Her Christmas Fantasy & The Winter Bride (31 page)

‘It
had
to be sorted out once you came back,' her father pointed out awkwardly to Angie. ‘I would never have allowed you to take the blame for those thefts, but by the time I found out that you had you were gone and Mr Leo owned the Court. I didn't feel right about keeping quiet—'

‘It's all right, Dad. With Em ill, you had enough to worry about,' Angie reassured him hurriedly.

‘Like the police, everyone else thinks that the thief was never caught, but most of the stolen items
were
recovered,' her father stressed.

‘How do you feel about me marrying Leo?' Angie asked baldly.

‘I'm happy for you, of course I am…but it'll take some getting used to,' Samuel Brown admitted with a rueful smile.

Angie went back upstairs to get Jake's coat, brimming happiness adding a bounce to her step. When she came down again on the same wave of euphoria, Leo was waiting in the Great Hall for her. Tall, dark, spectacular, she thought giddily. He extended an unfamiliar coat to her in much the same way as a matador might have flourished his cape at a bull.

‘Where did you borrow this?' Having put on the coat, Angie twisted round to look at herself in the nearest mirror, loving the fact that the coat was very long and black and dramatic, and, lifting the luxurious furry collar up round her face, feeling like Anna Karenina.

‘It was an impulse buy.'

Angie stroked the soft cashmere with covetous hands and twirled again, eyes starry. ‘It's just breathtaking,' she told him chokily, because she couldn't remember when she had last had anything to wear that she really liked, never mind loved.

‘Changed your attitude to Greeks bearing gifts?'

‘Depends what you want in return,' she teased daringly as they walked out to the Range Rover outside.

‘You…tonight,' Leo said succinctly.

Angie's face flamed and she sent him a speaking glance of shaken reproach.

‘My wealth in exchange for your body,' Leo reminded her without a flicker of remorse, stunningly dark eyes gleaming over her. ‘It's really not a sensitive or deeply meaningful exchange, Angie…but I'm certainly not complaining. What male in his right mind would? After all, if you were in love with me, great feats of romantic effort would be expected from me.'

‘I think you'd find yourself facing an impossible challenge,' Angie responded thinly, mouth flat, eyes stony but suspiciously bright.

‘Y
OU'VE
got completely the wrong idea about why I'm marrying you,' Angie told Leo tremulously, pacing up and down on the flattened grass. ‘Oh, do stop hacking at that wretched tree for a minute!'

Leo straightened, whipcord muscles rippling beneath the thin, damp silk of his shirt. Angie became so busy running absorbed and helplessly appreciative eyes over his magnificent physique, she very nearly tripped over a log. He looked hot and sweaty and unbelievably sexy. She felt like a Stone Age woman surveying the king of the gene pool, and shivered deliciously while she imagined Leo carrying her back to some wintry, prehistoric cave and ravishing her to within an inch of her life. Colour fluctuating wildly, eyes glowing like sapphires, Angie emerged from that vision, shocked rigid by it, and was appalled to find Leo studying her with an enquiringly raised brow.

‘I'm listening,' he encouraged silkily. ‘You said I had the wrong idea about—'

‘Oh, yes,' Angie recalled jerkily, and commenced pacing in a tortured circle again while Jake jumped on and off the log. ‘As I was saying…I'm marrying you for some very good reasons—'

‘Name them.' Leo struck the twenty-foot-tall tree another resounding blow with the axe.

‘One, Jake needs a father…two, I want him to have absolutely the very best of everything…three…' Angie trailed off,
sidetracked by a complete inability to drag her eyes from the powerful muscles flexing in Leo's long, denim-clad thighs, and becoming increasingly breathless and disjointed in her delivery.

‘Three?' Leo prompted, not even breathing hard.

‘You're so fit…I mean…' Throwing him a flustered look, Angie started frantically pacing again. ‘I mean, you're healthy—that's a plus too! Obviously I wouldn't want to marry someone who was likely to peg out on me.'

‘Don't worry…I won't peg out on you tonight, and I do see that that would be a matter of concern to you when tonight is just about all you can think about.' Leo gave the shuddering, leaning trunk a sudden forceful thrust, and the Scots pine went crashing down in thunderous emphasis.

Jake leapt up and down in awed appreciation of the sight, and then went careening round the fallen tree with excited whoops. Angie dug trembling hands into her pockets and affected not to have heard that last awesomely shrewd assurance. She could feel her face burning with chagrined colour, and Leo, watching her, was no doubt highly amused by her lack of sophistication and her inability to hide her response to him.

‘I just didn't want you thinking that…' she began awkwardly again.

‘It's not a problem, Angie. Petrina married me for my money too, but she was considerably less honest about it.'

Sheer astonishment paralysed Angie to the spot.

Having delivered that revelation in the most offhand manner, Leo vented a sudden, startled expletive and roared, ‘Jake…
no
!' as he moved with the speed of light to prevent the toddler from getting his eager hands on the axe lying on the ground.

Shocked by that roar, Jake went off into frightened howls. Leo lifted him up and hugged him in consolation.

‘You should've been watching him,' he said quite unnecessarily because Angie was already feeling all the guilt of a mother whose attention had strayed.

‘You shouldn't have left the axe where he could get hold of it!' Angie was not to be outdone.

The tree would be delivered to the house and set up in the Great Hall to be dressed. A mutually dissatisfied silence reigned as they climbed back into the Range Rover, but Angie could think of nothing but that staggering statement that Petrina had married him for his wealth.

‘I thought Petrina was an heiress,' she said abruptly as they drew up in front of the house.

‘I neglected to run a credit check on my in-laws. Her father's companies were in serious trouble. The day after the wedding—which Petrina had pushed forward on his behalf—I was informed that it was my duty to solve his problems. The experience left me with few illusions.' Leo sprang out of the car.

‘When are we leaving?'

‘I need a shower.' Reflective dark eyes rested on her, amusement slanting his mouth. ‘You can take your coat off for a while. I doubt if it will run away.'

 

After an early lunch, enlivened by Wallace's good humour, they flew up to London in the helicopter with Leo at the controls. Jake was ecstatic, but Angie spent most of the trip calming Harriet Davis, who was a nervous flyer. At the airport, they split up. Jake and his nanny were going to the town house while Leo took Angie to Cartier.

Half an hour later, they were outside on the pavement again. A pair of matching wedding rings had been bought. But Angie was also the stunned owner of an opulent sapphire and diamond engagement ring, not to mention the exquisite gold watch and the two pairs of earrings which had somehow
happened to attract Leo's attention. Angie, who had never seen anyone buy so much at such speed, was in shock.

‘I really wasn't expecting an engagement ring,' she confided breathlessly as she scrambled back into the limousine, turning her hand this way and that to catch the light in the precious gems, quite unable to hide the sheen of dreamy pleasure in her eyes.

‘Naturally I will make every effort to ensure that this relationship appears normal to other people,' Leo drawled almost gently.

The sparkle went right out of Angie's engagement ring even as she looked at it. Her buoyancy vanished as if he had plunged a hat pin into the balloon of happiness swelling inside her heart.

‘I've also instructed my lawyers to draw up a pre-nuptial agreement,' Leo continued, his lustrous dark gaze intent on her startled face. ‘It will tie you up so tight that if I should ever think of divorcing you you will be down on your knees begging me to change my mind!'

‘Excuse me?' A deep flush had burned Angie's cheekbones to carmine.

Leo elevated an ebony brow. ‘It would be very foolish of me not to restrict your boundaries. In a marriage where the bonds are strictly of a convenient nature, I have to consider the possibility that your attention might stray—'

‘We haven't even got married yet!' Angie blistered back at him in disbelief. ‘And you're talking about my attention straying?'

‘I like to consider every conceivable angle. I'm a businessman,' Leo pointed out with a fluid shrug.

Angie was cut to the bone, but she was also furious with him. He was still convinced she was after his wretched money! But then perhaps she needed that reminder to bring her back down to solid earth again, she reflected with shrinking self-
loathing. From the moment Leo had asked her to marry him, the larger part of her brain had been wheeling and dipping in some heavenly never-never land. Why? Marrying Leo had always been her dream. Only now she had to face the fact that, while she had always loved him, he had never loved her, and that his preparations for the wedding had nothing to do with either romance or celebration.

He insisted on taking her shopping for clothes. Angie's temper steadily rose. She was starting to feel like a possession to be paraded, an inanimate object to be suitably dressed and presented for public consumption. In an exclusive salon, while Leo sat in a gilded chair, nursing a glass of mulled wine, Angie tried on one fabulously expensive outfit after another.

She stalked in and out of the changing room, quite magnificent in her growing rage, and sashayed, twirled and flounced in three-inch heels, striving to make him feel uncomfortable. But, impervious to her feelings, Leo lounged back, indolently relaxed, and watched her with deeply appreciative night-dark eyes, lush black lashes sinking lower and lower to give him a deceptively sleepy look.

‘Keep that on,' he murmured when she emerged in a scarlet suit with black facings that made a superb frame for the long, lithe shape of her figure. ‘What about lingerie?'

Angie cast him a murderous look since it was perfectly obvious to her that Leo was living out the worst kind of male fantasy. ‘I'll see to that when I'm on my own.'

‘I'm enjoying myself,' Leo confided without shame.

‘I want a wedding dress,' Angie told him from between clenched teeth. ‘I want a wedding dress with yards and yards of train, and a veil and flowers and loads of lace—'

‘Good idea,' Leo slotted in approvingly. ‘Wallace will revel in all the traditional bridal trimmings, but we don't have time today.'

‘I should wear black with little pound signs printed all over it!' Angie hissed furiously under her breath. ‘That's what you deserve.'

Leo cast her a vibrantly amused look. ‘Oh, I think I know exactly what I deserve, and I can hardly contain my ardour,
pethi mou
.'

Face flaming with hot colour and every pulse in her taut body humming, Angie was the one to break that sizzlingly sensual visual connection first. She returned to the spacious cubicle to run back carefully through the various outfits she had decided to take, and agonise over one or two borderline choices. It took her some time, and, after that, it gave her the most truly enormous thrill to stroll through to the shoe and handbag department and just point at what she liked.

‘You can have anything you want,' Leo had stressed. ‘
Anything
…and don't you dare look at the prices!'

All the Christmas lights were on when they emerged back onto the street. Multicoloured, bright and beautiful, lighting up the darkening sky and the bustling shoppers crowding the pavements, they stopped Angie in her tracks. ‘Gorgeous, aren't they?' she said wistfully.

‘Yes.' Leo wasn't looking at the lights, he was looking at her, but she was sublimely unaware of the fact.

‘I've always been a bit childish about Christmas,' she muttered, suddenly embarrassed.

‘That's not without its charm.' With a slow smile, Leo urged her back into the waiting limousine. ‘We have a date to keep with Jake in his bath.'

Forty minutes later, Angie stood back, watching Leo happily dive-bombing plastic boats with a toy aeroplane while Jake squealed with delight and splashed water everywhere in his excitement. She could have dropped dead without Leo noticing, she thought miserably, ashamed and annoyed with herself for experiencing such strong pangs of envy.

He was going to be a wonderful father. Few men had the ability to get down and play at a toddler's level with honest enjoyment. But it was the tenderness, the caring that she could already see in that dark gaze trained on their son that wrenched most at her aching heart. Leo would never look at her like that. She would always be on the outside of the charmed circle of Leo's love—an adjunct, never a necessity.

They were going to be dining out, and she wanted to change. As soon as Jake was settled for the night, Angie went through to the adjoining bedroom and then stilled at the sight of Harriet's overnight bag on the bed. In silence, Leo strolled up behind her, closed his hand over hers and walked her back out again, down the corridor and into the master bedroom.

‘In three days' time, we'll be married,' Leo delivered gently. ‘I have no plans to tiptoe over creaking floorboards in my own home.'

Angie blushed fierily and hurried into the dressing room, opening doors until she found what she sought. A midnight blue shift dress of wonderful simplicity and elegance. As she emerged from the wardrobe, Leo pulled open three drawers in succession to reveal the soft jewel colours of silk and lace lingerie sets.

‘I made my own selections while you were otherwise engaged,' he explained.

Head bent, Angie skated an uncertain finger over the nearest item, heat surging inside her at the knowledge that he had personally chosen such intimate apparel.

‘You can be incredibly shy.' Leo laughed huskily, trailing a mocking forefinger across the tremulous fullness of her lower lip to awaken a tingling, intense awareness of his dominant masculinity. ‘But it is still a challenge to believe that, in all the time you were with Drew, you didn't once say yes.'

Taken aback by that disturbingly soft and unsettling statement, Angie glanced up unwarily and clashed directly with
searching dark golden eyes. Her breath feathered in her throat. ‘Drew never
asked
.'

Derision glittered in Leo's steady perusal. ‘Don't treat me like an idiot.'

Angie tilted her chin. ‘We were friends. That's all I offered, and Drew accepted that.'

Leo looked supremely unimpressed by the explanation.

Angie spun angrily away. He couldn't believe that she had never slept with Drew. But, when she thought about it, she understood his reasoning. Leo didn't have the one missing piece that would have made sense of the puzzle: her love for him and his cousin's full awareness of it had kept Drew at arm's length.

‘I've already given you my answer, and now I want to get dressed,' Angie said tautly.

Leo held her anxious gaze for several taut seconds and then, with a smile she didn't like at all, he inclined his arrogant dark head.

As he swung on his heel, Angie cleared her throat. ‘And I don't ever want to be put through a second round of this conversation, Leo!'

‘An honest response will forever close the subject.'

‘You're jealous of Drew…I can't believe it!' Angie exclaimed helplessly. ‘A man I don't even like any more…'

Leo flashed her a look of outraged censure over one broad shoulder. ‘I…jealous of Drew?' he slung back at her grittily. ‘Are you out of your mind?'

‘I'm really glad that you're not the jealous type,' Angie managed, and averted her eyes lest they betray her extreme lack of honesty.

In three days' time, she would become the wife of a ferociously jealous and possessive male. The darker passions seethed below that cool, sophisticated surface of his. Angie had the most extraordinary desire to wrap her arms round
him and tell him that she adored him, but as she recalled that pre-nuptial agreement he had mentioned and the engagement ring that she had only received for the edification of the general public the desire to give generously of her love withered utterly on the vine.