’ Tia confessed gruffly.

‘I’ve never been in this house before when he wasn’t here. It feels strange.’

Tia lay in the bath, composing herself while she made plans for her future. Max didn’t want their child and he didn’t want her except in the most basic sexual way. She deserved better and she wasn’t about to settle for l

ess, she told herself urgently. She had to be strong and decisive. She would leave and use her grandmother’s inheritance to build a new independent life, possibly the life she would have enjoyed had she not met Max. What else could she do?

Max had married her primarily to please Andrew and Andrew was no longer alive to be hurt and disappointed by her decision to abandon her hasty marriage. Max wouldn’t miss her. He would be far too busy with Grayson Industries. He didn’t want their child, couldn’t even bring himself to talk about the baby she carried. No, the best he could seem to do was ignore the subject in its entirety. Leaving was her only option.

Max would not feel he had lost out when he had no contact with the child he had accidentally fathered. Their child would lose out on having a father but if Max wasn’t keen on being a father, wouldn’t his absence be less damaging in the long run? Perhaps years from now Max would succumb to curiosity as her own mother once had and he would find that he could communicate more easily with their child when he or she was more mature. Tia knew she could not expect to stay hidden for ever.

Tears dampened her cheeks in the hothouse temperature of the opulent bathroom. How could she walk away from the man she loved? Even if it was the best thing for them both? Eventually they would have to get a divorce, which would leave them free to seek another relationship. Just then Tia didn’t think she would ever again be attracted to anyone and the thought of Max with anyone else absolutely destroyed her. Indeed, all she could think of at that instant was Max, his hair-roughened bronzed skin hot and a mixture of rough and smooth against her, the intoxicating taste of him, the burning need he excited...

Irritated with herself, Tia clambered out of the bath, her body tingling and pulsing, and wrapped herself in a towel. In the bedroom, she hovered. One last night, she thought crazily, one last night with Max...why not? Why the heck not? She loved him, she wanted him. Afterwards she would write him a letter explaining how she felt but she wouldn’t tell him everything. If she told him she loved him he would feel guilty that he had hurt her. No, she would tell him that she needed her freedom; that life was too short to waste, that setting out to make her own life and live alone was what she had always dreamt of...and it would be the truth with just a few salient facts withheld.

Swathed in a towelling robe, she walked out into the corridor and down to the bedroom that she knew Max was using. She didn’t knock on the door because she felt that would be silly. No, she walked straight in and caught Max lying in his boxers on the bed watching the business news. Against the backdrop of the white linen sheets, he was a breathtaking vision of masculine perfection.

‘I don’t want to be alone tonight,’ she told him honestly.

Max was very much taken aback. He sat up, brilliant dark eyes widening as Tia untied the sash of the robe and let the robe tumble in a heap to the floor. He couldn’t believe what he was witnessing because Tia was usually endearingly modest and now here she was naked under the lights. Yet light was a good friend to that porcelain skin with its pearlised glow, that honey-blonde hair as glossy as polished silk and the full, pouting, pink-tipped breasts that shifted with her every movement. Max had never liked surprises but just then he felt as if he had died and gone to heaven and the television went silent as soon as he had made a successful fumbling attempt to locate the remote.

‘I’m all yours, bella mia,’ he breathed thickly, the pulse at his groin responding with alarming rapidity to his appreciation of her.

Tia got on the bed and slid over him like a siren, leaning down, pink-tipped breasts brushing his chest as she planted her succulent pink lips against his. Max put his hands up and dragged her down to him, his urgency thrilling her. Bossy as always, he rearranged her to his satisfaction on the bed and worked his sensual passage down over her squirming body from her delicate collarbone to her straining nipples and then all the way down to the tender flesh between her thighs.

‘I wanted to torture you,’ she complained. ‘This was supposed to be my show.’

‘Some other time,’ Max growled, fighting to stay in control as he teased her damp receptive core and she made little gasping sounds that went straight to his groin and made him as rigid and hard as steel.