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Well, once they were married, he wouldn’t need to worry about her any longer. He would know where she was, what she was doing...in short, once he had control of Grace, full control, the horrible sense of apprehension that had gripped him since he first learned of her pregnancy would die a natural death. His anxiety was undoubtedly focused on the baby, he told himself consolingly. The baby was only a speck barely visible to the naked eye at this stage of his or her development—Leo had looked it up on the Internet—but it was his future son or daughter and he knew that baby was virtually defenceless and utterly dependent on the health and well-being of its mother’s body for survival. What the hell had Marina been thinking of when she had deliberately approached a woman in Grace’s condition to break such bad news? Hadn’t she appreciated how dangerous that could be?
* * *
Grace was stacking her luggage in the hall when the front door opened again. She had been frantically struggling to get herself out of the apartment as fast as possible while accepting the demeaning truth that she could not afford to call a taxi to ferry her and her possessions away in one go. No, she would have to leave stuff to be collected at a later date. But most threatening of all was the awareness that she had absolutely no place else to go because a return to Matt’s flat, Matt, who had been constantly texting her with revealing urgency since her departure, was definitely not an option.
As Grace straightened Leo stepped through the door and snapped it shut behind him without removing his glittering dark eyes from her once. ‘Going somewhere?’ he asked shortly.
Grace hadn’t seen Leo leave earlier. In a navy pinstripe suit that screamed designer elegance and a plain white shirt teamed with a jazzy red tie, Leo looked absolutely stunning. Her heartbeat quickened as she remembered running her fingers through his black hair the night before and the unforgettable taste of his mouth. Heat was beginning to stir inside her when she shut down hard on that response, fighting that potent physical pull with all her might, reminding herself of what he was and denying it until she was back in control again.
Grace lifted her chin. ‘Yes, somewhere as far as possible from you,’ she answered.
‘Marina told me she’d come to see you.’ His beautiful shapely lips compressed, a muscle pulling tight at the corner of his unsmiling mouth. ‘She shouldn’t have done that.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Grace fielded in a tremulous driven undertone that mortified her, frankly bemused by a relationship that crossed the expected boundaries. It was inconceivable to her that Marina would’ve told Leo she had been to see Grace. ‘Considering the way you’ve behaved I thought she was remarkably restrained in what she had to say.’
‘My relationship with Marina is not as straightforward as you probably assume it is. Nor does what it entailed matter now because I broke off our engagement earlier today.’ Leo studied her with screened intensity, expecting an immediate lessening of the tension in the atmosphere.
Grace refused to react in any way because that announcement did not lessen her sense of betrayal in the slightest. ‘You said you were single...you lied,’ she condemned with quiet simplicity.
‘Let’s move this out of the hall and talk like grown-ups,’ Leo suggested grittily.
‘I’ve got nothing to say to you, Leo, so I suggest we stay where we are and you let me leave.’
‘Diavelos...’ Leo ground out, his frustration finally bubbling over in response to her pale composed expression and cold light green eyes. He had expected to find Grace distraught. Somehow he had expected her to shout and sob because he knew, or he had thought he knew, that like some chocolates she had a soft inner centre and would be hurt about what she had learned about him. Instead he was looking at a disturbingly controlled young woman, who refused to either shout or sob, and he didn’t know how to deal with that at all. ‘In the circumstances you must have something to say to me.’
‘But I doubt very much if you want to hear it.’ So great was the strain of maintaining her tough, unfeeling façade, Grace could barely speak. Pain and disillusionment sat like a massive block inside her chest, radiating toxic, wounding rays of insecurity, hurt and rejection. He had devastated her, shattered her heart into a hundred pieces, but on another level she was grateful for Marina’s visit because at least she had found Leo out for the rat he was before she became any more deeply involved with him.
