‘So how old was your sister when she died?’
She sighed out her frustration when he ignored her question.
‘She was ten.’
She glanced at another photo of a curly blonde cherubic smiling baby. ‘They thought I might get fairer as I got older, but I never did. I got darker, except for—’ She touched the blonde streak that sprang from her forehead that no one ever believed was natural.
‘So where are you?’ he asked, scanning the gallery line-up of photos, seeing the same child at various ages, but none of a dark-haired child.
‘Oh, no one prints out their online photos these days.’ Especially if you never quite lived up to expectation, she thought, dodging his eyes, determined not to allow him to spotlight her insecurities. He was no longer twenty, no longer in love with her. He didn’t get to know about her insecurities.
Suddenly, she felt every month of her twenty-eight years, and it was hard to think that she’d ever been so happy, living in the moment and never thinking ahead.
It wouldn’t have worked.
Itcouldn’thave worked.
Unbidden, the memory of Leo standing outside her family home, his hand reaching out to her, drifted into her head. For a split second she was back on that emotional ledge, wanting to take his hand and knowing it was impossible.
The look on Leo’s lean face…the expression in his dark eyes under his long messy fringe had been so intense and real as he’d willed her to take the hand he held outstretched to her…was spotlit in her memory, every detail frozen in time.
She shook her head and she saw the realisation of what she’d been seeing in her mind’s eye slide into his gaze in the shift of muscle as his jaw clenched.
She took a deep breath and dragged herself back to the present. ‘Look, we have established you were not just passing. That’s not to say I’m not grateful you got me out of that situation, but really…’
‘You realise the more you tell me how grateful you are, the less grateful you sound?’ he observed, sounding amused.
‘Why, Leo? If you are here to see how the mighty have fallen, well, that’s fair enough. I suppose I deserve that, but not Dad. He’s an old man trying hard to rebuild his life. So if you’re just here to tell me how great your life is going, that’s fine. You’re about to be married… You’ve won the lottery… Whatever it is, good luck for the future, and goodbye.’
Not that he needed luck, from what she had read.
She held open the door, anxious for this farce to be over.
‘Actually, I’m here to offer you a job.’
Chapter Four
The silence stretched.
‘Me, work for you?’ She stared at him, her eyebrows hitting her hairline. ‘Have you been drinking?’
‘No, but if you’re offering…?’
Her lips tightened. ‘I’m not,’ she retorted unsmilingly. ‘Unless it’s escaped your notice, I already have a job.’
‘I imagine it must be tough coming down in the world—a hard landing.’
She lifted her chin. ‘I’m not complaining.’
‘Your margins must be very tight.’
She stayed silent, likely sensing something was coming. Thesomethingmade her visibly tense in anticipation.
‘What I’m suggesting is temporary.’ Long enough to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing her inhisworld, out of her depth. Because, despite the fact that she had lost everything, she had retained the innate attitude of a winner. Where the hell did her strength come from?
He pushed away the stab of admiration that came with the thought, focusing instead on the inexplicable way she had defended her father. When she wanted to fight for something, she did so like a tigress.
Yet she hadn’t fought for him.
