The Argentinian's Demand

by Cathy Williams

  Having broken up with Oliver, she had given up on worrying. The problems her marriage to him would have solved were still there, but it was no longer in her to angst over them. The solution she had found had disappeared the day she had phoned her fiancé and told him that the wedding was off.

  But what else could she have done? Love had bludgeoned her from behind and she had felt as though her options had been limited. Sleep with Leandro and break off her engagement—take, in other words, what was on offer or else endure a lifetime of bitter regret.

  She knew that she was falling deeper and deeper in love with him. She also knew that it was a feeling that was not reciprocated. She was his plaything. A different sort of plaything from the ones he had dated in the past, but still his plaything. He liked her well enough, and he enjoyed her company, but falling in love was certainly not what he was in the process of doing.

  The word love never crossed his lips. That was an emotion reserved for the special woman he would eventually find and marry—because, as she had discovered, he really did believe that marriages could work out. You had to be realistic, he had said, and had shrugged with a smile, but love was not an impossible dream. What, he had asked her, would be the point of working, earning money, fulfilling ambitions small or great, if at the end of it you were too cynical, too bitter or too disillusioned to enjoy sharing the rewards with someone else?

  Working for him, she would never have guessed it. She had written him off as someone else like her father—just another philandering man who didn’t care how he treated women as long as he could get from them what he wanted. Another man who didn’t give a damn about his discards.

  She had discovered that he was nothing like her father. He occasionally spoke about his exes with affection, and if there had been a higher than average number of girlfriends in the past then, he had laughingly told her, it was because he was extremely cautious about getting too wrapped up with any one woman when he knew, in his heart, that she was not the one for him—not the one with whom he wanted to form a permanent relationship.

  In fact, he had assured her, he was the consummate gentleman when it came to the fairer sex.

  Emily would have laughed with outright derision at that a few weeks previously, but after digging a little deeper she had discovered that he kept in touch with a surprising number of his exes.

  Two he had set up in their own businesses. He was godfather to the children of a few of them, and took his duties as godfather very seriously.

  ‘It’s the Latin American way,’ he had told her smugly. ‘We’re big into families... When I eventually settle down I shall expect the lucky lady to agree with me that a nice round number like six is perfect when it comes to children...’

  When he spoke like that she could feel something twist painfully inside her.

  She assumed that ‘the lucky lady’ would be from his own country—a sexy, dark-haired beauty who was possibly a family friend and knew the way his world worked. Someone from the same elevated background.

  She never asked what this woman would be like or where he might find her. She didn’t want to have answers to those questions, and at any rate he would have been surprised had she asked. They were lovers with an understanding. She wasn’t looking for anything else and so, like him, could enjoy their relationship without inconveniently wanting more.

  And it helped that she no longer worked for him. He had pulled strings, despite her protests, and found her an equally well paid job at a law firm in the City.

  The responsibilities were different, but she found that she enjoyed the work, enjoyed the variation in her tasks...enjoyed playing with the idea of possibly becoming a paralegal...

  She knew that she should have objected to having him help her get another job. Pulling strings was not something of which she approved. But she needed the money. It was as simple as that. And he had swept aside her concerns by reminding her that she had been a brilliant employee, that Stern, Hodge and Smith should consider themselves lucky to have nabbed her...

  All these thoughts were lazily swirling through her mind as she looked at the hand-crafted chest of drawers by the window, the fall of the curtains, the built-in wardrobes fashioned from the same smooth, blond and tan wood as the dressing table.

  There was an original Picasso—a small, exquisite sketch—casually hanging over the chest of drawers, and more than anything else that was a constant reminder of how different their worlds were.

  She glanced away as she heard the sound of him nearing the room and helplessly watched the door, waiting for him to nudge it open, already anticipating the little thrill of delight that would shoot through her the second she saw him. She hated this weakness in herself, this absolute powerlessness when it came to him, but she accepted it just as she accepted that after a lifetime of being in control, of always remaining on the sidelines, a spectator to any emotion that might suck her under, she was no longer in that position.

  ‘You’re up.’

  Leandro looked at her with open male satisfaction—looked at the duvet which was making a poor attempt at covering her nakedness, looked at the spread of her blonde hair across the pillow and the way her blue eyes lazily drank him up, as shamelessly appreciative of his nudity as he was of hers.

  Emily wound a strand of long hair around her finger and smiled. ‘I was up when you left the bedroom.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to know because I wanted to see that cute little rear of yours as you walked out of the bedroom. I didn’t want you to be modest and hide it away from me under your dressing gown...’

  ‘Modest? I feel you’re thinking of the wrong guy...’ He never failed to marvel that she could be like this...soft and sexy and teasing...nothing at all like his dim recollection of how she’d used to be when she worked for him.

  He frowned and moved to place her coffee on the table next to the bed. ‘You’ve never told me what the people you work with are like,’ he said suddenly.

  He eased himself next to her and reached behind to cover her peachy bottom with his hand, so that with very little pressure he could draw her towards him and feel the length of her nakedness pressed against his.

  ‘You’ve told me,’ he continued, nibbling her neck, then the side of her mouth, before drawing back and settling her into the crook of his arm, ‘that you get along with them, but what does that mean? It’s been a while since I went to see old Hodge. Can’t really remember what kind of ship he’s running there...’

  ‘It’s a tight one, Captain...’ She traced his bare chest with her hand. ‘Have I told you that I’m interested in maybe doing a bit more than just being a PA? I think I could really do well in law. I enjoy it. I enjoy the precision...’

  Leandro grunted. He wasn’t that interested in her future career as a hotshot corporate lawyer. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of the people you work with. I wouldn’t want to have set you up with a job where you’re surrounded by bores...’

  ‘Well, you can rest assured that they’re all very interesting.’

  ‘All of them? Is that possible?’

  ‘It’s a great environment, Leandro. I mean, it’s different from your office. It’s not nearly as big, and there’s a much higher concentration of young people of similar educational background...’

  It wasn’t what Leandro wanted to hear. His scowl deepened. He couldn’t quite see when his ridiculously powerful attraction to her was going to end, and if he felt that way—if she could hold his attention for that length of time—then wasn’t it conceivable that other guys would be ogling her? It made perfect sense. And how long would it take her to realise that she could hitch up with someone there? Someone who would tempt her with the offer of a committed relationship...someone who would rival the now ex-fiancé when it came to safety?

  Leandro, in a vague way, had always assumed that any love
connection for him would come in the form of an Argentinian girl—someone who would understand what was expected of her, someone whose goal in life would be to have his children and run a smooth household...someone whose career would be him. And, of course, someone who wasn’t after him for his money.

  His mother had been the perfect wife to his dad. She had had a handful of children and had been proud to take care of her husband’s needs. Was he old-fashioned in thinking that that would be the right sort of woman for him when the time came? As opposed to a career woman who imported nannies to look after her kids and fainted at the thought of staying at home? Or else an empty-headed beauty who would be willing to do whatever he wanted just so long as he kept pouring money into her hands? Someone who would jump ship should the money ever stop?

  Emily Edison—secretary extraordinaire, sex bomb extraordinaire and now career woman in the ascendant—didn’t fit the bill. So he was a little perplexed as to why the thought of other men looking at her bothered him. He wasn’t a possessive man. Such feelings were entirely inappropriate when it came to mistresses.

  ‘Is that a fact?’ He straddled her and began lathering attention on her neck, her shoulders, her collarbone. ‘And have any of these fun guys of a similar age made a pass at you yet?’

  Emily looked at him with muted surprise. ‘Are you jealous?’

  ‘I don’t do jealousy. I do curiosity.’

  ‘Ah. Right...’ She felt a twinge of disappointment but she understood completely. ‘I haven’t been there long enough to get into any kind of social life.’

  ‘And furthermore you don’t need a social life as you have me. You’re also recovering from a broken engagement...’

  Curiosity...irresistible, dangerous, compelling.

  Had she really broken off with her fiancé? If there had been any doubt then it should have been laid to rest by the amount of time they spent in each other’s company. Just like that she had kissed a sweet goodbye to the engagement that had propelled her into handing in her resignation.

  But his curiosity had been challenging to shift. Was the guy just biding his time...waiting until what they had blew over?

  Somehow the thought of that enraged Leandro, and he looked at her now, his mind playing between the equally unpleasant scenarios of several young men chasing her in her place of work or one young man waiting for her on the sidelines.

  There was nothing he could do about an ardent following in her workplace, short of buying the company, sacking the entire lot and replacing them with elderly, happily married men.

  A tempting thought, if only it were feasible.

  But what of his ex-competition? Cheerfully dispatched or still hovering in the background, nurturing hopes of a grand reunion? Red roses in his hand and engagement ring still in its box, ready to be whipped out once more at short notice?

  He realised that he had wasted more time than he would ever have expected thinking about her ex.

  He didn’t even know what the guy looked like!

  What was to stop him doing just a little background check? Maybe establishing whether the man was still on the scene or not....? Putting his mind to rest that she was his and his alone for the duration of their relationship.

  He had never had a chauvinistic bone in his body—was in full agreement that women were entitled to the same rights as their male counterparts in the workplace—but...

  He felt primitive with her.

  It made no sense. He wasn’t looking for anything beyond what she had cheerfully told him was on the table. She didn’t believe in relationships, in any of the things most women believed in, and so she came to him with no strings attached and no expectations lingering in the background.

  And yet, perversely, he was far more intent on reassuring himself that he possessed her utterly than he had ever been with any other woman.

  The thought of her trying him on for size because her ex-fiancé didn’t quite cut it on the physical front was abhorrent to him.

  Worse was the notion that she might leave him and use everything she had experienced as a learning curve with which to re-energise her physical relationship with the ex.

  Always presuming that the damned man was still on the scene!

  It would take one call and he could put the whole thing into motion. Find out where the ex was...whether he was out of the picture completely...what the man looked like...what precisely he did for a living...

  With one number dialled on his mobile he could be in possession of facts which he knew should not concern him and which were, essentially, none of his business.

  ‘Everyone needs a social life, Leandro.’

  It took him a few seconds to return to what they had been talking about. ‘Come again?’

  ‘You’re not my social life.’

  Emily decided to get that perfectly straight, because falling in love with him was one thing... It would be quite another for him to get any inkling that he was the centre of her universe. Pride would never allow her to give him that privilege.

  ‘You’re telling me that you have after-work fun with the young lawyers in the company? Drinks in those over-priced, over-stylised pubs that bear no resemblance to what a real pub should look like?’

  ‘I’m too busy finding my feet to have much time for that at the moment,’ Emily told him truthfully. ‘But I expect I shall in due course. It’s a very sociable crowd of young people who work there.’

  ‘And what’s happened to...? I forget his name... The ex-fiancé...’

  ‘Oliver.’

  ‘That’s it. Is he still on the scene?’

  ‘He’s a friend, first and foremost,’ Emily said vaguely. ‘We keep in touch.’

  ‘Cosy.’

  ‘You keep in touch with some of your ex-girlfriends...’

  ‘I don’t recall ever having been engaged to any of them.’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘None of my relationships ever went that far. If and when I ever get to the point where I’m ready to commit and become engaged to a woman, then I sure as hell wouldn’t be passing the time of day with her if it didn’t work out.’

  He leapt out of the bed, grabbing his mobile on the way.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Sudden panic washed over Emily. Always on the alert for signs of boredom setting in, she wondered whether this random conversation about the great big world happening outside their little bubble had reminded him that he was still a single guy—still a guy looking for the right woman. Had talk of broken engagements and near-miss weddings turned him off the thrill of having a mistress? Had it sown the pernicious seed of wanting more than just passing sex?

  He had vanished out of the bedroom and she remained frozen where she was. Part of her wanted to rush behind him and demand to know what was going through his head. The other part wanted no such thing—wanted just to stay where she was and hope for the best, hope that things weren’t beginning to fall apart between them.

  She breathed a long sigh of relief when he returned to the bedroom five minutes later. ‘Where did you go?’ she asked casually.

  ‘Had to make a phone call.’ He chucked the phone onto the stack of discarded clothing on the ground and climbed back into bed with her.

  Job done. A single phone call. His man would set everything in motion and have whatever answers he needed before the end of the day.

  Leandro didn’t like spying, and he certainly would never tell her what he had done because there would be no point, but his good mood had been restored. He had never cared for unresolved issues.

  ‘Now, where were we...?’ He dealt her a slashing smile and returned to kissing her, taking up where he had left off and sliding into the soft response of her body as easily and seamlessly as if there had been no awkward conversation between them.

&nb
sp; Emily lay back and curled her fingers into his dark, tousled hair. When he touched her she couldn’t think, and that was a pretty good place to be.

  Her breasts were aching in anticipation of what he was going to do to them, the attention he was going to lavish there. She arched and then sighed as he took one pouting pink nipple into his mouth and began to suckle. He told her often and in great detail how much he loved her breasts, and why. Having spent a lifetime thinking that they were too small, she had learnt to offer them to him, knowing that they turned him on.

  In fact the same could be said of her entire body. Was that part of the reason why she had been so susceptible to him? Why she had been unable to stop herself from falling in love with him? Because he had burrowed beneath her fortresses and found the person who had been hiding? The trusting, hopeful girl who had spent so long concealing herself behind a wall of ice?

  Fat lot of good it would do her in the end, because he was not available for anything more than a fling, but Emily had learnt to cut short those thoughts when they appeared.

  His mouth clamped to her nipple was bliss. He sucked hard, and as he sucked his tongue flicked over the stiffened bud, driving her crazy. She couldn’t get enough. She touched the nipple he wasn’t attending to, pinching it between her fingers, and he gently pushed her hand away so that he could cup it and play with it himself.

  ‘You can touch yourself down there,’ he broke away for a second to say, with a grin that notched up the heat level roaring through her body. ‘Keep yourself nice and wet until I get there...’

  As if to demonstrate exactly what he meant, he covered her hand with his and positioned it neatly between her legs, then he slid it into her wetness, pausing only to glance over his shoulder, even more aroused as he watched her play with herself. He could hear the soft, slick sound of her wet fingers and he stifled a groan of pure lust.