Bought To Wear The Billionaire's Ring

‘Your face is never out of the papers,’ Harold admonished, dabbing his eyes and then looking sternly at his son. ‘There’s always some...some silly little thing hanging on to your arm, batting her eyelashes at you.’

Leo flushed with irritation. ‘We’ve covered this ground already.’

‘And we’ll cover it again, son.’ Harold sniffed and, just like that, Leo realised it was as though the energy and life force had been sucked out of him, leaving behind a shell. He was an aging man and it seemed as though he had suddenly lost the will to live.

‘You choose to do what you like when it comes to...women,’ his father said quietly. ‘And I know better now than to try and point you in the right direction. But this is more than being just about you. The woman claims that you’re morally unfit to take guardianship of the child.’

Leo pushed his hands through his hair and shook his head. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ he said grimly.

Theoretically, he and his father could simply reach an agreement to pull the plug on the money. Sean, after all, hadn’t been in any way related to either of them, but he knew and personally agreed that the child should not be allowed to suffer because of the mistakes of her parents. Like it or not, she was a moral responsibility.

‘It’s a worst-case scenario.’ His father shook his head and pressed his fingers to his eyes.

‘You’re upsetting yourself, Dad.’

‘Wouldn’t you if you were in my shoes?’ He looked up. ‘Adele is important to me and I cannot lose.’

‘If the law refuses to budge—’ Leo spread his hands in a gesture of frustration ‘—then there’s only so much I can do. I can’t kidnap the child and then hide her until she turns eighteen.’

‘No, but there is something you can do...’

‘I’m struggling to think what.’

‘You could get engaged. I’m not saying married, but engaged. You could present the court with the sort of responsible image that might persuade them into thinking that you’re a good bet as a father figure for Adele.’

Leo stared at his father in silence. He wondered whether the events of the past few weeks had finally pushed the man over the edge. Either that or he had misheard every single word in that sweeping, unbelievable statement.

‘I could get engaged...?’ Leo shook his head with rampant incredulity. ‘Do you suggest I purchase a suitable candidate online?’

‘Don’t be stupid, son!’

‘Then I’m not following you.’

‘If you need to present the image of a solid, dependable, normal human being with a serious and suitable woman by your side, then I don’t know why you wouldn’t do that. For me. For Adele.’

‘Serious and suitable woman?’ Leo spluttered. He didn’t do either serious or suitable when it came to women. He did frivolous and highly unsuitable. He liked it that way. No involvement, easy to dispatch. If they enjoyed his money, then that was fine because he wasn’t going to marry any of them. When it came to women, the revolving door that brought them in and took them out was efficient and worked for him.

‘Samantha.’ His father dropped the name with the flair of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

‘Samantha...’ Leo repeated slowly.

‘Little Sammy Wilson,’ Harold expanded. ‘You know who I’m talking about. She would be perfect for the part!’

‘You want me to involve Samantha Wilson in a far-fetched charade to win custody of Adele?’

‘It makes perfect sense.’

‘In whose world?’

‘Don’t be rude, son!’ Harold reprimanded with an unusual amount of authority.

‘Does she know about this? Have you two been plotting this crazy scheme behind my back?’ Leo was aghast. His father had clearly taken leave of his senses.

‘I haven’t mentioned a word of this to her,’ Harold admitted. ‘Well, you know that she only manages to get to Salcombe on weekends...’

‘No, I didn’t. Why would I?’

‘You will have to broach the subject with her. You can be very persuasive and I don’t see why you wouldn’t bring those considerable skills to bear on this. It’s not as though I ask favours of you as a general rule. I think it’s the very least you can do, son. I would so love to know Adele is safe and cared for and we both know that Gail would make as bad a grandparent as her daughter made a parent. I would spend the remainder of my days fearing for what might happen to the girl...’

‘Gail might be many things,’ Leo returned drily, ‘but aren’t you over-egging the pudding here?’

His father breezed over the interruption. ‘And you would condemn a child to a future with a woman of that calibre? We both know the rumours about her...’ His eyes, when they met Leo’s, were filled with sadness. ‘I can’t force you but I’m very much afraid that I... Well, what would be the point of my living...?’

* * *

Samantha hadn’t been in her tiny rented flat for more than half an hour before she heard the insistent buzz of her doorbell and she grimaced with annoyance.

She had too much to do to waste time on a cold-caller. Or, worse, her neighbour from the flat upstairs, who had a habit of randomly showing up around this hour, a little after six in the evening, for wine with someone too polite and too soft-hearted to turn her away.

Samantha had spent many hours listening to her neighbour discuss her latest boyfriend or weep over a broken heart that would never be mended.

Right now, she simply had too much to do.

Too much homework from her eight-year-old charges to mark. Too many lessons to prepare. Too much red tape with Ofsted to get through. Not to mention the bank, who had been politely reminding her mother for the past three months that the mortgage hadn’t been paid.

But whoever was at the door wasn’t about to go away, not if the insistent finger on the button was anything to go by.

Sweeping the stack of exercise books off her lap and onto the little coffee table by the side of her chair and plunging her feet into her cosy bedroom slippers, she was working out which negative response, depending on who was at the door, she would be delivering so that her evening remained uninterrupted.

She yanked open the door and her mouth fell open. Literally. She stood there like a stranded goldfish, eyes like saucers, because the last person she ever, in a million years, had expected to see was standing in front of her.

Or rather lounging, his long, muscular body indolently leaning against the door frame, his hands thrust into the pockets of his black cashmere coat.

It had been several weeks since she had seen Leo Morgan-White.

He had nodded to her from across the width of his father’s massive drawing room, which had been crowded with at least three dozen locals, all friends from the village where his father and her mother lived. Harold was a popular member of the community and his annual Christmas party was something of an event on the local calendar.

She hadn’t even spoken to Leo that night. He’d been there with a leggy brunette who, in the depths of winter, had been wearing something very bright and very short, garnering attention from every single male in the room.

‘Have I come at a bad time?’

* * *

He’d taken the bait. Sly old fox that his father was, Leo had been persuaded into doing the unthinkable by the threat of ill health and a return of the depression that had dogged his father for years and from which he was only recently surfacing.

Of course, Harold genuinely and truly wanted Adele close to him and safe and, of course, he truly believed, and was probably spot on, that Gail would turn out to be a horrendous influence on her five-year-old granddaughter, but when he had pulled the ill-health-so-what’s-the-point-of-carrying-on? threat from the hat Leo had confessed himself to be beaten.

So here he was, two days later, with the soon-to-be object of his desire standing in front of him in some dull grey outfit and a pair of ridiculous, brightly coloured bedroom slippers.