Keeping Luke's Secret

She added a liberal amount of cream and sugar to her own coffee before sitting down in the chair opposite his; she was one of those people lucky enough to be able to eat and drink anything without putting on weight.

‘So, Mr Richmond,’ she murmured after taking a sip of her own coffee, ‘what can I do for you?’

‘Well, you can call me Luke, for a start,’ he bit out tersely. ‘“Mr Richmond” makes me sound like Methuselah!’

It also kept him on a formal level—which was exactly where Leonie wanted to keep him!

His gaze was narrowed as he looked round the room. ‘This is rather nice,’ he finally murmured admiringly. ‘Who was your interior designer?’

‘Leonora Winston,’ she answered with a derisive twist of her lips. ‘Interior designer’, indeed!—was this man on the same planet as her? As if she could afford an interior designer!

But then, Luke had been born to a mother who was one of the highest-paid actresses in the world, must have lived with her in Hollywood for most of his childhood, and the house Leonie had visited in Hampshire yesterday, although extremely comfortable and beautifully decorated, was more like a mansion than a family home…

Luke looked at her with glacial green eyes. ‘It wasn’t my intention to be insulting,’ he rasped.

‘I know that,’ Leonie sighed, putting down her empty coffee-cup. ‘And no insult was taken. It must be difficult for you to understand—well, just difficult,’ she amended awkwardly as she realised she was the one being insulting now.

‘I can assure you I haven’t always lived with a silver spoon in my mouth,’ Luke said.

‘No?’ Leonie prompted interestedly.

‘No,’ he confirmed dryly, adding nothing further to the statement.

Deliberately so, Leonie was sure, intriguing her in spite of herself…

‘Mr Richmond—’

‘I thought we had agreed on Luke—Leonie,’ he added pointedly.

She drew in a sharp breath. ‘All right—Luke.’ She nodded impatiently. ‘Did you just come here to comment on my decor and drink coffee, or are you going to tell me the reason why you’re here?’ she prompted agitatedly.

Luke looked at her consideringly, somehow managing to look relaxed and comfortable despite the fragility of the chair he sat in. Leonie found herself shifting uncomfortably under the full impact of that piercing gaze.

’Does intimidation usually work?’ she finally snapped irritably.

‘“Intimidation”?’ he repeated slowly, seeming to savour the word before giving a shake of his head. ‘I’m merely looking at you, Leonie.’

It was the way he was looking at her that was so unnerving—just like a professor she had once worked with who had liked to study antiquities minutely under a microscope!

‘You’re a very beautiful woman.’

Now he had unnerved her! What did the way she looked—or didn’t look—have to do with anything?

‘Mr Richmond—’

‘Ah-ah—Luke,’ he corrected lightly, hard amusement in those pale eyes now.

Leonie stood up impatiently, glaring down at him. ‘Would you stop playing games with me and just get to the point?’ she bit out angrily.

This sort of word-game might work with impressionable—and no doubt ambitious!—actresses, but it left Leonie cold. She was much more used to being treated with a certain amount of awe by her students, respect from her colleagues, and warm affection from her family; this man gave every impression of a cat playing with a mouse. And she was the mouse!

He was still looking at her consideringly. ‘Why do you play down your looks?’ he prompted curiously.

She gasped. ‘I—’

‘Your hair, for instance,’ he continued just as if Leonie hadn’t spoken. ‘It’s the most glorious colour, would look wonderful cascading down your back, and yet you choose to cut it so short it’s almost boyish.’ His gaze was narrowed on her thoughtfully. ‘You also have absolutely flawless skin. As for those eyes…!’ He shook his head. ‘A little make-up to enhance those looks and—’

‘When you have quite finished, Mr Richmond!’ Leonie cut in indignantly, colour high in those ‘flawless’ cheeks. ‘I’m a university lecturer, not some bimbo you—’ She broke off as she saw what she already knew to be a tell-tale narrowing of his eyes, breathing in deeply to quell her own anger. ‘I prefer to look exactly what I am, Luke,’ she said more calmly. ‘Which is a historian.’

‘Like your grandfather.’ He nodded, sitting forward. ‘What are you trying to prove, Leonie?’ The words were launched at her with the speed of a whiplash.

Leonie grew suddenly still, the colour fading from her cheeks, her chin high as she looked at him challengingly. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she murmured warily. How had he guessed? How?

Luke looked at her wordlessly for several long moments, and then he grinned.

A grin that owed very little to humour, and much more to a rather large feline who had just spotted his prey—Leonie!

‘You really mustn’t mind me, Leonie.’ Luke relaxed back in the chair with a suddenness that made the cane creak. ‘My mother, along with most of the fashionable set in Hollywood thirty years ago, sent her child to all sorts of therapists in an effort to ensure that I wouldn’t grow up with any sort of—hang-ups about who I was.’ His mouth was twisted derisively. ‘In the end I became almost as practised as they were in pushing the right buttons to elicit a reaction.’ He shrugged.

Leonie couldn’t help but feel a certain sympathy for those therapists; she didn’t doubt that Luke Richmond had proved a most uncooperative subject! Or that he had deliberately been ‘pushing her buttons’.

‘Your mother should have saved her money,’ she dismissed dryly, inwardly thinking it would have been better spent on teaching this man some manners!

He gave a mocking inclination of his head. ‘That’s exactly what she finally did.’ He smiled humourlessly. ‘And you already know the reason I’m here, Leonie.’ With a suddenness that totally threw Leonie offguard, he finally answered the question she had asked him five minutes ago.

Which, she was sure, was exactly what he’d meant to do.

She closed her eyes, shaking her head. This man was a nightmare, an absolute, unpredictable nightmare!

‘Oh, but you do, Leonie.’ He misunderstood the reason for the shake of her head, his voice hardly accusing.

Leonie drew in a deep breath before looking at him, feeling a shiver down her spine as he calmly returned her gaze. But, she suddenly realised hollowly, she had no idea whether that shiver was one of apprehension—or one of total awareness of him as a man!

Don’t be ridiculous, Leonie, she instantly admonished herself. This man might be as handsome as the devil himself but that was all he had to recommend him. Luke Richmond was cold, rude and, she didn’t doubt, completely ruthless if the situation warranted it.

Did this particular situation warrant it…?

Leonie had no idea!

‘I’m sure we’re both well aware by now that your mother has approached me with the idea of my writing her—’

‘Approached you?’ Luke cut in forcefully, once again sitting forward in his chair. ‘Don’t you have that a little mixed up, Leonie?’ he challenged accusingly.

‘Actually, no,’ she answered with something approaching gentleness; obviously whatever conversation this man had had with his mother since Leonie’s visit yesterday, it hadn’t included Rachel telling her son that she had been the one to do the approaching! ‘I very much doubt you’re going to believe me, but—your mother was the one who contacted me, Luke,’ she told him huskily.

He stood up abruptly, his face slightly pale as he strode over to the window that looked out on the little handkerchief of garden that was Leonie’s. Although Leonie very much doubted that he actually saw the small bushes or the pebbled square that made up that tiny garden…

‘What the hell is she playing at? What on earth, after all this time, does she hope to achieve?’ he muttered.