The Reluctant Fiancee

‘You as well.’ She grinned up at him, mischief dancing in her eyes. ‘I might decide I want your job.’

Leon’s mouth twitched, and then he chuckled. ‘You’re some woman, Phoebe.’ He shook his dark head, still smiling. ‘But I really must be going.’ Withdrawing a small velvet box from his trouser pocket, he dropped it into her hand. ‘Happy birthday, and good luck on Monday. I’ll be in touch.’ Turning, he started for the door.

‘Wait. I’ll see you out.’ She hurried after him, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

‘Not a good idea, Phoebe, unless you want your friends to get the wrong idea.’

‘My friends?’ He had lost her; she didn’t know what he meant.

‘Have a look in the mirror before mingling again, darling...’ Leon drawled softly, and after unlocking the door he went, his laughter ringing in her ears.

Standing where Leon had left her, Bea slowly opened the box. Inside was a delicate pendant, a deep blue sapphire surrounded by diamonds, ringed in gold and suspended on a gold chain. After fastening the chain around her neck, she picked up the pendant and gazed at it in wonder. Leon was an incredibly generous but infuriating man.

CHAPTER TWO

STILL bemused by Leon’s present, Bea wondered why he had not stopped to see her open it. What had he said? ‘Look in the mirror!’ Bea mumbled to herself, quietly slipping out of the study. She quickly dived into the cloakroom—luckily free.

One look in the mirror above the vanity basin, and the pendant was forgotten. Instead she wanted to die of shame. Her blonde hair was a tangled mess around her face—a very flushed face—and the remains of once red lipgloss were smeared over her skin, but none of it on her lips—lips that were unmistakably swollen. Worse, the dress she had hastily pulled up after escaping from Leon on the sofa clung decorously over one breast, then slanted down over the other, revealing the dark areola around her nipple to the world.

Bea groaned out loud. Never again would she wear the silver Spandex creation, she vowed. No wonder Leon had told her to look in the mirror. But the swine could have told her earlier about the dress, instead of feasting his eyes and having a good laugh at her expense. To think she had actually been considering they could be friends again!

Splashing her face with cold water, and tidying herself up as best she could, she felt a humourless laugh escape her. Would she never learn where Leon was concerned? He had arrived, got her to agree to what he wanted, and left... As for her birthday present, to a man of Leon’s wealth, the pendant was a mere trinket.

She knew she was being irrational. She was a very wealthy woman herself. But somehow she never thought of herself as such. Her parents, because they’d been from the north, had always lived there, though her father often stayed in London. As a child Bea had known they were comfortably off, but never thought much about it. And since Leon had taken over the running of the company, and then since the death of her father, she hadn’t liked to think how much she was worth. It seemed indecent when she had done nothing for it. Which was another reason for her going to work in London. She felt it her duty...

Two o’clock in the morning, and she leant against the front doorframe, grateful for the breath of cool air and the support. She was dead beat. With a sigh of relief she closed the door, locked and bolted it. At last she was alone...

The caterers had cleaned up and left ten minutes earlier. Aunty Lil and Uncle Bob would have nothing to complain about when they arrived back in the morning from their night out in the city. She hoped they’d had a better time than she’d had...

Some party, she thought moodily, making her way up to the sanctuary of her bedroom, removing the sapphire pendant as she went. What should have been a great night in her life had turned out to be a horror, all because of Leon Gregoris. She supposed she should be thankful he had left early, and she was no longer going to have to face him in London on Monday. But somehow that thought gave her no consolation.

Walking into her bedroom and closing the door behind her, she slipped out of the silver dress and, clad in only the briefest of lace briefs, dropped the pendant on the dressing table. For a moment she looked at it, her eyes narrowing; it looked vaguely familiar. Yawning widely, she dismissed the thought and, picking up her cotton nightie from the end of the bed, headed for the en suite bathroom. Five minutes later, her toilet complete, she slid into bed. Pulling the pink duvet up to her chin, she closed her eyes and welcomed sleep.

But it was not to be. The dark face of Leon appeared in her mind’s eye; she traced her swollen lips with one finger. She could still feel his kiss, the taste of him. Nothing she did would displace his image from her brain.

Turning restlessly, she lay flat on her back and opened her eyes. She didn’t want to think about the past; there were too many painful memories, and Leon’s reappearance tonight had reawakened a lot of them. The trace of a smile twitched her lips. She recalled the first time her father had sent her to this very room for being naughty. That had been Leon’s fault...

It had been a Saturday, just like today—or last night, she amended. Bea had been eight years of age, and her father had had visitors for the weekend: Mr Gregoris and his son. Having spent all day with adults, she’d been bored.

But at about seven o’clock in the evening she had slipped out of the gate at the bottom of the garden, something she was strictly forbidden to do. She had met two older boys from the village, Jack and Ned, and they had allowed her to play with them. Cowboys and Indians, and—wouldn’t you know!—as the girl she’d got to be the Indian, captured by the cowboys, and Jack had tied her to a tree.

It had been when Ned had withdrawn a knife from his trouser pocket, saying, ‘Now try some of your own medicine and see how you like it,’ and grabbed her long hair prior to scalping her, that she’d begun to scream. That was how Leon had found her.

At twenty-two he’d already been a man, dressed in shorts and singlet, obviously out for his evening run. He’d pulled the two boys apart, one in each hand, shaken them and sent them sprawling on their backsides. Then he’d untied Bea and lifted the terrified little girl into his arms.

She remembered clutching him around the neck, resting her head on his chest and between sobs and hiccups telling him he was wonderful for saving her. He’d been her hero, this big, dark man with a ponytail as long as hers. At least, she’d thought so for all of ten minutes, until he’d started lecturing her on how little girls should behave. But, worse, he’d actually told her father, and she’d been sent to her room without any supper.

Looking back, Bea could see that had been the start of the love-hate relationship she shared with Leon. She had not seen a lot of him after that; his father, her dad’s business partner, had been a frequent visitor, but Leon had come maybe two or three times a year, some years not even as much as that. When she had seen him he was always nice to her, though he could be a bit bossy. But then she’d thought of him as an adult friend, and most adults were bossy...

Old Mr Gregoris had died when Bea was eleven. She could remember her father going to Cyprus for the funeral, but she hadn’t gone. After that Leon had come on his own to visit her father, but as often as not they’d met in London.

Then, when she’d reached her teens and begun to read the more lurid tabloids that Aunty Lil was so fond of, she’d discovered Leon was quite notorious for his lady-friends. His procession of women was well documented, and once, as a fifteen-year-old, she had teased him about it. Leon had told her not to believe everything she read in the papers. He had for once lost his sense of humour and had appeared quite upset.

Bea suddenly realised that this had been the last time Leon had visited her home until the death of her own father. Leon had appeared at his graveside on a bleak January day and held her hand. He had been a tower of strength to a very sad and frightened seventeen-year-old. Having lost his own father earlier, he’d seemed to understand exactly how she felt.

Back at the house Leon had taken charge, explaining her inheritance, insisting she complete her final year at school, and making sure Lil and Bob would look after her—though there had never been any doubt. Leon had left after a week, due to pressure of business, but had promised to return at the Easter vacation. True to his word, he had. But it had been a different Leon...

Before Bea had seen him as a sort of jocular uncle—a friend but an adult male. Then suddenly he’d begun to treat her as a grown-up. When he had arrived she had greeted him with the usual peck on the cheek, and to her amazement he had grasped her around the waist.

‘Surely at nearly eighteen you can do better than that, Phoebe? I can see I’m going to have to educate you,’ he’d said, and covered her lips with his own.

From then on when he’d looked at her it had been with a blatant male appreciation for a desirable female. When he’d touched her his hands had lingered just a fraction too long, and when he’d kissed her her legs had turned to jelly.

Bea shivered and pulled the duvet tightly around her. She had been such a naive young fool, and had lapped it all up.

But Leon had played his part to perfection. He was a man whose devastating charm and sophistication could make the hardest-headed businesswoman feel gauche, and he had turned the full force of his dynamic personality upon the young Bea. She’d been in awe of him.

The public success of the company since Leon had taken over was well documented. From a small import-export firm, Stephen-Gregoris had now developed into a force to be reckoned with in the world market. Leon had made them both millionaires, as he had casually pointed out on the last day of his visit...

It was a lovely spring day. A car was arriving at noon to take Leon to the airport; he would fly back to London and then on to Athens. Seated opposite him at the table in the breakfast room, Bea was feeling sad at the thought of Leon’s departure; the past five days had been wonderful.

Last night he had taken her out to dinner at Twenty-One, an exclusive restaurant in Newcastle. On arriving home he had led her into the living room and pulled her down onto the couch beside him. She had snuggled up against his side with a sigh of pure contentment.

‘Happy, sweetheart?’ Leon had asked, and, not waiting for a reply, had turned her in his arms and kissed her. A long time later he’d raised his head and shifted slightly to look into her flushed, trusting face.

‘There’s something I want to ask you, Phoebe. I know...’ And that had been when Lil had walked in.

‘I heard you arrive so I’ve brought you coffee.’

Bea had not been pleased at the interruption. She’d had a sneaky suspicion that Lil was acting as a chaperone, and she’d been sure of it when the older woman had sat down and poured the coffee into three cups before asking about their evening out. An hour later Bea had gone to bed, still wondering...

Now, seated with Leon at the breakfast table, Bea sighed and drained her cup of coffee, her blue eyes resting wistfully on the top of his dark head. He was apparently oblivious to her presence, reading the morning paper. Whatever he had been going to ask her last night, he had obviously forgotten it this morning, she thought morosely. In a few hours he would be gone and it was back to studying for her, for her A level exams. A place at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne was waiting for her, providing she passed them.

‘Don’t look so sad. It might never happen.’ Leon’s deep voice cut into her morbid thoughts.

Glancing across at him, she almost said, It already has; you’re leaving. But, young as she was, she had the sense to keep her true feelings to herself, and instead said, ‘But it will... Exams start in six weeks’ time; it’s nose to the grindstone time for me. Whereas you will be flitting around the world, chatting up every beautiful woman you meet.’ She tried for a teasing smile but it did not quite come off.

Her innate common sense told her Leon had simply been flirting with her the past few days. There was no way a man like him could really be interested in her on a personal level. He was kind to her because of their fathers’ relationship, and because technically they were now business partners—though the reality was that Leon was her trustee, along with Mr Nicholson, her late father’s lawyer, until she was twenty-one.

‘Jealous, Phoebe?’ he teased back, and, putting the newspaper down on the table, he stood up. ‘There is no need.’

He was tall, well over six feet, and incredibly handsome; he had to be nearly thirty-two now. Far too old for her. But he looked so vitally male, so elegant in his immaculate, conservative three-piece suit, and yet subtly powerful and superbly healthy—which, given his lifestyle, was something of a miracle. If the papers were to be believed, he played as hard as he worked. Fascinated, Bea watched as he strolled around the table and reached out a hand to her.

‘Come on, sweet Phoebe, a walk before I leave. And hopefully we will escape your guardian angel Lil for a while.’

Bea put her hand in his and was pulled to her feet. Five minutes later Leon, still holding her hand, opened the garden gate with his other hand, and then guided her onto the path.

They talked of her exams, her university course, her ambitions. It was only when they were out of sight of the house that Leon suddenly stopped a few feet away from a large willow tree.