Master of Her Virtue - By Miranda Lee Page 0,6

Which didn’t mean she’d never had one, Leo conceded. Hell, she’d been to university, hadn’t she? Not even the plainest, dullest girls got through uni without being hit upon. And this Violet wasn’t plain or dull.

Maybe she’d had a bad sexual experience at some stage which had made her anti-men.

‘Did you remind her that it was fancy dress?’ Leo asked. Henry had stipulated on his invitations that guests were to come dressed as a character from a movie.

‘Yes. And it didn’t seem to worry her.’

‘Even more surprising,’ was Leo’s comment. Shy people tended not to like fancy dress. Maybe Henry was wrong in his assessment of his assistant’s personality. Maybe she had a secret love life. A married man, perhaps?

‘I wonder what character your obviously-not-so-shrinking Violet will choose?’ he said, his curiosity piqued.

Henry shrugged. ‘Lord knows. Something a little more imaginative than yours, I hope.’

‘Come now, Henry, you didn’t honestly expect me to ponce around all night in green tights and a feathered hat?’

‘But you’d make a fantastic Robin Hood, with your athletic body.’

Leo did keep himself lean and fit, but he was forty now, not twenty-five. Time for a more grown-up costume. ‘I think the character I’ve chosen suits me better.’

‘Why?’ Henry said as he poured himself another glass of wine. ‘Because you’re a fellow womaniser?’

Leo was taken aback by his father’s remark. He had never considered himself a womaniser. Possibly it looked like he was to people who didn’t really know him. He did have two marriages behind him and, yes, he was rarely without an attractive young actress to grace his arm when at the many public events he was obliged to attend these days.

But what the media didn’t know was that he didn’t sleep with any of them. Well...not any more he didn’t. He’d learned by his mistakes. The only woman Leo had sex with these days was Mandy, a fortyish divorced workaholic who ran a casting agency in London and who was the soul of discretion about their strictly sexual relationship.

Mandy liked Leo, and she liked sex. What she wouldn’t like was being featured in the gossip columns of London’s tabloids as Leo Wolfe’s latest squeeze. She had two teenage sons at boarding school whom she adored and an ex-husband whom she detested. She didn’t want to get married again. She just wanted some company in bed occasionally. They met at her Kensington town house once or twice a week when Leo was in town.

‘I’m not a womaniser,’ Leo denied, annoyed with his father for even thinking that he was.

‘Of course you are, Leo,’ Henry refuted coolly. ‘It’s in your blood. You’re just like me. I loved your mother dearly, but I sometimes think it was a blessing that she passed away when she did. I wouldn’t have stayed faithful to her. I would have made her miserable, the way you made Grace miserable,’ he pronounced as he swept the wine glass to his lips.

‘I was not unfaithful to Grace,’ Leo bit out through clenched teeth. ‘And I did not make her miserable.’ Not till after he had asked her for a divorce, that was. Till then, Grace had been totally unaware of the fact that he didn’t love her. And that he had never loved her—although Leo had thought he had when he had asked her to marry him. But he’d been only twenty, for pity’s sake, and she’d been pregnant with his child. Lust had tricked him into believing he was in love.

The lust lasted till Liam had been born, which was when Leo had really fallen in love—with his son. He’d tried desperately to make the marriage work for the baby’s sake. He’d pretended and pretended till it had nearly driven him mad. In the end, just before their ninth wedding anniversary, he’d admitted defeat and asked Grace for a divorce. He’d just started getting interested in the movie-making business and had realised he wanted to change more than just his profession. He’d never enjoyed being a lawyer, and he could no longer stand making love to a woman whom he didn’t love.

He was fortunate that Grace had been nice enough not to punish him for not loving her. She’d given him joint custody of Liam and they were still good friends today. She’d eventually found someone else to marry and seemed happy.

But Leo had never forgotten the pain in her eyes when he’d told her that he’d fallen out of love with her. He hadn’t admitted that he’d never loved her,