ever since he had tracked down her whereabouts, his focus remained exclusively on the girl standing in front of him.
‘Everyone has suffered from a broken heart at some point.’ She reverted to her original topic.
‘I’m the exception to the rule.’
‘You’ve never been in love?’
‘You say that as though it’s inconceivable. No. Never. And stop looking at me as though I’ve suddenly turned into an alien life-form. Are you telling me that, after your experience with the guy you thought you would be spending your life with, you’re still glad to have been in love?’
He lounged against the bar and stared down at her. He had become so accustomed to wearing jeans and an assortment of her father’s old plaid flannel shirts, a vast array of which she seemed to have kept, that he idly wondered what it would feel like returning to his snappy handmade suits, his Italian shoes, the silk ties, driving one of his three cars or having Harry chauffeur him. He would return to the reality of high-powered meetings, life in the fast lane, private planes and first-class travel to all four corners of the globe.
Here, he could be a million miles away, living on another planet. Was that why he now found himself inclined to have this type of conversation? The sort of touchy-feely conversation that he had always made a point of steering well clear from? Really, since when had he ever been into probing any woman about her thoughts and feelings about past loves?
‘Of course I am,’ Brianna exclaimed stoutly. ‘It may have crashed and burned, but there were moments of real happiness.’
Leo frowned. Real happiness? What did she mean by that? Good sex? He didn’t care much for a trip down happiness lane with her. If she felt inclined to reminisce over the good old days, conveniently forgetting the misery that had been dished up to her in the end, then he was not the man with the listening ear.
‘How salutary that you can ignore the fact that you were taken for a ride for years... Are you still in touch with the creep?’
Brianna frowned and tried to remember what the creep looked like. ‘No,’ she said honestly. ‘I haven’t got a clue what he’s up to. The last I heard from one of my friends from uni, he had gone abroad to work for some important law firm in New York. He’s disappeared completely. I was heartbroken at the time, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not glad I met him, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t hope to meet that someone special at some point in the future.’
And as she said that a very clear picture of Mr Special floated into her mind. He was approximately six-two with bronzed skin, nearly black hair and lazy, midnight-dark eyes that could send shivers racing up and down her spine. He came in a package that had carried very clear health warnings but still she had fallen for him like a stupid teenager with more hormones than common sense.
Fallen in lust with him, she thought with feverish panic. She hadn’t had a relationship with a guy for years! And then he had come along, drop-dead gorgeous, with all the seductive anonymity of a stranger—a writer, no less. Was it any wonder that she had fallen in lust with him?
Was that why she could now feel herself becoming clingy? Not wanting him to go? Losing all sense of perspective?
‘And no one special is on the scene here?’ Leo drawled lazily. ‘Surely the lads must be queuing up for you...’
Of course there had been nibbles, but Brianna had never been interested. She had reasoned to herself that she just didn’t have the time; that her big, broken love affair had irreparably damaged something inside her; that, just as soon as the pub really began paying its way, she would jump back into the dating world.
All lies. She could have had all the time in the world, a fully paid-up functioning heart and a pub that turned over a million pounds a year in profit and she still wouldn’t have been drawn to anyone—because she had been waiting for just the moment when Leo Spencer walked through the door, tall, dark and dangerous, like a gunslinger in a Western movie.
‘I’m not interested in anything serious at the moment,’ she said faintly. ‘I have loads of time. Bridget should be arriving any minute now.’
‘At least an hour left to go...’ How was it possible to shove all thoughts of his so-called mother out of his head? He had almost forgotten that the woman was on her way.
‘I need to go and get her room ready.’
‘Haven’t you already done that? The potpourri and the new throw from the jack-of-all-trades supermarket?’
She had. But suddenly she wanted nothing more than to escape his suffocating masculine presence, find a spot where she could straighten out her tangled thoughts.
‘Well, I want to make sure that it’s just right,’ she said sharply.
Leo stepped aside. ‘And I think I’ll go and have a shower and do something productive with my time in my room.’
‘You don’t have to disappear! You’re a paying guest, Leo. You can come down and do your writing in your usual place. Bridget and I won’t make any noise at all. She’ll probably just want to rest.’
‘I’ll let the two of you do your bonding in peace,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll come down for dinner. I take it you’ll be cooking for three?’
‘You know I will, and please don’t start on the business of me being a mug.’
Leo held up both hands in a gesture of mock-indignation that she could even contemplate such a thing.
Brianna shot him a reluctant smile. ‘You wait and see. You’ll end up loving her as much as I do.’
‘Yes. We’ll certainly wait and see,’ Leo delivered with a coolness that Brianna felt rather than saw, because his expression was mildly amused. She wondered if she had perhaps imagined it.
Leo remained where he was while she disappeared upstairs to do her last check of the bedroom where Bridget would be staying, doubtless making sure that the sheets were in place with hospital precision, corners tucked in just so.
His mouth curled with derision. The thought of her being taken advantage of filled him with disgust. The thought of her putting her trust in a woman who would inevitably turn out not to be the person she thought she was made his stomach turn. He could think of no other woman whose trusting nature should be allowed to remain intact.
He slammed his clenched fist against the wall and gritted his teeth. He had come here predisposed to dislike the woman who had given birth to him and then given him away. He was even more predisposed to dislike her as the woman who, in the final analysis, would reveal her true colours to the girl who had had the kindness to take her under her wing.
The force of his feelings on this subject surprised him. It was like the powerful impact of a depth charge, rumbling down deep in the very core of him.
He didn’t wait for the ambulance bearing his destiny towards him to arrive, instead pushing himself away from the wall and heading up to his bedroom. His focus on work had been alarmingly casual and now, having had a shower, he buried himself in reports, numbers, figures and all the things that usually had the ability to fully engage his attention.
Not now. His brain refused to obey the commands being issued to it. What would the woman look like? Years ago, he could have had pictures taken
