Chapter Ten #2
Leo found himself parked outside the cottage, which was in predictable darkness at a little before midnight, and he honestly couldn’t work out at what point his plans for a civilised chat first thing in the morning had changed.
* * *
Sammy heard something outside and woke up instantly, although it took her a few seconds to register exactly what it was she was hearing. When she did register the source of the noise, she was too alarmed and, frankly, confused to do anything but sit up in bed and hold her breath.
Just in case she had imagined the whole thing and she had, in fact, been awakened by a bad dream. One of the many that plagued her largely restless nights since she had returned to Devon.
Her life should have been a bed of roses.
Leo had fulfilled all the financial obligations as promised and more.
She now had a fabulous studio in which to work, was right there for her mother, whose health was improving hourly because there were no money worries distressing her to bring her down and cause her sleepless nights.
She had arranged a part-time teaching job at a nearby school, just so that she could continue having adult company because freelance work could be a solitary career.
Two evenings a week, she went into the school and helped with additional lessons for some of the children.
The atmosphere at the school was lively, the teachers were young and she loved it there.
But behind the smiles and cheerful facade of the perfect life, she couldn’t stop thinking about Leo and the brief relationship they had shared.
She knew that she’d done the right thing in turning down his marriage proposal but, where that clear-cut decision should have helped her move on, she seemed caught in a halfway house of muddled emotions and dissatisfied longings.
And she also missed Adele. They had formed a bond in the time they had spent together and, although she had seen her a few times since she had returned to pick up the pieces of her life in Devon, she wished that she could see the child more, could play more of a part in her growing life.
The sound of something hitting her window snapped her back to the present and she warily sidled towards the window, making sure not to turn on any lights in the room, and pulled back just enough of the curtain to peer out without being seen.
Her heart began to thump and her mouth went dry because although she hadn’t known what she had been expecting, it certainly hadn’t been Leo.
And definitely not Leo, the epitome of everything that was an alpha male, throwing pebbles at her window.
How did he even know which window was hers?
And then she worked out that it wouldn’t have been difficult.
The cottage was tiny and only her mother would have occupied, for health and mobility reasons, the bedroom on the ground floor.
She yanked back the curtains and raised the sash window.
‘Leo!’ For a few seconds her brain seized up. ‘What the heck are you doing?’
Good question, Leo thought. He shoved his hands into his pockets and glared up at her, his midnight-black eyes narrowing on her face with the sort of accusation that had Sammy’s bewilderment turning to sudden anger.
How dare he show up at her house and throw her into turmoil when turmoil was exactly what she was so desperate to run away from? What gave him the right to mess with her head by just appearing out of nowhere? And why was he here anyway?
At midnight?
When the whole world was asleep?
She flew down the stairs, as silent as a ghost for fear of waking her mother, which was unlikely because she was nothing if not a deep sleeper.
Still, it was better to take no chances.
When she had returned, mission accomplished, engagement off, she had had the sneaking suspicion that her mother had been disappointed.
Although when she had lightly raised the subject, her mumbling concerns had been laughingly waved aside.
But were her mother to wake up and find her daughter caught in a mysterious tryst with Leo, then who knew what idiotic ideas she might start conceiving?
Which brought her right back to wondering what he was doing on her doorstep, as she pulled open the door and, not seeing him there, carefully stepped out into the night.
Dressed in just her thin oversized tee shirt and with only fluffy bedroom slippers on her feet, the cool early spring air instantly made her shiver.
She wrapped her arms around her body and tentatively circled to the side of the house to find him leaning against the wall, so tall, so lean and so ferociously masculine that she felt the breath catch in her throat.
‘L-Leo,’ she stammered, taken aback by his body language and by the sideways glance he slung in her direction at the sound of her approach.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ Her breathing was raspy and uneven, her heart thundered inside her, her eyes were riveted to his lean face, drinking him in the way a starving man might eye up a banquet.
His lack of self-control in ending up here, bringing her outside by a thirteen-year-old’s ploy of throwing stones at her window, slammed into him with the force of a sledgehammer and made him stiffen in automatic self-defence.
He had never done anything like this before or ever acted with such a lack of discipline and even now, as his gaze swept over her scantily clad body, he could feel his self-control drop another notch.
‘Going to invite me inside?’ He pushed himself off the wall but kept his hands firmly in his pockets. ‘I decided not to ring the doorbell in case your mother was sleeping.’
‘Why are you here?’ she breathed shakily.
‘I...’ He looked away. ‘I had to talk to you.’
‘At this hour?’
‘I drove straight down from London,’ he said in a non sequitur.
‘You could have just called me.’
On the back foot yet again, he bunched his fists and fought down his instinctive urge to try to take command of the situation in any way he could think.
‘I needed to see you. I needed to talk to you face-to-face and I thought that if I phoned you, you might be tempted to ignore my call. I wasn’t taking any chances.
’ His glare challenged her to take issue with what he had said but Sammy was so shocked at his raw honesty that she could only stare at him.
She spun round, heart beating fast, and led the way back into the house. She was scarcely conscious of the fact that she was dressed in next to nothing or that the stiffened peaks of her nipples were poking against the soft jersey cotton of her tee shirt.
She’d tried hard to forget the impact he had on her but just seeing him here now, as she shut the kitchen door behind her and leant against it, was reminding her of her aching weakness for him—a weakness she didn’t want.
‘Surely whatever you have to say could have waited until tomorrow. Is it to do with Adele? I know you’ve been looking at schools for her in London.’
Don’t let your imagination run away with you.
Don’t start reading anything behind that intense, disconcerting expression on his face.
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because your father told me.’ Face flaming red, she turned her back on him to put the kettle on for some coffee, hands shaking.
‘You’ve been talking to my father about me?’ Leo asked quickly and, he was forced to admit to himself, hopefully.
‘No!’ Sammy spun round to face him and leaned against the counter by the sink, arms folded, very conscious now of her legs on display.
‘He mentioned it in passing. I can’t think of any reason for you to have just shown up here unless you had some pressing need to ask my advice on schools since I taught in one for quite a while.
And that doesn’t make sense anyway! That’s the sort of thing that could easily have waited until tomorrow.
Why won’t you just tell me what brought you here?
’ The atmosphere had shifted and her skin warmed as his eyes roved over her and suddenly she just knew why he had come under cover of darkness, knowing that he would find her mother fast asleep!
Except surely he wasn’t arrogant enough to think that because she had been the one to walk away from him that the scales wouldn’t be balanced until she warmed his bed again and he was the one to walk away?
The way he always walked away from women?
It seemed incredible but why else would he have descended here at this hour of the night?
She truly couldn’t think of any other explanation and was frankly appalled when she actually gave houseroom to the tempting idea of taking him up on any advances he might make because she just missed him so much.
‘I...’ Leo surprised himself by faltering. ‘I had to,’ he said in a driven undertone and Sammy’s brow pleated in consternation. ‘You turned down my marriage proposal.’
‘You came all the way here and threw stones at my window to tell me that?’
‘I told you why I didn’t ring the doorbell.’
‘But I still don’t know why you’re here.’
And it’s not fair to spring yourself on me because I’m not strong enough to withstand your impact.
‘I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.’ His fabulous dark eyes held hers. ‘I couldn’t believe it when you turned me down.’
‘Because you’re so accustomed to getting your own way,’ Sammy said painfully, lowering her eyes and sipping some of the coffee.
She noticed that her hands were shaking a little and hoped that he hadn’t noticed that, as well.
Every nerve and sinew and pore in her body was reacting to his presence, putting her on hyperalert and touching her in places she didn’t want. It wasn’t fair!
‘You can’t just show up here and say stuff like that!’