Modern Romance August Books 1-4. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ that approach wasn’t likely to work for a male who had conceived a child with another woman in the run-up to his own wedding, Leo conceded bleakly. Everyone concerned had a right to strong emotions in a scenario like that. He had made the same mistake his father had—he had got the wrong woman pregnant. Wilfully or accidentally—did it matter which? Unlike his father, however, he would not compound his error by marrying a different woman and dragging her into the same shameful chaos. He had some tough decisions to make, he acknowledged grimly. It was no longer a matter of something as self-indulgent as what he wanted, but more a matter of honour. Such an old-fashioned word, that, Leo conceded ruefully, but if it meant that he accepted the need to put logic and fairness at the top of his list, it perfectly encapsulated his duty. And unlike his father, Leo planned to put his child first and foremost.

      Around seven that same morning, Grace emerged from the shower, wrapped a fleecy towel round her nakedness and wondered ruefully where her cases were. Their frantic charge to the bedroom the night before had left no time for such niceties as unpacking. Her face burned and she glanced in one of the many mirrors, angry and ashamed of herself because she was still acting out of character and letting her life go off the rails. One mistake did not need to lead to another, so why had she slept with Leo again last night? Waking up in bed alone in the silent apartment with her brain awash with unfamiliar thoughts of self-loathing had unnerved her. Leo, she had decided miserably, Leo was bad for her.

      She crept out to the hall where her luggage still awaited her and she was about to lift a case when she heard a sound from another room and stiffened uncertainly.

      ‘Grace...is that you?’

      It was too late to retreat with any dignity but the discovery that Leo was still in the apartment and had not yet gone off to work as she had dimly assumed was unwelcome. She moved to the doorway of a large ultra-modern room flooded with light from a wall of windows and saw Leo. Her breath hitched in her throat. Barefoot, clad in only a pair of jeans unfastened at the waist and an unbuttoned shirt, Leo looked heartbreakingly gorgeous with his messy black hair, stubbled jawline and stunningly unreadable dark eyes gleaming in the sunlight.

      ‘I thought you were out,’ she confided. ‘I need to get dressed.’

      ‘No hurry... Housekeeping doesn’t get here until nine.’ Leo stared at her, his eyes eating her alive in the pounding silence. With her red hair rippling damply round her narrow shoulders, her triangular face warm with colour and her sea-glass eyes bright and evasive, she reminded him of a pixie. She was tiny and her curves were gloriously feminine. He wanted to tell her to drop the towel. The swelling at his groin was more than willing to bridge an awkward moment with sex.

      ‘I have things to do.’

      ‘Come here...I want to show you some properties,’ Leo urged.

      Grace moved reluctantly forward, one hand clutching the towel to her breasts lest it slip. She was wasting her time with the modesty, Leo thought helplessly. It only made him want to rip it off her more. ‘Properties?’ she questioned, dry-mouthed.

      Leo sank down on the sofa he had abandoned and swung out the laptop he had been using. ‘I’ve been looking for somewhere suitable for you to live.’

      ‘But I’m here...er...I thought...’

      ‘This is a company apartment, used by my father and my brother as well. It’s serviced, convenient for me,’ Leo explained. ‘Until now I haven’t spent enough time in London to warrant the purchase of separate accommodation.’

      ‘And that’s changing?’ Grace took a seat uneasily by his side and the faint but awesomely familiar scent of him assailed her nostrils, an intoxicating hint of sandalwood and citrus fruit with a foundation note of warm, musky masculinity. Below the towel her breasts beaded into straining points and warmth pooled in her pelvis.

      ‘Obviously it will. If my child’s going to be here, I will be too,’ Leo countered carelessly, as if that truth was so obvious he shouldn’t have to say it out loud. ‘But fortunately I do own quite a few investment properties here and I’ve made up a small selection of the ones that are currently available for you.’

      Grace was frowning in bewilderment. ‘For...me?’

      ‘You’re homeless. My most basic responsibility should be ensuring that you have a comfortable and secure base.’

      ‘I wasn’t homeless until you persuaded me to move out of Matt’s spare room,’ Grace said shortly, disliking the label as much as his take-charge attitude that suggested she was a problem to be tackled and solved. ‘And I assumed I was staying here.’

      ‘You need your own space.’

      No, Leo wanted his space back, Grace suspected. Just then she recalled that he hadn’t still been in bed with her the morning after their first night together on the yacht either. ‘You should’ve left me where I was.’

      ‘I’m not going to argue about this with you. It’s futile,’ Leo spelt out, flipping up the first of three luxury properties, chosen for proximity to her university campus.

      Her lungs inflated while she listened to his spiel and watched the screen flip up properties that only someone wealthy could have afforded to rent. Her hands curled into fists and her soft mouth flattened over grinding teeth long before he reached the end of his running commentary and turned the laptop over to her for further perusal. It was the last straw. Grace sprang up and settled the laptop squarely back down on the coffee table. ‘Thanks but no, thanks,’ she said curtly.

      Leo leapt up, his shirt flying back from his corrugated abdomen, his unsnapped waistband giving her a glimpse of the little black furrow of silky hair that arrowed down to his crotch. As she remembered how intimate she had been with him the night before the bottom seemed to fall out of her stomach and she felt positively ill with mortification.

      ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean? That’s my baby you’re carrying and from now on until the finish line you’re both my responsibility!’ Leo shot back at her impatiently.

      ‘No, I’m my own responsibility and I don’t need a domineering, controlling man telling me what to do!’ Grace flared instantly back at him, light green eyes glittering with the blistering anger she had been holding back. ‘I understand that you want to stand by me to show me that you’re a good guy but you’re handing out very mixed messages and I prefer to know exactly where I stand.’

      One look at her and Leo wanted her so badly at that moment that he physically hurt. Her passion called out to him on the deepest level of his psyche even though he had deliberately avoided that kind of passion all his life. She was having an emotional meltdown and that was all right, only to be expected, he told himself soothingly. ‘If you were to stay with me, we’d end up in bed again and that’s not a good idea when you don’t yet know what your plans are.’

      ‘I am not going to end up in bed with you again. I am never going to go to bed with you again!’ Grace swore vehemently.

      Far from comforted by that news, Leo groaned. ‘Grace, you’re a nice girl and I don’t get involved with nice girls. I don’t do love and romance. I can’t be what you want if you want more.’

      ‘I’m not going to be some kept woman in some house you own either, living off you like a leech because we had a stupid contraceptive accident!’ Grace raked back at him furiously, infuriated to be called a ‘nice girl’ because that tag only suggested dreary, conservative and needy to her. In addition, although she refused to allow herself СКАЧАТЬ