Claimed for the Leonelli Legacy

Max knew nothing about love. He hadn’t grown up with that example to follow, Tia was musing, and the one time he had surrendered to that attachment he had been deceived and hurt. But she knew as sure as God made little apples that the look in Max’s eyes when he’d first held Sancha had been the onset of love. If he could love their daughter, he could learn how to love Tia. Baby steps, she told herself soothingly, baby steps.

Max woke up in the morning with his wife and a terrier. Said terrier had sneaked into the bed during the night and, far from settling in the location of a foot-warmer, had instead imposed himself between Max and Tia like a doggy chastity belt. Max’s phone was buzzing like an angry bee and his daughter was crying and he eased out of bed, leaving Tia soundly asleep.

He was thrilled with his achievement when he contrived to make up a bottle for Sancha by following the very precise instructions. He gave Teddy a large slice of cake, which hugely boosted his standing in the dog’s eyes, and Teddy stationed himself protectively at his feet while he fed his daughter. That done, he carried the little girl back upstairs to find clean clothes for her. Changing her and dressing her was the biggest challenge he had ever met because she wouldn’t stay still and her legs and arms got lost in the all-in-one garment he finally got her dressed in. But she was clean and warm and that was all that mattered, he told himself while he made arrangements on his phone to have Tia’s possessions moved to Redbridge Hall.

Tia came racing downstairs in a panic when she found Sancha missing from her cot, and Max looked forgivably smug when she stared in surprise at her daughter slumbering peacefully in her travel cot, utterly lost in an outfit at least two sizes too large for her.

‘You should’ve wakened me,’ she told him in discomfiture.

‘No. I want to be involved whenever I can be.’ Gleaming dark golden eyes locked to her, Max slid upright and stretched indolently, long sleek muscles flexing below his shirt as he reached for his jacket. ‘You need to see that we can do this better together and that I can be as committed to Sancha as you are. I don’t plan to work eighteen-hour days any more, not now I have both of you back in my life. That is a fair assumption, isn’t it?’ he pressed tautly. ‘You are...back?’

‘Yes, I’m back,’ Tia murmured, torn up inside by the sudden flash of insecurity she read in his strained gaze. He wasn’t sure of her yet, didn’t quite trust that she would go the distance, and she didn’t think she could blame him for that.

It was two days before they got away from her house, two days of frantic packing and planning with Hilary, who would manage Salsa Cakes and in due course open the tea room with Tia’s financial backing. Max made himself very useful thrashing out the business details.

Late season snow was falling softly as they drew up outside Redbridge Hall. The trees were frosted white and the air was icy cold. When Tia walked into the spacious hall where a fire was burning merrily in the grate, she felt as if she was coming home for the first time.

‘It’s our first wedding anniversary,’ Max reminded her with satisfaction.

‘My goodness, is it?’ Tia exclaimed, mortified that she had forgotten.

‘I’m afraid that because I didn’t know you would be here I haven’t made any special preparations.’

‘That’s OK. Just us being here together is enough,’ Tia whispered as they went upstairs with Janette, the housekeeper, to see the room that had been prepared for their daughter.

‘It’ll need decorating,’ Max grumbled.

‘It’s perfect,’ Tia insisted, able to see how much work the staff had put in trying to make an adult bedroom look suitable for a baby. A very large and handsome antique cot had been refurbished with a new mattress and, laid on it, Sancha looked little bigger than a doll. Tia rummaged through her bags of baby essentials until she had located everything she needed to make her daughter feel comfortable.

‘We should hire a nanny to help out,’ Max suggested. ‘We stayed home every evening while Andrew was ill because we didn’t want to leave him alone but I’d like to get back to having a social life and sometimes you’ll be staying in my London apartment. We need that extra flexibility.’

Tia nodded thoughtfully. While she couldn’t imagine having a nanny, she did want to spend as much time as possible with Max. The life they had led during the first months of their marriage had been limited by her grandfather’s infirmity and they had rarely gone out.

Max dropped a hand to her spine and walked her into their bedroom. ‘I had this room updated. It was dark and dreary before.’

‘But very grand,’ she conceded, scanning the lighter colour scheme with approval. ‘This is an improvement.’

‘I do have one gift for you,’ Max murmured, indicating the wrapped package on the bed.

Tia smiled and began to rip the fancy paper off to expose an exceptionally pretty framed picture.

‘It’s the Grayson family tree,’ Max murmured. ‘I thought you would enjoy seeing exactly where you come from and who your forebears were.’

The names had been done in exquisite calligraphy, and hand-painted flowers decorated the borders. It was a thoughtful, meaningful gift and her heart turned over inside her because the information on her own family tree was exactly the kind of information she had been denied all her life when her father had insisted that her curiosity was foolish because she would never even travel to England.

‘It’s really beautiful, Max. Thank you,’ she whispered sincerely. ‘This means a lot to me. I like what you’ve had done to this room as well.’

‘I haven’t used it since you left. I came back here every weekend. It gave the staff a reason for being here.’

Tia studied his lean, strong face. ‘I haven’t thanked you for that yet...for looking after things for me.’

‘That’s my job. That’s what I do. All my working life I have taken care of stuff for other people...their money, their businesses. But when it’s for you, it’s a little bit more special and it doesn’t feel like work,’ Max volunteered.

‘Why is that...do you think?’ Tia prompted hopefully.

Max glanced at her in surprise. ‘You’re my wife and this is your home.’

‘This is your home too,’ Tia reminded him. ‘When we got married I had nothing and you’re not the housekeeper’s nephew any more. You’re the man Andrew chose to run Grayson Industries and the man he asked to marry me.’