Claimed For The Leonelli Legacy. Lynne Graham

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      Tia rounded on him at the foot of the stairs, her ready temper roused at being patronised as if she were still a young girl when she was a grown woman and proud of the fact. ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ she questioned fierily, an angry tightness marking her small face.

      ‘I think you live in an institution where being different is frowned on and probably have little experience of what life is really like beyond the convent gate.’

      ‘Well, then you’d be wrong because I have often seen the consequences of alcoholism and addiction, domestic abuse and prostitution. There can be few evils that I have not some knowledge of,’ Tia argued furiously, hotly dismissing his apparent conviction that she was some naïve little flower. ‘Maybe you thought you’d find me on a hill somewhere singing among the wild flowers? Yes, I am acquainted with sarcasm, Max!’

      Max was taken aback by the display: she had gone from zero to ninety in seconds and lost her temper. ‘Does that also mean you need to start shouting at me?’ he shot back at her.

      Recalled to her wits but still trembling with annoyance, Tia stilled and sucked in a steadying breath, appalled at the rude way she had attacked him. ‘I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that rant. I suppose I’m worrying about how I will appear to you and to my grandfather and that I won’t suit.’

      ‘You needn’t worry about that. If you had horns and a tail, Andrew would welcome you. You’re his only relative,’ he responded wryly.

      ‘I have a terrible temper. I’m supposed to go for a walk and practise breathing exercises when I get mad, so that I don’t lash out at people,’ Tia confided guiltily.

      ‘I’m pretty tough, Tia. I can take hard words,’ Max countered.

      Shame engulfed Tia because this was the person trusted by her grandfather to take her to England, the man who had already ensured Teddy’s continuing health. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again gruffly.

      Max closed a hand on her arm to prevent her from walking away. ‘It’s OK,’ he breathed more forcefully. ‘You’re right in the middle of a huge upheaval in your life.’

      Tia blinked back the tears that had been gathering in hot, prickly discomfort behind her eyes. ‘Don’t make excuses for me. I was horribly rude.’

      ‘You have fire. I like that, bella mia,’ Max admitted huskily, his dark deep intonation somehow rousing a curl of heat low in her pelvis. ‘I was being patronising and you were right to call me on it.’

      ‘You’re very...understanding,’ Tia breathed soft and low, locked into his stunning dark eyes as he bent towards her, Teddy’s feisty warning growls at her feet ignored by both of them.

      And for a split second she actually thought he was going to kiss her and she craved that kiss as she craved water on a hot day, needing somehow to know if that soft, full lower lip of his would be hard or gentle on hers. Hard, she decided, lost in a sensual daydream for the first time in her life.

      ‘I have Mr Leonelli’s breakfast waiting,’ Sister Mariana called down the corridor, and Max jerked back, releasing her wrist, lifting his head again, a telling gleam of feverish colour accentuating his high cheekbones.

      Nearly forgot yourself in a convent, Max derided for his own benefit, fighting his arousal with all his might while wondering how she would react if she noticed. He was discovering that when Tia looked at him as though he could walk on water, he liked it, and that astonished him.

      Tia was in a daze over breakfast. She knew all the facts about sex and had always thought the actual mechanics of the act sounded fairly disgusting: what the man did, what the woman had to allow. But Max had walked into her life the night before and even her outlook on that had changed because she was now putting Max into that couple equation and found that she was madly curious and shockingly excited by the concept. What startled her the most was the deep current of desire rippling through her whenever she looked at him, whenever she even thought about him. In his radius her body no longer felt like her own and was certainly no longer fully under her control.

      ‘So, where do we fly from?’ she asked as she settled into the four-wheel drive. Teddy was not impressed to be confined in the pet carrier inside it and whined in complaint but his new official owner didn’t want him biting Max and she was rather afraid that he might if given even the smallest chance. The little dog she had quietly adored for so long was revealing unexpected traits now that he was being forced to mix with other people.

      As for Tia, her eyes still damp from parting from Mother Sancha who featured in her earliest childhood memories, she felt like someone at the start of an adventure and was working hard at concealing that less than cool reality.

      ‘Rio,’ Max told her, lifting his darkly handsome head from the tablet he had been using. ‘Sorry I’m distracted but I have work email to answer.’

      ‘We’re going to Rio? I thought we were going to Belém.’

      ‘We are, but we are flying to Rio before we head for the UK.’

      ‘I love Belém. It’s so big and busy,’ Tia chattered and told him about the annual boat trip the sisters took along the River Guama to see the Círio of Nazaré procession, which was the biggest and most important religious event in Brazil.

      She talked a lot, Max reflected, and culture shock was likely to hit her when she saw the size of Rio de Janeiro because the city of Belém was tiny in comparison. He also wondered what he would do with her in Rio because he had work to do. It was all very well for Andrew to send him halfway across the world for Tia, but Grayson Industries did not run itself and fast decisions had to be made every day to keep Andrew’s companies running smoothly. In addition, Max worked very long hours to convince himself and anyone else who cared to quibble that he was fully capable of being CEO of Grayson Industries despite his comparative youth.

      ‘If we’re really going to Rio,’ Tia said breathlessly, ‘I have a school friend there whom I would love to visit. I haven’t seen Madalena since we were eighteen and she left school to go home to her family. We write to each other...well, she writes occasionally. She’s very busy.’

      ‘Is she one of those troubled girls you mentioned?’ Max enquired almost lazily.

      ‘Of course not. Madalena was Head Girl in our last year,’ Tia told him cheerfully.

      ‘You should spend an evening with her,’ Max suggested.

      ‘Yes. It would be wonderful to have the chance to catch up with what she’s been doing,’ Tia remarked, thinking that she would be listening rather than contributing at any such reunion because Madalena’s family was well-off and her former schoolmate seemed to enjoy a dynamic social life. But even so she would very much enjoy seeing the bubbly brunette again. Madalena was a lot of fun and fun was something that had been in very short supply in Tia’s life since her school days had ended.

      At the airport, they boarded a private jet. Tia was astonished when Max pointed out the Grayson logo on the tail fin and explained that her grandfather owned it. When he had said ‘wealthy’ it had not occurred to her that he could mean quite that level of wealth. She sat quietly in her upholstered leather seat while she was served a delicious lunch. Max pretty much worked and she wondered if that was the norm for him or if rather, СКАЧАТЬ