had seen the same confused expression on the faces of most of the people she met. It usually faded once they had known her for a while, but Hawk Sinclair seemed determined this would be a brief acquaintance. A very brief acquaintance! Maybe he would change his mind once she had told him about Laura.
‘I don’t think so,’ she smiled. ‘We haven’t really talked about my sister yet. I’m relieved the two of us met first,’ she continued chattily. ‘It means that most of your anger will have dispersed by the time you do meet Laura.’
‘I wouldn’t count on it!’ He sank down weakly into an armchair, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
Leonie moved happily about the kitchen, preparing the promised tea, confident she would be able to reason with Hawk Sinclair once he had calmed down enough to listen.
A kook, he thought. A one hundred per cent, fourteen-carat kook! And he had been trying to reason with it—her.
It had all seemed so straightforward when he had left the hotel this morning, enjoying the drive out into the country to this big rambling house that stood completely on its own on the outskirts of a small village. But that was before he had met Leonie Brandon!
Twenty-five. She didn’t look anywhere near twenty-five. And what was all that rubbish about his age? Damn it, thirty-nine—well, almost forty—wasn’t old. He certainly wasn’t going through any crisis because of it. Hell, he was trying to justify his age to himself now! he realised with an inward groan.
God, if Laura Brandon was anything like her peculiar sister this was going to be more difficult than he could ever have imagined; Leonie seemed incapable of even taking an insult seriously!
When he had left New York yesterday he had been looking forward to being with Hal, and he had been shocked to the roots of his being when shortly after meeting him at the airport Hal had told him that he had met the woman he intended to marry. God, the woman was six years older than him, wrote flaky detective novels for a living—with her kooky sister; it was obvious she was more interested in what the Sinclair heir could give her than in Hal himself.
That surmise had been easy to make after Hal had told him all about Laura Brandon last night, just as it had been a simple thing to decide he would pay her off as she had obviously intended he should.
Fifteen minutes with Leonie Brandon and he wasn’t even sure what he was doing here any more!
And how many more cats were going to come strolling through here? He had no patience with the creatures himself, thought they were totally hopeless as companions, never there when you wanted them, demanding when they were. Very much like a woman, in fact, and he had little time for them either, apart from their rather obvious attraction.
He turned sharply as Leonie Brandon came back into the room with the tea. My God, he thought, she looked so young. Or maybe he was getting old after all. He certainly didn’t want any tea—a Scotch maybe, but not tea!
‘Here we are.’ She put the tray down on the coffee-table, smiling at him brightly.
She looked ten years old in that get-up and with that sprinkling of freckles across her uptilted nose, and yet the breasts beneath the T-shirt definitely proclaimed her a woman—–Get a grip on yourself, Sinclair, he instructed himself impatiently. That was definitely a complication this situation didn’t need!
He sat forward obediently to take the proffered cup of tea.
He had such strong hands, Leonie admired as she curled up on the sofa opposite him. He also looked totally ridiculous wrapping those long fingers about one of their delicate china tea-cups!
‘Laura,’ he prompted abruptly.
‘No,’ she smiled. ‘I told you, I’m Leonie—–’
‘I meant you intended telling me about your sister,’ he clarified in a controlled voice.
‘Drink your tea,’ she encouraged.
‘Why?’ he raised dark brows sceptically. ‘Do you think it will leave me more open to the sad tale you’re undoubtedly going to tell me?’
‘It is only tea, Hawk,’ she reproved. ‘And what sort of sad tale did you have in mind?’
‘Oh, something like Laura needs money for your old, sick mother, or father, or aunt, or—–’
‘There’s only Laura and I,’ she cut in quietly. ‘And all Laura wants is Hal. She happens to love him very much.’
His mouth twisted scornfully. ‘I’m sure she does,’ he rasped. ‘More to the point, Hal is sure she does,’ he added harshly.
‘You don’t understand—–’
‘No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand,’ he slammed his cup down impatiently. ‘My son is nineteen years old, I’m not about to sit back and let him ruin his whole life by getting married far too young to a woman he barely knows!’
‘Is that what you did?’ she asked shrewdly. ‘After all, to have a son of his age you must have married at nineteen yourself.’
‘I was just twenty when I married,’ he ground out, looking as if he would like to pick her up and bodily shake her. ‘And the situation was entirely different. My wife and I grew up together, we always knew we would marry.’
‘Okay, so it didn’t happen this way for you, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t such a thing as love at first sight,’ Leonie reasoned. ‘Or that that isn’t the way it happened for Laura and Hal,’ she defended.
He sighed. ‘I’m not denying that at this moment in his life Hal is sure he does feel that way about your sister, it’s her feelings for him that I doubt,’ he bit out grimly.
‘Because your name is Sinclair and hers is Brandon, because you’re rich and we’re not so rich, because—–’
‘The reasons for my doubting the sincerity of her feelings are, as you are so ably proving, too many and would take too long to go into individually,’ he told her impatiently. ‘Besides which, Hal still has a long way to go before he knows the business as well as he’ll need to to take over from me one day. He’s going to be travelling extensively over the next few years.’
‘Laura could go with him—–’
‘And no doubt she’d want to take her sister along too,’ he sneered.
Leonie chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip. ‘Have you always been rich?’ she asked at last.
‘Always,’ he admitted without apology for the fact. ‘My father founded the Sinclair hotels, and by the time I was born they were already a worldwide concern.’
She nodded. ‘Then I suppose you must have a pretty good idea of what it’s like to be pursued just for your money.’
‘Yes, I—–I believe I was just insulted,’ he drawled irritably.
Her eyes were widely innocent. ‘Really? I can’t imagine by whom.’
‘Leonie,’ he began reasoningly, ‘I do not intend to let your sister marry
