‘Leonardo!’
Leo heard his name boomed at the same time as Helena stopped talking and darted a startled look over his shoulder. He turned and saw a lanky, sandy-haired man striding forward with a petite blonde by his side.
Leo grinned. ‘Hans.’ He gripped the man’s outstretched hand. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here. How are you? And Sabine.’ He raised the woman’s slender hand, planted a kiss on her knuckles. ‘Beautiful, as always.’
She issued a throaty laugh. ‘And you, my dear, are still the charmer.’ Rising on tiptoes, she kissed him on both cheeks, then turned her sparkling eyes on Helena. ‘Please, introduce us to your lovely companion.’
Leo shifted his weight, fielded a sidelong glance from Helena and sliced her a warning look. Do not embarrass me.
‘Helena, this is Dr Hans Hetterich and his wife, Sabine. Hans, when he is not winning golf tournaments or sailing a yacht on the high seas, is one of the most prominent spinal surgeons in the world.’
‘Nice to meet you, Helena.’ Hans took her hand. ‘And please pay my friend no attention. I am not nearly as impressive as he makes me sound.’
An unladylike snort came from beside him. ‘I think my husband is not himself tonight.’ Sabine commandeered Helena’s hand. ‘Normally he is not so modest.’
Hans guffawed and clutched his chest, earning him an eye-roll and a poke in the ribs from his wife. He winked at her, then turned a more sober face to Leo. ‘Our new research unit in Berlin is exceptional, thanks to your support. Our stem cell procedures are attracting interest from some of the best surgeons in the world. You must come soon and see for yourself. And you are most welcome too, Helena. Have you visited Germany?’
Her hesitation was fleeting. ‘Once, a long time ago. On a school trip.’
‘Perhaps in a few months,’ Leo intervened. ‘When I get a break in my schedule.’
‘How is Marietta?’ Sabine said. ‘We haven’t seen her since her last surgery.’
His fingers tightened on his glass. ‘She’s fine,’ he said, keeping his answer intentionally brief. He had no wish to discuss his sister in front of Helena. Proffering a smile, he gestured at the dwindling number of people around them. ‘It appears the waiting staff would like us to be seated. Shall we...?’
With a promise to catch them later in the evening, Hans and Sabine joined the trail of diners drifting through to the ballroom. Leo turned to follow, but Helena hung back.
He stopped, raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you coming?’
After a pause, she jammed her evening purse beneath her arm and shot him a baleful look. ‘Do I have a choice?’
He gave her a silky smile—one designed to leave her in no doubt as to his answer. But just to ensure she couldn’t mistake his meaning he leaned in and said softly, ‘You don’t.’
* * *
Gorgeous. Devastating. Lethal.
Those were three of a dozen words Helena could think of to describe Leonardo Vincenti in a tuxedo. And, judging by the lascivious looks he was pulling from every corner of the ballroom, she wasn’t the only female whose hormones had clocked into overdrive at the mere sight of all that dark, brooding masculinity.
He spoke from beside her. ‘The fish is not to your taste?’
She cast him a look from under her lashes. ‘It’s fine. I’m not very hungry.’
The treacle-cured smoked salmon served as a starter was, in fact, superb, but the knots twisting her stomach made the food impossible to enjoy. Which really was a shame, some part of her brain registered, because she rarely had the opportunity these days to sample such exquisite cuisine.
She laid her fork alongside her abandoned knife and leaned back in her chair. So much for a quiet dinner à deux and the chance for a serious talk. She almost rubbed her forehead to see if the word gullible was carved there.
Surreptitiously she watched Leo speak with an older woman seated on his left. His tux jacket, removed prior to appetisers being served, hung from his chair, leaving his wide shoulders and lean torso sheathed in a white wing tip shirt that contrasted with his olive skin and black hair. He bowed his head, murmuring something that elicited a bright tinkle of laughter from the woman, and the sound scraped across Helena’s nerves.
Age, evidently, was no barrier to his charms.
She averted her gaze, smothered the impulse to get up and flee. Like it or not, she’d agreed to be here and she would not scarper like a coward. If she was smart, bided her time, she might still persuade Leo to hold his plans for her father’s company. A few weeks...that was all she needed. Time to make her mother see sense before—
‘Bored?’
Leo’s deep voice sliced across her thoughts.
She drummed up a smile. ‘Of course not.’
‘Good.’ His long fingers toyed with the stem of his wineglass. ‘I would hate to bore you for a second time in your life.’
Helena’s smile faltered. His casually delivered words carried a meaning she couldn’t fail to comprehend. Not when her own words—words she’d bet every hard-earned penny in her bank account had hurt her more than they’d hurt him—were embedded like thorns in her memory. I’m bored, Leo. Really. This relationship just isn’t working for me.
She shifted in her seat, her face heating. ‘That’s unfair.’ She glanced around the table, pitching her voice for his ears alone. ‘I tried once to explain why I said those things.’
After he’d left that awful message on her phone—telling her what her father had done, accusing her of betrayal and complicity—she’d gone to his hotel room and banged on his door until her hand throbbed and a man from a neighbouring room stepped out and shot her a filthy look.
‘You didn’t want to listen.’
He shrugged. ‘I was angry,’ he stated, as if he need offer no further excuse.
‘You still are.’
‘Perhaps. But now I’m listening.’
‘I doubt that.’
‘Try me.’
She arched an eyebrow. He wanted to do this now? Here? She cast another furtive glance around the table. Fine.
‘I needed you to let me go without a fight,’ she said, her voice a decibel above a whisper. ‘And we both know you wouldn’t have. Not without questions. Not unless I—’ She stopped, a hot lump of regret lodging in her throat.
‘Stamped on my pride?’ he finished for her.
Her face flamed hotter. Must he make her sound so cruel? So heartless? She’d been nineteen, for pity’s sake, staring down the barrel of her father’s ultimatum. Get rid of the damned foreigner, girl—or I will. Naive. That was what she’d been. And unforgivably stupid, thinking she could live beyond the reach of her father’s iron control.
She smoothed her napkin over her knees. ‘I did what I thought was best at the time.’
‘For you or for me?’
‘For us both.’
‘Ah. So you were being...how do you English like to say it...cruel to be kind?’
His eyes drilled into hers, but she refused to flinch from his cutting glare. She didn’t need his bitter accusations. She, too, had paid a price, and however much she longed to turn back the clock, undo the damage, she could not relieve the pain of her past. Not when she’d worked so hard, sacrificed so much, to leave it behind.
She mustered another smile, this one urbane and slightly aloof—the kind her mother often wore in public. ‘Hans and Sabine seem like