Page 25 of The Secret Sanchez Heir
The only fly in the ointment was the fact that she thought that she knew why—once he had proved himself sufficiently, he would walk away from her, safe in the knowledge that she would never try to break the bond he had been at pains to create with Sam. She still felt sick when she thought about him walking away straight into the arms of another woman, but the marriage offer was no longer on the table, and she had had good reasons for turning it down.
Yet everything was so perfect. She just wanted to believe the impossible and she was constantly having to wage war against being lulled into thinking that all the grand gestures meant more than they actually did. But surely, she caught herself thinking more and more as time went on, things were changing between them? To all intents and purposes, they were a couple, and if Leandro didn’t have the same feelings for her as she had for him then who was to say that that wouldn’t change given time? Hope, she knew, could be as much an enemy as a friend, and she really tried to avoid it like the plague, but it still crept in, filling her head with fantasies and presenting a future that was rosy and bright.
This idyllic cottage was definitely high on the ‘rosy and bright’ spectrum.
‘When you said you had a surprise for me, I hadn’t expected anything like this,’ she murmured, walking towards the chocolate-box white picket fence and then just standing there, lost in pleasant day dreams about how perfect life could be here. She wished they had brought Sam, but at five in the evening it was perilously close to his dinner and bath time, and the nanny Leandro had engaged several weeks previously had persuaded her to leave him back at the apartment. Abigail had been easily swayed, for she knew just how demanding her son could get when he began getting tired and hungry.
‘Like it?’ Leandro moved smoothly to stand next to her. He couldn’t have arranged this on a more pleasant afternoon. Spring was in the air and, although the sun was low, the charm of the place with its climbing roses and neat path to the front door was inescapable.
He had taken great pains to lay it on thick with the estate agent, and it was just the sort of place he was looking for. He could have summed it up thus: the sort of place I would never normally have glanced at in a million years.
But, despite her background and the toughness that had seen Abigail through hard times, including the pregnancy she had borne on her own, she was a romantic at heart and that was something he had recognised when they had been seeing each other the first time round. She didn’t like his white, modern, minimalist apartment because what she did really like was exactly what she was gaping at right now, round-eyed and thrilled to death.
‘I absolutely love it.’ She turned to him and smiled and, looking down at her, Leandro wanted to do what he always seemed to want to do whenever he was anywhere near her—whisk her away like a cave man and have his wicked way with her. She could still get his libido going in five seconds flat and that showed no signs of abating, which was something of a minor miracle, given his predilection towards a fast turnover when it came to the opposite sex.
‘But...’ she frowned and looked at him seriously ‘...we agreed that every decision we took would be one we both wanted, Leandro. Is this sort of place really your kind of thing? It’s nothing like your apartment.’
‘Should we look inside before we start having this conversation? The place is vacant and the estate agent said we could take our time and then drop the keys back with them through the letter box.’
Abigail looked at the mesmerising beauty of his tanned face and couldn’t help falling a little faster into the seductive hope that all of this thoughtfulness might add up to more than just the considerate behaviour of a decent guy who wanted to build a solid friendship with her before he disappeared out of her life.
‘Okay.’ She grinned happily as he unhooked the gate and ushered her up to the front door. ‘I just never thought that this was your kind of thing...’
‘Things are slightly different when there’s a child to consider,’ Leandro pointed out and Abigail stifled a sigh because, of course, all of this was being done for Sam.
After his first uncertain steps in the bonding department, Leandro had become increasingly confident with his son. From picking him up and holding him, arms outstretched, with the puzzled expression of someone not too sure about the wriggling bundle in his arms, Leandro was now confident enough to bathe his son, and didn’t seem to mind grubby fingers on his expensive clothes. He showed limitless patience now that Sam was starting to walk and, if there was one fault, it was that he had a tendency to overindulge his son with presents that were far too grown-up for a one-year-old.
‘Greyling would have been far too big,’ Leandro pointed out with irrefutable logic, ‘and my apartment is, as you’ve said, far too...white. This seemed a good compromise.’ He pushed open the door and in they stepped.
Leandro had visited the place with the estate agent only a couple of days previously. He knew what to expect. Now, he watched as Abigail turned a slow circle in the small hall with its attractive flagstone tiled floor.
‘Wow.’
On closer inspection, Leandro could spot a couple of cracked tiles by the wall, but he went along with her enthusiasm as they explored the cottage which was deceptively big and quirkily laid out.
She gushed over everything, from the coving and dado rails, to the range in the kitchen and all the open fireplaces in the rooms. She waxed lyrical about the utility room and the larder. Abigail confessed that never in a million years had she ever thought that she might end up living in a fairy-tale cottage such as this.
They ended up in the garden, which was a riot of flowerbeds and fruit trees.
‘Commuting is going to be difficult for you,’ Leandro remarked as they sat side by side on a wooden bench placed strategically under one of the apple trees. It was cool but clear and the silence of the countryside felt like an antidote to the chaos and noise of London life.
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Abigail responded in some dismay. She had continued with her job, albeit working shorter hours, because she hadn’t wanted to lose the small amount of financial independence it afforded her. Deep down she wanted to leave, to spend far more of her time with Sam, but she couldn’t bring herself to be so completely dependent on Leandro.
What about when this happy charade ended and Leandro returned to his normal life? Of course, he would ensure that there was a hefty financial settlement involved, but how would she feel about accepting his money and becoming, effectively, a kept woman?
The downside of rejecting his marriage proposal was like the steady drip of acid wearing away all her good intentions, yet what was the point of marriage if it was undertaken for the wrong reasons? The more she was with Leandro, the more she wanted love from him and not duty.
‘It wouldn’t make sense for you to leave here at a ridiculous hour in the morning to get into London and do a job that you are not required to do in the first place.’
‘You don’t understand...’
‘You’re right. I don’t understand. You should be overjoyed that there is no financial imperative for you to go out to work.’
Abigail tensed. ‘I can’t be dependent on you, Leandro. You’re being generous because of Sam but, face it, if I hadn’t accidentally fallen pregnant then we wouldn’t be here now.’ She hated the way she hoped that he would refute that, although she couldn’t imagine what he could say to do so.
‘There’s no point dealing in “what if?”s,’ Leandro said with deflating logic. ‘The fact is that we’re at this point now and you have a choice to make. Either you relinquish the job in London and move in here, or we stay at the apartment and you continue working. What’s it to be? If you decide that this is the sort of place that would suit you, then say the word and I can have this deal wrapped up by the end of the month.’ Leandro turned to her and watched her averted profile like a hawk.
The longer he was with her, the more convinced he was that ‘gold-digger’ she certainly was not. But he hadn’t understood her determination to carry on working, even though the hours had been shortened. Whilst she accepted a modest allowance from him for Sam—far, far less than he would be happy giving her—she still persisted in using her own money to buy anything for herself. He had only just managed to persuade her to stop buying food supplies with what she earned. On the few occasions when he had presented her with items of jewellery, little gifts she could wear out when he took her somewhere flash for dinner, she had accepted, but politely, wearing them once for his benefit then stashing them away in her bedroom drawer.
