‘Do you think I need one?’ She put the question to Leon—and they all knew she was not referring to the unusually warm weather they were having for April.
‘He thinks you need bedding,’ Trina drawled. ‘But that is beside the—’
‘Shut up, you acid-tongued bitch,’ Leon cut in levelly. He didn’t even flash Trina a threatening glance when he said it, just relayed the words with a cool indifference that made Trina shrug and Jemma gasp. ‘You’ll do exactly as you are,’ he then murmured to Jemma. And the tone alone showed the perfect example of what a voice could say without using the right words.
She was still trembling with reaction to it when he opened the sitting-room door and politely saw her through it.
‘Wait a minute,’ Leon stalled her as she went to walk down the narrow hall.
She turned, lifting a self-conscious hand to her hair when she found him studying her narrowly. ‘What is it?’ she asked worriedly.
‘Come here,’ he commanded, ‘and I will show you.’ She went to stand nervously in front of him.
His hands came to her waist, almost managing to span the slender width as he drew her against him. ‘She’s right, you know,’ he murmured huskily. ‘I do want to bed you.’
His mouth was warm and seeking, hungry, without attempting to fan the fires they both knew were being carefully banked down right now. His fingers played lightly on her naked back, setting her flesh tingling as they brushed tantalisingly over her, his thumbs finding their way inside the dress to caress the satin sides of her breasts. She arched against him in seductive pleasure, and he groaned against her mouth, their lips clinging protestingly as they slowly broke apart.
‘Feel what you do to me?’ he murmured.
‘Mmm,’ she smiled, and presented her mouth for another kiss. He was just lowering his head when the rattle of the sitting-room door broke them both apart.
‘Ah,’ he mocked. ‘The wicked witch is about to appear.’
‘She’s not a witch,’ Jemma protested as she put some distance between them. ‘And she’s not wicked. She’s just concerned for me, that’s all.’
‘And I admire her for that,’ Leon surprised her by saying as he guided her towards the flat door. ‘But it does not alter the fact that she has a mind like a sewer and the tongue of an asp!’
‘Does it bother you,’ Jemma asked him anxiously as they reached the top of the stairs, ‘that she doesn’t mind saying what she thinks to your face?’
‘Bother me?’ An eyebrow arched sardonically. ‘Of course not. She believes she has your best interests at heart.’ His hand came to her nape, curving it caressingly. ‘And for that reason she can snipe at me all she wants, so long as she does not succeed in convincing you that what she believes is in the truth.’
Bending his head, he kissed the tip of her nose, then smiled, and Trina was forgotten—like everything else as he set himself out to charm and amuse her throughout the long, leisurely taken dinner at the kind of restaurant Jemma had only read about in good magazines.
He drove her home to her flat afterwards.
Her body grew cold as they went way beyond the point where she could continue fooling herself that he was taking the long way back to his own home.
Was this it? she wondered achingly. Thanks for everything, Jemma, but I’ve decided you’re not really what I want in my life?
By the time he stopped the car, she was like a statue frozen in ice in the seat beside him. She couldn’t believe it—couldn’t understand why, when he had been so openly warm and tender all evening. His eyes had never left her for a moment, his concentration on her alone, so intense that she’d begun to glow inside in anticipation of what was to come.
Slipping free both their seatbelts, he turned, making her jerk violently as his long-fingered hand curved around her nape again. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For a beautiful evening.’
She swallowed, unable to stand it, turning pain-glazed eyes up to his. ‘Y-you don’t want me tonight?’ she whispered tremulously.
‘Want you...?’ he repeated, black eyes frowning down at her. Then he caught on and sighed heavily. ‘I am not a married man, Jemma,’ he derided, ‘with a wife and two-point-five children at home to give me all the companionship I require.’
‘I never said you were!’ she protested.
‘Yet you expected me to treat you as a married man treats his mistress? Seeing you—being with you—only when I need some sexual relief?’
She frowned in confusion. She’d thought that was exactly what all this was about.
Removing his hand, he sat back in his seat. ‘This is supposed to be a relationship!’ he snapped out impatiently. ‘Not a convenience!’
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, feeling a fool for reading the situation so terribly wrong.
‘You insult me!’ he claimed stiffly.
‘Well!’ she snapped back defensively. ‘How am I supposed to know the way these things are played? It is my first try at it after all! Perhaps you had better write down the ground rules so I won’t insult your sensibilities again!’
Huffily, she turned, searching for the door lock, feeling a big enough fool to want to get away from him as soon as she could.
‘Come back here!’ he growled, catching her by the arm and pulling her around and against him. ‘You crazy woman.’ His chest lifted and fell beneath her cheek on a long-suffering sigh. ‘You’ve been sweet and amusing and downright seductive all evening.’ She felt his mouth brush against her hair. ‘And if I’ve had to fight the urge to rush you home to my bed, then I did so out of respect for you, not because I did not want you. But come Friday...’ he growled, pushing her away a little so that he could burn her with his eyes. ‘Pack only a toothbrush, agape mou. It will be all you will need for two days!’
He was right: her toothbrush was all she needed. Which from then on set the pattern for Jemma’s first real love-affair. If he was in town, then Wednesday evenings they spent simply enjoying each other’s company. If he was away, then each night he would ring her up and spend long delicious minutes just talking to her via the phone. Weekends he always managed to be in London, working his tight and busy schedule around it, Jemma guessed when sometimes he looked so tired when she arrived at his home on Fridays that it filled her with warmth to know he would go to such lengths just to be with her.
One Wednesday, almost a month into their relationship, he looked tired when he picked her up, and Trina’s acid glances seemed to irritate him. ‘I’ll tell her to lay off you, shall I?’ Jemma suggested when they’d driven the distance between her flat and a small but exclusive restaurant he intended taking her to in total silence.
‘She does not bother me unduly,’ he dismissed. ‘I have been continent-hopping for the last two days, and I am just a trifle jet-lagged, that’s all.’
She studied him, seeing the lines of weariness tugging at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and gently placed her hand on his thigh. ‘We don’t have to go anywhere if you don’t feel like it, Leon,’ she told him softly.
He glanced at her, mockery twisting his beautiful mouth. ‘You wish me to stop here? And we’ll just spend the rest of the evening in the car?’
‘No.’ She smiled at his sarcastic humour. ‘But we could go back to your house,’ she suggested. ‘Spend the evening just—relaxing.’
The car slowed while he spent several seconds reading the message in her eyes before, without a word, he returned his attention to the road. He didn’t say anything, but his hand came to cover hers where it rested on his thigh, and remained there until they concluded their journey to his home.
That night they made love, then she made them omelettes for supper, strolling casually about his modern kitchen wearing only one of his shirts. He sat at the kitchen table in his dark towelling robe, following her lazily with his eyes. The mood was lazy, beautifully so. After they’d eaten in front of the TV set in his sitting-room, he stretched out on the sofa and pulled her down to lie beside him. In ten minutes he was a
sleep.
She just lay there watching him for hours, loving the way all the toughness had left his face, how he slept with his lips slightly parted, breathing light and evenly. At twelve o’clock she crept out of the house and caught a taxi back to her flat. The next morning he rang her at work before she’d even taken off her coat.
‘You left me to make your own way home,’ he said. ‘Don’t do it again.’
‘You were sleeping,’ she explained. ‘It wouldn’t have been fair to disturb you when a taxi could transport me door to door just as easily.’
‘But without the pleasure it would have given me to do so,’ he stated. ‘Tonight I expect reparation. Wear something sexy—like that disgraceful black thing you wore for me the first time I took you out. We are going somewhere special. I will pick you up at eight.’
The phone went dead. Jemma grinned at it. ‘Arrogant devil,’ she murmured, and spent the rest of the day smiling like an idiot because he was breaking from routine and taking her out on a Thursday.
Cassie rang during the afternoon. ‘Will he speak to me?’ she enquired stiffly.
‘I’m not sure...’ Jemma gave the closed door between the two offices a dubious glance. ‘But I shall certainly try for you. How are you, Cassie?’ she then asked gently.
‘I’m fine,’ came the cool reply. ‘He’s offered to keep me and the child, did you know that?’
Jemma mumbled a denial, hurting for both of them. Josh had not been the same person since this thing with Cassie blew up in his face. He walked around the office like a man made of stone, hard-faced and unapproachable.
‘I was informed of his proposal through his solicitor,’ Cassie continued tightly. ‘A quarterly allowance and the mortgage taken care of on my flat.’
Jemma winced. ‘I’m so sorry it worked out this way,’ she murmured inadequately. In all honesty, she didn’t know which of them she felt more sorry for. The whole situation was hopeless and ugly. ‘If you need anything,’ she offered, ‘a sympathetic ear or just someone to yell at, I’m available.’
‘Thanks, but no, thanks,’ Cassie refused, her tone softened slightly by the offer. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
She meant her closeness to Josh, of course, and Jemma sighed as she buzzed him to tell him who wanted to speak to him. Surprisingly, he took the call without the bitter anger that Cassie’s calls before had aroused in him.
They talked for several minutes before her console told them they’d finished. And she began to hope that, at last, tempers had calmed enough for them to begin talking sensibly about what they were going to do.
Those hopes were dashed the moment she saw Josh’s face a few minutes later. He was even more stone-like than he had been before.
That evening, Leon was in a much livelier frame of mind. He even took Trina on, provoking her with teasing little remarks that ended with her stalking from the room. ‘She’s all fire, that one,’ he remarked admiringly as he watched her go.
‘Keep your eyes off!’ Jemma warned. ‘She’s taken and so are you!’
His eyebrows shot up at her heated tone. ‘That wouldn’t be a hint of green-eyed jealousy, would it?’ he taunted.
You can bet you sweet life it was! Jemma thought angrily, and lifted her chin. ‘Do I need to feel jealous?’ she challenged right back.
‘Maybe,’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘Red-haired witch or not, she does tend to grow on one, does she not?’
Jemma spun her back on him to collect her bag, refusing to rise to the bait. He was riling her deliberately; she knew that even as she seethed inside. Stalking haughtily out of her flat, she vowed to get her own back, if only to cut the arrogant devil down to size!
She got her opportunity sooner than she could have hoped.
Tom MacDonald was just coming out of his flat as she came down the stairs.
His face lit up when he saw her. ‘Where were you the other Saturday night?’ he demanded. ‘I thought we had a date, but when I knocked on your flat door nobody answered!’
‘Oh, Tom—I’m so sorry!’ she cried, genuinely contrite because she had forgotten all about him! Impulsively, she lifted her hands to his shoulders and kissed his cheek. ‘How could it have slipped my mind like that?’
‘Maybe because you had other, more important things to think about,’ another voice coolly suggested, and Jemma flushed with embarrassment when Leon pointedly gripped her wrists and lifted her hands away from Tom. ‘Shame on you, darling,’ he added smoothly, ‘standing one man up while you made love to another.’
‘It didn’t matter,’ Tom put in awkwardly, seeing more than his match in Leon and not even trying to stand up to him. ‘It was only a tentative arrangement.’
‘Ah,’ drawled Leon. ‘Then thankfully her...memory lapse did not cause too much inconvenience.’ He dropped one of Jemma’s wrists but held on to the other one with a grip aimed to hurt. ‘You are lucky, my darling,’ he murmured smoothly to her. ‘Your—friend is willing to forgive your—tardiness. Other people may not be so willing.’
Now there was a threat if Jemma had ever heard one. She glowered at him, and he gazed coolly back. ‘Now, say goodnight to your—friend,’ he chanted softly, but his teeth were clenched tightly together while he said it. ‘We are late enough as it is.’
‘You’re hateful!’ she whispered as he pushed her in front of him and out of the house, leaving Tom staring awkwardly after them. ‘How dare you tell him we were making love?’
‘We were, were we not?’ he challenged, wearing his arrogance like a mask on his mocking face.
She tugged at her wrist. ‘Let go of me,’ she demanded. ‘You’re hurting!’
‘And if I ever see you kissing another man like that—’ he turned angrily on her ‘—I shall hurt you a lot more!’ His grip tightened for a short threatening second before he threw it away from him.
‘Now who’s green with jealousy?’ she taunted, and gained real satisfaction from the way he stopped in the middle of opening the car door, his dark head shooting up as if her words had stabbed him in the back. Jemma stood watching him with her teeth pressing down on her bottom lip. She’d gone too far, she realised. Leon was not a man who liked his weaknesses thrown back in his face.
‘Get in,’ he said, and walked around to the other side of the car to climb in himself. It wasn’t like him. If Leon possessed any endearing quality at all to offset his arrogance, then it had to be his impeccable manners. Always, he made sure she was inside the car and comfortable before closing the door for her.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked when the silence between them grew too tense for her to cope with.
‘To a party,’ he told her. ‘It is time you met my friends.’
Oh, God, she thought heavily. That’s all I need tonight—to meet his rich, sophisticated friends while he’s in this mood and I feel like throttling him!
CHAPTER FIVE
THE party was in full swing when they got there, people spilling out of dimly lit rooms with glasses in their hands and false smiles on their faces. And most of them turned to stare as they walked in. She supposed Leon alone would get such a reaction, but with her by his side the interest honed in on her, and despite their mutual hostility she moved closer to him.
‘I feel like a curiosity on show,’ she muttered. ‘This isn’t Madame Tussaud’s, is it?’
At least he smiled, even if she was being sarcastic. ‘Too many famous faces for you?’ he mocked.
‘Too many something,’ she agreed. ‘That’s Mike Williams over there, and I know for a fact that he’s in Madame Tussaud’s because I saw it on TV the other month!’
‘Do you want me to introduce you to him?’ he offered.
‘No.’ Jemma studied the attractive pop star from beneath her lashes. ‘He isn’t my type.’
‘And just what is your type?’ he enquired, that coolness returning to his voice.
Black-haired arrogant devils with sexy Greek accents! she thought angrily. And sighed, refusing to an
swer him.
‘Leon, darling!’ With a voice like thick syrup, the most exquisite creature Jemma had ever seen glided up to them. She was as dark as Jemma was fair and wearing white taffeta silk that shone like the five-string pearl choker she had clasped around her beautiful throat. ‘You made it after all!’
Her arms went around his neck, and by the time they parted again Jemma had been effectively shoved to one side and the newcomer stood firmly in her place, her arm lovingly crooked through his. ‘Carlos is here and dying to speak to you,’ the woman informed him. ‘That Pritchard deal you set up was an amazing coup for him! Come and...’
Jemma didn’t hear any more, because the two of them had been casually swallowed up in the crowd, leaving her standing there feeling as redundant as a rag on a highly polished floor!
And that is exactly what you are! she told herself bitterly. Nothing but a rag among all these riches.
Well, ‘all that glisters is not gold’, she mused acidly as she let her hooded gaze scan the glittering crowd. For a start, she was sure that was Sonia Craven over there, locked in a heated clinch with a man who was most definitely not her husband.
‘Been deserted?’ a light male voice murmured from just behind her. She spun, and found a stranger—who was not quite a stranger because she had seen his face plastered on billboards all over the city advertising his latest film—offering her the same smile that knocked women dead all over the world. ‘I saw you come in with Stephanades,’ he explained his opening gambit. His incredibly piercing blue eyes slid down her then back again. ‘I’ll give it to him,’ he mocked ruefully. ‘That handsome Greek devil certainly knows how to pick them.’
Jemma stiffened instantly. ‘Are you trying to be insulting?’ she demanded.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Of course not!’ he denied. ‘It was actually supposed to be a compliment.’
‘Your technique needs polishing, then,’ she informed him, and turned away, searching the milling throng for a glimpse of Leon.
Passion Becomes You Page 6