Claimed for the Leonelli Legacy

‘But you’re not your father. You have none of his violence in you. Even tonight when you’re so angry with me I have not once felt physically threatened by you,’ she pointed out, wanting to ask him how her grandfather had disappointed him, but reluctant to demand too much at once from a man who was only telling what he had so far told her because he felt he had no other choice. ‘You’re also honourable and honest, responsible and law-abiding.’

‘Yet my wife walked out on that honest, honourable, non-violent man and hid herself from me and stayed away as long as she could,’ Max retorted with crushing dismissal. ‘So, where does that leave us?’

Tia flinched from that sardonic reminder. ‘That’s a whole different story,’ she argued in consternation. ‘The leaving was about me, not you. I was so unsure and confused about everything in my life. Everything changed so fast and then Andrew died and you freaked out about me being pregnant—’

‘I didn’t freak out,’ Max broke in angrily.

‘In silence, you freaked out,’ Tia rephrased. ‘A first baby is a huge life change for a woman. I needed you to want our baby as much as I did because neither of us were wanted children and that didn’t turn out well for us. I wanted our baby to have everything we didn’t have, starting with caring, involved parents.’

‘But you didn’t give me a chance,’ Max argued vehemently, dark eyes shimmering pure gold condemnation in the lamp light. ‘Andrew had just died. I didn’t want to lay my sordid background on you on top of everything else you were already going through. You were pregnant and I tried to deal with that as best I could without involving you.’

‘Which meant you acted like it hadn’t happened,’ Tia slotted in ruefully. ‘I couldn’t handle that. We’d got married in a hurry. I’d got pregnant in a hurry. I had to put my child first and I knew I needed to be stronger. I couldn’t get stronger with you because you were too busy looking after me to let me learn how to do things for myself. And I thought of Inez, who’s spent her whole life needing a man to lean on and provide for her...and I was determined that I wasn’t going to be that kind of weak woman.’

‘Leaning on me isn’t a weakness,’ Max growled as the door bell sounded. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Probably my customer wanting to pick up his party order,’ Tia recalled belatedly. ‘You stay here and I’ll sort him out.’

But Max was too curious about the life that Tia had built away from him to keep his distance. He watched her greet a man in his thirties and walk through to a spacious catering kitchen to lift a set of cake boxes. Max’s lean, strong face clenched as he listened to them banter like two old friends and he stepped back into the lounge while she showed her customer out again.

‘Who is he?’ he asked baldly when she reappeared. ‘He was flirting with you.’

‘Was he? I don’t think so,’ Tia responded with amusement to that suggestion because she had learned a thing or two over the past months. Now she knew when a man was flirting with her and when it was better to ignore an off-colour joke or call a halt to any overfamiliarity before someone got the wrong idea. ‘He’s a married man with five children and this is their third birthday party in as many months, so I’ve got to know him well.’

‘How many other men have you got to know well?’ Max enquired with lethal cool.

Tia glanced at him in open shock.

‘Obviously I’m going to ask. I’d prefer honesty,’ he admitted stonily.

Tia went pink. ‘There hasn’t been anyone...anything,’ she breathed tightly. ‘I’m very aware that I’m still married.’

‘Ditto,’ Max traded flatly. ‘We’ve both been living in limbo since you walked out. If you wanted your freedom, Tia, you only had to say so. We could have separated with a lot less drama and stress.’

Tia lost colour. ‘Is that what you want? A separation?’

Max settled glittering dark eyes on her. ‘I’m still so angry with you that I don’t know what I want.’

‘Angry?’ she queried uncertainly.

‘Very angry,’ Max qualified without hesitation. ‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten that last night... I haven’t.’

Tia’s face flamed. In fact she felt as though her whole body were burning with mortification below her clothes.

‘The last thing I was expecting the following morning was that letter. Why the goodbye sex?’

‘I don’t want to discuss that.’

Max planted himself in the doorway to prevent her from leaving the room. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to talk about a lot of stuff you don’t want to talk about before I leave you alone. I deserve the truth, Tia. I have always tried to be straight with you.’

Tia spun away from him, embarrassment claiming her, for she had often squirmed when she looked back to the way she had wantonly thrown herself at him that night after the funeral. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, I wanted you... OK?’ she exclaimed.

‘The wanting was more than OK but the walking out on our marriage afterwards wasn’t,’ Max delivered icily. ‘Not giving me the opportunity to answer your concerns was very unfair as well. There are no polite words to cover what I went through over the following months worrying about you. The press speculated that you’d left me because I screwed you over with your inheritance and they had a field day with your convent upbringing in comparison to my freewheeling days of sexual freedom.’

‘I had no idea!’ Tia exclaimed in dismay. ‘I don’t read many newspapers but I’ve kept a very low profile here. There was only that one photo of me that appeared in the papers, the one taken the night of the Grayson party and nobody would associate that designer-clad young woman with the woman I am now. I don’t try to draw attention to myself here with my clothes or hair or anything.’

Max didn’t know whether he should tell her that nothing could detract from the pure symmetry of her delicate features, the clarity of her skin or the slender suppleness of her body. ‘But that simply means that you’re living a lie here with Sancha,’ he condemned.

Tia bridled, eyes widening, head flipping back. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’