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Except...had she thought that this perfect stranger would possess the sort of complex personality that she would end up finding strangely compulsive?
Could she ever have imagined that an unexpected, astounding, elemental physical attraction would turn into something that seemed to have her in its hold? That taking a walk on the wild side, breaking out of the box for just a little while, would have repercussions that struck a chord of fear into her?
She wanted more. She couldn’t even begin to think of him leaving, carrying on with his travels. He had entered her life, and what had previously been bland, dull and grey was now Technicolor-bright. She alternated between reading all sorts of things behind his words and actions and then telling herself that she really shouldn’t.
‘You never said...’ Brianna begin heading up the stairs, carrying as much with her as she could: files, her jeans and her trainers, which she didn’t bother to stick on completely.
Behind her, Leo scooped up the remainder of the files and began following her.
‘Never said what?’
‘All those women you’re so cynical about...’ She paused to look at him over her shoulder. ‘The ones who wear lacy underwear...’
‘Did I ever say that? I don’t recall.’
‘You didn’t have to. I can read between the lines.’ She spun back round and headed towards her suite of rooms, straight to the study, where she dumped all the files she had been carrying. She stood back and watched as he deposited the remainder of them, including her computer, which was as heavy as a barrow full of bricks, and—yes, he was right—in desperate need of updating.
Brianna took in his guarded, shuttered expression and knew instinctively that she was treading on quicksand, even though he hadn’t rushed in with any angry words telling her to mind her own business. She could see it on his face. Her heart was beating so fiercely that she could almost hear it in the still quiet of the room.
‘I’m going to have a shower,’ she mumbled, backing out of the little office. ‘On my own, if you don’t mind.’
Leo frowned and raked his fingers through his hair, but he didn’t move a muscle.
She wanted to talk. Talk about what? His exes? What was the point of that? When it came to women and meaningful conversations, they invariably led down the same road: a dead end. He wasn’t entirely sure where his aversion to commitment came from and he knew, if he were honest, that his parents would have wanted to see him travel down the traditional route of marriage and kids by thirty—but there it was; he hadn’t. He had never felt the inclination. Perhaps a feeling of security was something that developed in a mother’s womb and having been given up for adoption, by definition, had wiped that out and the security of making money, something tangible he could control, had taken its place.
At any rate, the minute any woman started showing signs of crossing the barriers he had firmly erected around himself, they were relegated to history.
He told himself that there should be no difficulty in this particular relationship following the same course because he could see, from the look in her eyes, that whatever chat she wanted to have was not going to begin and end with the choice of underwear his women were accustomed to wearing.
He told himself that in fact it would be easier to end this relationship because, in essence, it had never really functioned in his real life. It had functioned as something sweet and satisfying within a bubble. And within a day or two, once he had met his birth mother and put any unanswered questions to rest, he would be gone.
So there definitely was no point to a lengthy heart-to-,heart. He strolled into the bedroom and glanced down at the snow which was already beginning to thaw.
She emerged minutes later from the shower with a towel wrapped round her, her long hair piled up on top of her head and held in place with a hair grip. Tendrils had escaped and framed her heart-shaped face. She looked impossibly young and vulnerable.
‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’
‘Okay. So I go out with women who seem to spend a lot of money on fancy underwear.’ He glowered at her. ‘I don’t know what that has to do with anything.’ He watched as she rummaged in her drawers in silence and fetched out some faded jogging bottoms and a rugby-style jumper, likewise faded.
Brianna knew that a few passing remarks had escalated into something that she found unsettling. She didn’t want to pry into his life. She wanted to be the adult who took this on board, no questions asked and no strings attached. Unfortunately...
She disappeared back into the bathroom, changed and returned to find him still standing in an attitude of challenging defensiveness by the bedroom window.
