At no point was he inclined to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. In his experience, people rarely deserved that luxury, and certainly not someone with her particular shady history.
Never one ever to have been possessive or protective about the women in his life, he was a little shaken by the fierce streak suddenly racing through him that was repelled by the thought of someone taking advantage of the girl sitting on his lap with the easy smile, the flushed face and tousled hair.
‘You need to exercise caution,’ he muttered grimly. He raked his fingers through his hair and scowled, as though she had decided to disagree with him even though she hadn’t uttered a word.
‘Then maybe,’ Brianna teased him lightly, ‘you should stick around and make sure I don’t end up becoming a patsy...’
The journey here should have taken no time at all; his stay should have been over in a matter of a couple of days. There were meetings waiting for him and urgent trips abroad that could only be deferred for so long. It had never been his intention to turn this simple fact-finding exercise into a drama in three parts.
‘Maybe I should,’ he heard himself say softly. ‘For a while...’
‘And you can chase her away if she turns out to be an unscrupulous squatter who wants to take advantage of me.’ She laughed as though nothing could be more ridiculous and raised her hand to caress his cheek.
Leo circled her slim wrist with his fingers in a vice-like grip. ‘Oh, if she tries that,’ he said in a voice that made her shiver, ‘she’ll discover just what a ruthless opponent I could prove to be—and just how regrettable it can be to cross my path.’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE SNOW HAD stopped. As grey and leaden as the skies had been for a seemingly unstoppable length of time, the sun now emerged, turning a bleak winter landscape into a scene from a movie: bright-blue skies and fields of purest white.
Bridget’s arrival had been delayed by a day, during which time Leo had allowed the subject of her dubious, unknown past to be dropped. No more hassle warning Brianna about accepting the cuckoo in the nest. No more words of caution that the person she might have considered a friend and surrogate mother might very well turn out to be someone all set to take full advantage of her generous nature and hospitality. There would be fallout from this gesture of putting the woman up while she recuperated; he was certain of that and he would be the man to deal with it. So he might never have specialised in the role of ‘knight in shining armour’ in his life before, but he was happy with his decision.
London would have to take a little back seat for a while. He was managing to keep on top of things just fine via his computer, tablet and smartphone and, if anything dramatic arose, then he could always shoot down to sort it out.
All told, the prospect of being holed up in the middle of nowhere was not nearly as tedious as he might have imagined. In fact, all things considered, he was in tremendously high spirits.
Of course, Brianna was a hell of a long way responsible for that. He glanced up lazily from his computer to the sofa where she was sitting amidst piles of paperwork. Her hair was a rich tumble over her shoulders and she was cross-legged, leaning forward and chewing her lip as she stared at her way-past-its-sell-by-date computer which was on the low coffee table in front of her.
In a couple of hours the ambulance would be bringing his destiny towards him. For the moment, he intended to enjoy his woman. He closed the report in front of him and stood up, stretching, flexing his muscles.
From across the small, cosy room, Brianna looked up and, as always happened, her eyes lingered, absorbing the beautiful sight of his long, lean body; the way his jeans rode low on his hips; the way he filled out her father’s checked flannel shirt in just the right way. He had loosely rolled the sleeves to his elbow and his strong, brown forearms, liberally sprinkled with dark hair, sent a little shiver of pleasurable awareness rippling through her.
‘You should get a new computer.’ Leo strolled towards her and then stood so that he was looking down at the columns of numbers flickering on the screen at him. ‘Something faster, more up-to-date.’
‘And I should have a holiday, somewhere warm and far away... And I’ll do both just as soon as I have the money.’ Brianna sighed and sat back, keenly aware of him looking over her. ‘I just want to get all this stuff out of the way before Bridget gets here. I want to be able to devote some quality time to her.’
Leo massaged her neck from behind. Her hair, newly washed, was soft and silky. The baggy, faded pink jumper was the most unrevealing garment she could have worn but he had fast discovered that there was no need for her to wear anything that outlined her figure. His imagination was well supplied with all the necessary tools for providing graphic images of her body that kept him in a state of semi-permanent arousal.