was a one-night fluke but she hit the jackpot.’
‘That’s terrible.’
Leo looked at Lexi’s shocked face. Why had he told her that? He’d never told anyone before. Was it because he was sick of her thinking that he’d abandoned Ty for nothing? ‘Poor Lexi. Doesn’t that fit in with your ideal world where two parents love their children beyond measure?’ He shook his head dourly and turned back to the ocean.
‘I don’t live in a fantasy world, Leo, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I know that sometimes one loving parent is better than two who can’t get along.’
Leo glanced back at her averted face. Her chin was angled defiantly, her spine rigid. He knew instantly that whatever had gone on in her own childhood had affected her deeply and, despite his never having been interested in a woman’s past before, he couldn’t hold back his curiosity. ‘You’re talking about your father’s double life, I take it.’
She stared at her hands for a minute and then her eyes met his. ‘Yes. My father was a mildly successful golfer who travelled the world and my mother accepted that as part and parcel of loving him. She was a very understanding person and she never pushed to travel with him—mainly, I think, because she would have found it hard with Joe and I—but nor did she push to marry him. Then one night her world fell apart when the daughter he had fathered with his long-time mistress had an accident and his mistress gave him an ultimatum. Mum or her.’
Leo looked over and saw that Lexi’s jaw was tight. ‘And he chose the other woman.’
‘He did try to visit Joe and I but … somehow he never seemed to make it.’ She gave a forced laugh. ‘For years we would dutifully dress in our best clothes once a month in the hope that today would be the day he would keep to his promise. Only it rarely was and soon Joe stopped dressing up altogether.’
‘And you?’ he asked. ‘Did you stop dressing up?’
She fingered the necklace, a move he had noticed her do countless times before when she was nervous, and wondered who had given it to her. ‘I’m a bit of an optimist.’ She laughed a little self-consciously. ‘I might have given him more of a chance than Joe.’
‘A bit of a dreamer, you mean,’ he said, but there was no harshness behind the words. Just resignation that he could never be as forgiving. ‘Who gave you that?’
His eyes dropped to the necklace she was drawing back and forth across her bottom lip and wished it was his tongue.
‘My father gave it to me on my tenth birthday.’
‘And you’ve never taken it off since,’ he guessed.
She let it drop back down between her breasts and when she spoke her voice was choked. ‘You make me sound pathetic.’
‘Not pathetic. Just someone who believes in happy ever afters.’
‘Is that such a bad thing?’
Leo wasn’t particularly comfortable with the turn of the conversation and contemplated telling her to leave. If only he didn’t want her so damned much. ‘Only if it means you don’t see things for what they really are,’ he said, raising a mocking eyebrow, willing her to deny that she didn’t.
‘What makes you think that I don’t?’
His eyebrow climbed higher. ‘You wear a necklace to keep a connection with a man who deserted you and you need to ask that?’
Lexi’s hand rose to her neck. ‘I just … I never …’
‘You never wanted to accept that he chose the other family?’
Her hand dropped and she pushed off the lounger and walked to the railing, gripping it firmly and leaning slightly forward as she gazed down at the sea. ‘You’re very astute.’
Leo didn’t respond. He could see that she was deep in thought and he was struggling with his own desire to go to her. Comfort her. Then she glanced back over her shoulder and the delicate muscles around her shoulder blades shifted alluringly.
‘Children are innocent. They don’t ask to be born. They deserve proper care. And …’ she paused and he watched her throat work as she swallowed ‘… I guess I always hoped he’d come back. I hated that his selfishness caused my mother to have to work two jobs, because that was hard on us all.’ She paused. ‘I don’t know why I still wear the necklace.’
‘So you became a childcare worker to provide care for kids whose parents have to go to work?’
She looked surprised, as if she hadn’t made that connection before. But it explained why she was so keen for him to have a relationship with Ty and why she was so wary of him. A wariness she was right to feel.
‘What’s your relationship with your father like now?’ he asked softly.
‘We don’t have one.’ Her eyes connected earnestly with his. ‘It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Now is the time to get to know Ty. I haven’t seen my father in ten years and Joe even longer than that.’
Leo looked away as she came to sit back down opposite him. He had more than just Amanda’s subterfuge keeping him away from Ty.
‘You should be thankful he left, angel. Sometimes a man who is forced to marry because he gets a woman pregnant makes everyone’s life hell.’
She looked at him curiously. ‘That sounds like you’re speaking from experience.’
Leo didn’t know if it was the lateness of the hour, the shock of Amanda’s defection or Lexi Somers soft compassion but he found himself wanting to tell her things he’d never told another living soul.
He sighed. Maybe if he did tell her some of it she would understand why Ty was better off without him. ‘My father married my mother because she was pregnant with me and he spent the first ten years of my life making it a living hell.’
Lexi looked at the taut lines of Leo’s neck and knew he was speaking the truth, but it was a long way from what she’d read about him. ‘I thought you had a happy childhood?’
‘Ah, my bio. Nice story, isn’t it.’
‘What’s the real story?’ she asked quietly.
‘Why do you want to know? Hoping to earn a few extra dollars by selling an exposé?’
‘Of course not. I just want to help.’
‘Like I said. You have too many clothes on for that. Not that I don’t love that dress. You know what it makes me want to do?’ He swung his legs to the side and twisted in his seat so that he was facing her, his knees wide, his feet firmly planted either side of her legs. ‘It makes me want to grab those two triangles of fabric barely covering your gorgeous breasts and rip it straight down the middle. Does that shock you, little Lexi?’ He paused and all Lexi could hear was the sound of her own heart beating too fast. ‘Or excite you?’
She knew he was trying to distract her. That he didn’t want to talk about his life story. She also knew that she wanted him to tell her. She wanted to know him. Know the real Leo Aleksandrov. As if seeking to put distance between them, he moved abruptly to stand
