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His silence in response to a defiant answer shook Maribel rigid, but she didn’t quarrel with the reprieve. She hurried away to get dressed. Keen to avoid Leonidas, she even painted her nails to use up more time. Only when she heard Ginny’s car pulling up outside did she hasten downstairs to answer the door.
As Maribel reappeared Leonidas glanced up and, in ten seconds flat, minutely catalogued the amount of effort Maribel had made to prepare for her outing. Much more effort than she had ever made for his benefit, he decided, lethal antagonism building on the anger still seething below his unemotional surface. In fact, she had gone to town on her appearance: perfume, chestnut hair straightened into a smooth fall round her pale pink luscious mouth, a pastel girlie top, peach-tinted nails, shapely legs on view in a swirly skirt, sexy high heels.
‘This is Ginny Bell, my friend and neighbour who will be looking after Elias while I’m out. Ginny, this is Leonidas Pallis.’
Only when Maribel spoke did Leonidas take note of the woman who had followed her into the room. He rose silently up to his full height. The dark-haired older woman by Maribel’s side was staring at him as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. Agitated as a jumping bean, Maribel watched Leonidas switch on his effortless social charm and wondered anxiously why he had gone so quiet with her earlier. If he was displeased, quietness was in no way typical of Leonidas. Ginny was bowled over by him, couldn’t hide the fact and chattered. Leonidas soon established that Maribel was attending a wedding party and was expected home late, so Ginny was staying the night. His mood was not improved by that information, or by the enthusiasm with which Maribel rushed outside before her date could even get his car door open and put in an appearance.
When Leonidas left five minutes after Maribel’s speedy departure, rage was sitting like a hard black stone at the heart of him and consuming more of his thoughts with every second that passed. As he headed back to the helicopter Vasos called him on his mobile. His bodyguards, who had watched the farmhouse while he was inside, converged on him.
‘I’ve had a tip-off,’ his security chief told him. ‘A tabloid newspaper has a lead on Dr Greenaway and the child. You have the connections to kill the story at this stage.’
Shrewd intelligence glittered in Leonidas’ hard dark eyes. He pictured the farmhouse under siege by the paparazzi. The press would go crazy: A SECRET HEIR TO THE PALLIS BILLIONS? There would be no place to hide from the storm of publicity and speculation. Maribel would need his help to handle that attention. She would also need somewhere to stay, for there was no way that she could be adequately protected in her current location. Before she knew where she was, she would be putting down roots at Heyward Park, alongside Elias and Mouse and the moth-eaten poultry collection. Satisfaction at that prospect lifted the chilling shadow from his lean, strong face.
‘I don’t want the story killed.’
‘You don’t?’ Vasos was startled, as he was well-acquainted with his employer’s loathing for the endless press coverage of his private life.
‘We’ll use the same source to feed back certain facts. I’ll sue if there’s any hint of sleaze. Dr Greenaway and my son will also require surveillance and protection from this moment on.’ Having referred for the first time to Elias as his son, Leonidas slid his phone back in his pocket. He knew he was being a bastard. But Maribel would never find out. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. All that mattered was the bottom line.
In the early hours of the following morning, Maribel slid her shoes off her aching feet, locked up and crept upstairs as quietly as she could.
Tired and disheartened, she acknowledged that she had faked her every smile with Sloan. From the moment Leonidas had arrived and stolen her attention, her chances of having a good time with Sloan had gone downhill fast. She hated herself for the fact. But the relentless pull of Leonidas’ attraction had broken through her barriers again.
As she got into bed she reflected that Imogen had never got over Leonidas either and losing the entrée to his exclusive world had devastated her. Only near the end of her cousin’s life had Maribel learned that it was Leonidas who had persuaded Imogen to enter rehab; not only had he paid for it, but he’d also settled all her debts at the same time. Only after Imogen had twice abandoned her treatment programme had Leonidas stopped returning her calls.
His grim reserve on the day when Imogen had been buried had warned Maribel that he was finding the occasion a trial. That was the day when she had finally realised that she was surprisingly good at reading Leonidas, who struck other people as utterly unfathomable. At the funeral, she had also noticed his aversion to sycophantic strangers and the women trying to chat him up. He had spoken to her several times while assiduously ignoring everyone else.
