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The interest in her voice pleased him.
‘Because,’ she went on quickly, the flush on her cheeks betraying the fact that she’d realised her slip, ‘if you do, then you should have said. I could have pointed you in the direction of a whole different selection of face products.’
Leo glanced down at her. She was tall. Much taller than the women he was fond of dating. ‘Alas, that’s a position that’s waiting to be filled,’ he murmured. ‘And it has to be said that, as presents go, anti-wrinkle, anti-ageing face cream wouldn’t make a good one for any of the women I’ve ever dated in the past. So, what is your name?’
‘Madison.’ She kept her eyes professionally forward as the escalator took them up one floor and then the next, up to the second floor, where any visible effort at revitalisation had been abandoned. Here, the décor begged to be revamped and the displays craved some sort of creative, modern overhaul.
‘Madison...?’
‘But everyone calls me Maddie. We’re here.’
She began walking towards the back of the floor while Leo took his time strolling slightly behind her, taking in the store’s rundown appearance. He was surprised spiders weren’t weaving cobwebs between the dated merchandise—although he had to concede the sales assistants they passed were all wearing cheerful smiles.
Attention distracted, he glanced at the arrangement of souvenirs, all bearing the Gallologo. Absently he toyed with a canvas bag, and then he looked at her seriously.
‘You’re not Irish.’ He dropped the bag and it dangled forlornly on its rack.
‘No. Well, not exactly.’
Maddie looked at him and felt her insides swoop. Even standing at a respectable distance away from her, he still seemed to invade her personal space. He was so...big...and his presence was so...suffocatingly powerful. Curiosity gripped her, and she wondered who exactly he was and what he did.
Where did he live? Why would a man like this be dawdling on a Saturday morning in this particular department store?
Alarmed, she cleared her throat, but for some reason found herself unable to drag her eyes away from his stunningly beautiful face. ‘Australia. I’m Australian.’
‘You’ve come from the other side of the world to work here?’
‘Are you always so...so rude... Mr...? I don’t even know your name!’
‘You mean just in case you want to complain about me to your boss? My name is Leo. Shall we shake hands and make the introductions formal?’
Maddie stuck her hands firmly behind her back and glowered. ‘I feel I can speak on behalf of my boss when I say that it’s always useful to hear constructive criticism about the store, but your criticism isn’t at all constructive, Mr... Mr...’
‘Leo.’
She glanced around her and winced slightly at what she saw. ‘I believe,’ she said carefully, ‘that the owner of the store passed away a short time ago. I don’t think much has been done in terms of modernisation in recent years.’
‘I have some experience of the retail market,’ Leo said absently, his eyes still wandering over the shelves and wares around them.
Suddenly those eyes were back on hers and a smile tugged at his lips.
‘This isn’t a dinner invitation, but I see that there’s a coffee shop on this floor. If you’d find it helpful, I could give you a few pearls of wisdom...’
‘You’ve run a department store in the past?’
Leo grinned, his deep blue eyes lazy and amused. ‘I wouldn’t quite put it like that...’
‘I get it.’
Maddie knew all about doing menial jobs to earn a living. She also knew all about the way people could look at someone attractive and misconstrue their place in the great pecking order. She didn’t look like someone who should be mopping floors in a hospital on the outskirts of Sydney. If she had, her life would never have ended up taking the unfortunate twists and turns that it had.
She met his direct gaze and smiled.
That smile knocked Leo sideways. Just like that he wanted to drag her away from the tasteless display of goods, pull her into the nearest cupboard and get underneath that prim and proper clinical white get-up that wouldn’t have gone amiss on a dental assistant. He wanted to kiss her raspberry-pink lips, crush them under his mouth, feel her tongue lashing against his, and then slowly, bit by bit, he wanted to get up close and personal with her body.
He suppressed a groan. She was still smiling, and his erection was getting more rigid by the second. He had to look away to catch his breath and focus on something innocuous. A stack of Gallo-label tea towels did the trick.
‘You do?’
‘I can understand. I’ve had lots of menial jobs in the past. Trust me—it’s heavenly being here.’ Maddie said it with the utmost sincerity.
Somehow they were walking away from the souvenir section towards the café.
Leo turned to her, his fingers hooking in the waistband of his low slung faded jeans.
‘I’m thinking you’ll probably get in trouble with the boss if you take time out to have a coffee with me.’
‘I expect I might.’
The fierce antagonism that had filled her when she’d thought he was after her seemed to have evaporated. Somehow he’d managed to put her at ease. And Maddie wasn’t sure whether to be alarmed at that development or happy about it.
Ever since Adam she’d made a habit of practically crossing the road to the other side of the street every time she spotted a man heading in her direction. Events had conspired to turn her social life, sparse as it had been, into a no-go zone. Men had been the first casualty of her experience with Adam and friends had fast followed, because her trust had been broken down to the point where it had all but disappeared.
But should she allow those experiences to follow her all the way to the other side of the world?
This was going to be her new home, and the last thing she wanted to do was to commence life in her new home as a crazy lady recluse.
Yes, warning bells had sounded when she’d first met Leo. But he wasn’t rich, and as soon as she’d told him to back off he’d backed off. He wasn’t from the area. He wasn’t going to be around. He was also happy to talk to her about the store, and she could use a little impartial advice—even though he wouldn’t know the reasons behind her wanting to hear what he had to say.
Sometimes nomads and wanderers—people who fell in and out of jobs—picked up life lessons along the way, and the very fact that they were streetwise gave them an added insight into life. Taking the path of adventure, untethered by the ropes that held most people down, brought its own rewards.
And, my word, was the man sexy...
She looked at him, every nerve-ending in her body tingling as he settled his fabulous eyes on her and allowed the silence between them to stretch to breaking point.
‘How long are you going to be in this lovely city?’ Maddie asked a little breathlessly, and Leo shrugged.
‘Perhaps not even overnight,’ he mused, harking back to his original plan and marvelling at the speed with which it had changed course along the way. Just as well as he was a man who could think on his feet and adapt.
At any rate, he’d probably seen everything there was to see with regard to the condition of the store, short of tapping on walls and peering into cupboards. He knew enough to settle the thorny matter of how much he should offer for the place and how fast he should move. He presumed the boss was ready to throw the towel in.
But that wasn’t what was putting a smile on his face at the moment.
‘It might be nice to...er...to have dinner with you.’ Maddie blushed and glanced away.
‘May I ask what’s prompted the change of heart?’ Leo asked wryly. ‘Five minutes ago I was the devil incarnate for suggesting any such thing.’
‘I...’ Maddie took a deep breath. ‘I haven’t been in Ireland long, and it would be...nice to have some company for a couple of hours. I’ve more or less stayed in on my own for the past few weeks.’
With her looks, Leo mused, solitude would have to be her chosen option—because she’d only have to step foot out of her front door and company would be available in any direction she chose to look.
But then that probably wasn’t the sort of company she had in mind. The sort of company that came with strings attached. The sort of company she had assumed he’d been offering—and, frankly, her assumptions had been dead-on.
Leo wasn’t surprised that her looks had made her wary of the attention she got—had made her guarded and cynical about what men wanted from her. It wasn’t that different from the way his vast wealth had made him guarded and cynical when it came to the opposite sex.
He wasn’t looking for commitment and he didn’t do declarations of love. He enjoyed impermanence when it came to women.
Leo didn’t know whether he might have gone down the normal route of marriage, two point two kids and a house in the country—or in his case several houses in several countries—if bitter experience hadn’t taught him the value of steering clear of relationships.
His grandparents had been very happily married. His parents, he had been told, had likewise been very happily married—indeed, had been on something of a second honeymoon when a lorry, going too fast in bad weather, had slammed into their little Fiat and crushed it.
He had not been blighted by poor childhood memories or affected by warring parents or evil stepmothers. Alcohol, drug abuse and infidelity had been conspicuously and thankfully absent from his life. His cautionary tales stemmed from an altogether different source.
He shrugged aside this lapse in concentration as well as any niggling of his conscience, by reminding himself that he was as honourable as they came, because he was always, always upfront in his relationships. He told it like it was.
Sex and fun, but no cosy nights in front of the telly, no meeting the parents.
That said, he was a one-woman man, and any woman he dated would have all of him—if only for a limited amount of time. Largely, he was the one who usually called it a day, but he was perfectly happy if it were the other way around. He was the least possessive man he knew and he liked it that way.
He looked at Maddie in silence for a little while. She’d rebuffed him first time around, and he was sharp enough to pick up that little comment about how it would ‘be nice to have company for a couple of hours’.
‘Tell me where you live,’ he drawled. ‘I’ll pick you up.’
‘You have a car?’
‘I have a fleet of them,’ he said, which was the absolute truth. ‘Of course they’re garaged in London—which is where, incidentally, I have my penthouse apartment—but if you tell me which make you’d prefer, I’ll make sure it’s delivered to me in time to collect you later. So, what’s it to be? Ferrari? Range Rover? BMW? Or maybe something classic like an Aston Martin...?’
Maddie burst out laughing. The guy had a sense of humour and she liked that. She hadn’t laughed for a long time, but now she was laughing so hard that tears came to her eyes.
Finally, sobering up, she said, still smiling, ‘I’ll meet you somewhere. I think there are some cheap and cheerful restaurants we could go to...’
‘I’ll give you my number. Text me. I’ll meet you there at...what? Seven? What time does this place close?’
‘Seven would be great. Now, really, I have to go...’
‘One last thing...’ Leo looked at her seriously. ‘You need not fear that I’ll make a pest of myself. I won’t.’
Maddie reddened and an errant thought flashed through her head,
What would it be like if you were to make a pest of yourself...?
‘Good,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘Because I’ve a lot going on in my life at the moment and the last thing I need is...is...’
‘Fending off a nuisance?’
‘I was going to say that the last thing I need is a relationship.’
At which Leo was the one to burst out laughing. He looked at her with his midnight-blue eyes, ‘Trust me—relationships don’t ever feature on my agenda. See you later, Maddie.’
And he was gone, leaving her standing as still as a statue, even though inside her everything was weirdly mushy, as though she’d just stepped off a death-defying rollercoaster ride and was struggling to get her bearings.
She spent the remainder of the day in a state of low-level excitement. She told herself that this wasn’t a date. Not really. This was dinner with someone who’d made her laugh—because the alternative was yet another night in, going through the mountains of paperwork her solicitor had left for her, trying to work out the best approach to take when she went to see the bank manager for a loan the following week.
She was twenty-four years old! Where was the harm in acting her age? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt young, and the tall, dark, handsome stranger had made her feel young.
And he wasn’t going to be sticking around.
By seven that evening, as she stood outside the cheap Italian restaurant where they’d arranged to meet, the nerves which had abated at some point during the day were back in full swing.
She smoothed down the front of her shirt. No one could accuse her of dressing to impress. She was in a pair of ripped jeans, some flat navy ballet pumps and a tee shirt that was a little tighter than she liked and a little shorter than she might have wanted, exposing a sliver of flat brown skin. It, like the jeans, was faded and worn.
She’d had a brief flirtation with designer dressing. Adam had liked to see her in expensive gear and, much against her will, he had encouraged her into wearing clothes that he’d bought for her—expensive, slinky silk outfits and high, high designer heels.
He’d enjoyed the way everyone’s heads had turned whenever she’d stalked into a room and Maddie had gone along with it, albeit reluctantly, because she’d loved him and had wanted to please him.
She’d sent the entire lot back to his flash apartment when their relationship had crashed and burned, and had promptly returned to the sorts of clothes she’d always felt comfortable in.
Leo, at least, would appreciate her choice of clothing, since they came from the same side of the tracks.
Feeling more buoyant, she pushed open the door to the trattoria and looked around, hoping she’d arrived before he had because then she could have a drink to steady her nerves, and also hoping that she hadn’t, because to arrive early might suggest that she was desperate for male company. More than that—desperate for his company.
Nursing a drink at the very back of the restaurant, Leo had spotted her immediately. How could he not? The entire restaurant had spotted her at roughly the same time. Every male head swung round. Mouths fell open. In fairness to her, she didn’t seem to notice any of this as she peered around her, squinting into the semi-lit depths of the trattoria, which was noisy, packed and uncomfortable.
In a room full of pale faces her honeyed tan stood out, as did her hair, flowing in a wavy mane over narrow shoulders almost down to her waist. Leo half stood and she walked towards him, weaving a path through the crowds until she was right in front of him.
‘Been here before?’ he asked, and when she shook her head he nodded and scanned the room. ‘Do you think we’ll be able to have a conversation or should we resign ourselves to shouting?’
‘It’s cheap and cheerful. And I hear that the food’s good.’
She slipped into a chair and tried not to drink in his masculine beauty. She’d just about managed to convince herself that he couldn’t possibly be as striking as she remembered, but he was even more so. He radiated a dynamism that made her shiver with awareness, and his exotic colouring only added to the potent appeal of his good looks.
Very quickly Maddie had a glass of wine to calm her nerves, even though common sense told her there was nothing to be nervous about.
Certainly he was sticking to the script. If his original dinner invitation had set her antennae onto red alert, actually being here with him was doing the opposite, dispelling any misgivings she might have been harbouring about his intentions.
He was charm itself. He chatted about the many countries he had visited—which made sense because he was obviously a guy who lived for the present and absorbed whatever adventures life had to offer. It was something she really admired. He was witty and insightful, and she found herself laughing out loud at some of his anecdotes, barely noticing the antipasti he had ordered for them to share.
‘I envy you,’ she said truthfully as plates were cleared, glasses refilled and bowls of pasta placed in front of them. ‘I’ve never got to travel. I would have loved to, but my mum and I barely had enough to make ends meet and we would never have been able to afford it. I guess it’s a lot easier when you only have yourself to consider, and I suppose you could always pick up jobs here and there to pay your way...’
‘I do try and get myself an honest day’s work when I’m abroad,’ he said, almost uncomfortably. ‘Tell me why you’ve run away from Australia.’
The abrupt change in the conversation caught Maddie off-guard and she stiffened—her natural response whenever she thought about her past. What would this complete stranger think were she to tell him the truth? He might be an adventurer, living off the land and shunning responsibility, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be judgemental if she were to share her story with him.
The whole of her story.
Maddie found that she didn’t want him to think badly of her. ‘Whoever said anything about running away?’ she hedged lightly, winding long strands of spaghetti around her fork and avoiding eye contact.
Leo raised his eyebrows wryly. He sat back and gave her the benefit of his full attention, which was enough to make her blush furiously.
