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Never in his life had Leo put this much effort into one woman.
And never in his life had he had so many cold showers. From having given no thought whatsoever to settling down, far less having a child, he now seemed fixated by the baby growing inside her and, the more fixated he became, the more determined he was that she would marry him. He was turned on by everything about her. Turned on by the way she moved, the way she looked at him, by all her little gestures that seemed ingrained inside his head so that, even when she wasn’t around, he was thinking about her constantly.
Was it a case of the inaccessible becoming more and more desirable? Was it because she was now carrying his baby that his body seemed to be on fire for her all the time? Or was it just that he hadn’t stopped wanting her because it had been a highly physical relationship that had not been given the opportunity of dying a natural death?
He didn’t know and he didn’t bother analysing it. He just knew that he still wanted her more than he could remember wanting anyone. He wanted her to be his. The thought of some other man stepping into his shoes, doing clever things behind the bar of the pub and having a say in his child’s welfare, made him grit his teeth together in impotent rage.
The estate agent, a simpering woman in her thirties, was saying something about the number of bedrooms and Leo scowled.
‘How many?’
‘Eight! Perfect for having the family over!’
‘Too many. And I can look at it from here and see straight away that it would be far too big for the person I have in mind.’
‘Perhaps the lucky lady would like to pop along and have a look for herself? It’s really rather grand inside...’
Leo flinched at the word ‘grand’. He pictured Brianna wiping the bar with a cloth, standing back in her old jeans and sloppy jumper to survey her handiwork, before retiring to the comfy sofa in the lounge which had been with her practically since she’d been a kid. She wouldn’t have a clue what to do with ‘grand’ and he had a gut feeling that if he settled on anything like this she would end up blaming him.
How, he thought as house number nine bit the dust, had he managed to end up with the one woman in the world to whom a marriage proposal was an insult and who was determined to fight him every inch of the way? Even though the air sizzled between them with a raw, elemental electricity that neither of them could deny.
But at least he had managed to get her to London. It was a comforting thought as his Ferrari ate up the miles back to the city centre and his penthouse apartment.
He had appealed to her sense of fairness. He wanted to be there while she was pregnant and what better way than for her to move to London? No need to live in his apartment. He would find somewhere else for her, somewhere less central. It would be great for Bridget as well. Indeed, it would be a blessing in disguise, for Bridget was tiring of the concrete jungle of inner London. She was back on her feet, albeit in a restricted way, and the constant crowds terrified her. They could share something small but cosy in West London. He would personally see to it that a manager was located for the pub...
She had acquiesced. That had been ten days ago and, although he had made sure to visit them both every evening after work, he had ostensibly dropped all mention of marriage.
That aggressive need to conquer had been forced into retreat and he was now playing a waiting game. He wasn’t sure what would happen if that waiting game didn’t work and he preferred not to dwell on that. Instead, he phoned his secretary and found out what other gems were available on the property market in picturesque Berkshire.
‘Too impressive,’ he told her about his last failed viewing. It was added to all the other too ‘something or other’ that had characterised the last eight viewings, all of which had come to nothing. He laughed when she suggested that he send someone in his place to at least narrow the possibilities.
He couldn’t imagine anyone he knew having the slightest idea as to what to look for when it came to Brianna. They were people who only knew a London crowd, socialites for whom there could be nothing that could ever be too grand.
‘Find me some more properties.’ He concluded his conversation with his long-suffering PA. ‘And forget about the marble bathrooms and indoor swimming pools. Go smaller.’
He hung up. It wasn’t yet two-thirty in the afternoon. He had never taken this much time off work in his life before. Except for when he had voluntarily marooned himself at Brianna’s pub. And yet, he was driven to continue his search. Work, meetings and deals would just have to take a back seat.
His secretary called him on his mobile just as he was leaving the M25, heading into London.
