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‘I really need to talk to you and it’s a conversation that can’t be conducted on a pavement.’
‘In that case, you can always make an appointment like everyone else. Like I said, I’m here from eight most mornings.’
‘I need to talk to you about Julie. My name is Leandro. I’m her fiancé. Or...’ he smiled wryly ‘...should I sayex-fiancé? I seem to be caught in an evolving situation.’
She was staring at him, lips pursed, arms folded, welcome mat fully retracted.
In every respect, she was as far removed from the women he was accustomed to as chalk was from cheese. Her clothes were comfy, shapeless. A pair of loose trousers, an extremely baggy shirt, an even baggier cardigan and a tape measure around her neck, which he assumed she had forgotten about in her haste to get the door.
Everything seemed to be in various shades of grey and black, but she was rescued from inevitable plainness by the amazing vibrancy of her copper-coloured hair, the way it rioted around her heart-shaped face in rebellious disarray, and crystal-clear green eyes that were framed by sooty dark gold lashes. And, of course, freckles. A lot of them.
‘You’reLeandro...’
‘Will you let me in, Miss Drew? ItisMiss, isn’t it? Julie never clarified so feel free to correct me if I’ve jumped to conclusions?’
‘Yes, I’mMsDrew, Celia, and okay, I guess you’d better come in.’
‘I appreciate that,’ he told her. ‘It’s dark. You’re in the process of locking up to go home. You don’t know who the heck might be knocking on your door, so thank you for trusting me. Like I said, I wouldn’t have descended on your doorstep if it wasn’t important.’
Her breath hitched as he swept past her, bringing in the cold air with him.
Under the glare of the overhead lights, she now had an up-close-and-personal view of just how spectacular the guy was.
He towered over her, at least six-three to her five-four, and his hair was raven black and cut short, which emphasised the harsh contours of his face with its sensual mouth, straight nose and slashing cheekbones.
‘You’d better come upstairs.’ He still made her heart skitter inside her and her nerves were all over the place but something about him, something about the sincerity of his words, made her realise that the guy was to be trusted.
And what did she imagine he was going to do anyway? She was as safe as houses around a guy like him! Just one glance at his elegant, beautiful fiancée and any fool would be able to work out that he was a man who liked tall and elegant. Not petite and far too sensible.
She spun round on her heel and headed up, acutely conscious of him behind her, as stealthy as a jungle cat.
This was not what she’d been expecting.
When she’d eventually shown Julie the door two days previously, she had been too shell-shocked to ask detailed questions about what plans she and Dan had made. The Dan connection had been enough to blow all those obvious questions out of the water. She had just gaped in silence like a stranded goldfish as Julie, liberated from having to keep everything under wraps, had opened up with enthusiasm about the thrilling journey of her wonderful affair.
Celia had assumed that her brother was diplomatically ducking the worst of the fallout for as long as he could. She’d, however, taken it as a given that Julie would have been more forthcoming with the guy she’d jilted, yet here he was now, seeking answers to questions.
Of course, he would know about her own personal connection to the messy, sorry saga. Did he intend to lay the blame at her door? Somehow? None of it was her fault but she knew that, in times of extreme stress, it was normal to divert all blame onto the shoulders of someone else. The alternative would be for him to look inwards and try and question his own role in what had happened and, judging from what she’d seen so far, this guy didn’t seem to be the sort who spent too much time soul-searching.
‘I have tea or coffee,’ she said, reluctantly turning to face him and struck once again by the sheer beauty of his perfectly arranged features. He dwarfed the tiny kitchen and seemed to suck the oxygen out of the air so that she felt breathless and addled.
‘Coffee. Black. Shall we do away with the chit-chat? What exactly did Julie say to you?’
‘Say?’
Leandro raised his eyebrows in wry questioning, utterly relaxed in the chair he had taken. ‘The one name that’s crossed my ex-fiancée’s lips for the past few months has been yours. It seems that she’s built up some kind of bond with you, which in turn leads me to conclude that you know where she is, and I would very much like to find that out.’
No beating about the bush. Celia could feel the prized self-control she had learned to exercise begin to slip away, buffeted by the sheer force of his personality.
Did he think he could breeze in here and prise information out of her? Information his fiancée, for reasons Celia might not be able to fathom or condone, had seen fit to withhold from him?
She fiddled with her hair, twirled the ends between her fingers. ‘Why would I tell you if I knew where she was?’ she eventually asked. ‘If Julie hasn’t told you where she’s going, then perhaps it’s because she doesn’t want you to know, and if she doesn’t want you to know, then it’s not up to me to go against her wishes.’
But how could she understand the questions he must want to ask, questions only Julie could answer, which was why he had shown up here on her doorstep? Hadn’t she spent days and weeks analysing her own break-up? Even though she and Martin had talked about it, even though she’d known why it had ended? It was basic human nature. Leandro had been about to walk up the aisle only to find that the woman he was in love with had decided to do a runner with another man. It was heartbreaking, really.
He wanted answers and, because Julie had failed to provide them, he had come to Celia seeking some sort of balm for his aching soul.
Granted, as they stared at one another, his dark, saturnine face coolly remote and watchful, as she felt a shiver of something steal through her body like quicksilver, she couldn’t help but think that he didn’t look at all like a guy with an aching soul.
Still...
She sighed, prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.
‘I actually don’t have the answers to your questions,’ she confessed. ‘I wish I had, but no. I have no idea where Julie and my brother have gone. Not a clue.’
Leandro stilled, sat forward and looked at her with laser-sharp concentration.
‘Your brother? What doesyour brotherhave to do with this...?’
