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‘If you dislike me so much, why do you still want to...sleep with me? How can you sleep with someone you dislike?’

‘Do you have to ask that?’ Leandro questioned roughly. ‘Aren’t we in the same boat? Driven by the same urges that haven’t gone away? Or are you telling me that you have feelings for me? Because, if that’s the case, then I should be clear right now and tell you that, sex or no sex, this is about wiping the slate clean and nothing more.’

Abigail resisted the urge to tell him that he was crazy if he thought that she wanted to talk to him because she had come round to his way of thinking, but then that would lead to all sorts of questions, and eventually to the conversation she knew would have to take place, but not in the back seat of his chauffeur-driven car.

‘I don’t have feelings for you, Leandro.’ She stuck her chin out at a defiant angle. ‘How could I?’

‘Well, at least we’re agreed on that score. I expect this conversation you want to have is to do with the terms and conditions of any liaison we enter into?’

‘Yes, but not in the way you imagine,’ Abigail told him truthfully.

Leandro shot her a half-smile. ‘I’m a big boy, Abigail, and too experienced to be surprised by anything. Terms and conditions are a good thing in this situation.’

‘Are they?’ She was pretty sure that, firstly, he wasn’t too experienced to be surprised by anything and, secondly, the terms and conditions she had in mind would take him so far out of his comfort zone that describing them as a good thing would be the last thing he’d do when she was done talking.

Done telling him what she’d never envisaged telling him. She should be scared stiff, but she felt very, very calm as the car continued to eat up the miles to the café. Sam was nearly one. She’d had months of motherhood and she felt much stronger than she had during those tumultuous months of pregnancy. Then afterwards, when she had held her new-born baby in her arms, she’d been torn between marvelling at the miracle of life looking at her with unfocused big, black eyes, and sickly wondering how on earth she was ever going to cope.

‘Of course they are,’ Leandro murmured, tilting her chin so that she was looking at him and actually seeing him instead of staring off into the distance, almost as if he no longer existed. ‘I like terms and conditions. They’re practical. They help keep things on an essential business level.’

Abigail’s breathing quickened. His touch electrified her and that wasn’t going to do. She wrested herself away but the blood had rushed into her face. ‘If you’ll give me a minute, I have to make a call before we get there.’

‘We’ll be there in under twenty minutes. What’s the big rush?’

‘I have a friend staying with me and I need to get in touch with her.’

‘Friend? What friend?’ His eyes narrowed and he shifted impatiently.

‘My friend Claire is at home.’ Abigail was already dialling. She’d planned to wait for a snatched moment when Leandro was otherwise occupied to make this call, but what did it matter now? Still, she kept the conversation brief, merely informing her friend that she would be home soon and thanking her for helping out.

‘Helping out with what?’ Leandro stared at her, frowning. Curiosity about her wasn’t part of the deal and yet he was curious. Hushed conversations, he reasoned, had that effect on a person.

Abigail chose to ignore that because he would find out soon enough. ‘I won’t be able to hang around for long,’ she said instead.

Leandro scowled at the brush-off but he decided to let it go. ‘Nor will I,’ he informed her. ‘This whole sorry mess has screwed up my schedule. It might be Sunday but I’ve had to cancel several conference calls.’

Abigail felt a pang of sympathy for the woman who had now been reduced to the creator of a sorry mess that had put his work schedule out of sync.

She glanced through the window to find that they were already in North London, and it wasn’t long before the car was pulling to a stop in front of the café, disgorging them both into damp cold and the onset of a fine, grey drizzle.

Her stomach clenched into knots as they found a table. She’d thought that it might have been busy but in fact the little chi-chi café, usually packed with yummy mummies or nannies with their little charges, was relatively empty.

‘So...’ Leandro wondered if she could look any more nervous. Should he help her out with the ‘terms and conditions’ chit-chat? Maybe ease the path by talking about his generosity as a lover? Clear the way for her to ask him what she wanted? Maybe not. ‘Let’s cut to the chase. Tell me what you wanted to talk to me about.’

They’d ordered coffees and these had now been brought to them, along with a selection of pastries, which she looked at without touching. He had no such qualms, breaking a croissant and looking at her steadily as he ate.

‘Do you remember the time we went to that lake?’

Leandro paused mid-bite and gently replaced the croissant on his plate. He sat back, his big body loosely relaxed and yet tellingly still. He had no idea where this was going and that, in itself, wasn’t working for him. He also didn’t like the way she was fidgeting, playing with the rim of her cup and studiously avoiding his eyes.

‘I remember,’ he said abruptly. ‘Five days in a little cabin by a lake just outside Toronto. Why do you ask? Trip down memory lane? I thought we’d agreed that there was no profit in going there.’

Abigail looked at him without any outward sign of the nervousness tearing her up inside. His lean, handsome face was closed and she knew that he would be annoyed because this was not what he had been expecting to hear. ‘Something happened there, Leandro,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you remember?’

Leandro shook his head and raked his fingers impatiently through his hair. ‘Are you going to carry on speaking in riddles, Abigail? Because I haven’t come here to play guessing games with you.’

‘We made love by the lake. Do you remember?’ Her voice had grown wistful without her realising it. ‘It was really warm and we’d been lying out on the jetty with a picnic lunch and a bottle of wine and we...we made love right there, out in the open.’

Leandro remembered it all. In fact, it had been the first time he had really felt as though he’d been on holiday, and he’d never felt so relaxed in his life before. Unfortunately, there was always a serpent lurking in paradise, and he wasn’t going to be sucked into dwelling on a memory that didn’t deserve an airing considering the revelations that had come later.