She really had enjoyed her swim, but she took a cab back to her apartment building two hours later, feeling too exhausted now to make the walk back.
She came to an abrupt halt when she reached the top of the third-floor stairs and saw the door into her apartment was slightly ajar.
She was sure she’d locked it when she left.
Hadn’t she?
Of course she had.
Unless that injury to the head had affected her more than she realized?
Didn’t matter whether she had or hadn’t locked the door, it was now open.
What might be waiting for her on the other side of it was enough to make her hands tremble and her breathing grow shallow.
Carla approached that door quietly and slowly, her shoulder bag clutched in her hand, ready to hit anyone who jumped out at her. Then she snorted. As if being stealthy or wielding her bag as a weapon was going to make the slightest bit of difference if there was an armed or violent burglar. Or, God forbid, an axe-murderer waiting inside the silence of her apartment, ready to strike when she walked through the doorway.
She became aware of the aroma of a familiar aftershave the moment she pushed the door wide enough for her to enter the hallway. “Leon?” she questioned uncertainly, taking the four strides that took her straight into the sitting room.
He was sitting very upright in one of her armchairs, wearing a tailored dark suit, snowy-white shirt, and meticulously tied gray silk tie.
Carla hadn’t seen him before he’d left the hotel earlier, so she couldn’t say whether or not he’d been wearing the formal clothing then.
He remained utterly still, to the extent he didn’t even turn his head in Carla’s direction when he answered her. “Were you expecting someone else?”
“No.” The coldness of his tone and the bleakness of his expression sent an icy shiver down the length of Carla’s spine. Because she had disobeyed him and left the hotel during his absence? Seemed a bit overkill to her. “But I wasn’t expecting you either.”
“You didn’t see Jericho and Padraic on your way in?” he mocked.
“No.” She hadn’t been looking for the Irish bodyguards, but she also had a feeling that if they didn’t want to be seen, they would ensure they weren’t. If they were outside, they’d also obviously been instructed not to impede her returning to her apartment. “Are they in a black SUV?” She’d noticed the parked vehicle, but her apartment was near the shops, so there were always cars parked outside that didn’t belong to the residents.
Leon nodded. “I asked them to wait downstairs.”
“While you came up here and broke into my apartment?” She still felt incredulous that was, apparently, what he’d done. People didn’t really do that. At least, not the people she knew. Until Leon.
He finally turned to look at her, the bleakness of his expression even deeper in the storm-tossed gray of his eyes. “That lock couldn’t keep out a six-year-old with a paperclip.”
Carla had no way of gauging exactly what his current mood meant, beyond knowing it chilled her to the bone. This man didn’t have to stand up to his full and threatening height or raise his voice for him to be as intimidating as hell.
“I doubt a six-year-old with a paperclip would want to break into my apartment,” she came back dryly.
“When I left you earlier, I told you not to leave the hotel.”
She winced. “Reality check—you don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do.”
His mouth tightened. “You’ve been to a gym in a leisure center since returning home. Why?”
Only one thing about that statement meant anything to Carla. “Did you have me followed?”
“Of course.”
Her temper rose. “How dare you!”
“Reality check,” he tauntingly drawled her earlier words back on her. “You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do either. So.” His eyes narrowed. “What did you do at the gym?”
“Padraic didn’t tell you that?” Process of elimination told her that Jericho had left with Leon this morning, and now Jericho was downstairs with Padraic. She had no idea what Kieran was doing.
“They wouldn’t allow Padraic into the gym because he isn’t a member.”
She nodded. “Good to know their security is working.”
“Carla,” Leon bit out in warning.
“Oh, for the love of… I went for a swim, okay?”
His eyes widened. “A swim?”
Carla sighed heavily. “This conversation is going to go much quicker, and you can leave all the sooner, if you stop repeating my questions back to me.”
He scowled. “No way should you have been swimming with a head injury.”
The looming headache creasing her brow had already told her that. “I covered the gauze with a waterproof plaster so the wound didn’t get wet.”
“That isn’t—”
“Why are you here, Leon?” she demanded.
His eyes narrowed, his expression remaining rigidly uncompromising. “How well do you know Benito Calabro?”
Carla was so taken aback by the randomness of the question, her heart stuttered and then stopped.
Where the hell had Leon’s question about Benny come from…?
Having Leon continue to look at her with those cold, unblinking, and accusing gray eyes wasn’t helping to alleviate the shock she’d just received. “I don’t remember mentioning Benny’s name to you.”
“You didn’t.”
“Then how do you know about him?”
Leon’s nostrils flared. “He and I had a…conversation earlier.”
She swallowed. “You and Benny?” She couldn’t even begin to imagine it.
Leon was not only powerful, but suave and sophisticated, whereas Benny was a typical jock and enjoyed going to the gym several times a week and watching sports on television, at home and at work.
“Yes,” Leon bit out.
“In regard to what?”
“You, eventually.”
“What?” Her voice was hushed in the tense silence.
“Is
