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‘Seven years.’
Her comprehension was instantaneous, the paling of her features swift. She placed her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. When she opened them her lashes glistened with something he hadn’t expected—tears.
‘It was the project my father derailed?’
He nodded, his chest growing tighter. One by one his potential investors had backed off, suddenly claiming his project was too high-risk, too pie-in-the-sky for a young entrepreneur whose start-up was a tiny David in an industry full of Goliaths. When cornered and pressed, two of those men had let slip the name of Douglas Shaw. Somehow the man had used his power, his influence and connections, to identify Leo’s investors and scatter them to the winds.
‘Eventually I resurrected that project, but my business had taken a serious hit, and it was many months before I could reverse the damage—over a year before it was stable enough financially for me to reconsider the surgery.’
For that he’d wanted to hunt Shaw down and rip his head clean off. Instead he’d bided his time. Nursed his anger. Planned every detail of his retribution.
‘Hans warned us that the chance of success was severely diminished, but I encouraged Marietta to have the procedure anyway.’
‘And it was a failure?’
‘She has some increased sensation and movement in her leg muscles, but nothing more significant. Barring a miracle, she will never walk again.’
Helena swiped a hand across damp cheeks. ‘I... I had no idea,’ she croaked. ‘I’m so very sorry.’
He swore under his breath. ‘Don’t,’ he said gruffly.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Apologise for something that’s not your fault.’
Her mouth twisted. ‘But it is my fault, isn’t it? I knew my father wouldn’t approve of our relationship and I took the risk anyway. And in the end you paid the price for my stupidi
ty. You...and Marietta.’ She grimaced. ‘No wonder you hate me.’
Leo rubbed a hand over his jaw. Of all the disturbing emotions that had churned through him these last forty-eight hours, hate had not been among them. ‘I do not hate you, Helena.’
She gave him a look. ‘You don’t have to humour me. I know you think I walked away from you fully aware of what my father intended.’
An accusation he couldn’t refute. Not with any degree of honesty. Seven years ago he had judged and condemned her, too blinded by ego to consider that her role in Shaw’s machinations might have been as victim, not conspirator.
He tipped her chin up. ‘Where you are concerned, tesoro, I am fast learning that what I think I know is more often than not incorrect.’
He leaned in and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her lips. When he pulled back he noted the pulse beating at the base of her throat, the flush of colour down her neck and chest—sure signs he wasn’t the only one so easily aroused. His body stirred again, his blood heating. Pooling. He trailed a fingertip over her collarbone down to the sheet covering her breasts.
Enough talking.
‘We have one hour before I leave for work and your guide is due.’
She jerked back, frowning. ‘My guide?’
‘Si.’ He curled his fingers into the sheet and yanked it down, exposing her lush breasts to his unabashed scrutiny. ‘The guide who is taking you sightseeing today.’
Her mouth opened, no doubt to voice a protest, but Leo was already moving. With easy strength he tumbled her beneath him, pinned her to the mattress and smothered her squeal of outrage with a hard, ravenous kiss.
* * *
Six hours later, sitting on the Spanish Steps awaiting the return of the five-foot-two bundle of feminine energy that was her tour guide, Helena admitted that she’d have to eat every ungracious word of protest she had mumbled that morning.
She’d had fun—an absolute blast, in fact—and her guide, Pia, had been a delight: smart, funny, full of knowledge and, thanks to her local connections, able to leap even the longest tourist queue in a single bound.
In just a few hours Helena had counted the great marble columns of the Pantheon, shivered in the dungeons of the Colosseum, stood next to the towering four-thousand-year-old Egyptian obelisk in St Peter’s Square, gazed in awe at Michelangelo’s famous frescoes on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, and performed the traditional right-handed coin-toss over her left shoulder into the beautiful Trevi Fountain.
Phew!
