Jennifer Hayward - Deal With The Devil

‘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 of her when he had set his man on her trail, but he hadn’t bothered because she had been just a missing slot in his life he had wanted to fill. He hadn’t given a damn what she looked like. Now, he had to fight the temptation to stroll over to the window and peer out to the courtyard which his room overlooked.

He stiffened when he eventually heard the sound of the ambulance pulling up and the muffled rise and fall of voices which carried up to his room.

Deliberately he tuned out and exerted every ounce of will power to rein in his exasperating, wandering mind.

* * *

At a little after five, he got a text from Brianna: a light early supper would be served at six. If he wanted to join them, then he was more than welcome. Sorry she couldn’t come up to his room but she had barely had time to draw breath since Bridget had arrived.

She had concluded her text with a smiley face. Who did that? He smiled and texted back: yes, he’d be down promptly at six.

He sat back and stared at the wall. In an hour he would meet his past. He would put that to bed and then, when that was done, he would move on, back to the life from which he had taken this brief respite.

He had an image of Brianna’s face gazing at him, of her lithe, slim body, of the way she had of humming under her breath when she was occupied doing something, and the way she looked when she was curled up on the sofa trying to make sense of her accounts.

But of course, he thought grimly, that was fine. Sure, she would be on his mind. They might not have spent a long time in each other’s company but it had been concentrated time. Plenty long enough for images of her to get stuck in his head.

But she was not part of his reality. He would check out the woman who had given birth to him, put his curiosity to bed and, yes, move on...

CHAPTER SIX

LEO WASN’T QUITE sure when the snow had stopped, when the furious blizzards had turned to tamer snowfall, and when that tamer snowfall had given way to a fine, steady drizzle that wiped clean the white horizon and returned it to its original, snow-free state.

He couldn’t quite believe that he was still here. Of course, he returned to London sporadically mid-week and was uncomfortably aware of his conscience every time he vaguely intimated that there were things to do with the job he had ditched: paperwork that needed sorting out; problems with his accommodation that needed seeing to; social engagements that had to be fulfilled because he should have returned to London by now.