Claimed for the Leonelli Legacy

‘That no matter what you do, you’re a very wealthy heiress and my wife. You can’t escape what you are, short of returning to Brazil and joining the good sisters again. This is your life and mine.’

An irritable burst of barking from outside made Tia unfreeze. ‘Oh, I forgot about Teddy! I let him out into the garden while I was packing those cakes.’

Brushing past him, Tia sped out and seconds later Teddy surged into the room, freezing

with a growl the instant he settled his eyes on the unexpected visitor and then moving closer to sniff at Max’s trouser legs.

‘You’ve met up with worse than me since we last were together?’ Max conjectured, daring to reach down and pat Teddy’s head. The terrier made no attempt to growl or bite.

‘He’s got much more used to other people, living here. I take him for regular walks.’ Tia paced restlessly round the room, her full attention welded to Max’s lean, powerful figure. ‘Where do we go from here, Max?’

‘You want an upfront list of demands?’ Max queried. ‘I want you to come home so that I can get to know my daughter.’

‘Redbridge Hall is not my home,’ Tia parried in disbelief.

‘I may have been paying your staff for you for the past nine months but, legally and every other way, Redbridge is yours until you either sell it or dispose of it in some other way. And the will probably restricts what you can do because Andrew wanted the property kept in the family,’ Max reminded her.

‘You’ve been paying the staff?’ Tia gasped.

‘Well, someone had to take responsibility for them,’ Max pointed out very drily. ‘Your grandfather employed a lot of people and several businesses operate on the estate. I think eventually you will decide to scale down the household staff to a more appropriate level.’

Tia had lost all her natural colour. ‘I didn’t think.’

‘No, of course you didn’t. You’ve never had staff before but now that you do, you do have to take care of them. And there are decisions waiting that I was unable to deal with because I am not the legal owner of the estate,’ he pointed out.

Tia reddened. ‘I’m so sorry, Max. I should’ve thought of all that.’

‘On the good news front, Grayson Industries is flourishing as never before and the profits will be astronomical this year because I’ve had little else but work to occupy me,’ he proclaimed with sardonic bite.

Tia sank weakly down on an armchair. Of course, he wanted her back at Redbridge to release him from the added burden of what had never been his responsibility in the first place. She was ashamed that it had not even occurred to her that in her absence life had had to continue at Redbridge. Wages had to be paid, maintenance decisions made and probably requests had had to be answered because the estate land was often used for local events.

‘I don’t care about the profits,’ she declared woodenly.

Max crouched down in front of her to study her with scorchingly furious dark golden eyes. ‘Well, I and thousands of other people employed by Grayson’s do care,’ he countered with lethal derision. ‘And it’s all yours. I may be in charge, I may be the figurehead but at the end of the day all those profits are yours, not mine.’

Taken aback by his vehemence, Tia flinched back a few inches. ‘But that’s not what Andrew intended.’

Max swore long and low in Italian, literal sparks dancing in his stunning dark eyes. ‘I don’t care what Andrew intended. I will only take the salary and the bonus package that was agreed when I first took over. I will not live off my wife’s wealth, or my ex-wife’s...or whatever you are planning to become.’

Tia was more shaken still by that aggressive statement. Max vaulted upright again, long, lean muscles flexing in his thighs, the fabric of his trousers pulling taut. She recognised that he had run out of patience and that he wanted decisions now. But she was taken aback by his attitude to the Grayson wealth. He didn’t want what he saw as her money.

‘What do you want now, Max?’ she murmured tautly. ‘You haven’t told me that yet.’

Max froze. The anger she had sent soaring through him ebbed and he thought about what he wanted. He looked at her and what he wanted was very, very basic. ‘I want you to untangle your hair from those ties and strip. I want sex. It’s been nine months and I’ve never gone through a dry spell this long since I grew up.’

Shock rocked Tia where she sat, transfixed like a deer in headlights. Slow colour rose in a tide below her fair skin, heat curling at the heart of her, touching and warming places she had stopped thinking about when she left him. She had suppressed that part of herself, her sensual side, meeting with it only in dreams that she could not control. Now she gazed back at Max, marvelling that he was so bold, so unapologetic about what he wanted and oddly excited by the forceful sexual energy he saw no reason to hide.

CHAPTER TEN

‘AND NOW THAT I’ve begun being honest, I’ll continue in the same vein,’ Max gritted in a driven undertone, working off a ‘might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb’ soapbox. ‘I also want my daughter with me under the same roof. I will not negotiate on that demand. I’ve missed out on an entire three months of her life and I’m a stranger to her through no fault of my own. That has to change—and fast. We’ll return to Redbridge Hall tomorrow.’

‘That’s absolutely impossible!’ Tia exclaimed, leaping upright in emphasis, guilt, shock and consternation flooding her in a heady tide. ‘I’m about to open the tea room for the Easter visitors and I have loads of orders to fulfil.’

‘You also have a very competent co-worker and you can afford to hire another employee to take your place. Oh, yes, I did my homework before I came here,’ Max intoned with sizzling cool.

‘But you don’t understand... Salsa Cakes is my business.’

‘No, your business is Grayson Industries,’ Max contradicted without hesitation. ‘Not what you have here. It’s time to join the real world again, Tia. You were born into one of the richest families in the UK and you can’t run away from your heritage.’