The trouble was she would be moving on with her life with someone else, he thought with another sharp dart of pain in his gut. He would have to stand to one side as she walked up the aisle to some other guy. He would have to pretend it didn’t matter because it shouldn’t matter.
Miranda lifted her toffee-brown gaze to his. ‘But what about you?’ she said. ‘Will you move on with yours?’
Leandro gave her a crooked smile. ‘I already have. You’ve helped me with that.’
‘I have?’
‘Sure you have,’ he said. ‘You’ve helped me understand my father a little better.’
She touched a gentle hand to his face. ‘I’m sure he loved you. How could he not?’
Leandro captured her hand and pressed a kiss to the middle of her palm. ‘I’d better call your brother back. You want to hang around and say hi to him?’
Her eyes widened in alarm as she started to back away. ‘Not right now... I—I think I’ll have to take a bath.’
‘Leave some hot water for me, okay?’
She nodded and scampered out of the room.
Leandro let out a breath and pressed the call button on his phone. ‘Jake, sorry I was busy with something when you called.’
‘So, what’s this about you doing my little sister?’ Jake said.
Leandro felt a chill tighten his skin. ‘Where’d you hear that?’
‘Joke, man,’ Jake laughed.
‘Right...’
‘You okay?’
‘Sure,’ Leandro said. ‘Been busy sorting out my father’s stuff. Now, about this Braystone account—’
‘So have you introduced Miranda to any hot French or Italian guys over there?’ Jake said.
‘No,’ he said, trying not to clench his jaw. ‘Not yet.’
‘Not that it’d work,’ Jake said. ‘But it’s worth a try.’
‘I’m sure when she’s ready to date again she will,’ Leandro said. ‘You can’t force people into doing stuff until they’re ready emotionally. You and Julius shouldn’t be giving her such a hard time about it. It’s probably why she’s been pushing back for all this time. Give her the space to recognise what she needs and stop lecturing her. She’s not a fool.’
‘Whoa there, buddy,’ Jake said. ‘No need to take my head off.’
‘I’m just saying you need to back off a little, okay?’
‘Okey dokey,’ Jake said. ‘Point taken. Now, about this Braystone account. It’s a humdinger of a puzzle, isn’t it?’
Leandro mentally gave a deep sigh of relief. Work. Now that was something he was comfortable talking about.
CHAPTER NINE
THERE WERE ONLY two days left before Miranda was to fly back to London. How had the last few days gone so quickly? It seemed like yesterday when she had arrived and walked into the villa with Leandro to all the dusts and secrets inside. Now the villa was all but empty apart from the kitchen, the bedroom they’d been sharing and Rosie’s room. He hadn’t done anything about that yet and Miranda didn’t want to push him. She knew he would do it when he was ready. He had a couple more days here after she left before he flew on to Geneva for a meeting over the big account he was working on for Jake.
Miranda looked at the date on the flight itinerary on her phone with a sinking feeling. Forty-eight hours and it would all be over. She and Leandro would go back to being friends. Platonic friends. They would no longer touch. No longer kiss. No longer make love. They would move on with their lives as if nothing had happened. She would have to interact with him at Julius and Holly’s wedding, maybe even dance with him and pretend they were as they had been before—distant friends. How was she going to do it? Wouldn’t everyone see the chemistry they activated in each other? She didn’t think she would be able to hide her emotions or her response to his presence. She had no control over how he made her feel. He had only to look at her and she felt her body tremble with need.
He wasn’t in love with her. She was almost sure of it. He certainly acted like it but he had never said the words. Every kiss, every caress, every time he made love to her, she wanted to believe he was doing it out of love instead of lust. But if he loved her why hadn’t he changed his mind about the time frame of their involvement? He hadn’t even mentioned it since the evening in his office. Had it been her imagination or had he been distancing himself since that night? She knew he was worried about the account he was working on. There were lawyers involved and a court hearing scheduled. Every spare minute when he wasn’t sorting out his father’s stuff he worked on his laptop with a deep frown etched on his forehead. She had tried to give him the space he needed to work in peace, even though it had been more than tempting to interrupt him and have him make love to her the way he had before.