by Penny Jordan
His fingertips brushed the front of her thigh, and the soft quiver became an involuntary and uncontrollable convulsive shudder. She could feel Leon’s lips nuzzling the back of her neck, just below her ear. His hands moved with aching slowness up over the front of her body towards her breasts.
With a small moan Sadie pressed back against him.
‘What is it?’ he murmured against the ear. ‘Do you want me to stop?’
His hands were doing incredible things to her breasts, making her ache for the feel of his mouth against her tight, eager nipples. But Leon did not seem to share her own surging urgency. Instead he continued to stroke and caress her, nibbling little kisses against her neck, sliding his hands over her soap-slicked body. His touch was arousing her to such a frantic pitch that she moaned sharply in frustration and opened her legs, mentally begging him to touch her intimately.
‘What is it?’ he asked again softly, when her ecstatic writhings wouldn’t be stilled. ‘What do you want?’
‘You know,’ Sadie moaned, desperate to grab hold of his hand and place it against her body, but unable to do so because of the way he was still stroking her.
‘Tell me,’ Leon urged huskily. ‘Tell me what you want me to do, Sadie. Show me how you want me to touch you…how you want me to love you…Is it this you want?’ he asked warmly as his hand caressed the curve of her hip and slid down over her belly before cupping her sex.
Sadie gasped as she felt the impatient swell of her body, too wrought up to be able to tell Leon what was happening to her. But somehow he knew, she realised, because he turned her round and stared down into her wild open eyes as his fingers answered the urgent need of her body and the fierce, tight explosion of her orgasm brought her into trembling release.
Sadie was awake, but she did not want to open her eyes just in case it had all been only a dream and Leon wasn’t actually in bed beside her after all. She knew it must be morning, even with her eyes closed. Somehow she could feel the brightness of the day through her eyelids. If Leon wasn’t there…
Cautiously she moved her body, still heavy and soft with satisfaction and love.
Love! Her heart turned over inside her chest. She loved Leon so much…Just the thought of him was enough to—
She stiffened abruptly as the restless movements of her body brought her into contact with warm male flesh. It had happened! She hadn’t just imagined it! Leon was here!
Bubbles of joy and excitement fizzed through her blood. With her eyes still closed Sadie nestled closer to him, fitting her body into the curve of his. She could smell the warm, musky scent of him—and it was more aphrodisiacal than any man-made perfume. The soft hair on his chest was tickling her nose. Tenderly she rubbed her lips against his skin, delighting in the secret stolen pleasure of being able to do so whilst he was still asleep. Smiling to herself, she stroked her fingertip lazily along his arm, so different from her own, all powerful muscles and sinews.
Against her body she could feel his stirring. A female shiver of pleasure slowly caressed her own body.
Snuggling further down his body, she teased her tongue-tip around his navel, her hand reaching out to touch and then hold him. It was an extraordinarily sensual and tender thing to feel him growing within her hold, at once both vulnerable and powerful.
Experimentally she started to caress him, enjoying his body’s response to her and rewarding it with a soft kiss.
This was an intimacy she hadn’t imagined she would ever want to experience, but suddenly she knew just how much she did. The brief touch of her lips became a more intimate and sensual exploration.
‘Enjoying yourself?’
The low, groaned words shocked through her. Lifting her head, she turned to look up at Leon. She had been so lost in the enjoyment of what she was doing that she hadn’t even realised he was awake.
‘I…’
‘I certainly was,’ he told her thickly, his voice soft with pleasure, ‘so don’t let me stop you…’
‘What time will they be bringing the replacement hire car?’ Sadie asked Leon drowsily as she responded to the slow drift of his hands on her body.
They had made love, and then slept, and now Leon was caressing her again.
‘Soon,’ he told her wryly, removing his hand with obvious reluctance. ‘I suppose we’d better make a move.’
There was a note in his voice that made Sadie look enquiringly at him.
‘I swore that there was no way I was going to let this happen,’ he told her ruefully.
‘But you wanted it to?’ Sadie questioned him.
‘Do you really need to ask?’ Leon responded, his voice wry with self-mockery.
Leon’s mobile rang as he walked into his hotel room several hours later. He’d just left Sadie at her own room.
‘Brad.’ He smiled as he recognised the voice of his godfather, the company’s and his own solicitor. ‘I was going to ring you later, to give you an update on what’s happening with the Francine acquisition. Yes, I know things are taking longer than we originally expected,’ Leon agreed, still smiling. ‘There’s been a bit of a complication with the junior shareholder, made more difficult by the fact that she almost backed out of the deal.’
Briefly Leon explained to his godfather exactly what had happened. His smile turned to a frown as he heard Brad asking worriedly, ‘What do you mean? We aren’t talking about the woman we saw at the trade fair, are we, Leon? Because she looked to me…’ He took a pause, and then went on even more worriedly, ‘Your father almost lost the business and the shirt off his back, thanks to a conniving, lying woman, Leon, and by the sounds of it you’re in danger of having the same thing happen to you!’
‘Brad, Sadie isn’t like that,’ Leon stopped him curtly.
‘How can you know that, Leon? You’ve already said that she’s causing problems.’
‘Brad, Sadie is not another Miranda.’
‘You can’t be sure of that, Leon. You’re carrying a mighty heavy responsibility on your shoulders—we both know that! Hell, you’re a man, Leon, and only human. I understand that. But if you’re wrong, you don’t need me to tell you how much damage that could do to the business.’
‘You worry too much, Brad,’ Leon told his godfather affectionately before ending the call, but his frown deepened as he walked over to the window. No matter what his personal feelings for Sadie were, he could not afford to do anything that might put the business at risk.
Sadie was not another Miranda Stanton. He was sure of it. But what if he was wrong? Whatever risks he was prepared to take with his own emotions, he was not prepared to take any with the financial security of the business.
Miranda Stanton!
He had been fourteen, and still mourning his grandmother, when to everyone’s shock his father’s business partner had died of a heart attack.
Andy and his father had been at school together, and even though the business had originally been Leon’s father’s idea, he had generously offered Andy a share in it. They had started out with nothing, but by the time Leon was thirteen the business was beginning to do very well.
And then Andy had got married—to a much younger woman—who none of them had liked.
‘If a woman has gold-digger written all over her then that woman is Miranda!’ Leon could remember his mother sighing.
Leon could also remember his father coming home one night and telling his mother that he had to go and see the bank. Andy was in a bit of a financial mess, due to Miranda’s insistence on an expensive lifestyle, and had asked Leon’s father to buy him out of their business.
Generously, because of Andy’s desperation, Leon’s father had given him the money before the legal documents confirming the buy-out had been signed. A week later, whilst on holiday with Miranda, Andy had had a heart attack and died. And a week after that Miranda had informed Leon’s father that she wanted and intended to have the full cash value of Andy’s half-share in the business.
It had been useless for Leon’s father to
protest that Andy had already had the money, and she had known about it. She had pointed out that Leon’s father had no legal documentation to prove it.
Leon’s father had not given up easily. The matter had even gone to court. But of course legally there had been no proof.
In order to buy her out and meet his legal costs Leon’s father had had to mortgage the business up to the hilt, and sell the family home. The family had gone from living in comfort to living from hand to mouth. His parents’ smiling faces had become pinched and strained.
Leon had hated Miranda for what she had done to his family. He had vowed then and there that what had happened to his father would never happen to him! And now here was Brad, suggesting that Sadie was potentially another Miranda!
It wasn’t true, of course, Leon assured himself. That stubbornness she displayed was defensive rather than manipulative. But a cautionary inner voice reminded him sharply that she had hinted to him about wanting the Grasse property. And there had been all that fuss she had made, both about the Myrrh formula and the creation of a new scent. He had believed her motives to be genuine, if somewhat idealistic and simplistic, but if he was wrong…
It was hardly unknown for an acquisitive woman to use sex to get what she wanted.
Sadie wasn’t like that, though!
His intimacy with her was interfering with his analytical abilities as well as potentially threatening to screw up the deal and his life, Leon admitted grimly.
‘Face it,’ he told himself brutally. ‘You’ve got yourself in way too deep.’
Way, way too deep, he realised.
The best thing he could do right now, he conceded reluctantly, in fact the only thing he could do right now, was to back off and put some space between himself and Sadie.
When the deal had gone through tomorrow, once he had Francine and the Myrrh formula and had fulfilled his duty to the business, then things would be different.
On their way back from the mas, he and Sadie had talked briefly about the takeover.
‘The legal side of things is pretty well sorted out,’ Leon had explained. ‘You, Raoul and I sign the papers tomorrow, but first I’ve told my people to organise an immediate press conference to announce the takeover. It will put an end to all the speculation and gossip that’s been going on. I want you to be there, of course, as you’re a big part of what will be happening. I’ll be making an announcement to the effect that you’re going to be working on a new scent under the Francine name, and that we are going to reintroduce a modern version of Mrryh. Unfortunately, virtually as soon as that the press conference is over, I’m going to have to fly back to Australia, via Italy. I’ve got to see the new designer we’re taking on to head the fashion division.’
Leon had felt the beginnings of a sharp ache at the thought of leaving her, but now, he told himself, he was relieved.
Back in her hotel room, Sadie waited, hoping that Leon would ring. He had told her on the way back that he had business matters to attend to, and she understood that, of course, but surely in view of the intimacy they had shared he would also want to be with her as much as possible, before they had to go their separate ways?
Impulsively Sadie went to her door and opened it.
Leon frowned as he opened his door to Sadie’s knock.
Smiling tenderly at him, Sadie told him, ‘I know you said you had business to attend to, but I thought I could at least be with you—and then, perhaps…’
Her voice trailed away as she saw the way Leon was frowning.
‘Leon?’ she began uncertainly.
What had happened to the passionate, sensual man she had known so intimately at the mas? She could not see anything of him here, in the grim rejection of Leon’s reaction to her now.
Anxious and bewildered, Sadie struggled to understand what was happening.
‘If it’s a bad time…’
Helplessly she looked at him, unable to hide what she was feeling.
As he saw the look in Sadie’s eyes Leon’s first instinct was to go to her and take her in his arms, but somehow he managed to suppress it. Brad’s warning had resurrected some very painful memories. Sadie might not be Miranda, but there were some very complicated issues between them, and there was no way he could allow his own emotions to rule his head now.
‘I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on, Sadie,’ he informed her curtly, turning his back on her as he spoke so that he couldn’t look into her eyes and be tempted beyond his own self-control.
Reminding himself of his responsibilities to the business, he took a deep breath.
‘What happened between us at the mas…’ he began.
Sadie could not let him go on. Ice-cold anguish and pain were seeping agonisingly through her whole body, filling her with a mixture of anger and disbelief. Only the knowledge that if she remained in Leon’s room she would be brutally humiliated made her stop him with a cold stare.
‘You don’t need to say any more, Leon. I understand perfectly what you mean.’
Not trusting herself to say any more, she whirled round and left.
She felt hot, cold and sick with the pain of being rejected. Burning with anger, she felt torn between two totally conflicting sets of emotions—hating Leon and yet at the same time fully aware of just how much she actually loved him.
Grimly, Leon stared at the empty space where Sadie had been standing. He told himself that he was glad she had left. If she hadn’t…Helplessly he moved towards where she had been standing, treacherously allowing himself to breathe in the air still scented by her presence.
She was a passionately and infuriatingly stubborn woman who had the potential to make his life one hell of a lot more complicated than he wanted it to be! And also a lot more pleasurable. It would certainly be more filled with love, with all the things he had denied himself during the years he had focused on building up the business and securing what had been so nearly lost to his family.
Leon’s expression became even more grim. He just did not have time for this now. He had to secure Francine—if he didn’t, his board would have his guts for breakfast. If he gave in and allowed his feelings for Sadie to take him over and rule his life, how the hell was he going to be able to concentrate wholly on the business? And if he didn’t…
Somewhere deep inside him a small, unfamiliar voice asked if he really wanted to devote the rest of his life to the conglomerate…if he wouldn’t really rather build a loving relationship than a fat balance sheet. But Leon refused to listen to it.
Sadie stared unseeingly around her room. Leon had rejected her! Her face burned fiercely at the recollection of just how determined and obvious that rejection had been! He had used her and then dropped her, she stormed in furious inward anger, but somehow a part of her recognised that that did not ring true. If Leon had simply wanted a brief sexual fling he could have found someone much more up for that sort of thing than her.
So why had he cast her aside, then, if it wasn’t because of that? she demanded of herself, lashing her anger with the whip of her own self-contempt and misery. Why was she trying to find excuses for him? He couldn’t have made it plainer that he didn’t want her. Sadie felt even more humiliated as she relived his reaction to her uninvited arrival at his room.
Painful as the experiment had been, she discovered that a treacherous part of her had recorded every minute detail about him with a lover’s intensity—even small things, like the movement of his hands as he had backed away from her. Were those really the same hands that had drawn her so close, held her so tenderly and touched her so intimately? The harshness of his voice—the same voice which had whispered smokily to her of desire and longing, the same voice which had rung out into the night at the height of passion…. Sadie shivered as she remembered the way his gaze had hardened over her, that same gaze which so very recently had melted and then burned with heat and longing…
What had happened? Why had he changed so abruptly? Instinctively Sadie knew that there was no point in her trying to as
k him. His body language had told her exactly how he wanted things to be between them—with as much distance as possible!
Her own pride flared into bitter life. Very well! If that was what he wanted, then that was what he was going to get.
Her emotions were in total confusion, Sadie recognised achingly. She had believed they were falling in love with one another, but now Leon was telling her that he just didn’t want to know, that he had changed his mind and that he did not want to build a relationship with her after all.
And, what was more, in telling her that he had also implied that he still expected them to share a business relationship!
One part of her—the part of her which had given him her love and her trust and had had that love rejected—was demanding that she protect herself by having nothing more to do with Leon—ever! But Sadie prided herself on her professionalism, and in her opinion it would just not be morally acceptable for her to back out of the contract negotiations now, just because Leon had rejected her emotionally.
She was in between the proverbial rock and hard place, and her poor heart was being badly hurt by them both!
Perhaps once the contracts had been signed and she became involved in her new role she would be too busy to worry about Leon. Too involved in the excitement of what she was doing to have any time to spare to think about him and how much he had hurt her. In fact, there was no ‘perhaps’ about it, Sadie decided firmly. That was the way things were going to be! There was no way was she going to languish around nursing a broken heart!
CHAPTER NINE
SHE was, Sadie knew, a little bit late and an awful lot on edge for this morning’s press conference—and both her lateness and her edginess were down to one person and one alone. Leon himself!
She was late because if it hadn’t been for the fact that she had to be here nothing would have dragged her anywhere she might have to see him. It had taken a hard-fought internal battle to enable herself to put her personal feelings to one side. And, having done so, she was on edge—just in case when she did see him the love she knew full well she still felt for him overwhelmed her and led her into subjecting herself to even more humiliation.