The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

had an official right but I did have good reason to want to know exactly who Grace Donovan and her family were,’ Leo retorted unapologetically. ‘But to return to my original question—when I found out about your father, it wasn’t clear whether or not you had had any recent contact with him.’

      Still furious with him, Grace clamped her lips into a tight line of control. ‘No, none and I don’t want any either!’

      His stunning dark golden eyes narrowed in apparent surprise. ‘That seems a bit harsh in the circumstances.’

      ‘He let my mother down badly and I’m quite sure he could have traced me years ago if he’d had any real interest in finding me,’ Grace declared thinly.

      ‘Only that would have been a considerable challenge for him when your mother had already taken him to court for harassment, had threatened to accuse him of assault and then changed her name to shake him off.’

      Sheer rage roared up through Grace’s rigid body like a forest fire running out of control. It convulsed her throat muscles, clenched her hands into fists and burned in her chest like the worst ever heartburn. She didn’t know what Leo was talking about; she truly didn’t have a clue! Wasn’t that the ultimate humiliation? How could it ever be right that Leo should know more about her past than she did? Harassment? Assault? Court cases?

      Reading her shuttered and mutinous face and the pale sea-green eyes blazing at him, Leo returned to the desk and extracted a slim file from the drawer, which he settled on the desk top. ‘The investigation. Take it if you want it.’

      Trembling with reaction, Grace studiously averted her eyes from the file, too proud to reach for it.

      ‘I didn’t intend to upset you, Grace. But naturally, I assumed that nothing in that file would come as a surprise to you...you were eleven years old when you lost your mother.’

      Having Leo study her in that cool, even-tempered manner when she herself was so shaken up simply made Grace want to thump him hard. ‘You really do have no finer feelings, do you? You suddenly drag up my father and reveal that you know more about him than I do? Didn’t it occur to you that that was inexcusably thoughtless and cruel?’ she condemned with angry spirit.

      ‘I didn’t realise that it would still be such a sensitive subject for you. But you’re right—I should’ve done. I’m not particularly keen to discuss my own background,’ Leo conceded with a wry twist of his sensual mouth.

      ‘I have to go. I have an appointment to see my tutor in an hour,’ Grace fielded, spinning on her heel and walking fast out of the room before she exposed herself any more.

      Leo lifted the investigation file and then slapped it back down hard on the desk in frustration. He had upset her and he hadn’t intended to do that. Grace was sensitive. Grace had hang-ups about her past. But didn’t he as well? And since when had he worried about such delicate details? Or reacted personally to someone else’s distress? The answer to that last question came back and chilled Leo to the marrow: not since he was a child struggling to comfort his distraught mother. Any desire to follow Grace and reason with her faded fast on that note.

      Still struggling to master her powerful emotions, Grace leant back against the wall in the lift. What was it about Leo Zikos that brought her inner aggression out? The very first night she had met Leo she had resolved to be herself rather than act like the quieter, more malleable Grace she had learned to be to fit in with her uncle’s family. That version of Grace had never freely expressed herself or lost her temper and had certainly never shouted at anyone. So, what was happening to her now? She was unnerved by her own behaviour and by the sheer strength of the emotions taking her by storm. It was almost as though that one night of truly being herself with Leo had destroyed any hope of her either controlling or hiding her emotions again for ever. Suddenly she was feeling all sorts of things she didn’t want to feel.

      Hell roast Leo for his interference, she thought in a simmering tempest of resentment. He had made her curious, made her burn to know what he knew about the father she barely remembered and that infuriated her when she had always contrived to keep her curiosity about her father at a manageable, unthreatening level. Now all of a sudden she was desperate to know everything there was to know. But that was yet another betrayal of her self-control, in short a weakness, and she refused to give way to it. After all, she knew everything she needed to know about her father. Those bare facts could only be interpreted in one way. Her father hadn’t cared enough to stay around. That was all she needed to know, she told herself impatiently.

      She met with her tutor and her decision to take a year out from her studies was accepted. While she negotiated the stairs back down to the busy ground floor of the university building, Grace was thinking resolutely positive thoughts about the seed of life in her womb. She was facing huge changes in her life, but the sacrifices she was making and the adjustments that would follow would all benefit her baby, she told herself soothingly.

      Marrying Leo would give Grace the precious gift of time. She would have time to come to terms with the prospect of motherhood and time to enjoy the first precious months of her baby’s life without the stress of wondering how she was to survive as a new mother. She would also have Leo’s support. Any male that keen to marry her for their baby’s sake would be a hands-on father and she very much wanted that male influence in her child’s life. She had never forgotten how much she herself had longed for a father as a little girl. In every possible way her life would be more settled when she returned to her studies the following year, she reflected with relief.

      But as she went to bed that night her mind was still in turmoil over her personal, private reactions to Leo. Leo, always Leo, who had dominated her thoughts from the first moment she laid eyes on him. How had that happened? Grace had always prided herself on her discipline over her emotions but Leo Zikos had blasted through her defensive barriers like a blazing comet, awakening her to feelings and cravings that she had barely understood before. Was it infatuation? Was it simply sexual attraction? Or did her need to understand him, note his gifts as well as his flaws, indicate a deeper, more dangerous form of attachment? Theirs would be a marriage of convenience, after all, and even Marina had warned Grace not to expect more from Leo than he was already offering her.

      But in the dark of the night Grace was facing an unsettling truth: she was beginning to fall in love with Leo, hopelessly, deeply in love with a male who had never uttered a word of interest relating to any connection with her more meaningful than sex. A male, moreover, who had virtually blackmailed her into marrying him and who, while declaring respect for fidelity, had still been rampantly unfaithful to his fiancée.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      ‘I CAN’T HELP being curious to know what you know about my father,’ Grace admitted stiffly to her uncle on the drive to the register office.

      Declan Donovan studied his niece in surprise. ‘Virtually nothing, I’m afraid. Your mother refused to talk about him. Initially she said she was getting married but when that failed to transpire Keira had a huge row with our parents and cut us all off. I think she felt she’d lost face with everybody and it hurt her pride.’

      ‘So, you never met him?’

      ‘No, they had a bad break-up and after that we lost track of your mother for years.’ The older man shook his head with unhidden regret. ‘Keira was a troubled woman, Grace. I never understood her. Luckily she still had my address in her personal effects when she died, so the social worker was able to get in touch with me to tell me about you.’

      Grace flushed and looked away, wishing she had asked that same question years sooner. But she had been too proud to ask about the father who had deserted her and her mother. ‘It’s not important,’ she said with forced casualness.

      ‘It’s only natural that you would be thinking of your parents on your wedding day,’ her uncle completed gruffly and patted her hand.

      Leo stared as Grace entered the room and he wasn’t the only one. Their few guests copied him, their expressions