Deal With The Devil. Дженнифер Хейворд

had to keep communicating with his office, sending emails, reviewing reports, without her knowing exactly what was going on. At precisely seven-thirty, he would shut his computer and head outside to see what he could do about beating back some of the snow so that it didn’t completely bank up against the door.

      It was, he had to admit to himself, a fairly unique take on winter sport. When he had mentioned that to Brianna the day before, she had burst out laughing and told him that he could try building himself a sledge and having fun outside, getting in touch with his inner child.

      He made himself a cup of coffee and reined in the temptation to let his mind meander, which was what it seemed to want to do whenever he thought of her.

      His mother was in hospital recovering from a mild heart attack.

      ‘She should have been out last week,’ Brianna had confided, ‘But they’ve decided to keep her in because the weather’s so horrendous and she has no one to take care of her.’

      Where was the down-and-out junkie he had been anticipating? Of course, there was every chance that she had been a deadbeat, a down and out. It would be a past she would have wanted to keep to herself, especially with Brianna who, from the sounds of it, saw her as something of a surrogate mother. The woman hadn’t lived her whole life in the village. Who knew what sort of person she had been once upon a time?

      But certainly, the stories he had heard did not tally with his expectations.

      And the bottom line was that his hands were tied at the moment. He had come to see for himself what his past held. He wasn’t about to abandon that quest on the say-so of a girl he’d known for five minutes. On the other hand, he was now on indefinite leave. One week, he had told his secretary, but who was to say that this enforced stay would not last longer?

      The snow showed no sign of abating. When it did abate, there was still the question of engineering a meeting with his mother. She was in hospital and when she came out she would presumably be fairly weak. However, without anyone to act as full-time carer, at least for a while, what was the likelihood of her being released from hospital? He was now playing a waiting game.

      And throughout all this, there was still the matter of his fictitious occupation. Surely Brianna would start asking him questions about this so-called book he was busily writing? Would he have to fabricate a plot?

      In retrospect, out of all the occupations he could have picked, he concluded that he had managed to hit on the single worst one of them all. God knew, he hadn’t read a book in years. His reading was strictly of the utilitarian variety: legal tomes, books on the movements of financial markets, detailed backgrounds to companies he was planning to take over.

      The fairly straightforward agenda he had set out for himself was turning into something far more complex.

      He turned round at the sound of her footsteps on the wooden floor.

      And that, he thought, frowning, was an added complication. She was beginning to occupy far too much space in his head. Familiarity was not breeding contempt. He caught himself watching her, thinking about her, fantasising about her. His appreciation of her natural beauty was growing like an unrestrained weed, stifling the disciplined part of his brain that told him that he should not go there.

      Not only was she ignorant of his real identity but whatever the hell had happened to her—whoever had broken her heart, the mystery guy she could not be persuaded to discuss—had left her vulnerable. On the surface, she was capable, feisty, strong-willed and stubbornly proud. But he sensed her vulnerability underneath and the rational part of him acknowledged that a vulnerable woman was a woman best left well alone.

      But his libido was refusing to listen to reason and seemed to have developed a will of its own.

      ‘You’re working too hard.’ She greeted him cheerfully. Having told him that she would not be doing his laundry, she had been doing his laundry. Today he was wearing the jeans she had washed the day before and one of her father’s checked flannel shirts, the sleeves of which he had rolled to the elbows. In a few seconds, she took in the dark hair just visible where the top couple of buttons of the shirt were undone; the low-slung jeans that emphasised the leanness of his hips; the strong, muscular forearms.

      Leo knew what he had been working on and it hadn’t been the novel she imagined: legal technicalities that had to be sorted out with one small IT company he was in the process of buying; emails to the human resources department so that they reached a mutually agreeable deal with employees of yet another company he was acquiring. He had the grace to flush.

      ‘Believe me, I’ve worked harder,’ he said with utmost truth. She was in some baggy grey jogging bottoms, which made her look even slimmer than she was, and a baggy grey sweatshirt. For the first time, her hair wasn’t tied back, but instead fell over her shoulders and down her back in a cascade of rich auburn.

      ‘I guess maybe in that company of yours—’

      ‘Company of mine?’ Leo asked sharply and then realised that guilt had laced the question with unnecessary asperity when she smiled and explained that she was talking about whatever big firm he had worked for before quitting.

      She had noticed that he never talked about the job he had done, and Brianna had made sure to steer clear of the subject. It was a big enough deal getting away from the rat race without being reminded of what you’d left behind, because the rat race from which he had escaped was the very same rat race that was now funding his exploits into the world of writing.

      ‘You still haven’t told me much about your book,’ she said tentatively. ‘I know I’m being horribly nosy, and I know how hard it is to let someone have a whiff of what you’re working on before it’s finished, but you must be very far in. You start work so early and I know you keep it up, off and on during the day. You never seem to lack inspiration.’

      Leo considered what level of inspiration was needed to review due diligence on a company: none. ‘You know how it goes,’ he said vaguely. ‘You can write two...er...chapters and then immediately delete them, although...’ He considered the massive deal he had just signed off on. ‘I must admit I’ve been reasonably productive. To change the subject, have you any books I could borrow? I had no idea I would be in one place for so long...’

      When had his life become so blinkered? he wondered. Sure, he played; he enjoyed the company of beautiful women, but they were a secondary consideration to his work. The notion of any of them becoming a permanent fixture in his life had never crossed his mind. And, yes, he relaxed at the gym but, hell, he hadn’t picked up a novel in years; hadn’t been to a movie in years; rarely watched television for pleasure, aside from the occasional football match; went to the theatre occasionally, usually when it was an arranged company event, but even then he was always restless, always thinking of what needed to be done with his companies or clients or mergers or buyouts.

      He impatiently swept aside the downward spiral of introspection and surfaced to find her telling him that there were books in her study.

      ‘And there’s something I want to show you,’ she said hesitantly. She disappeared for a few minutes and in that time he strolled around the lounge, distractedly looking at the fire and wondering whether the log basket would have to be topped up. He wondered how much money she was losing with this enforced closure of the pub and then debated the pros and cons of asking her if he could have a look at her books.

      ‘Okay...’

      Leo turned around and walked slowly towards her. ‘What do you have behind your back?’

      Brianna took a deep breath and revealed one of the small paintings she had done a few months back, when she had managed to squeeze in some down-time during the summer. It was a painting of the lake and in the foreground an angler sat, back to the spectator, his head bent, his body leaning forward, as if listening for the sound of fish.

      ‘I don’t like showing my work to anyone either,’ she confided as he took the picture from her and held it at a distance in his hands. ‘So I fully understand why you don’t want to talk about your book.’

      ‘You