The Beautiful Widow - By Helen Brooks Page 0,45

she was your daughter rather than your sister.’ It was out before she had thought and when she realised how personal it sounded she blushed a bright pink. He had no need to explain anything to her.

Steel didn’t seem to notice. Quietly, he said, ‘I guess that’s true in a way. I brought Annie up after our parents died and I’ve always felt responsible for her.’

‘That must have been hard at times when you were younger, before she met her husband.’ Part of her couldn’t believe she had the temerity to delve like this; the other part desperately wanted to know what he would say. ‘Didn’t you feel tied down?’

He looked down at the glass in his hand, clearly thinking about what she had said. His black lashes were thick and long for a man, thought Toni, but they only added to his masculinity somehow. A touch of softness emphasising the hardness.

‘At the time I think I just got on with it,’ he said after a moment or two. ‘And I did still manage to have girlfriends. I wouldn’t want you to run away with the impression I was a monk or anything. But after she met Jeff I have to admit I felt a weight had been lifted off me. Not that I didn’t love her and want to take care of her,’ he added quickly, ‘and no one forced me to do it. There were other members of the wider family who would have taken her off my hands but I didn’t want that. And I’ve never regretted those years. Not once.’

But they’d taken their toll. She realised he was letting her see a part of him that few people—if any—saw, and her heart swelled with an indescribable feeling before she took check of herself. This was still Steel Landry, she cautioned. Bachelor extraordinaire and magnet to any woman who set eyes on him. Keeping her voice even and bland, she said, ‘Which is why you value your freedom now, of course.’

‘Why I have done in the past, yes.’

Her breath stopped. He did have a woman, someone so precious he’d kept her from public gaze. That was what this ‘family’ house was all about. The knife-like pain that shot through her made her stomach muscles clench.

The waitress popped up again like a genie out of a bottle with their coffee, and in spite of the girl’s gooey glances at Steel Toni silently blessed her for the much-needed moments to pull herself together. As the waitress sashayed off Toni took refuge in the mundane. ‘They must be really excited now the time is so close when they’ll see their first child.’

‘I guess so.’ He nodded slowly.

‘Have they decided on names yet?’ she asked woodenly.

‘Names?’ he echoed abstractedly, his eyes on her face.

‘Annie and Jeff? For the baby?’ She couldn’t blame him for his blank expression. One minute they’d been talking nitty-gritty ‘feeling’ stuff, and the next.

He didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Charles for a boy, Eve for a girl, at the last count, but it changes with the wind.

We’ve had every name beginning from A to Z; Annie’s had too much time to think.’

‘Poor Annie. The last few months have been difficult for her.’

‘Poor Jeff. This weepy thing women go through in pregnancy has thrown him for six. He can cope with concepts that blow the normal human mind and technology that would have floored Einstein as easy as pie, but Annie crying sends him into a spin.’

‘That’s because he loves her,’ Toni said quietly.

‘Yes, he does.’ Steel gave a crooked smile. ‘He loves her very much.’

There was someone. She knew it. Toni took a gulp of her coffee and scalded the back of her throat. He was so different today, so not the Steel of office hours. And this was the man all his girlfriends saw; someone infinitely more devastating than even the powerful, ruthless tycoon she had become accustomed to. No wonder his women became obsessed with keeping him, as the unfortunate Barbara had done. How would you get over someone like Steel? Or perhaps you never did.

Suddenly she felt she was in one of those dreams where she knew it was imperative to escape the unseen threat bearing down on her but only to find her legs were like lead and she was unable to run. She blinked, taking a deep breath, and the panic receded, leaving her slightly shaky.

‘More coffee?’ Steel said softly. ‘Or a brandy?’

‘No. No, thanks.’ She met his eyes, hers veiled. ‘I really