Secrets of a Ruthless Tycoon - Кэтти Уильямс - Читать онлайн любовный роман

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CHAPTER TWO

BRIANNA WOKE AT six the following morning to furious snowfall. Outside, it was as still as a tomb. On days like this, her enjoyment of the peace and quiet was marred by the reality that she would have next to no customers, but then she thought of the stranger lying in the room down from hers on the middle floor. Leo. He hadn’t baulked at the cost of the room and, the evening before, had insisted on paying her generously for an evening meal. Some of her lost income would be recovered.

And then...the unexpected, passing companionship of a fellow artiste. She knew most of the guys her age in the village and it had to be said that there wasn’t a creative streak to be found among the pack of them.

She closed her eyes and luxuriated for a few stolen minutes, just thinking about him. When she thought about the way his dark eyes had followed her as she had tidied and chatted, wiped the bar counter and straightened the stools, she could feel the heat rush all through her body until it felt as though it was on fire.

She hadn’t had a boyfriend in years.

The appearance of the stranger was a stark reminder of how her emotional life had ground to a standstill after her disastrous relationship with Daniel Fluke at university. All those years ago, she had fancied herself in love.

Daniel had been the complete package: gorgeous, with chestnut-brown hair, laughing blue eyes and an abundance of pure charm that had won him a lot of admirers. But he had only had eyes for her. They had been an item for nearly two years. He had met her father; had sat at the very bar downstairs, nursing a pint with him. He had been studying law and had possessed that peculiar surety of someone who has always known what road they intended to go down. His father was a retired judge, his mother a key barrister in London. They were all originally from Dublin, one of those families with textbook, aristocratic genealogy. They still kept a fabulous apartment in Dublin, but he had lived in London since he had been a child.

Looking back, Brianna could see that there had always been the unspoken assumption that she should consider herself lucky to have nabbed him, that a guy like him could have had any pretty girl on campus. At the time, though, she had walked around with her head in the clouds. She had actually thought that their relationship was built to last. Even now, years after the event, she could still taste the bitterness in her mouth when she remembered how it had all ended.

She had been swept off her feet on a post-graduation holiday in New Zealand, all expenses paid. She shuddered now when she thought back to the ease with which she had accepted his generosity. She had returned to Ireland only to discover that her father was seriously ill and, at that point, she had made the mistake of showing her hand. She had made the fatal error of assuming that Daniel would be right there by her side, supporting her through tough times.

‘Of course,’ he had told her, ‘There’s no way I can stay there with you. I have an internship due to start in London...’

She had understood. She had hoped for weekends. Her father would recover, she had insisted, choosing to misread the very clear messages the doctors had been giving her about his prognosis. And, when he did, she would join him in London. There would be loads of opportunities for her in the city and they would easily be able to afford a place to rent. There would be no need to rush to buy...not until they were ready really to seal their relationship. Plus, it would be a wonderful time for her finally to meet his family: the brother he spoke so much about, who did clever things in banking, and his kid sister who was at a boarding school in Gloucester. And of course his parents, who never seemed to be in one place for very long.

She had stupidly made assumptions about a future that had never been on the cards. They had been at university together and, hell, it had been a lot of fun. She was by far the fittest girl there. But a future together...?

The look of embarrassed, dawning horror on his face had said it all but still, like the young fool she had been, she had clung on and asked for explanations. The more he had been forced to explain, the cooler his voice had become. They were worlds apart; how could she seriously have thought that they would end up married? Wasn’t it enough that she had had an all-expenses-paid farewell holiday? He was expected to marry a certain type of woman...that was just the way it was...she should just stop clinging and move on...

She’d moved on but still a part of her had remained rooted to that moment in time. Why else had she made no effort to get her love life back on track?

The stranger’s unexpected arrival on the scene had opened Pandora’s box in her head and, much as she wanted to slam the lid back down, she remained lying in bed for far longer than she should, just thinking.

It was after eight by the time she made it down to the bar, belatedly remembering the strict times during which her guest could have his breakfast. As landladies went, she would definitely not be in the running for a five-star rating.

She came to a halt by the kitchen door when she discovered that Leo was already there, appearing to make himself at home. There was a cup of coffee in front of him, and his laptop, which he instantly closed the second he looked up and spied her hovering in the doorway, a bit like a guest on her own premises.

‘I hope you don’t mind me making myself at home,’ Leo said, pushing his chair back and folding his hands behind his head to look at her. ‘I’m an early riser and staying in bed wasn’t a tempting thought.’ He had been up since six, in fact, and had already accomplished a great deal of work, although less than he had anticipated, because for once he had found his mind wandering to the girl now dithering in front of him. Was it because he was so completely removed from his comfort zone that his brain was not functioning with the rigid discipline to which it was accustomed? Was that why he had fallen asleep thinking of those startling green eyes and had awakened less than five hours later with a painful erection?

He might be willing to exploit whatever she knew about his mother, if she knew anything at all, but he certainly wasn’t interested in progressing beyond that.

‘You’ve been working.’ Brianna smiled hesitantly. His impact on all her senses seemed as powerful in the clear light of day as it had been the night before. She galvanised herself into action and began unloading the dishwasher, stacking all the glasses to be returned to the bar outside; fetching things from the fridge so that she could make him the breakfast which was included in the money he had paid her.

‘I have. I find that I work best in the mornings.’

‘Have you managed to get anything down? I guess it must be quite an ordeal trying to get your imagination to do what you want it to do. Can I ask you what your book is going to be about? Or would you rather keep that to yourself?’

‘People and the way they interact.’ Leo hastened to get away from a topic in which he had no intention of becoming mired. The last time he had written anything that required the sort of imagination she was talking about had been at secondary school. ‘Do you usually get up this early?’

‘Earlier.’ She refilled his mug and began cracking eggs, only pausing when he told her to sit down and talk to him for a few minutes rather than rushing into making breakfast.

Brianna blushed and obeyed. Nerves threatened to overwhelm her. She sneaked a glance at him and all over again was rendered breathless by the sheer force of his good looks and peculiar magnetism. ‘There’s a lot to do when you run a pub.’ She launched into hurried speech to fill the silence. ‘And, like I said, I’m doing it all on my own, so I have no one to share the responsibility with.’

Leo, never one to indulge his curiosity when it came to women—and knowing very well that, whatever information he was interested in gathering, certainly had nothing to do with her so why waste time hearing her out?—was reluctantly intrigued. ‘A curious life you chose for yourself,’ he murmured.

‘I didn’t choose it. It chose me.’

‘Explain.’

‘Are you really interested?’

‘I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t,’ Leo said with a shrug. He had wondered whether she was really as pretty as he had imagined her to be. Subdued lighting in a pub could do flattering things to an average woman. He was discovering that his first impressions had been spot on. In fact, they had failed to do her justice. She had an ethereal, angelic beauty about her that drew the eye and compelled him to keep on staring. His eyes drifted slightly down to her breasts, small buds causing just the tiniest indentations in her unflattering, masculine jumper, which he guessed had belonged at one point to her father.

‘My dad died unexpectedly. Well, maybe there were signs before. I didn’t see them. I was at university, not getting back home as often as I knew I should, and Dad was never one to make a fuss when it came to his health.’ She was startled at the ease with which she confessed to the guilt that had haunted her ever since her father had died. She could feel the full brunt of Leo’s attention on her and it was as flattering as it was unnerving, not at all what she was accustomed to.

‘He left a lot of debts.’ She cleared her throat and blinked back the urge to cry. ‘I think things must have slipped as he became ill and he never told me. The bank manager was very understanding but I had to keep running the pub so that I could repay the debts. I couldn’t sell it, even though I tried for a while. There’s a good summer trade here. Lots of fantastic scenery. Fishing. Brilliant walks. But the trade is a little seasonal and, well, the economy isn’t great. I guess you’d know. You probably have to keep a firm rein on your finances if you’ve packed your job in...’

Leo flushed darkly and skirted around that ingenuous observation. ‘So you’ve been here ever since,’ he murmured. ‘And no partner around to share the burden?’

‘No.’ Brianna looked down quickly and then stood up. ‘I should get going with my chores. It’s snowing outside and it looks like it’s going to get worse, which usually means that the pub loses business, but just in case any hardy souls show up I can’t have it looking a mess.’

So, he thought, there had been a man and it had ended badly. He wondered who the guy was. Some losers only stuck by their women when the times were good. The second the winds of change began blowing, they ran for the hills. He felt an unexpected spurt of anger towards this mystery person who had consigned her to a life on her own of drudgery, running a pub to make ends meet and pay off bills. He reined back his unruly mind and reminded himself that his primary purpose wasn’t as counsellor but as information gatherer.

‘If you really meant it about helping—and I promise I won’t take advantage of your kind offer— you could try and clear a path through the snow, just in case it stops; at least my customers would be able to get to the door. It doesn’t look promising...’ She moved to one of the windows and frowned at the strengthening blizzard. ‘What do you intend to do if the weather doesn’t let up?’ She turned to face him.

‘It’ll let up. I can’t afford to stay here for very long.’

‘You could always incorporate a snow storm in your book.’

‘It’s a thought.’ He moved to stand next to her and at once he breathed in the fragrant, flowery smell of her hair which was, again, tied back in a pony tail. His fingers itched to release it, just to see how long it was, how thick. He noticed how she edged away slightly from him. ‘I’ll go see what I can do about the snow. You’ll have to show me where the equipment is.’

‘The equipment consists of a shovel and some bags of sand for gritting.’ She laughed, putting a little more distance between them, because just for a second there she had felt short of breath with him standing so close to her.

‘You do this yourself whenever it snows?’ he asked, once the shovel was in his hand and the door to the pub thrown open to the elements. He thought of his last girlfriend, a model who didn’t possess a pair of wellies to her name, and would only have gone near snow if it happened to be falling on a ski slope in Val d’Isere.

‘Only if it looks as though it would make a difference. There’ve been times when I’ve wasted two hours trying to clear a path, only to stand back and watch the snow cover it all up in two minutes. You can’t go out in those...er...jeans; you’ll be soaked through. I don’t suppose you brought any, um, waterproof clothing with you?’

Leo burst out laughing. ‘Believe it or not, I didn’t pack for a snow storm. The jeans will have to do. If they get soaked, they’ll dry in front of that open fire in the lounge area.’

He worked out. He was strong. And yet he found that battling with the elements was exercise of a completely different sort. This was not the sanitised comfort of his expensive gym, with perfectly oiled machinery that was supposed to test the body to its limits. This was raw nature and, by the time he looked at his handiwork, a meagre path already filling up with fast falling snow, an hour and a half had flown past.

He had no gloves. His hands were freezing. But hell, it was invigorating. In fact, he had completely forgotten the reason why he was in this Godforsaken village in the first place. His thoughts were purely and utterly focused on trying to outsmart and out-shovel the falling snow.

The landscape had turned completely white. The pub was set a distance from the main part of the village and was surrounded by open fields. Pausing to stand back, his arm resting heavily on the shovel which he had planted firmly in the ground, he felt that he was looking at infinity. It evoked the strangest sensation of peace and awe, quite different from the irritation he had felt the day before when he had stared moodily out of the window at the tedium of never-ending fields and cursed his decision to get there by car.

He stayed out another hour, determined not to be beaten, but in the end he admitted defeat and returned to the warmth of the pub, to find the fire blazing and the smell of food wafting from the kitchen.

‘I fought the snow...’ God, he felt like a caveman returning from a hard day out hunting. ‘And the snow won. Don’t bank on any customers today. Something smells good.’

‘I don’t normally do lunch for guests.’

‘You’ll be royally paid for your efforts.’ He stifled a surge of irritation that the one thing most women would have given their eye teeth to do for him was something she clearly had done because she had had no choice. She was stuck with him. She could hardly expect him to starve because lunch wasn’t included in the price of the room. ‘You were going to fill me in on the people who live around here.’ He reminded her coolly of the deal they had struck.

‘It’s not very exciting.’ She looked at him and her heartbeat quickened. ‘You’re going to have to change. You’re soaked through. If you give me your damp clothes, I can put them in front of the fire in the snug.’

‘The snug?’

‘My part of the house.’ She leaned back against the kitchen counter, hands behind her. ‘Self-contained quarters. Only small—two bedrooms, a little snug, a kitchen, bathroom and a study where Dad used to do all the accounts for the pub. It’s where I grew up. I can remember loving it when the place was full and I could roam through the guest quarters bringing them cups of tea and coffee. It used to get a lot busier in the boom days.’

She certainly looked happy recounting those jolly times but, as far as Leo was concerned, it sounded like just the sort of restricted life that would have driven him crazy.

And yet, this could have been his fate—living in this tiny place where everyone knew everyone else. In fact, he wouldn’t even have had the relative comforts of a village pub. He would probably have been dragged up in a hovel somewhere by the town junkie, because what other sort of loser gave away their own child? It was a sobering thought.

‘I could rustle up some of Dad’s old shirts for you. I kept quite a few for myself. I’ll leave them outside your bedroom door and you can hand me the jeans so that I can launder them.’

She hadn’t realised how lonely it was living above the pub on her own, making every single decision on her own, until she was rummaging through her wardrobe, picking out shirts and enjoying the thought of having someone to lend them to, someone sharing her space, even if it was only in the guise of a guest who had been temporarily blown off-path by inclement weather.

She warmed at the thought of him trying and failing to clear the path to the pub of snow. When she gently knocked on his bedroom door ten minutes later, she was carrying a bundle of flannel shirts and thermal long-sleeved vests. She would leave them outside the door, and indeed she was bending down to do just that when the door opened.

She looked sideways and blinked rapidly at the sight of bare ankles. Bare ankles and strong calves, with dark hair... Her eyes drifted further upwards to bare thighs...lean, muscular bare thighs. Her mouth went dry. She was still clutching the clothes to her chest, as if shielding herself from the visual invasion of his body on her senses. His semi-clad body.

‘Are these for me?’

Brianna snapped out of her trance and stared at him wordlessly.

‘The clothes?’ Leo arched an amused eyebrow as he took in her bright-red face and parted lips. ‘They’ll come in very handy. Naturally, you can put them on the tab.’

He was wearing boxers and nothing else. Brianna’s brain registered that as a belated postscript. Most of her brain was wrapped up with stunned, shocked appreciation of his body. Broad shoulders and powerful arms tapered down to a flat stomach and lean hips. He had had a quick shower, evidently, and one of the cheap, white hand towels was slung around his neck and hung over his shoulders. She felt faint.

‘I thought I’d get rid of the shirt as well,’ he said. ‘If you wouldn’t mind laundering the lot, I would be extremely grateful. I failed to make provisions for clearing snow.’

Brianna blinked, as gauche and confused as a teenager. She saw that he was dangling the laundry bag on one finger while looking at her with amusement.

Well of course he would be, she thought, bristling. Writer or not, he came from a big city and, yes, was ever so patronising about the smallness of their town. And here she was, playing into his hands, gaping as though she had never seen a naked man in her life before, as though he was the most interesting thing to have landed on her doorstep in a hundred years.

‘Well, perhaps you should have,’ she said tartly. ‘Only a fool would travel to this part of the world in the depths of winter and not come prepared for heavy snow.’ She snatched the laundry bag from him and thrust the armful of clothes at his chest in return.

‘Come again?’ Had she just called him a fool?

‘I haven’t got the time or the energy to launder your clothes every two seconds because you didn’t anticipate bad weather. In February. Here.’ Her eyes skirted nervously away from the aggressive width of his chest. ‘And I suggest,’ she continued tightly, ‘That you cover up. If I don’t have the time to launder your clothes, then I most certainly do not have the time to play nursemaid when you go down with flu!’

Leo was trying to think of the last time a woman had raised her voice in his presence. Or, come to think of it, said anything that was in any way inflammatory. It just didn’t happen. He didn’t know whether to be irritated, enraged or entertained.

‘Message understood loud and clear.’ He grinned and leaned against the doorframe. However serious the implications of this visit to the land that time forgot, he realised that he was enjoying himself. Right now, at this very moment, with this beautiful Irish girl standing in front of him, glaring and uncomfortable. ‘Fortunately, I’m as healthy as a horse. Can’t remember the last time I succumbed to flu. So you won’t have to pull out your nurse’s uniform and tend to me.’ Interesting notion, though... His dark eyes drifted over her lazily. ‘I’ll be down shortly. And my thanks once again for the clothes.’

Brianna was still hot and flustered when, half an hour later, he sauntered down to the kitchen. One of the tables in the bar area had been neatly set for one. ‘I hope you’re not expecting me to have lunch on my own,’ were his opening words, and she spun around from where she had been frowning into the pot of homemade soup.

Without giving her a chance to answer, he began searching for the crockery, giving a little grunt of satisfaction when he hit upon the right cupboard. ‘Remember we were going to...talk? You were going to tell me all about the people who live here so that I can get some useful fodder for my book.’ It seemed inconceivable that a budding author would simply up sticks and go on a rambling tour of Ireland in the hope of inspiration but, as excuses went, it had served its purpose, which was all that mattered. ‘And then, I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’m a man of my word.’

‘There won’t be much to do,’ Brianna admitted. ‘The snow’s not letting up. I’ve phoned Aidan and told him that the place will be closed until the weather improves.’

‘Aidan?’

‘One of my friends. He can be relied on to spread the word. Only my absolute regulars would even contemplate trudging out here in this weather.’

‘So...is Aidan the old would-be opera singer?’

‘Aidan is my age. We used to go to school together.’ She dished him out some soup, added some bread and offered him a glass of wine, which he rejected in favour of water.

‘And he’s the guy who broke your heart? No. He wouldn’t be. The guy who broke your heart has long since disappeared, hasn’t he?’

Brianna stiffened. She reminded herself that she was not having a cosy chat with a friend over lunch. This was a guest in her pub, a stranger who was passing through, no more. Confiding details of her private life was beyond the pale, quite different from chatting about all the amusing things that happened in a village where nearly everyone knew everyone else. Her personal life was not going to be fodder for a short story on life in a quaint Irish village.

‘I don’t recall telling you anything about my heart being broken, and I don’t think my private life is any of your business. I hope the soup is satisfactory.’

So that was a sore topic; there was no point in a follow-up. It was irrelevant to his business here. If he happened to be curious, then it was simply because he was in the unique situation of being pub-bound and snowed in with just her for company. In the absence of anyone else, it was only natural that she would spark an interest.

‘Why don’t you serve food? It would add a lot to the profits of a place like this. You’d be surprised how remote places can become packed if the food is good enough...’ He doubted the place had seen any changes in a very long time. Again, not his concern, he thought. ‘So, if you don’t want to talk about yourself, then that’s fair enough.’

‘Why don’t you talk about yourself? Are you married? Do you have children?’

‘If I were married and had children, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.’ Marriage? Children? He had never contemplated either. He pushed the empty soup bowl aside and sprawled on the chair, angling it so that he could stretch his legs out to one side. ‘Tell me about the old guy who likes to sing.’

‘What made you suddenly decide to pack in your job and write? It must have been a big deal, giving up steady work in favour of a gamble that might or might not pay off.’

Leo shrugged and told himself that, certainly in this instance, the ends would more than justify the means—and at any rate, there was no chance that she would discover his little lie. He would forever remain the enigmatic stranger who had passed through and collected a few amusing anecdotes on the way. She would be regaling her friends with this in a week’s time.

‘Sometimes life is all about taking chances,’ he murmured softly.

Brianna hadn’t taken a chance in such a long time that she had forgotten what it felt like. The last chance she had taken had been with Danny, and hadn’t that backfired spectacularly in her face? She had settled into a groove and had firmly convinced herself that it suited her. ‘Some people are braver than others when it comes to that sort of thing,’ she found herself muttering under her breath.

Leading remark, Leo thought. He had vast experience of women dangling titbits of information about themselves, offering them to him in the hope of securing his interest, an attempt to reel him in through his curiosity. However, for once his cynicism was absent. This woman knew nothing about him. He did not represent a rich, eligible bachelor. He was a struggling writer with no job. He had a glimpse of what it must feel like to communicate with a woman without undercurrents of suspicion that, whatever they wanted, at least part of it had to do with his limitless bank balance. He might have been adopted into a life of extreme privilege, and that privilege might have been his spring board to the dizzying heights of his success, but with that privilege and with that success had come drawbacks—one of which was an inborn mistrust of women and their motivations.

Right now, he was just communicating with a very beautiful and undeniably sexy woman and, hell, she was clueless about him. He smiled, enjoying the rare sense of freedom.

‘And you’re not one of the brave ones?’

Brianna stood up to clear the table. She had no idea where this sudden urge to confide was coming from. Was she bonding with him because, underneath those disconcerting good looks, he was a fellow artist? Because, on some weird level, he understood her? Or was she just one of those sad women, too young to be living a life of relative solitude, willing to confide in anyone who showed an interest?

Her head was buzzing. She felt hot and bothered and, when he reached out and circled her wrist with his hand, she froze in shock. The feel of his warm fingers on her skin was electrifying. She hadn’t had a response like this to a man in a very long time. It was a feeling of coming alive. She wanted to snatch her hand away from his and rub away where he had touched her... Yet she also wanted him to keep his fingers on her wrist; she wanted to prolong the warm, physical connection between them. She abruptly sat back down, because her legs felt like jelly, and he released her.

‘It’s hard to take chances when you have commitments,’ she muttered unsteadily. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his face. She literally felt as though he held her spellbound. ‘You’re on your own. You probably had sufficient money saved to just take off and do your own thing. I’m only now beginning to see the light financially and, even so, I still couldn’t just up and leave.’ She was leaning forward in the chair, leaning towards him as though he was the source of her energy. ‘I should get this place tidied up,’ she said agitatedly.

‘Why? I thought you said that the pub would be closed until further notice.’

‘Yes, but...’

‘You must get lonely here on your own.’

‘Of course I’m not lonely! I have too many friends to count!’

‘But I don’t suppose you have a lot of time to actually go out with them...’

Hot colour invaded her cheeks. No time to go out with them; no time even to pursue her art as a hobby. She hated the picture he was painting of her life. She was being made to feel as though she had sleepwalked into an existence of living from one day to the next, with each day being exactly the same. She dragged herself back to reality, back to the fact that he was just a budding writer on the hunt for some interesting material for his book. He wasn’t interested in her.

‘Will I be the sad spinster in your book?’ She laughed shakily and gathered herself together. ‘I think you’re better off with some of the more colourful characters who live here.’ She managed to get to her feet, driven by a need to put some distance between them. How could she let this one passing stranger get to her with such breath-taking speed? Lots of guys had come on to her over the years. Some of them she had known for ever, others had been friends of friends of friends. She had laughed and joked with all of them but she had never, not once, felt like this. Felt as though the air was being sucked out of her lungs every time she took a peek...as though she was being injected with adrenaline every time she came too close.

She busied herself tidying, urging him to sit rather than help. Her flustered brain screeched to a halt when she imagined them standing side by side at the kitchen sink.

She launched into nervous conversation, chattering mindlessly about the last time a snow storm had hit the village, forcing herself to relax as she recounted stories of all the things that could happen to people who were snow bound for days on end, occasionally as long as a fortnight: the baby delivered by one panicked father; the rowdy rugby group who had been forced to spend two nights in the pub; the community spirit when they had all had to help each other out; the food that Seamus Riley had had to lift by rope into his bedroom because he hadn’t been able to get past his front door.

Leo listened politely. He really ought to be paying a bit more attention, but he was captivated by the graceful movement of her tall, slender body as she moved from counter to counter, picking things up, putting things away, making sure not to look at him.

‘In fact, we all do our bit when the weather turns really bad,’ she was saying now as she turned briefly in his direction. ‘I don’t suppose you have much of that in London.’

‘None,’ Leo murmured absently. Her little breasts pointed against the jumper and he wondered whether she was wearing a bra; a sensible, white cotton bra. He never imagined the thought of a sensible, white cotton bra could be such an illicit turn-on.

He was so absorbed in the surprising disobedience of his imagination that he almost missed the name that briefly passed her lips and, when it registered, he stiffened and felt his pulses quicken.

‘Sorry,’ he grated, straightening. ‘I missed that...particular anecdote.’ He kept his voice as casual as possible but he was tense and vigilant as he waited for her to repeat what she had been saying, what he had stupidly missed because he had been too busy getting distracted, too busy missing the point of why he was stuck here in the first place.

‘I was just telling you about what it’s like here—we help each other out. I was telling you about my friend who lives in the village. Bridget McGuire...’

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