Modern Romance August Books 1-4. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ her parents’ history before her, she should’ve known better, Grace thought painfully. Even her own father had lied and cheated rather than keep his promise to marry her mother. Soon after Grace’s birth, her father had begun working with the woman who would eventually become his first wife and he had kept his infidelity a secret while continuing to live with Grace and her mother. She had the vaguest possible memory of her father because he had walked out on her mother before Grace reached her second birthday.

      Grace spun round to face Leo, her arms folded defensively across her slightly built body. ‘Right, exactly what do you want from me? Forgiveness? Understanding? Well, sorry, you’re not getting either!’ she told him roundly.

      ‘I want to explain.’

      ‘No, I don’t want to hear any explanations...a bit pointless at this stage!’ Grace pointed out curtly. ‘You lied to me and there’s no getting round that. Don’t waste any more of my time, Leo. Let me go.’

      ‘To go where?’

      ‘I don’t know yet.’ Grace was distracted by the buzzing of her mobile phone in the back pocket of her jeans and she dug it out and switched it off, noticing in forgivable surprise that it was her aunt calling her. Considering her aunt had told her never to bother her family again, what could she possibly want? Unless her uncle Declan, who had visited Grace at Matt’s flat, had persuaded his wife to soften her attitude.

      ‘You can’t leave when you don’t have anywhere to go!’ Leo argued fiercely. ‘You have to take care of yourself now that you’re pregnant!’

      ‘Oh, please, don’t pretend you actually care,’ Grace countered with withering sarcasm, her bitterness licking out from below the surface before she could prevent it from showing.

      ‘If you would just listen to me and stop being so unreasonable,’ Leo bit out.

      ‘I don’t need to listen. I already know what you are and that’s a dirty, lying, cheating scumbag without an ounce of integrity!’ Grace shot at him, green eyes suddenly flaring bright as angry stars because he had dared to call her unreasonable.

      ‘I broke off my engagement so that I could come back here and ask you to marry me!’ Leo launched at her in outrage, fury surging up inside him like lava inside a volcano about to erupt. He had never felt so angry in his life and it was an unnerving experience. He didn’t get angry; he didn’t do angry. Nothing and no one had ever been capable of sending him over that edge because to get angry you had to care and he was not supposed to care.

      Grace slowly shook her head at him in apparent wonderment, an attitude that enraged Leo even more because no woman had ever dared to look at him like that. ‘Well, the answer to that proposal would’ve been a very firm no once I found out what you had been hiding from me. Honesty and reliability are hugely important to me, Leo, and you score nil on both counts. I saw today what you did to Marina and I’m afraid that was quite enough to convince me that you’re a very arrogant, selfish personality with very few saving graces...no pun intended.’

      ‘Is that all you’ve got to say to my suggestion that we get married?’ Leo growled, hardly able to credit what he was hearing because nobody, least of all a woman, had ever found him wanting on any score. So prejudiced against him was Grace that it almost felt to him as though she saw some mirror image of him that was another person entirely. And then he remembered her history and somewhere inside his head an alarm bell clanged, putting him right on target.

      ‘Yes, that’s all I’ve got to say. Once the baby’s born, I’ll get in touch with you at this address,’ Grace assured him flatly. ‘But be warned...I have no plans to hand my child over to you or anything like that because you’re not my idea of a father in any way.’

      Leo could literally feel himself freezing into an ice pillar while still wanting to strangle her into silence. Did he deserve such a character assassination? Well, so much for the winning power of a marriage proposal and a rich and powerful husband! But offended and infuriated as he was by Grace and the awareness that he had seriously underestimated her temper, he was more fixated on where she planned to go when she appeared to have neither money nor any suitable friends or family to live with. Recognising that Grace needed to cool off before he could even hope to reason with her, he reached into his wallet to withdraw a card and extended it.

      ‘I own the hotel. It’s small and discreet and you only need to show the card at Reception to be accommodated. My driver will take you there...’

      In the grip of frantic thought and the blistering emotional turmoil that their encounter had provoked, Grace accepted the card. She had to go somewhere and she had no place else, she thought wretchedly, and ditched her pride. ‘OK.’

      A shard of relief speared through Leo’s almost overwhelming sense of rage and raw frustration. She wouldn’t listen to him, she refused to listen, refused to let him talk...how fair was that? He hated feeling powerless, an unfamiliar sensation because she was the only person who had ever had that effect on him. Even so, it was of paramount importance to Leo that he knew where she was and that she was safe and well looked after. She had got him wrong, so wrong, he thought bitterly.

      In Leo’s limo, Grace dug out her phone to check it and called back her aunt.

      ‘I need to see you urgently,’ Della Donovan said in an unusually constrained voice.

      Grace wondered what on earth had happened to make her aunt approach her because she was fairly certain that Jenna’s dislike of her had initially been learned from her mother. Compressing her lips, she agreed to meet up for coffee that afternoon. Had her uncle pressured his wife into burying the hatchet and healing the breach? The suspicion worried her. Declan Donovan was a kind man but, sadly, such feelings couldn’t be forced.

      The hotel was small, unassuming from the outside but the last word in elegant opulence and service on the inside. Within minutes of her presenting the card, her luggage was collected and she was settled in a large and beautiful room complete with every possible luxury. The bathroom was a dream and as soon as she had unpacked Grace laid out clean clothes for her meeting with her aunt and went for a bath in an effort to relax her sadly frayed nerves.

      She felt so unhappy. In all her life, Grace had never felt quite so unhappy. She had always been alone but she had never felt lonelier than she did at that moment, cut off from everything familiar and at her third change of address in the space of a week. The following week term started and she would be back in class and facing hospital placements. But for the first time ever Grace wasn’t looking forward to getting back to her studies. The events of the past worrying weeks had taken their toll and she was exhausted.

      Leo had broken off his engagement so that he could ask her to marry him. A sudden involuntary surge of tears stung Grace’s gritty eyes. Only now was her brain calmed enough to consider that truth. He was trying so hard to do the right thing even though he had started out doing the wrong thing by not telling her that he was engaged. Did she give him points for that? Grace heaved a heavy sigh. She had been falling in love with him, weaving dreams, seeing a future that might include him, and then Marina had blown that fantasy out of the water. Marina had spelt out the reality that Leo had not only lied to Grace, but was also a regular playboy. That crack Marina had made in which she admitted having expected Grace to be a blonde bombshell in a pole dancer’s outfit had lingered longest with Grace. Evidently Leo had betrayed his fiancée more than once. He was a liar and a cheat just like her father, who had also turned out to be a great deal less interested in raising his own child than he had first pretended to be.

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      Della СКАЧАТЬ