LITMIR.BIZ

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matter now because I broke off our engagement earlier today.’ Leo studied her with screened intensity, expecting an immediate lessening of the tension in the atmosphere.

      Grace refused to react in any way because that announcement did not lessen her sense of betrayal in the slightest. ‘You said you were single...you lied,’ she condemned with quiet simplicity.

      ‘Let’s move this out of the hall and talk like grown-ups,’ Leo suggested grittily.

      ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you, Leo, so I suggest we stay where we are and you let me leave.’

      ‘Diavelos...’ Leo ground out, his frustration finally bubbling over in response to her pale composed expression and cold light green eyes. He had expected to find Grace distraught. Somehow he had expected her to shout and sob because he knew, or he had thought he knew, that like some chocolates she had a soft inner centre and would be hurt about what she had learned about him. Instead he was looking at a disturbingly controlled young woman, who refused to either shout or sob, and he didn’t know how to deal with that at all. ‘In the circumstances you must have something to say to me.’

      ‘But I doubt very much if you want to hear it.’ So great was the strain of maintaining her tough, unfeeling façade, Grace could barely speak. Pain and disillusionment sat like a massive block inside her chest, radiating toxic, wounding rays of insecurity, hurt and rejection. He had devastated her, shattered her heart into a hundred pieces, but on another level she was grateful for Marina’s visit because at least she had found Leo out for the rat he was before she became any more deeply involved with him.

      Leo thrust the door of the sitting room so wide that it bounced back noisily. ‘I do want to hear it!’ he challenged.

      Reckoning that he was going to make it difficult for her to leave without a muck-raking confrontation and marvelling that he could even want that, Grace trudged into the big room where Marina had faced her with the truth that had destroyed her dreams. Silly, sentimental, romantic dreams, utterly inappropriate dreams for a woman of her age, intelligence and background to have cherished: the dream that a man could be decent and honest and trustworthy.

      With 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

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