by Lynne Graham
* * *
The following morning, all the clothes and accessories arrived for Letty to try on and consider and she was trying to decide between two black cocktail dresses when Leo entered the room with a small warning knock that made her spin round in dismay, the zip she had been struggling with still open and exposing her bare back.
‘I’ll call your maid.’
Letty laughed. ‘No, now you’re here...you can make yourself useful. Are you still taking me to that club opening on Saturday?’
Leo raised an ebony brow, clearly surprised that she had assumed that he might have changed his mind on that score. ‘Is it still your birthday on Saturday? Then yes, but don’t pick a black dress. You need something more...’ He rifled through the rack of clothes and dragged out a scarlet dress that she wouldn’t have considered in a thousand years for her wardrobe. It was stretchy, glittery, low-necked and low-backed, in short everything she avoided.
‘Er...no...’ She didn’t want to hurt his feelings when he was trying to help. ‘That’s a little daring for me. I mean, look at that neckline.’
‘I’m a man—of course I’m looking at the neckline,’ Leo reasoned. ‘You’ve got a terrific figure. Wear colours and show it off.’
Letty flushed. ‘I’ll try it on and see,’ she conceded, still doubtful but knowing that that accolade from him would make her more than consider wearing it. Was she a people-pleaser? Or a Leo-pleaser? She only knew that she craved his admiration, which was childish and rather unfair to him when she had refused to sleep with him again.
Leo lifted the house phone and spoke in Greek. ‘I’ve called your maid. Use the staff. That’s what they’re here for,’ he urged.
Letty grimaced. ‘It’ll take a while for me to get used to having staff around but I’ll work on it... OK?’
‘OK.’ Leo studied her with a totally unreadable expression but his dark golden eyes were alight and she felt that scrutiny make her nipples peak inside her bra and force her to press her thighs together on the ache that stirred in her pelvis.
Of course she was still attracted to him and that was going to happen, she reminded herself, but eventually she would get a handle on such responses, wouldn’t she? And, under all the surface sophistication, he was a really decent guy, she acknowledged. He wasn’t holding spite. He wasn’t fretting or doing anything to make her uncomfortable because she had made a decision that he disagreed with and that was a pretty special ability in such a strong and volatile man, wasn’t it? But the real problem was, she reckoned, as she watched him leave the room, tall and dark and totally, breathtakingly gorgeous, that the situation they were in would be much easier for her if he behaved badly and made her hate him a little more.
* * *
Over the remainder of the week Leo continued to confound her innately low expectations of the male sex. He joined her for a rather windblown picnic on the beach with the children and played ball with Cosmo, who shrieked with excitement and hugged his uncle’s knees as if he would never let him go. He read a bedtime story to Popi and even tried a few baby-animal-lost-in-the-jungle noises that made both Popi and Sybella go off into whooping giggles. He was making an effort to spend more time with the children and without being asked or encouraged, finally admitting to her when they were talking about it afterwards that on his own he had felt swamped by the kids and their attention had felt too full-on for him to handle.
Recognising that she was in the mood to offer him sex just for pleasing her, Letty took herself off safely to bed early that night. She also stopped lingering over dinner in the evening when he joined her at the house and made absolutely no comment when he too abandoned the beach house and moved back into his usual room across the corridor from hers. They were discovering a new and better way to be with each other, she told herself—friends, partners, whatever anyone wanted to call it. She had wanted more but had had to settle for less, which she could live with perfectly well, she reasoned, noting the dark golden intensity of Leo’s eyes with what she assured herself was only academic interest.
* * *
The day of the club opening rolled up and Letty spent the afternoon getting ready for her first social appearance as Leo’s wife. She was keen to look the part. Her maid did her hair for her, straightening it into a luxuriously conditioned smooth blonde mane and Letty knew that it had never looked that good in her life before. She had ordered cosmetics online and boned up on eye shadow application and she made a major effort there too, before donning the scarlet dress and sliding her feet into the sort of very high heels she had always laughed about. All for Leo, a snide little voice whispered at the back of her head and she ignored the voice, telling herself that presenting herself polished up occasionally was only what her position as Leo’s wife demanded.
As she had promised, Letty stepped into the girls’ bedroom to show them her dress.
‘You look pretty, Mummy Letty,’ Popi pronounced, bouncing on top of her bed in her pyjamas and failing to notice how Letty momentarily froze at that designation, tears burning the back of her eyes at the compliment.
‘Mummy Letty,’ Sybella repeated obediently.
Leo watched Letty come downstairs and immediately regretted choosing the dress because she looked fantastic and incredibly sexy in it and he was tempted enough without the sight of her superb breasts showcased in red and her shapely legs on show. The pulse at his groin which rarely quit around Letty kicked up into a dull throb and he ground his teeth together.
‘You look amazing,’ Leo murmured hoarsely. ‘But you forgot your jewellery...’
‘I have my rings on.’
He urged her into his office and opened a big wooden box, full of smaller boxes and a tangled array of other gold and jewels untidily stored. ‘My mother’s collection. It’s all yours to wear now. I would suggest the rubies with that dress.’
Letty stood still as Leo attached a ruby pendant to her throat and handed her earrings to put on. When he was this close and she could smell the wonderfully familiar scent of him she felt light-headed and she gulped in steadying air as she donned the earrings. Leo handed her a gold watch.
‘My goodness,’ she muttered uneasily. ‘I’ll look like a Christmas tree.’
‘No, you’ll look like a Romanos wife...my wife,’ Leo completed with distinct pride as he removed a ruby and diamond bangle from its protective box and watched her slide it over her hand.
Letty allowed him to escort her out to the helicopter waiting for them before sharing with him that Popi had called her ‘Mummy Letty’.
‘That’s wonderful!’ Leo exclaimed with his brilliant flashing smile before he lifted her into the helicopter. ‘They’ve accepted you.’
Letty thought it was rather more of a first step on that road but she didn’t deflate him. Loving the children had come as easily to her as loving her own family. Her mother had made a really good recovery from her surgery and was no longer in pain. The boys were back home from their father’s as well and everyone was missing her. Popi started back to school after half-term the following week, so she would be back in London soon enough, she reminded herself wryly.
Infinity, Leo’s new club in Athens, was surrounded by paparazzi and Leo strode down the red carpet between the crash barriers restraining the crowds, past the surge of flashing cameras and shouted questions, quite unbothered by the attention, while Letty was tempted to pull her hem down to her ankles and haul her neckline up to her chin but didn’t have sufficient fabric to achieve either wish.
As she joined Leo at a crowded table of well-wishers, she asked him if his father had arrived yet and he rolled his eyes at the question. ‘No, it’ll be another no-show on his part. He often makes promises he doesn’t keep,’ he admitted wryly.
Leo’s cynical attitude to his father’s failures in the paternal field made Letty feel sad for him because her mother had always been reliable. His insecure background had most definitely
damaged Leo’s ability to trust either himself or anyone else but she knew he wouldn’t appreciate that information.
As Letty’s gaze fell on a familiar face at a nearby table, she stiffened and interrupted Leo to hiss, ‘What’s Dido doing here? Is she one of your special guests?’
Leo froze. ‘No, but she’s a famous actress. I imagine she got a free ticket from the organisers. The more celebrities that attend, the more headlines the event garners,’ he countered drily, closing a hand over hers to guide her over to a more secluded table in the corner.
As she sat down a waiter arrived with a tray carrying a birthday cake and another with a bottle of champagne.
‘Happy birthday, Letty,’ Leo murmured as the cake was ceremonially sliced and the champagne was uncorked to froth down into glasses. ‘I had a gift bought for you, but it no longer seemed appropriate so I had to get creative. As an alternative gift, I’m signing that apartment your mother and brothers are living in over to them,’ he said quietly. ‘Owning the property will give them a greater feeling of security.’
‘Oh, Leo, that’s so...so generous of you!’ Letty gasped and hauled him into a hug, painfully aware of how rigid he remained in her hold and quickly drawing back with the sense that she had crossed a boundary she should’ve respected. ‘But what did you originally buy me?’ she prompted, hopelessly curious on that score.
‘It was an eternity ring.’ Leo grimaced. ‘I returned it.’
Disappointment filled her because it had been a personal present and an eternity ring from Leo, the studiously free man, would have been a very satisfying item to wear.
As she fumbled for the right words with which to respond, Dido slid into the seat beside Leo. ‘Leo, just the man I’ve been needing to see!’ she carolled in English, before shifting into Greek.
Letty strove to be polite and contrived to drain a glass of champagne and even munch on a slice of cake while Dido, once again, ignored her presence. But by the time her glass was refreshed such restraint was becoming a challenge and anger was stirring like green fire in her gaze because the other woman had, very rudely, broken in on a private moment.
‘Get rid of her,’ she bit out in Leo’s ear. ‘Or I will!’
Leo shot her a startled appraisal and then rose from the table to effectively bring the conversation to an end. ‘Excuse me,’ he murmured smoothly, long brown fingers capturing Letty’s to raise her by his side. ‘My wife and I are in the midst of celebrating her birthday...’
CHAPTER NINE
‘DON’T YOU EVER, for as long as you live, address me like that again!’ Leo launched at Letty in a furious undertone as he tugged her up the spiral staircase in the corner and flung open a door into an office, already occupied by an older man.
‘Sorry, Dmitri... I need a private space,’ said Leo, and the other man quickly vacated the room to leave them alone.
‘I am fed up with your ex-girlfriends swarming like piranha fish around us!’ Letty sliced back at Leo. ‘They’re everywhere we go, demanding your attention!’
Leo regarded her, his anger mysteriously ebbing from his bright golden gaze. ‘You’re a jealous, possessive woman, yineka mou,’ he declared, utterly disconcerting Letty as she squared up to him with angrily clenched fists. ‘And that is remarkable behaviour from a woman who told me to embrace my sexual freedom and kicked me out of bed!’
‘I did not kick you out of bed!’ Letty fired back at him, still trying to work out when she had lost the plot to the extent that she had blamed Leo for Dido’s rudeness and persistence and had literally snarled at him. Her cheeks went red. ‘But I am not jealous either.’
Leo stalked forward, crowding her back against the desk. ‘You were jealous,’ he persisted with the most curious edge of satisfaction stamped on his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘So, how are you planning to handle me being with these other women you want me to sleep with?’
‘Like a trooper!’ Letty threw back at him. ‘It wouldn’t mean anything to me. I’m tough.’
‘You may be tough,’ conceded Leo, framing her hectically flushed face with two big hands. ‘But you are a lousy liar! You want me and you don’t want to share me. I wouldn’t want to share you either because you’re mine—’
‘Oh, take a hike with the property claim!’ Letty advised with acid bite. ‘I don’t belong to you in any way!’
‘Let me show you then,’ Leo growled, rough and low, crushing her mouth under his with such insistence that her knees went weak, all the fiery intensity that was Leo powering his passionate assault on her tender mouth.
With the unfamiliar knowledge that her temper was out of control, Letty’s mind was a whirling turmoil of contrasting reactions. She wanted to slap him but she wanted to kiss him back too, and the liquid heat pooling in her pelvis wouldn’t let her push him away. Instead she traded kiss for kiss, hard and fierce and so necessary to her in her current mood that she could not have restrained that desperate need hurtling up through her.
And suddenly Leo was settling her down on the desk, long fingers smoothing up her inner thighs to yank with force at her knickers. And Letty was shocked but not outraged, hunger for him driving her, ensuring that she too unconditionally craved the drivingly urgent invasion of his body into hers. She yanked at his tousled black hair as he endeavoured to don protection while she ran her greedy hands below his shirt, over the smooth flexing muscles shifting below her every caress.
‘You’re driving me insane!’ Leo rasped in a tone of raw arousal, his eyes blazing like polished gold ingots set between sweeping black lashes.
He sank into the slick wet welcome of her body with an uninhibited groan of appreciation. The desk creaked under that very physical onslaught. Her body jolted, hot sweet delight laced with savage excitement making her heart hammer and her blood race. With every sinuous twist of his lithe hips he hammered the exact spot inside her that maximised her pleasure. The pressure inside her built and built until it surged up through her in a wild white-knuckle climax that made her cry out his name.
‘Would this be the right or the wrong moment to say thank you for sharing your birthday with me?’ Leo murmured huskily above her head, still panting to catch his breath from his exertions.
As Leo righted his clothing, Letty leapt off the desk like a scalded cat and discovered her legs were too wobbly to hold her upright. ‘It was the champagne,’ she muttered between clenched teeth.
‘One glass? Even you are not that much of a lightweight. No, finally accept that we have crazy good chemistry together,’ Leo asserted without remorse.
And why was she looking for remorse from him? she asked herself fiercely. Of course he had no regrets, having just comprehensively proved that he could break down her barriers and persuade her to do what she had sworn not to do. A guilty sense of having failed her own standards afflicted Letty.
‘So good it’s off the charts,’ Leo grated, hauling her into his arms, striving to hang onto the advantage he had gained. ‘The sex ban isn’t going to work for us.’
Letty froze as he brushed her tumbled hair back from her woodenly self-contained face to look down at her. ‘It has to work,’ she parried with an edge of desperation because she didn’t know who she was any more, what she was trying to do, why she had let herself down to such an extent, and then she gazed up into Leo’s stunning eyes and reeled at the beauty of them set in that lean strong face of his.
In that instant, the stark realisation that in the matter of a few short weeks she had become deeply attached to Leo shattered her. She loved him. Of course she found it a challenge to step back and deny what her own mind and body longed to have, that intimate connection which might have been essentially meaningless to a male of Leo’s experience and habits, but which meant a great deal more to her. No longer could she deny or wilfully misunderstand the powerful feelings he inspired in her. Earlier, he had been right, and she had been wrong. She was jealous
of his tribe of exes and admirers. She didn’t like seeing him with another woman, didn’t like watching another woman command his attention. How petty was that?
Yet being with Leo made her feel stronger, more confident, more individual in more ways than she had words to describe. That was the positive side to loving him while she mentally shook her head over the foolishness that accompanied those same feelings. She had lost her temper over pushy Dido, had been intolerant and idiotically possessive. So, he was right and she was wrong. If this was how she truly felt, how could she ever contrive to live with the knowledge that Leo was having sex with other women? Suddenly she felt as though she had backed herself into a corner and she didn’t know how to get out of it again.
‘Compromise is not the end of the world,’ Leo murmured huskily, pressing an abstracted kiss against her furrowed brow, uncomfortably aware that that clever brain of hers was turning like a clock and probably not in his favour. ‘Eventually we’ll understand what works best for us. It’s too soon to make major decisions about our direction right now.’
Letty gritted her teeth. She was too proud to appreciate Leo being generous enough to offer her a face-saving excuse. ‘We’ll see,’ she muttered flatly. ‘We should return to our table.’
Leo fished a comb out of his jacket and tidied her hair and suggested she fix her lipstick. She had never felt as ashamed of herself as she did at that moment when she registered that her inexperience in relationships had sent her rushing down the wrong path. It was an effort to return to the crowds downstairs and smile and chat as though nothing whatsoever had happened while her body still hummed and pulsed from Leo’s rawly masculine possession. He had won his point but he wasn’t crowing in triumph and she supposed she should be grateful for small mercies.