Page 37 of The Secret Sanchez Heir
‘She came in a car,’ Leandro said drily, ‘and there’s no reason why she can’t return in it—although my driver brought me here, so I’ve had him deliver her back down and leave my car here.’ He stood where he was, hands in his pockets, his dark, beautiful face revealing precious little.
He looked away briefly, and when he raked his fingers through his hair she finally identified that unrevealing expression on his face for what it was. Discomfort. Since she had never seen him out of his depth, that was a piercing cause for concern, and suddenly all the doubts and insecurities she had nurtured under the surface rose to the top, clamouring to be heard.
Heart in her mouth, she cleared her throat and said quietly, ‘I think we should have a chat. I’m not sure what your sister told you, Leandro, but she did tell me what you said to her about... Well, put it this way, about your heart not being in making this relationship work, and it’s no big deal.’
‘It’s not?’
‘It’s nothing that I didn’t know, and I want you to know that I really appreciate the effort you’ve made in trying to stay together for Sam’s sake. It was never going to happen, of course,’ she said ruefully, lowering her eyes. ‘You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole, which is what we have been trying to do. I’m sure you’ll agree with me.’
She looked at him and flushed because he was staring at her with such a curious look of hesitancy that she didn’t know whether to carry on in the same vein, shift course or bolt for the back door.
She did none of those things. Instead, she plastered a smile on her face and prompted, ‘Well? Say something, Leandro. Because Sam is going to be up soon and if we have to have this talk then this is the best time to have it...’
CHAPTER TEN
‘I HAD NO idea that Cecilia was going to show up at my apartment today. At least, not without warning.’
‘But you spoke to her on the phone.’ Abigail restively stood up and began heading into the cottage, because outside was for relaxing and she wasn’t feeling relaxed. She was aware of Leandro following her. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. ‘She must have told you,’ she carried on, swinging round to look at him, hand on one hip. ‘I mean, she made it clear that you tell each other everything.’ This last was slung at him in an accusatory voice and Leandro glanced away, jaw tensing.
When had all his control started seeping away? Control was the one thing he had always aimed for. Control in his professional life and control in his private life. When had that all disappeared? Could he have stopped it somewhere along the way or was it just a process that had begun when Abigail had first entered his life, a process that had simply been temporarily halted when she had left, only to continue the moment she’d returned?
He certainly didn’t feel in control now. He felt...like any red-blooded man would feel if he had one foot dangling off the edge of a precipice.
She sat down at the table but was staring off into the distance.
‘She has always been dependent on me,’ Leandro explained heavily. ‘Our parents had little time for us and Cecilia relied heavily on me for pretty much everything. Of course, as time went on, I assumed she was becoming more independent, and certainly on the surface she had a good life. She never wanted for anything and she had a lot of friends. She still came to me for advice. She still confided in me. I found it amusing, and I suppose it was a comfort zone that worked. She did her degree, immediately started working for my organisation in the hospitality field and she was, and is, excellent at it.’
He sighed and linked his fingers together. ‘I never really noticed how possessive she was of my relationships, because I took everything at face value, and they were never meaningful. When you came along...’
‘When I came along,’ Abigail filled in for his benefit, ‘she couldn’t wait to blow it out of the water because she wasn’t in control of it.’
Leandro’s mouth quirked. ‘She couldn’t wait to blow it out of the water because she sensed that it could become serious,’ he corrected quietly. ‘She sensed something I myself wasn’t even really aware of. I wanted you the minute I laid eyes on you, Abigail.’
‘So you told me,’ she responded with an edge of bitterness in her voice. ‘I’ve always known that. You want me and you find me attractive. You’d be surprised how insulting that can feel after a while. It was heady when we first met. I’d never met anyone like you in my entire life. How would I? You moved in the sort of circles I would never have been allowed to enter. I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again—that was why I kept quiet about my background. I wanted to enjoy you without all those judgements being formed about me because of where I’d come from. Cecilia must have thought that she’d struck gold when she dug and found out all that stuff about me.’
‘I should have listened to my conscience,’ Leandro admitted, ‘instead of accepting the evidence against you and jumping to the wrong conclusions.’
‘What are you saying?’ Abigail looked at him defiantly because she refused to get her hopes up. She’d had them dashed too many times.
‘I was wrapped up with you, Abigail. I don’t know how it happened, because I always thought I was well protected against emotional involvement, but you managed to work a way through to me... Maybe that was why I was so quick to pigeonhole you as a gold-digger. You’d lied, and it was easy and lazy to believe the worst of you, because if I didn’t I would have had to admit to having feelings for you that went way beyond wanting to have sex with you.’
Abigail’s heart leapt. ‘I didn’t tell you I was pregnant because I knew what you thought of me...’
‘I understand. When I saw you again, I realised that I still wanted you,’ he confessed. ‘I’d just broken up with someone who, on paper, should have been the perfect match. Cecilia introduced us.’ He grimaced. ‘I suppose at that point I should have read the writing on the wall and realised how important it was to my sister that she should never feel threatened by any woman I chose to date.’
Abigail allowed herself a glimmer of a smile, because if there was one type of reading Leandro didn’t do it was reading writing on the wall. She could understand that because, if you never dug deep, you never found yourself out of your depth.
He stood up and paced the kitchen, vaguely taking in the small steps she had already made towards turning it into a home. There were two framed pictures of Sam on the wall by the table and some herbs in pots on the window ledge. She’d done the same when she’d been living with him. She had somehow transformed his apartment in incremental ways, from a cold space to something homely, and she’d done it without him even really noticing.
‘I heard what she said to you,’ he stated flatly. ‘It was impossible not to overhear because she wasn’t making the slightest effort to keep the noise levels down.’
Abigail tensed and stared at her linked fingers on the kitchen table.
‘I had no conversation with her along the lines she intimated. I should be furious that she should take it upon herself to come here and purport to be my mouthpiece, but I’m not.’
‘Because she paved the way for you to...tell me what’s been obvious all along?’
‘Something like that.’ He reached out and held her fluttering fingers still until she was forced to look at him. ‘This is hard for me to say,’ he told her in a low, driven voice. ‘I’ve never believed in love. I have always associated it with something destructive. I thought I was immune to its effects but I was wrong.’
