‘I’m afraid so.’
‘So, what’s your mother up to these days?’ he enquired sardonically. “The last I heard of Gina, she’d run away from a rich Italian prince—was he her fifth or sixth husband?—and “bolted” off with a young Argentinian polo player. However, I imagine that she must have married and discarded several more husbands by now.’
‘She might well have done so,’ Alex agreed stonily. ‘Unfortunately, my mother and her husband died in an aeroplane crash some years ago.’
‘Oh, Lord—I’m sorry!’ Leo exclaimed, grimacing in self-disgust and clearly wishing that he’d kept his mouth shut as he brushed a hand roughly through his dark hair.
Alex shrugged. ‘Apparently, it seems the young Argentinian was far more skilled at handling his polo ponies than he was at managing the controls of his private plane.’
‘I really am very sorry,’ Leo assured her earnestly. ‘What I said about your mother was completely uncalled for and desperately unkind. Believe me, I had no intention of...’
‘Yes, well, it all happened a long time ago,’ she said quickly, determined to avoid a discussion on Gina’s obvious defects as a wife and mother.
Besides, it had been a generous and handsome apology from Leo, who certainly had no reason to think well of her mother.
His stepfather, Sir Geoffrey Lucas, had only been Gina’s second husband for a very short time. Barely a year after their wedding she’d run off with a French pop star, leaving Sir Geoffrey to subsequently marry Leo’s mother, Eleanor Hamilton, then a widow with a young ten-year-old son.
Leo glanced down at his watch. ‘I really do have a lunch appointment with some bankers. However, I think our “family reunion” calls for a quick gin and tonic—don’t you?’ he murmured, rising from behind his desk to move lithely across the room. He opened a large bookcase to reveal a well-stocked drinks cabinet, and Alex noted that, while busy mixing her an alcoholic drink, he was pouring himself a large glass of plain water.
Suddenly feeling strangely nervous, Alex quickly reviewed her basic strategy for the forthcoming interview. There had been no reason why it shouldn’t work. Back at the newspaper office, she’d been quite certain—provided she could get access to the rotten man—that gaining his cooperation would be a fairly straightforward matter. But now, rising to her feet as he strode back across the thick carpet, she was beginning to have severe doubts about her ability to carry out her plans.
Not only did he appear to be taking her unexpected reappearance in his life far too calmly, but it was also proving difficult to ignore the almost overpowering aura of forceful, aggressive masculinity surrounding the man now standing so close to her. As he placed the heavy crystal glass in her hand she almost jumped at the light touch of his fingers, which seemed to send a quick electric shock tingling through her body.
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