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Leon was inside.
Her first reaction was disbelief, followed by a storm of emotions. She fought for control, clinging to the door handle for stability.
How on earth had he found her?
Had she spoken out loud? She must have, for he was answering her, his face set.
‘I bullied your solicitor into telling me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he wouldn’t tell me willingly,’ he replied tersely.
Flavia shook her head as if to clear it. ‘No, I mean why did you want to know?’
Emotion flashed in his eyes. ‘You ask why? Did you think I wouldn’t want to track you down—find you—after your solicitors had been in touch with me?’
She was trying to get control back but her mind was all to pieces. She was speaking without thinking, without conscious volition. All her consciousness was on Leon’s presence here.
So close …
Every sense was leaping in her body, overwhelming her.
I thought I’d never see him again.
But he was here—now—dragging her gaze to him so he dominated her vision, and she could see nothing else at all except Leon. She could feel her heart going like a sledgehammer, her legs weak with shock. With more than shock.
His face was stark, his cheekbones etched like knives.
‘You gave me Harford.’
His words fell into the silence. A silence she could not break. She could only stand there frozen, immobile, incapable of speech, or thought, or anything at all other than a reeling of her mind that he was here. Leon was here …
‘Why?’ His question bit into the air. ‘Why did you do it, Flavia?’
She took a ragged breath. ‘I had to do it.’
His face darkened. But she did not let him speak.
‘I had to do it because it was the only thing I could do. All I could think to do.’ She took another shuddering breath, her eyes anguished. ‘To try and make amends to you for what I did. For deceiving you. Using you. I behaved unforgivably—I know I did. And I am more sorry for my behaviour than you can ever know.’ She could hear her voice catch dangerously, and knew she had to plunge on. ‘Gifting Harford to you seemed to me all I could do to attempt to make amends,’ she said awkwardly. ‘It wasn’t actually much of a gift, because of the debts on the property, but I knew you would clear something once they’d all been paid, and … and I didn’t have anything else to give you.’
‘Debts?’ His voice was blank.
‘Yes. I knew the taxman would want his share for death duties.’ She took a difficult breath. ‘And that the other claimant would have to be paid back, too.’
His dark eyes were levelled on her. Still expressionless. She bore their weight pressing down on her, trying not to collapse beneath it. She could feel the pulse at her throat throbbing.
Why had he come here? What for? She’d done what she could—all that she could!—to show him how much she regretted what she’d done to him at her father’s behest. So why had he tracked her down. Just to get her to spell it out to him like this?
‘The other claimant?’ His words echoed hers, but heavily, like stones. He paused. ‘You mean, of course, your father?’
Her lips pressed together again. ‘Yes, my father. I’m sorry about that, Leon, because it was a vast amount of money I owed him. But there was nothing I could do. The loan agreement was watertight. I had it checked, and there was no way I could get out of having to repay that final sum because of the rate of interest.’
‘The one set by your father?’ The same blank, heavy voice.
She nodded, swallowing. ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry?’
