Keeping Luke's Secret. Carole Mortimer

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.

      To himself, Leonie surmised, deciding that no answer was necessary. After all, she had no idea of Rachel Richmond’s motives, either. The truth concerning Rachel’s past had remained a secret for so long now, Leonie could see no reason herself why Rachel would suddenly want to change that…

      Luke turned back sharply, narrowed eyes that were pale, icy green. ‘Exactly what did my mother say to you yesterday?’ he demanded coldly.

      Leonie frowned. ‘Only that she thought it time the innuendos stopped…’ She trailed off as Luke’s expression darkened ominously.

      ‘In favour of…?’ he rasped harshly.

      She grimaced. ‘The truth, I suppose,’ she revealed reluctantly, knowing that had to be the last thing this man wanted made public.

      His mouth tightened angrily. ‘We’ll see about that!’ he snapped before striding across the room, turning to look at Leonie even as he wrenched the door open. ‘I would advise you not to hold your breath concerning this biography, Leonie!’ he rasped savagely in parting, the front door closing with a slam seconds later as he let himself out.

      Whew!

      Leonie sank down further into her own armchair, feeling suddenly exhausted, as if she had just escaped the eye of a hurricane.

      A hurricane, she didn’t doubt, that was now on its way to Rachel Richmond…

       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘YOU’LL have to excuse Luke, I’m afraid, Leonie,’ Rachel told her ruefully, the two women sitting in the older woman’s comfortable sitting-room six days later drinking coffee together. ‘He can be very protective.’

      In this case Leonie wasn’t sure whom Luke was being protective of: himself or his mother. But at least Rachel seemed aware of Luke’s visit to Leonie the previous weekend…

      ‘He doesn’t appear—keen, on your biography being written.’ Leonie chose her words carefully, only too aware of how strongly against the idea Luke was. ‘I have to say, after thinking about it,’ Leonie continued evenly, ‘that I’m not—’

      ‘I know exactly what you’re going to say, Leonie,’ the actress gently interrupted her, placing her hand warmly on Leonie’s arm. ‘In the circumstances, I can’t exactly blame you.’ She gave a grimace. ‘But I can assure you I do have my reasons for doing what I’m doing,’ she added huskily.

      Leonie couldn’t for the life of her imagine what they were. And she was equally sure that Luke didn’t appreciate what they were, either…

      ‘I’m sure you do.’ She nodded frowningly. ‘But I’ve thought over your—suggestion, and I don’t feel I could do you credit.’ She smiled. ‘I’m sure that someone else—’

      ‘No one else,