Modern Romance October 2019 Books 5-8. Annie West
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Название: Modern Romance October 2019 Books 5-8
Автор: Annie West
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon Series Collections
isbn: 9781474097635
isbn:
‘You did ballet?’
‘Only as a child,’ she said, thinking of how her aunt had donated all Hannah’s tutus and leotards to a community charity shop when Hannah had moved in. She pushed the memory aside, focussing on the present, on the circumstances that had brought her here. ‘After I found Angus and Michelle in bed together, I just wanted to run away.’
‘Naturally.’
‘It seemed as good a time as any to pack up and see the world.’ Her smile was wry. ‘I left before I could change my mind.’
Leonidas nodded thoughtfully. ‘Have you spoken to him since you left?’
‘No. There’s nothing more to say there.’
‘You were friends before you became engaged?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t miss his friendship?’
Hannah thought of Michelle and Angus and her life in Australia and dropped her gaze. ‘I miss a lot of things. It’s hard, having the rug pulled out from under you.’ She lifted her eyes to his, sympathy softening her features as she remembered his own harrowing past. ‘As you would know.’
A warning light glinted in his eyes. Don’t go there.
‘Who was the other woman?’ His voice was gruff.
Hannah’s heart constricted with now familiar pain. ‘That was the really hard part.’
‘Harder than your fiancé cheating on you?’
‘Yeah.’ She angled her face, so Leonidas had a perfect view of her profile, delicate and ethereal.
‘Who was she?’ he repeated, and Hannah sucked in a soft breath.
‘My cousin, Michelle. More like a sister, really. After Mum and Dad died, I went to live with my aunt and uncle, and Michelle.’
He let out a soft whistle. ‘Christós.’
‘Yeah.’ Her laugh was a low rumble. ‘You could say that, and I did—worse, in fact. I was devastated.’
Admitting that felt good. Saying the word aloud, Hannah recognised that she hadn’t spoken to another soul about the affair.
‘I lost everything that afternoon.’
‘What did your aunt and uncle say?’
Hannah lifted her gaze to his, and a ridiculous sense of shame made it difficult to maintain eye contact. Hannah shook her head, that awful afternoon burned into her brain like a cattle brand. ‘Do you mind if we don’t go down this particular memory lane?’
She flicked her gaze back to his face, catching surprise crossing his features. But it was banked down within a moment, and he stepped back, almost as though he hadn’t realised how close they were, how he was touching her.
‘Of course.’ His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Have a seat.’ He gestured towards the table. ‘There is much we have to discuss.’
‘WHAT WORK WERE you doing in London?’
Hannah sipped her fruit juice, a pang of guilt scrunching her chest when she thought of her boss, Fergus, and how she planned to leave him completely in the lurch.
‘I’m a legal secretary.’
‘Have you done this for long?’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Since I left high school. My aunt and uncle lived in a small town. There weren’t a lot of options for work. I would have loved to go away to university but it just wasn’t practical.’
‘For what reason?’
‘Money, mainly.’
‘I thought universities in Australia were subsidised?’
‘They are,’ she agreed, lifting a piece of fish from the platter. ‘But I’d have had to move to the city, found a place to rent. Even with governmental assistance, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to live out of home, to cover textbooks and rent.’
‘Your parents left you nothing when they died?’
She felt censure in his voice and her back straightened, defensiveness stirring inside her. ‘They left a little. My aunt and uncle took a stipend each year, and what’s left I can’t claim until I’m twenty-five.’
At this, Leonidas was completely still. ‘Your aunt and uncle took money from you?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said quietly. ‘They took money to cover the cost of raising me.’
His face showed pure contempt.
‘You think that was wrong?’
A muscle jerked in his jaw and she felt he was weighing his words, choosing what to say with care. She didn’t know him well and yet she felt for herself how uncharacteristic that care was.
‘I do,’ he said finally. ‘Were they struggling financially?’
Hannah shifted her shoulders and repeated the line she’d frequently been given. ‘An extra person is an extra expense.’
He studied her thoughtfully for several seconds, but he evidently decided not to pursue this line of questioning, and she was glad.
Glad because she didn’t like to talk about it, much less think about it.
As a teenager, she’d been able to ignore her niggling doubts, but as she’d grown older, and met more people, she had come to see more and more at fault with the way her aunt and uncle had treated her. A desire to defend them didn’t change reality, and the reality felt an awful lot as if they simply resented her presence in their lives.
She felt it in her heart, but to confess that to Leonidas was too difficult.
‘What would you have studied?’
She relaxed visibly. ‘That’s easy.’
He waited, his eyes not shifting from her face, so that even when their conversation was smoother to navigate, her pulse was still racing.
He had beautiful eyes, but she doubted many women told him that. There were too many other things about him that required mention. His body, his lips, his clever, clever hands. But his eyes were СКАЧАТЬ