Passionate Winter

Leigh, seeing her chance of escape, pushed him over, and not waiting to see any more she ran blindly to the door. She found herself in an unfamiliar darkened room and realising her mistake turned to re-enter the lounge, only to be stopped in her tracks by the harsh anger of a voice she didn’t recognise.

‘Gavin! What the hell are you doing on the floor?’

Leigh resisted an impulse to chuckle at the ridiculous picture Gavin must make lying on the floor, unwilling to draw this man’s attention to herself. She wondered how Gavin was going to explain himself to this obviously angry man.

‘Dad!’ Gavin exclaimed, and Leigh shrank back against the door. Piers Sinclair! And from what his son had mentioned about him he certainly wasn’t going to help the situation in any way. ‘Why are you here?’ he asked his father lamely.

‘I happen to live here. I take it you have no objection to my staying in my own home?’ the voice asked scathingly. Leigh had to admit that she felt rather curious about the man that went with that voice, its deep tone husky and attractive.

‘Er … no … But I…’

‘Yes? God, it smells like a brewery in here! How much have you had to drink, Gavin? And where’s Lee?’

So he had told his father he was bringing her here after all! She felt some of the tension leaving her rigidly held body, or did that man assume, as Gavin had, that she intended sleeping with his son! If so, Gavin was right and the Nichols’ must have very broad minds to tolerate such behaviour from their employer. But if the money was right, who were they to complain?

‘Leigh is …’ Gavin hesitated. ‘Leigh is in your study.’

‘In my—–! What the hell is he doing in there?’

Before Leigh could move further back into the room the study door was flung open and she stood in the sudden glare of the lights staring at the silhouette of the man she only knew as a name, her violet eyes huge and terrified. The man before her took a step forward and pulled her effortlessly into the lounge.

Leigh stared up into a pair of deep blue eyes set in a ruggedly handsome face. At the moment his features were grim and forbidding, but even so Leigh found him completely devastating. It was perfectly obvious that this was Gavin’s father, the likeness between them was too great to be any other. But whereas Gavin’s face was still young and boyish, this man’s was hard and cynical, as if he had seen all life had to offer and found it wanting. He was aged between thirty-five and forty and Leigh found herself trembling at his nearness.

No man had ever affected her like this before and she found it impossible to look away from his narrowing eyes. Dark brown hair, almost black, flecked with grey at the temples, grew low on his collar and the sideburns low down his jawline. He was dressed in close-fitting black trousers and a black silk shirt unbuttoned almost to the low waistband of his trousers, and looked very lean and attractive. Over these he wore a thick sheepskin jacket, and Leigh found herself wishing he would take it off so that she could see him better. No wonder Gavin’s mother had left such a man! Any woman would have difficulty holding and keeping him by her side.

He dropped her arm, stepping back to survey her tousled dark hair and dishevelled appearance before turning his mocking eyes on his now standing son. Gavin was studiously brushing down his denims, effectively avoiding his father’s eyes. ‘Well?’ Piers Sinclair demanded, his expression deceptively lazy. To Leigh he had the look of a sleepy feline, a black panther perhaps.

‘Well what?’ Gavin asked evasively.

Gavin was playing for time and Leigh knew it, unfortunately for Gavin, so did his father. But he had told his father about her—or at least, he had told him something. Whatever the information had been she felt sure Piers Sinclair had not expected her to be here. Then why had he asked about Leigh? It was all too puzzling for her and she sighed deeply.

Piers Sinclair looked at her with cold indifference. ‘As my son doesn’t seem forthcoming perhaps you wouldn’t mind supplying a few simple answers to a few simple questions. Like, who the hell are you? What are you doing here, if that isn’t a rather too stupid question,’ he added enigmatically. ‘And why do you smell like a whisky bottle? Unless of course you’ve drunk the contents of one, which wouldn’t surprise me—your eyes look over-bright and your appearance isn’t exactly perfection.’

Leigh gasped in disbelief. Somewhere along the line she had come out of this as the person in the wrong, how she didn’t know, but she felt her temper rising at this man’s unwarranted rudeness. ‘My name, Mr Sinclair, happens to be Leigh, Leigh Stanton.’ She saw dawning realisation in his eyes and carried on, her voice stilted with disapproval at his attitude. ‘I’m here because your son chose to bring me here. And I smell of whisky because Gavin tipped a whole glassful down my jeans. And may I add that after meeting you I understand his actions much better than I did.’

‘Really, Miss Stanton?’ His voice had softened dangerously, and Leigh saw that even Gavin was beginning to shift uncomfortably. ‘It this true?’ Piers Sinclair demanded of his son.

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ mumbled Gavin.

‘Don’t ever lie to me again, Gavin!’ his father said harshly. ‘You know it’s the one thing I will not tolerate, not after your mother.’

‘But I—I didn’t lie.’ Gavin’s eyes, so much like the older man’s, began to look pleading and Leigh began to feel sorry for him. ‘I did tell you I was bringing Leigh here for the weekend.’

She glared accusingly at Piers Sinclair. So he actually condoned his son’s outrageous behaviour. How dare he! No wonder Gavin behaved in this fashion with such a father for an example.

As if reading her thoughts Piers Sinclair smiled with mocking amusement, and walking lazily over to the drinks cabinet helped himself to a liberal amount of whisky before turning to face them again. At the moment his not undoubted anger was directed towards his son, but Leigh was tensing in anticipation of his attention turning on her, as she surely knew it would.

Piers Sinclair looked coldly at Gavin. ‘You told me you were bringing someone called Lee here, knowing full well that I would think it was that boy Lee you share your flat with,’ he put up a silencing hand as Gavin tried to speak. ‘All right, I accept that you didn’t lie, but you certainly didn’t tell the truth either. You omitted to mention the most important fact, that Lee was—no, is a female.’

‘It had the female spelling, L-E-I-G-H,’ she put in resentfully.

Those blue eyes flickered over her contemptuously. ‘We didn’t actually go into the spelling of it during our telephone conversation.’

Leigh picked up her case and marched purposefully towards the door. ‘I couldn’t give a damn what you talked about during your telephone call. If you and your son will excuse me, I am going home.’

‘Don’t let me spoil your little weekend,’ put in Piers Sinclair smoothly, discarding the thick sheepskin jacket in the warmth of the room. ‘Just try and forget I’m here.’

It was something Leigh knew she could never do under any circumstances, let alone now when she was alone here with him and his son. In every way that Gavin was still a boy this man was very much a man. Her eyes were drawn again and again to the dark sensual face of Piers Sinclair, the power of his body clearly outlined in the close-fitting trousers and shirt he wore, the shirt clinging to his hair-roughened chest.

Leigh drew herself to her full height, and being a tall girl she was usually on a level or near level with most of the men she knew, but Piers Sinclair was at least a head taller than she was and she felt at a distinct disadvantage. ‘I don’t know the type of person Gavin usually mixes with, Mr Sinclair, but let me tell you now that if I’d known what Gavin’s plans were for this weekend I would never have come here.’

He sat down in one of the soft leather armchairs, resting the ankle of one leg on the knee of the other, his eyes veiled and mocking. ‘It pretty obvious to me that you were progressing very satisfactorily until I arrived,’ he gave a nod to Gavin. ‘A fact for which I now apologise. If you’d explained the situation to me earlier, Gavin, I wouldn’t have burst in here and broke up your evening.’

‘That’s all right, Dad. I—–’

‘When the two of you have quite finished!’ exploded Leigh, flicking her long hair away from her face. She walked angrily back into the room to glare at the two of them. ‘The two of you disgust me! But you, Mr Sinclair, you disgust me the most. Gavin can’t be expected to act any differently with you as an example. The only trouble appears to be that I’m not that type of person.’

Piers laughed tauntingly. ‘Oh, come on, girl! You mix in Gavin’s crowd, don’t you? And even the most shy innocent, which I’m sure you aren’t, couldn’t miss seeing where their scene is—where most young kids’ scene is nowadays.’

‘Not mine,’ Leigh denied vehemently. ‘I know very few of Gavin’s friends, and after today I don’t think I want to know any of them.’

‘You don’t have to defend yourself to me, Miss Stanton. I’ve already been there.’

‘That’s perfectly obvious!’ she said with disgust.

‘Dad, Leigh is—–’

‘Shut up, Gavin!’ Leigh snapped at him. ‘Your father isn’t in the least interested in what I am or am not. And I’m not sure it’s any of his business anyway.’

‘I should think there’s very little to tell. Most of Gavin’s friends are long-haired layabouts,’ he looked at her from head to toe, his nostrils flaring sneeringly, ‘and you seem to be no exception. If you want my opinion—–’

‘But I don’t! You see, your opinions don’t really matter to me,’ Leigh cut in angrily, aware by the tightening of his well shaped stern lips that Piers Sinclair wasn’t accustomed to being spoken to in this manner. This only made her feel better for being the one to do so. ‘Now if you don’t mind I really do have to go home,’ she smiled bitterly. ‘I won’t say it’s been fun, because that’s the one thing it hasn’t been.’

‘But you can’t go home now, Leigh,’ interrupted Gavin. ‘It’s very late. I’m certainly not taking you back at this time of night.’

‘I didn’t ask you to.’ And she had thought him a nice harmless boy! How wrong could she have been? If she had met his father before tonight she could possibly have guessed at his plans for her; no son of Piers Sinclair would ask a girl away for an innocent weekend. ‘I have two perfectly healthy legs and I’m sure some nice kind person will offer me a lift home.’

Piers Sinclair stood up, shrugging the sheepskin jacket back over his powerful shoulders. ‘You’re right—I will.’

Leigh’s eyes widened. ‘I wouldn’t exactly call you kind, Mr Sinclair,’ she told him rudely.

He released the case from her resisting fingers. ‘Is this all you have with you?’ he asked, ignoring her previous comment.

Leigh made an effort to retrieve her case but found all her efforts quite ineffectual against such stubborn strength. ‘Will you please give me back my property?’ she said stiffly.

He shook his dark head. ‘Sorry. I realise you probably hitch-hike all over the country, and get into all sorts of trouble by doing so, but I will not be held responsible for you travelling nearly a hundred miles in that manner at this time of night. That’s just asking for trouble, you may welcome it, I really don’t care. I’ll take you home and that’s that. My son doesn’t feel gentlemanly enough to return you to your home, a feeling I quite understand in the circumstances, so I feel obliged to carry out the task, with or without your co-operation.’

‘Don’t trouble yourself!’ Leigh told him tartly. ‘As you’ve just pointed out, I’m accustomed to hitch-hiking. You meet some very interesting people that way.’ In actual fact she had never hitch-hiked in her life and felt little inclination to do so now. She had heard too many stories of different girls being attacked and molested in such circumstances to ever contemplate such a reckless idea. Until now! But this wasn’t from choice, but necessity. Unless of course she accepted Piers Sinclair’s forced offer of a lift, which she had no intention of doing.