Chapter Two #2
‘That’s very cynical of you.’ Sammy was still smarting from the realisation that while two perfectly good boyfriends hadn’t been able to get to her, this utterly inappropriate man seemingly could. At least if the crazy somersaulting in her stomach was anything to go by.
‘So I’m cynical.’ He shrugged and stared at her. ‘It’s a trait that’s always stood me in good stead.’
‘If Sean meant for you to have Adele, then what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is the harridan of a grandmother who’s decided to hire a lawyer to argue the case that I’m unfit to be the child’s guardian. A scrap of paper, she maintains, counts for nothing, especially considering my former stepbrother lived with a stash of alcohol and drugs within easy reach.’
Sammy didn’t say anything and Leo frowned because he could read what she was thinking as clearly as if her thoughts had been transcribed in neon lettering across her forehead.
‘The woman isn’t equipped to raise Adele,’ he grated.
‘Even if she had been an angel in human form, it would still be a big ask for her to take over the role of looking after an energetic five-year-old child. Had I felt that she might conceivably be mentally fit for the job then I’d back off, but she isn’t.
At any rate, my father is distraught at this turn of events. ’
‘He’s always mourned the fact that he never got to see her. He talked about that a lot to me and Mum.’
‘Yes, well...’ Somehow that simple statement of fact, which came as no shock at all to Leo, indicated a familiarity that was a little unsettling.
‘Here’s where we’re nearing the crux of the matter.
I’ve been accused of having too many women and spending too much time out of the country.
’ He raked his fingers through his hair and gestured in a manner that was redolent with frustration and impatience.
Sammy remained silent because, from all accounts, those were some pretty accurate accusations.
‘Well...’ she finally said. ‘I suppose there might be some truth in that. From everything I’ve heard, I mean, that’s to say...’
‘Please—’ Leo scowled darkly ‘—don’t let good manners stand in the way of saying what’s on your mind. I take it the rumours about me have come from my father?’
‘No!’
‘Do you three just sit around gossiping about my love life?’
‘No! You’ve got the wrong end of the stick.’
‘Have I? From the sounds of it, once my father has finished lamenting the fact that he’s been denied access to his “granddaughter,” he brings out the tea and biscuits and gets down to the gritty business of discussing my personal life!’
‘It’s not like that at all!’ Sammy was mortified at the picture he was painting. ‘Your dad mentioned ages ago that he wished he saw more of you and that you worked too hard. He worries about your health, that’s all.’
‘I’ve never had a day’s illness in my life.’
‘Working too hard can bring on all sorts of problems,’ Sammy said, fidgeting, her colour high. ‘Stress can be a killer. That’s what worries your dad.’
‘That being the case,’ Leo drawled, ‘he must know that I’m in no danger of collapsing from working too hard or being too stressed because I have my safety valves in the form of my very diverting playmates.’
Sammy’s breath caught in her throat, which was suddenly so dry that she could barely get her words out.
It struck Leo that those very diverting playmates were going to have to take a back seat, at least for the time being, and he was a little surprised that he didn’t feel more gutted at the prospect.
He was a highly sexual man with a very energetic libido, but recently, beautiful and obliging women who were always willing to go the extra mile for him had left him dissatisfied.
His palate was jaded.
Perhaps now was a very good time to indulge in a fake engagement with a woman he had precisely nothing in common with.
A couple of months pretending to be in love with someone who didn’t stand a chance of rousing his interest might be just the ticket.
He would resume life with renewed vigour and things would be back to normal.
And a bout of celibacy never killed anyone.
‘Which—’ he brought the conversation neatly back to the point at hand ‘—brings us back to the problem. I don’t, according to my father, make a credible guardian with my reputation, and I will be under scrutiny because I will be travelling to Melbourne to sort this situation out.
Eyes will be on me. I need credibility—and here is where you come in.
I need a fiancée to show my stability to the Melbourne courts and he’s suggested that you would be perfect for the part. ’
Sammy stared at him. So that was what all of this was about. The ring. The proposal. It was so preposterous that she was torn between bursting into manic laughter and propelling him out of her flat.
She did neither. Instead, she said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding, right?’
‘As I’ve already told you, I have better things to do than show up here for a laugh.
This is no joke, Samantha.’ He leaned forward and looked at her with utter seriousness.
‘My father refuses to accept that he may never see Adele. The fact that Sean was his stepson for a short period of time rather than his own flesh and blood and that any tenuous family connection they might have once had ended when he and Georgia divorced makes not a scrap of difference to him, but then he’s that kind of man, as I expect you already know.
He sees this as his last chance to do something about the situation and he can’t understand any hesitancy on my part to leap aboard the plan. ’
‘I’m not going to go with you to the other side of the world so that I can pretend to be your fiancée, Leo!’ Agitated, Sammy leapt to her feet and began pacing the room. Her thoughts were all over the place and her body was burning.
‘Why would you want me to be your fake fiancée, anyway?’ She spun round to look at him, hands on hips.
‘Why don’t you just pick one of those women from your little black book?
You have enough to choose from! Every time I open a tabloid I seem to see you somewhere in the gossip columns with a glamour model hanging on to you for dear life. ’
Leo’s eyebrows shot up and he gave her a slow, curling smile. ‘Follow me in the tabloids, do you?’
‘Trust you to put that spin on it,’ Sammy muttered under her breath, which seemed to amuse him further. ‘I won’t do it,’ she said flatly. ‘You can have your pick of any woman you want so go ahead and pick one of them.’
‘But none of them will do,’ Leo said smoothly and Sammy paused to frown.
‘Why not?’
He looked at her for a long while in perfect silence and it didn’t take her long to get the message.
‘Too glamorous,’ Sammy said slowly, while she pointlessly wished the ground would open and swallow her, disgorging her somewhere on the other side of the world. ‘You need someone plain and average, someone who would give the right image of a responsible other half, able to take on a young child.’
Accustomed to telling it like it was, Leo had the grace to flush. ‘The women I date would be inappropriate—’ he smoothed over the unvarnished bluntness of her statement ‘—it has nothing to do with looks.’
‘It has everything to do with looks,’ Sammy retorted, her voice shaking.
‘I want you to leave. Right now. I’d love to be able to help your father but I draw the line at being manipulated into playing the part of your dreary fiancée so that you can try and fool the authorities in Australia into believing that you’re a halfway decent guy with a few responsible bones in his body! ’
Leo was outraged at the barrage of insults contained in that outburst. Halfway decent guy? A few responsible bones?
He stayed right where he was, a solid mass of sheer physical strength. He wasn’t going anywhere and she would be more than welcome to try and budge him if she wanted. She wouldn’t get far.
‘Leave!’ she snapped.
‘Sit,’ he returned.
‘How dare you come into my house and...and...?’
‘I’m not done with this conversation.’ Leo looked at her steadily and she gritted her teeth in impotent fury.
There was no way she could force him out. He was way too big and far too strong. And he knew it.
‘There’s nothing else to say,’ she told him in a frozen voice.
‘There’s no way you could persuade me to go along with your scheme.
’ Those cruelly delivered words from when she was a teenager had rushed back towards her with the force of a freight train.
As an awkward, self-conscious adolescent she hadn’t been his type and as a twenty-six-year-old woman she still wasn’t his type. ..
She didn’t care because, as it happened, he was no more her type than she was his, but it still hurt to have it shoved down her throat.
‘Sure about that?’
Sammy didn’t bother to answer. Her arms were still folded, her face was still a mask of resentment, her legs were still squarely apart as she continued to stare down at him.
He couldn’t have looked more relaxed.
She marvelled how someone who adored his father so much could actually be so odious, but then he was a high-flying businessman with no morals to speak of when it came to women so why was she surprised?
‘One hundred per cent sure,’ she threw at him.
‘Because I haven’t just popped along here to ask a favour without bringing something to the table...’
‘I don’t see what you could possibly bring to the table that could be of any interest to me.’