AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Did you think up the design?’
‘Yes.’ She lowered her eyes and was aware of her laboured breathing. Her heart was beating like a sledgehammer and she folded her arms and took a step back. ‘Edith wanted something a little more severe, but I managed to persuade her otherwise. She didn’t have the figure for the style she was after and as soon as she saw what I had in mind, she was thrilled.’ She shot him a look from under her lashes, expecting boredom and finding interest.
‘I know Julie loved what you did.’
‘Even though she won’t be wearing it,’ Celia muttered, brought back to reality after that short breathless moment when time seemed to have done weird things as he’d gazed down at her. ‘Perhaps we could continue this conversation in the kitchen... Mr...er... Leandro. You can tell me what you’re doing here and then you can be on your way.’
‘Plans for the evening?’ Leandro asked conversationally as she spun round on her heel and began heading out of the room, making sure, he noted, to firmly shut the door to her study behind her.
Celia was very glad he couldn’t see her face as she shrugged, her back to him, and casually told him that it had been a long week.
‘So...’
‘Coffee would be good. Black. No sugar. I told Julie’s father about the development with your brother. He’d been as much in the dark about what was happening as I was when I showed up at your shop two days ago. I thought it was only fair that he not cling to any unrealistic hopes about last-minute nerves. The last thing I wanted was for him to be under any illusions that Julie might materialise out of thin air just in the nick of time.’
Celia looked at him in silence, her head tilted thoughtfully to one side.
‘You love him, don’t you?’
‘Love isn’t a word that exists in my vocabulary.’ Leandro flushed darkly and looked away. ‘But yes, I happen to be very fond of him.’
‘What did he say?’Why was love a word that didn’t exist in his vocabulary?
‘That’s the problem.’ Leandro waited until there was a mug of coffee in front of him, waited until she was sitting opposite him, waited until the silence started to become borderline oppressive. She didn’t try and hurry him into an explanation, for which he was grateful because he was still processing the situation himself. ‘Yesterday I received a call that Charles has been admitted to hospital with a stroke.’
He looked away. Celia saw the tic beating in his tightly clenched jaw and the rigid stillness of his posture and she reached out to place her hand gently on his arm.
‘It’s not your fault. I mean, for telling him.’
Their eyes met as he firmly pulled his arm out of reach.
‘I don’t believe I said anything about it being my fault, did I?’ But he rose to his feet to restlessly pace the kitchen before sitting back down.
‘No, you didn’t,’ Celia murmured.
‘I’ve come because I need to tell Julie what’s happening, and I need to try and persuade her to revise whatever plans she’s making with your brother. Or at least to work with me at finding a place where she can temper the truth for the sake of her father’s health. I... I judge that it would be a more successful trip if you were there with me to likewise talk to your brother.’
‘You want me to...’
‘Come to Scotland with me. It would be a matter of a night or two, at the very most.’
‘No!’
‘I would make it worth your while financially.’
‘Do you honestly think that you can get whatever you want by throwing money around?’
Leandro shot her a thin smile. ‘You’d be shocked at how often it works.’
‘Absolutely not!’ She fidgeted in the chair, stood up, walked towards the kitchen window to peer out at the tiny darkened back patio overlooked by a bank of houses just beyond the border of her fence. When she swung back round to face him, it was to find his eyes pinned to her with a mixture of strange hesitancy and reluctant resignation.
‘There’s more to it than that,’ he said quietly. ‘Of course, it’s vitally important that Julie know about her father’s state of health, vitally important that he doesn’t have any continued stress that might exacerbate his situation...and perhaps you’ll change your mind about Scotland when I tell you what my marriage to Julie was really all about...’
