people caught up in a hedonistic whirl, incapable of growing up and certainly incapable of looking after the child they had accidentally conceived. Even less had they been able to deal with the arrival of Cecilia years later, another accident. The task of taking care of his much younger sister had fallen to him and, from a young age, Leandro had worked out that the tumult of emotion and the chaos it was capable of engendering was not for him. A healthy aversion to chaos, disorder and unpredictability had been ingrained in him from a tender age.
As a teenager, he had lost himself in his studies, only surfacing to make sure his sister was okay. As an adult, work had replaced the studies, and when his parents had died, victims of their wild, irresponsible lifestyle—speedboat racing at night in the Caribbean—work had become even more imperative because he had had to rescue what was left of the family finances. There had been no time to kick back and relax. Work was and always would be the most important driving force of Leandro’s life. Rosalind’s hysterics had clarified that for him.
He had told Julie to show the courier into the smallest of the sitting rooms, the one which bore the least evidence of the party that wasn’t going to be taking place. He now made his way there, mind half on the business proposal he had been reading before he had been interrupted.
* * *
On tenterhooks, because whatever was wrong was very, very wrong and the fast exit she had been hoping for now seemed out of the question, Abigail was sitting upright in a chair in the room into which she had been delivered like an unwanted parcel.
Rosalind was, she was given to understand, not there. Hal was to wait in the kitchen where he would be given something to eat and she was to wait for the master of the house in the sitting room where, she hoped, he would take delivery of the ring.
She heard the approach of footsteps on the marble floor and was already rising to her feet, having rehearsed what she needed to say about getting back to London urgently before the weather took a turn for the worse.
Whatever the heck was going on, it wasn’t her problem. She had already reached that conclusion. She’d done her job and, if the loved-up couple had had a tiff, then that was nothing to do with her.
She didn’t know who or what to expect. Stiff with tension, with the metal box containing the ring clutched to her chest, for a few seconds Abigail almost thought that her nerves had brought on a hallucinatory attack.
Because there was no way that those footsteps she had heard could possibly have heralded the arrival of a six-foot-two specimen of pure, hard-edged masculinity. There was no way that those achingly familiar tawny eyes, fringed by eyelashes she had once teased could have been the envy of any woman, could now be staring at her. It just wasn’t possible. Leandro Sanchez could not be lounging in the doorway of this sitting room, larger than life.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. He was her very worst nightmare and her very deepest, darkest, most forbidden fantasy come to life and she blinked, desperately hoping that the vision would disappear. It didn’t. He remained just where he was, an alpha male of such sinful beauty that he took her breath away. He had taken her breath away the first time she had seen him a year and a half ago. Over the weeks of their torrid and doomed love affair, that impact had never lessened.
He was the sort of guy women dreamed about. Olive-skinned, tawny-eyed and with an electrifying, ruthless sex appeal. He was long, lean and muscular, and Abigail thought that she could remember each and every muscle and sinew of that fabulous body.
She had never thought that she’d see him again, not after everything, and as the full horror of this accidental encounter hit home the room began to swim. She felt nausea rise in a tide up her throat, and she swallowed back the bile, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from swaying. She felt her legs give way and knew that she was going to pass out before she hit the ground.
* * *
She came to on one of the low, cream sofas facing the arched window through which she had been absently gazing only seconds before and struggled up to find that Leandro had dragged a chair over by the sofa and was sitting, watching her.
‘Drink this.’ He pressed a glass with some brandy into her hand and forced her to take a sip. His eyes were cool and guarded, his hand was steady, his voice controlled.
Not a single thing conveyed his utter shock at walking into the room and coming face to face with the only woman who had got under his skin and refused to budge—and, as if that wasn’t sufficiently appalling, it galled him to realise that his ability to recall had been spot-on because she was just as exquisite as he remembered.
Her hair was just as colourful and, from what he could tell, just as long, although right now it was pinned back severely in a bun. Her eyes were as green as he remembered, green with gold flecks that were only apparent when you really took time to look, which he had. Her figure was as luscious and as sexy, a figure that could haunt a man’s dreams.
Of their own accord, his eyes drifted down, lingering on the full swell of her breasts pushing against the drab white blouse, and the length of her legs primly hidden under a pair of grey trousers. She was dressed in high street fashion. Wherever life had taken her since they had parted company, it certainly hadn’t been into the open arms of another billionaire.
‘Leandro...this can’t be happening...’ She would have stood up except her legs had turned to jelly.
‘You’re in my house, you’re sitting on my sofa.’ He stood up and strolled towards the fireplace, putting some distance between them, every nerve in his body electrified by the shock of finding her in his house. ‘It’s happening all right. I take it that you’re the courier with the ring?’
‘I... Yes... I am.’ Abigail’s eyes skittered towards him and just as quickly skittered away. She reached for the metal safety-deposit box and held it out to him. Leandro ignored the gesture.
Propelled into nervous speech, Abigail gave him a stilted, jerky explanation for being in his house, all the while feeling like an unwary rabbit that had suddenly strayed into the path of a voracious predator.
‘It seems...’ Leandro sauntered back towards her, eyes narrowed as he watched her cringe back against the sofa. As she should, he thought, considering the last time they had been in one another’s company she had been revealed for the liar and thief that she was. ‘...that your boss got the wrong end of the stick.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘That ring was purchased without my consent. Unfortunately, Rosalind misinterpreted the depth of our relationship.’
‘But we were told that there was to be an engagement party...’
Leandro shrugged and continued looking at her as he sat back down on the chair that he had pulled over, which was far too close for comfort, as far as Abigail was concerned. ‘Crossed wires all round,’ he informed her coolly.
‘So is Rosalind...? Has Rosalind...?’ Abigail struggled to make sense of the situation while her thoughts kept whirling round in utter confusion and her body burned and tingled as though she’d been plugged in to a live socket.
‘I never had plans to marry her.’ Leandro brushed aside the question with just a hint of impatience. Now that she was sitting here in his living room, larger than life and just as sexy, all those memories he had carefully locked away were coming out to play. He remembered the way she had felt, the noises she’d made when he’d touched her, the way their bodies had fit together like one. He’d bumped into ex-girlfriends before and had
