Deal With The Devil. Дженнифер Хейворд

the end of the evening,’ she offered. ‘If you haven’t fallen asleep, I can make you something to eat.’

      ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Leo murmured. The passing guilt he had felt at having to concoct a lie was rationalised, justified and consigned to oblivion. He had responded creatively to an unexpected development.

      Getting her onside could also work in his favour. Publicans knew everything about everyone and were seldom averse to a bit of healthy gossip. Doubtless he would be able to extract some background information on his mother and, when he had that information, he would pay her a visit in the guise of someone doing business in the area—maybe interviewing her for the fictitious book he had supposedly jacked his job in for. He would add whatever he learnt to whatever he saw and would get a complete picture of the woman who had abandoned him at birth. He would get his closure. The unfinished mosaic of his life would finally have all the pieces welded together.

      ‘Right, then...’ Brianna dithered awkwardly. ‘Is there anything you need to know about...the room? How the television works? How you can get an outside line?’

      ‘I think I can figure both out,’ Leo responded dryly. ‘You can get back to your rowdy crew in the bar.’

      ‘They are, aren’t they?’ She laughed softly and hooked her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans.

      Without warning, Leo felt a jolt of unexpected arousal at the sight. She was very slender. Her figure was almost boyish, not at all like the women he was routinely attracted to, whose assets were always far more prominent and much more aggressively advertised; beautiful, overtly sexy women who had no time for downplaying what they possessed.

      He frowned at his body’s unexpected lapse in self-control. ‘You should employ more people to help you out,’ he told her abruptly.

      ‘Perhaps I should.’ Just like that she felt the change in the atmosphere and she reminded herself that, writer or not, guys who were too sexy for their own good spelled trouble. She reminded herself of how easy it was to be taken in by what was on the outside, only to completely miss the ugly stuff that was buried underneath.

      She coolly excused herself and returned to find that, just as expected, Aidan was knocking back a glass of whisky which he hurriedly banged on the counter the second he spotted her approaching.

      Shannon appeared to be on the verge of tears and, despite what Brianna had told her, was scuttling over with a tray of drinks to the group of high-spirited men at the corner table, most of whom they had gone to school with, which Brianna thought was no reason for them to think they could get waitress service. Old Connor, with several more drinks inside him, was once again attempting to be a crooner but could scarcely enunciate the words to the song he was trying to belt out.

      It was the same old same old, and she felt every day of her twenty-seven years by the time they all began drifting off into an unwelcoming night. Twenty-seven years old and she felt like forty-seven. The snow which had thankfully disappeared for the past week had returned to pay them another visit, and outside the flakes were big and fat under the street lights.

      Shannon was the last to leave and Brianna had to chivvy her along. For a young girl of nineteen, she had a highly developed mothering instinct and worried incessantly about her friend living above the pub on her own.

      ‘Although at least there’s a strapping man there with you tonight!’ She laughed, wrapping her scarf around her neck and winking.

      ‘From my experience of the opposite sex...’ Brianna grinned back and shouted into the darkness with a wave ‘...they’re the first to dive for cover if there’s any chance of danger—and that includes the strapping ones!’

      ‘Then you’ve just met the wrong men.’

      She spun round to see Leo standing by the bar, arms folded, his dark eyes amused. He had showered and changed and was in a pair of jeans and a cream, thickly knitted jumper which did dramatic things for his colouring.

      ‘You’ve come for your sandwich.’ She tore her eyes away from him and quickly and efficiently began clearing the tables, getting the brunt of the work done before she had to get up at seven the following morning.

      ‘I gathered that the crowd was beginning to disperse. The singing had stopped.’ He began giving her a hand.

      Clearing tables was a novel experience. When he happened to be in the country, he ate out. On the rare occasions when he chose to eat in, he ate food specially prepared for him by his housekeeper, who was also an excellent chef. She cooked for him, discreetly waited until he was finished and then cleared the table. Once a month, she cooked for both him and Harry and these meals were usually pre-planned to coincide with a football game. They would eat, enjoy a couple of beers and watch the football. It was his most perfect down time.

      He wondered when and how that small slice of normality, the normality of clearing a table, had vanished—but then was it so surprising? He ran multi-million-pound companies that stretched across the world. Normality, as most people understood it, was in scarce supply.

      ‘You really don’t have to help,’ Brianna told him as she began to fetch the components for a sandwich. ‘You’re a paying guest.’

      ‘With a curious mind. Tell me about the wannabe opera singer...’

      He watched as she worked, making him a sandwich that could have fed four, tidying away the beer mugs and glasses into the industrial-sized dishwasher. He listened keenly as she chatted, awkwardly at first, but then fluently, about all the regulars—laughing at their idiosyncrasies; relating little anecdotes of angry wives showing up to drag their other halves back home when they had abused the freedom pass they had been given for a couple of hours.

      ‘Terrific sandwich, by the way.’ It had been. Surprisingly so, bearing in mind that the sandwiches he occasionally ate were usually ornate affairs with intricate fillings prepared by top chefs in expensive restaurants. He lifted the plate as she wiped clean the counter underneath. ‘I’m guessing that you pretty much know everyone who lives around here...’

      ‘You guess correctly.’

      ‘One of the upsides of living in a small place?’ He could think of nothing worse. He thoroughly enjoyed the anonymity of big-city life.

      ‘It’s nice knowing who your neighbours are. It’s a small population here. ’Course, some of them have gone to live in other parts of Ireland, and a few really daring ones have moved to your part of the world, but on the whole, yes, we all know each other.’

      She met his steady gaze and again felt that hectic bloom of colour invade her cheeks. ‘Nearly everyone here tonight were regulars. They’ve been coming here since my dad owned the place.’

      ‘And your dad is...?’

      ‘Dead,’ Brianna said shortly. ‘Hence this is now my place.’

      ‘I’m sorry. Tough work.’

      ‘I can handle it.’ She took his plate, stuck it into the sink then washed her hands.

      ‘And, of course, you have all your friends around you for support... Siblings as well? What about your mother?’

      ‘Why are you asking me all these questions?’

      ‘Aren’t we always curious about people we’ve never met and places we’ve never seen? As a...writer you could say that I’m more curious than most.’ He stood up and began walking towards the door through which lay the stairs up to his bedroom. ‘If you think I’m being too nosy then tell me.’

      Brianna half-opened her mouth with a cool retort, something that would restore the balance between paying guest and landlady, but the temptation to chat to a new face, a new person, someone who didn’t know her from time immemorial, was too persuasive.

      A writer! How wonderful to meet someone on the same wavelength as her! What would it hurt to drop her guard for a couple of days and give him the benefit of the doubt? He might be good-looking but he wasn’t Danny Fluke.

      ‘You’re