Leo Silva had never believed in fate. His grandfather had emigrated a pauper
from South America with his young family in tow and had pulled himself
laboriously up the ladder against all odds, and his father had carried on the
tradition, building the Silva empire brick by sweat-drenched brick.
His was a tradition of education, hard work, and keeping one step ahead of the
opposition.
There was no room for the simpering luxury of believing that results came from
anywhere other than the ability to outthink, outperform and outmaneuver anyone
and everyone.
But fate, out of the blue, had suddenly appeared on one of the back pages of the
New York Times and the timing could not have been more propitious.
Leo glanced down at the passing article that had caught his attention and smiled
with utter satisfaction at the blurry picture staring back at him.
Eleanor James, enjoying her fifteen minutes of fame for deflecting a shooting
incident at a high school in inner city London. Would she have had any idea that
her act of bravery would cross the Atlantic to find its way to his desk at 7:30
on a grim November evening?
He almost laughed out loud at the splendid coincidence of it all. But he didn't.
Instead, he pushed his leather swivel chair back, all the better to stretch out
his long legs on the surface of the highly polished walnut desk, and reached for
the telephone.
The call took less than ten minutes and it was to his trusted friend, the only
person now who knew his secret and the potential it had to irrevocably ruin if
not utterly obliterate the highly organized and carefully plotted path of his
life.
"Antonio, I have found her." No preliminaries because none were needed. Antonio
Ruiz would know precisely to whom he was referring, as indeed he did.
"How?"
"Pick up your copy of the New York Times and turn to page twelve. There
is a little article somewhere near the bottom of the page, very easy to miss.
She is living in London, it would seem, and is hale and hearty and saving little
children's lives." He leaned heavily back in the chair and stared up at the
ceiling, allowing his beautifully proportioned mouth to curve into a smile. The
smile of the predator that has finally found its prey, after an exhaustive
chase.
"Your papa would be happy, may his spirit rest in peace."
"Indeed."
"I take it you would like me to ensure that you are on the next flight over?"
"Concorde." He stared at the tips of his handmade Italian shoes and for the
first time in four years, felt an uncustomary feeling of peace settle on his
broad shoulders. "No need to waste resources finding out about her life. There
is no time for that. I just want her telephone number and where she is living."
"Of course."
"Oh, and Antonio, it goes without saying that secrecy is of the essence.
Especially in view of my highly publicized and eminently satisfactory
betrothal." He tried to think of Caroline but instead found his head full of
images of a fresh-faced, dark-haired, blue-eyed girl, a wisp of a creature with
a smile like sun breaking through clouds.
"The ticket will be on your desk no later than lunchtime tomorrow. Oh, and Leo —
good luck."
Leo smiled grimly and savored the pleasurable feeling of knowing that luck was
the last thing he needed. He had found her and now, at last, he was in a
position to exorcise that hidden, sordid detail in his past once and for all.
"Another cup of juice? Please?"
In the middle of frantically trying to tidy the kitchen while stuffing one small
cheese sandwich, one fun-sized apple and one cereal bar into a bright red lunch
box shaped like a rocket, Ellie paused and grinned at her son.
"You're trying my patience," she chided, lifting him up and kissing him noisily
on each cheek before depositing him back to ground level.
"I'm thirsty," William complained hopefully.
"And I'm in a rush. If we don't leave now, we'll be late to Jenny's and then
I'll end up late for school. You wouldn't want Mummy to end up late for school,
would you?"
"Yes."
"No, you wouldn't, and besides Jenny said you little devils are in for a treat
today. She's going to take the three of you to the swimming baths and then to a
park. I've already packed your bathing costume." The carrot dangled
provocatively for a matter of seconds and then the small face, with its mop of
black hair, broke into a smile. Juice was promptly forgotten.
She grabbed her handbag, fumbled inside it for the house key, and was on her way
to the front door when the telephone rang.
Ellie looked at it, in two minds as to whether she should delay her rushed
departure by picking it up. But then it might be Jenny. Maybe she was ill and
wouldn't be able to have William today. Even the best of child-minders had their
off days and who else could be calling at 7:45 in the morning?
"Wait here," she instructed her son. She half ran to the telephone, snatched it
up, and said, "Yes?" into the receiver.
"Eleanor James?"
"Yes…?" She felt a tingle of apprehension flutter like moth wings inside her
stomach, even though she had no idea who was on the other end of the line. It
was just the tone of voice. Soft, lazy, somehow purposeful. Not like any of the
reporters who had been hounding her for the past few days, ever since that
incident at the school. Thank goodness other more recent events were beginning
to overshadow hers. She had given her press conference, reluctantly, posed for
pictures, also reluctantly, and she couldn't wait for all the fuss to die down.
"Remember me?"
And suddenly it hit her. Like a sledgehammer to the skull, temporarily
paralyzing her power of speech. Temporarily turning her legs to jelly so that
she had to immediately sit down on the nearest kitchen chair.
"I'm sorry…." she stammered. "If you're a reporter," she added, clutching the
last straw at her disposal because the alternative was too horrific to bear
thinking about, "I'm in an awful rush. I've already said all I have to…to say,
anyway…."
"Tut, tut. You disappoint me." A soft laugh came down the end of the phone, but
it wasn't a pleasant laugh, designed to lighten a situation. "Don't you remember
Las Vegas? Four years ago?"
"Las Vegas." Her mouth had developed the texture of cotton wool. "Four years
ago."
"I've been looking for you for quite some time."
There was no use in holding on to the pretense that she didn't know who was
talking to her. She glanced toward the kitchen door, suddenly praying that
William wouldn't begin to make any noise. He was busy trying to retie his
shoelace at the moment, but toddlers could move from a state of relative silence
to one of screeching pandemonium in a matter of seconds.
"I'm sorry," she said, trying to sound firm, trying not to let her trembling
hands convey a similar message to her vocal cords, "I'd love to sit here and
chat but I'm in a terrific rush…."
"So why do we not meet later? Say 7:30 this evening for dinner. A table has been
booked at the Square. Hanover Square. Very elegant, highly rated, so I believe.
I will expect you there. Oh, and Ellie, do not even think of not turning up
because I have your address and I will not hesitate to come and find you. We
have so much…to talk about…."
Ellie replaced the receiver, her mouth dry, and stared blindly at her son, at
their son. So much to talk about…so much for her to lose…
It was that fact, and that fact alone, that was the deciding factor. Of course
he had her address and of course he would use it.
Ellie had been so successful at pushing those unwelcome memories to the back of
her mind. All these years and they had only peeped out once or twice.
Yes, it had been hard. Especially at the beginning, when she had found out that
she was carrying his baby. Hard coping on her own, with neither parent alive to
give her the moral support she needed and no siblings to help her see things
through. And it had been hard knowing that her son would be born without a
father, or at least without a father he would ever know, because she hadn't even
known her lover's last name.
Sitting at her dressing table now, preparing to meet him, the thought of it was
enough for her to rest her head in her hands, taking deep breaths in an attempt
to quell the terror rising up her throat like toxic bile.
Two days with him. She could remember the first day but then her memories of the
second day, New Year's Eve in a city that was going wild with the excitement of
it all, were hazy to say the least. She had behaved, well, she could barely sit
and contemplate how she had behaved. No amount of reasoning to herself that she
had been an emotional mess then, that she had been acting out her grief at her
father's death, could take away the shame of knowing that she had drunk so much
that she had lost her virginity to a man she had barely known, that she had
woken up with a splitting headache in a strange bed with a strange man sprawled
next to her, that she had fled the scene like a thief running from a crack of a
gunshot.
The fact was that she had coped.
And nothing's going to change, she told herself fiercely. I'll meet him, answer
his questions.
Because he would want to know why she had run out on him.
That was, of course, why he had contacted her. She might not remember the
details of their brief relationship too clearly once the drink had started
taking hold, but she could remember the sort of man he had been. The sort of man
good girls like her had always been warned against.
Except, she hadn't been a good girl then, had she? She had fizzed with a high
voltage, sparkling intensity that had been as out of character then as it was
now. She had concocted an elaborate story about herself, all pure fiction, and
in a city buzzing with surrealistic brashness, had enjoyed every minute of it.
She had no longer been just plain Eleanor James who had gone to America on the
spur of the moment with her best friend to enjoy a bit of living, to try to
escape the great well of unhappiness inside her. She had been Eleanor James, a
high-society queen, glittering with experience, poise, and savoir faire.
Just as he had glittered with experience, poise, and savoir faire. Except his
had been the real thing. He would have quailed in horror at the thought of
sleeping with a virgin and she had escaped before she had been forced to face
her own silly fabrications.
Escaped back to England and dealt with the consequences.
"Right, Jen, I'm off now." They were in the sitting room, Jenny and William,
with the television on, although William was too absorbed in his bricks to pay
it much attention. "William, you're in bed in five minutes!"
"You look…gorgeous, Ellie. Meeting anyone dishy?"
"Oh, just some passing acquaintance who's in London for a couple of days. I'll
be back by ten." She walked purposefully on her high heels to where William was
crouching in front of a lopsided tower of wooden blocks and gently kissed the
childishly soft nape of his neck.
This, she thought, was what mattered and all that mattered and no one was going
to take that away from her.
Leo had requested a table from which he would easily be able to see Ellie the
minute she walked in, before she had time to see him. Right at the back of the
room, in the corner. Her eyes would travel hesitantly among the rest of the
diners before they alighted on him, and he would enjoy those first few, valuable
seconds, enjoy looking at the woman who had eluded him for four years of
fruitless searching.
He would also enjoy observing the only woman who had ever run out on him. And so
completely, as though she had dropped off the face of the earth.
He raised his glass of wine to his lips, took a sip, and sat back in the chair,
as casually relaxed as a tiger waiting for its victim to thoughtlessly approach
to within striking distance. He barely noticed his surroundings, just registered
that they were elegant, refined, reeked of good taste.
And then he saw her and every muscle in his body froze as he was slammed back
into the past.
Just as he had predicted, she gazed a little helplessly around her for a few
seconds.
She hadn't changed. Still had that straight black hair, dropping to her
shoulders like a curtain. Her figure was as boyishly slender as he recalled and
her high heels made her look longer, more womanly.
He sat up straighter and his gaze wandered involuntarily to the slender brown
envelope. The reason for this meeting.
When he next raised his eyes it was to find her staring at him, and the
directness of her blue gaze instigated a rush of feelings that he had not even
been aware existed. Uppermost was undiluted antipathy toward the woman who had
left him high and dry and worse, had taken a piece of his soul with her in the
process.
His mouth tightened and he watched broodingly as she hesitantly approached his
table. Under the stubborn tilt of her head, he could read fear in her eyes. What
the hell did she have to be afraid of? If anything, she should be feeling the
same relief that he had felt, knowing that this business could be put behind
them both forever.
Although, perhaps she didn't know….
"So you came," he drawled, when she had finally sat down and was facing him
across the expanse of white linen and silver cutlery. "And you seem less than
overjoyed to see me." He beckoned to a waiter without taking his eyes off her
and ordered a bottle of Sancerre.
"How did you find me?" Her memory had been rather less dependable than she had
anticipated. He had not been just worldly wise, dark-haired, and handsome.
She was trying hard not to stare but she couldn't help it. The man was
frighteningly good-looking. His face was more angular, more imposing than she
remembered and those steel grey eyes were as cold as the Scottish ocean on a
winter's day.
"It was very difficult," Leo admitted coolly. "Did you purposefully try to
deceive me, or did lying your head off about your background come as second
nature to you?" He was overcome by such a powerful surge of rage that he downed
the remainder of his wine in one long gulp.
"Is that why you came here to find me? So that you could discover why I…why I
walked out?"
"Apparently your family all lived in Boston," he said coldly, "but peculiar as
it seems, my search soon came to a dead end in that area. Then there was the law
degree at Harvard. No one there had ever heard of you."
Two bright patches of angry color flared in her cheeks. "You had no right to
track me down!"
"Nor would I have made any attempt to do so," Leo informed her coldly, "but we
both know why I'm here, don't we?"
"What are you talking about?" A strange panic took root in her chest and she
wildly wondered if he had somehow found out about William. Had he? Had he come
to claim his son? And what was she going to do if he had?
Ellie tried to get a grip on her thoughts, which were veering madly out of
control.
"Even with detectives at my beck and call," Leo said into the silence, "I
probably would never have found out your whereabouts if it had not been for your
little act of bravery."
"Little act of bravery."
"Now, now, not another little act, I hope." He sounded as paternalistic as a
father reproaching his wayward child for stealing biscuits from the biscuit tin,
but his eyes were like flint. "You have already done the wealthy socialite
from Boston with a law degree and a bucket of money to burn in the gambling
halls of Las Vegas. Do me a favor and do not attempt the modest little
English girl with a taste for heroics." He paused, giving the waiter time to
pour them both a glass of wine and giving her time to digest his words.
He really hadn't meant to treat this as anything but a necessary meeting after
which they could both return to their lives, none the worse for wear.
But suddenly, the specter of her deceit had risen up before him and taken a bite
from his good intentions. Hell, he had never been deceived by anyone in his life
before. Not by colleagues, adversaries, and certainly not by a woman.
"The articles in the newspapers," Ellie said with growing dismay. "You read the
articles in the newspapers." She frantically tried to recall whether mention had
been made of her son or whether they had dealt with just the episode, the
shooting, her intervention. She certainly had said nothing to any of the
reporters about her private life, might even have referred to being a single
woman and with no wedding ring on her hand, there would have been no assumptions
made. But even so…
"One article." Leo smiled grimly. "Your fame made it across the waters," he
informed her. "And my lawyer, socialite, and wealthy heiress was transformed
into a schoolteacher in a secondary school in Central London. It would seem that
the only piece of truth you uttered was your name."
"What did you read?" Ellie realized that she was leaning into the table, her
body language speaking of her desperation to find out what he knew, and she made
a concerted effort to draw back.
The question seemed to throw him for a few seconds and he frowned. "Why does it
matter?" he grated impatiently. "What matters is that it served its purpose. I
located you."
"But what exactly did you read?" she insisted.
"That you saved the day. One crazy boy wielding a handgun, a classroom of
terrified children, and one courageous young teacher. All equals a local hero."
"He wasn't crazy," Ellie cleared her throat and wondered why he didn't just come
right out and tell her that he knew about his son. Maybe he was just into
torturing women. But it didn't hurt to buy some time, give her a chance to work
out what she would do in the circumstances. "He was suffering fr-from exam
nerves," she stuttered on in the face of his expressionless, heavy silence.
"There was never any chance that he was actually going to use the gun. Not to
me, anyway. All I did was to talk to him…. Sometimes people just need to be
talked to…."
Her voice trailed off. She was barely aware of the menus being handed to them or
of her eyes flitting across the fancy options. She knew that she had ordered
fish of some description and that her wineglass was being topped up.
"But you didn't come here to listen to an explanation of what I did, did you?"
she whispered numbly, linking her fingers together on her lap, safely out of
sight.
"Quite right. I did not." Leo pushed the envelope across to her. "I came here
because of this…."
Ellie hadn't known.
Deep down, Leo had felt that she hadn't known or she would never have walked out
of that bedroom. Watching the changing expressions on her face now, the
suspicion hardened into fact.
She was shocked, looked as though she was going to faint. When she half
staggered to her feet, he automatically reached out to steady her but she
feverishly flung his hand aside and sat back down.
"No," she whispered, raising her eyes to his briefly and then scanning the
document in front of her again as though not too sure that it was really there,
stretched between her trembling fingers. "It can't be…we can't…"
"It can and we are," Leo told her harshly.
"We can't be married." Her mind refused point-blank to cope with the revelation.
"We can't be…I would know…how could I not know…? I would know…I would remember…"
He laughed dryly, almost feeling sorry for her in her state of shock and then
sharply reminding himself that he had fallen for her once, fallen for that
magical, vulnerable side he had glimpsed in her four years ago, which had been
persuasive enough to make him lose his own self control to the extent that he
had actually talked to her. About things that mattered. About the loss of his
father. About his trepidation at stepping into shoes not yet cold to take over
an empire that would certainly greet his arrival with antagonism.
"What do you remember about what happened?" he rasped. He was hardly
aware of the food being placed in front of him and waved the solicitous waiter
aside with barely a glance.
Ellie looked at the aggressive stranger in front of her and shivered. "You've
changed," she murmured, dipping her head and forking some fish into her mouth.
It tasted of nothing.
"Of course I have changed. It has been four years!" Her observation had emerged
as a criticism and it rankled. "You have changed even more," he attacked coldly.
"Now you teach schoolchildren."
"Please don't keep reminding me of…of…"
"Your boundless capacity to lie?" he insinuated silkily and watched her pallor
disappear beneath a pink blush.
"I can't believe…"
"Why did you lie to me?" There, it was out. The question he told himself he
could care less if she answered.
Ellie shrugged and glanced up at him, instantly regretting it when their eyes
tangled and a steady throb began in her temples. Never mind what she had said
about him changing. One thing had remained the same. He was as compelling as
ever. More so. Her first lover and her only lover. Her whole body tingled as
sudden, sharp memories flooded her mind and she closed her eyes briefly to clear
the unwanted, intrusive image.
"Does it matter? What matters is that…"
"It does not matter, but I still demand to know."
"You demand?"
"I…would like to know," Leo said brusquely and for the first time since she
arrived, he saw the ghost of a smile flicker across her face. That smile, in
full wattage, could move mountains, he remembered, and he irritably shoved the
memory away.
"Well, it just seemed fun at the time. The whole thing was…fun, and I was
desperate for some fun." Ellie put her knife and fork down on an unfinished
plate of food. "I'm sorry, I'm not very hungry."
"I will get the bill. We will go somewhere a little less…formal to continue our
talk." When he saw the flash of panic on her face, his mouth tightened. "We
still have to sort out this mess, so another escape is not an option."
Not now that he had found her, and especially not now, at this juncture in his
life, with Caroline hovering in the background, the whole Hoffberg dynasty
hovering in the background, ready to cement the union of the decade….
It was freezing cold outside. Cold and windy. Ellie drew her coat around her and
sank into the back of the taxi with relief.
"Where are we going?"
"My hotel."
"Your hotel?" she gasped, looking at Leo in horror. Such horror, in fact,
that he was seriously tempted to remind her of just how warmly pliant she had
been the last time they had met.
"Not my hotel room, Eleanor, my hotel. It is big, modern, and has more than one
bar attached to it. As I see it, it certainly beats traipsing through London in
this weather looking for a halfway empty pub."
"Right." She sank back against the seat and sighed. "Heavens, I must have had an
awful lot to drink the night we…"
"Got married?" Her reluctance to voice the bald, unpalatable fact that was
staring them both in the face was beginning to irritate him. Anyone would think
that being married to him was a fate worse than death. And it was hardly as
though she was in his situation, with a fiancée in the background and a
reputation that would be well and truly pummeled should the truth ever emerge.
"Will you tell me what happened? The last thing I really remember is dancing and
laughing and then getting into a car, I guess to go back to the hotel."
Leo looked at her averted profile, the slender column of her neck, the upturned
palms of her hands resting limply on her lap. Then his eyes strayed higher, to
where her coat now lay open and in the shadowy darkness of the taxi. He could
make out the firm swell of her breasts beneath the prim woolen dress she was
wearing. He looked away abruptly.
"Right on one count, wrong on the other. After two bottles of champagne, we got
it into our heads that we should get married."
This time, Ellie did look at him. She couldn't remember the circumstances but
she sure as heck could remember the feeling that had accompanied them. The
feeling that yes, it was right between them, that they were made for one
another. The demon alcohol had a lot to answer for.
"Getting married in Las Vegas is something one can do on the spur of the
moment," he continued dryly. "No need for blood tests, no need to wait, and
everything open all hours. For the pricey sum of ninety dollars, we got a
license and treated ourselves to a gem of a drive-through wedding." He laughed
grimly. "You were clearly too far gone to enjoy the experience."
"It was like being on a roller-coaster ride," Ellie said miserably. "The whole
world was spinning and nothing felt real in retrospect." Reality had set in soon
enough, though, when she had returned to England, to the small house she had
inherited on her father's death and to the prospect of imminent motherhood.
Her little secret. She felt sick at the thought of dealing with it.
"You walked out."
"I had to!"
"Care to explain why?"
"It was just a bit of fun that got out of hand."
"Just a bit of fun…" It hadn't been just a bit of fun for him, he
realized now. For the first time in his life he had let down his defenses, had
allowed his emotions to rule his head and he hadn't been so drunk at the time
that he hadn't known what they were doing. Getting married. But God, he thought
with angry realization, he had wanted it. He had wanted to marry her. After only
a few hours in her company, because he had known.
Anger at himself spread to a generalized anger at her. Caroline with her haughty
blond beauty and her moneyed background faded like a pebble being carried away
by a surge of rushing tidal water. This dark-haired nymph who was so mortified
at finding herself attached to him by a marriage certificate had never been
expunged from his head. But she would be.
And he knew how….
The bar was as impersonal as Leo had promised. It nestled in the basement of the
hotel, was fairly dark, which was good, fairly intimate, which was less good,
and fairly crowded, which was essential. Because Ellie was finding his presence
nerve-racking, and that was only partially because of the extraordinary
circumstances of their meeting and the gut-wrenching agony of her own little
secret.
The fact was that her body was not behaving the way it should. He seemed to be
emanating some kind of lethal electric charge that had every pulse in it
jumping.
She watched covertly as he strode up to the bar to get their drinks and then
lowered her eyes as he turned to swing back toward their table, which was set
aside from those in the center.
"So," Leo said, handing her the glass of wine she hadn't ordered and sitting
down opposite her.
"I asked for orange juice."
"You were telling me why you lied to me."
"You can't let that go, can you?"
"I have never been lied to before."
"Never? What a sheltered life you must have led." Her eyes skittered away from
the smile of pure charm that altered the harsh arrogance of his face.
"Easy prey for a woman like you." But the hardness she would have expected was
missing from his words. They were almost teasing, which surely couldn't be right
considering the mess they were now in.
"No law degree," Ellie said, taking a very small sip of wine and then gently
depositing her glass on the circular table. "No rich parents, I'm afraid. No
Boston, in fact. I guess," she sighed heavily, reliving the weight of sadness
that had propelled her visit to far-off shores, "I was just so sad at the time.
My mum had died the year before and my father had died only a matter of months
before I went to America. I was very…very close to my parents, you see, I just
wasn't ready for either of them to die, never mind both." She rubbed her eyes
with her thumbs and drew a deep breath.
"I understand."
Ellie didn't want his understanding. It complicated things, turned her secret
into a guilty one, even though she could not have located him when she had
discovered the pregnancy even if she had wanted to.
"You came along and you made me feel like a princess, so I turned myself into
one! I created someone interesting and radiant and carefree and I made her
wealthy because I didn't think that you would be too interested in someone who
was pretty poor, someone who was just out of teacher training college and was
planning to teach eleven-year-olds at a school not seven miles from the house
she had lived in since she was a child. That would have been too dull for you,
so I turned myself into somebody else, somebody more interesting. I needed to
escape for a while and so I did. It's as simple as that."
Yes, it made sense. Her laughter had been joyous but brittle and her eyes had
been too damned honest for him to really believe what her mouth had been saying.
That was why he had fallen for her. Which didn't mean that she hadn't screwed up
his life one way or another.
"I suppose you're furious," she said, expecting his wrath and waiting to receive
the blow because she could deal with his wrath a lot better than she could deal
with that glimmer of wordless compassion that he had earlier shown.
"More like impressed with your acting abilities," Leo told her wryly, "I don't
suppose you teach drama by any chance."
"English and geography." He was looking at her, really looking at her and the
directness of his gaze made her feel suddenly giddy. Something here had changed
and she didn't know what. She just knew that she had to get away before…before
what…?
Before something happened that shouldn't…something that she could not afford to
let happen…
"So how do we…get a divorce?" Just saying the words felt a little unreal. Here
she was, in a marriage that she could not remember getting into, although little
bits were beginning to creep back into her head like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
slowly coming together, and with a child about whom her husband had no idea.
Husband and wife. Ludicrous, unsettling, frightening.
"That bit I haven't as yet checked out," Leo admitted. He leaned forward,
resting his arms on his thighs, closing the distance between them. Seduction was
beckoning to him like the finger of Fate. He had fallen in love with her; she
had treated him as a therapeutic dalliance, a passing cure for her problems. A
score needed settling and he had never before run away from settling scores. Oh,
no. It wasn't in his blood. Caroline was an arrangement but this was old
business. He would deal with it.
"Do we need to go back to Las Vegas?" Ellie chewed her lip worriedly. "I
couldn't possibly do that. I… My job… And besides, I just don't have the
money…." Not to mention the small problem of their son, the son he didn't know
about. She felt faint.
"Oh, I shouldn't think that would be necessary." He lightly reached out to hold
the tips of her fingers, softly stroking them and she snatched her hand away.
"What are you doing!"
"We were good together, weren't we," he murmured. He watched as she drew away.
"Have you had many other lovers since me?"
"I should go…."
"Why? Now that our little problem is out in the open, where's the harm in
chatting like two adults? Besides, I still have a few questions to ask you…."
"Questions like what?"
"Why did you run away like that?"
"I… My flight back home…"
"Truth."
Ellie could feel his masculine presence surrounding her until she could barely
breathe. He seemed to have edged closer to her somehow. His knees were
practically touching hers and her fingers were still tingling from their brief
contact with his hand.
What was going on here?
"Well?" he pressed softly, mesmerizingly.
"I…" She remembered giggling as they drove through, signing her name, looking up
at him adoringly and his eyes laughing back at her. Two carefree people signing
their lives away. She must have blanked out the memory, shoved it away somewhere
and now it was coming back out of its hiding place. "You wouldn't understand…."
Her voice was half-pleading.
"Try me."
Suddenly telling him didn't seem important anymore. Why should it? He was part
of her history now.
What she did about William was another matter, something she would sort out in
due course.
"I wasn't…the kind of girl you thought I was. Like I said, it was all a bit of a
game, a bit of a laugh, playacting. But when we got back to the hotel, well, it
wasn't playacting anymore and…and…I know it seems ridiculous but I
was…twenty-one and I had never…"
He was looking at her with growing incredulity. It would have been comical if
she had taken time out to observe him from a distance, but Ellie was caught up
in her own mortification, still alive and kicking after four years.
"You were a virgin," he said in amazement.
"Shh!" Ellie looked around her and lowered her voice, bright red with remembered
embarrassment. "Didn't you know? Hadn't you guessed? I never looked at the
sheets. I assumed…"
"No, there was no indication. A virgin…" The urge to touch her, feel her
intensified until he was aching with it. "And now?" he murmured. "Have you saved
yourself for when I came back…?"
Ellie started. When she spoke, she tried to sound amused and dismissive but she
could hear the tremor in her voice.
"Don't be ridiculous! I never…expected you to come looking for me! I'm amazed
you even remembered my name!"
"You were my wife."
"Yes, I realize that now…but I didn't know…. I put it behind me…." Her words
were becoming hopelessly tangled, less because her mind was confused than
because of the way Leo was looking at her. And the crazy way her body was
responding to him. As though she had been flung back through time and was once
again seeing him through the eyes of the girl she had once been.
Once been?
"True. But here I am. So, tell me, were there any other men?"
Ellie was rendered speechless and in the silence, he slowly nodded.
Any other men? She found that she was shaking her head. No, only him. The
atmosphere was thick with unspoken words and very slowly she reached out. It was
as though her hand moved of its own accord — she was compelled to touch that
skin, feel the warmth burn her fingers.
Her lips were slightly parted as her trembling hand brushed the side of his
face. She had leaned toward him and Leo felt an explosion of desire that rushed
at him and through him with the fury of a freight train.
He struggled to remember that he was engaged, that this meeting was all about
business, but…
"What do you think it would be like? To relive old times…see whether we really
were that good together…" He heard the roughness of his own voice saying things
that his brain should have censored.
He took her hand and stroked the soft flesh of her palm with his thumb. No
thoughts of Caroline, or the perfect suitability of their loveless union, could
fight the ferocity of what he was feeling right here, right now.
He kissed the tender underside of her wrist and felt her shiver. Her response
fired the racing need inside him.
"That's…that's crazy…." Ellie whispered. And it was, wasn't it? He was a part of
her history now…but she felt something stir inside her, a gnawing realization
that she had never forgotten him, not at all. Why else had no men attracted her
since him? Why else had she been able to laugh with them, chat with them but had
never wanted to be touched by any of them? Yet here she was, wet with desire
after a matter of a couple of hours spent with Leo.
"I should go home now…." she said unsteadily. She couldn't tear her eyes away
from his face or her treacherous hand out of his. "You…you can get in touch with
me about…about the situation…. I'll sign whatever…whatever needs signing…."
He looked at her from under thick, dark eyelashes, saw her tremulous mouth, felt
the skittering of her nerves, knew that she was feeling just as he was…. In that
split instant, when he should have been taking a firm stand for reason, his mind
was flying toward a destination he never knew he wanted so badly, until now.
"Your home." His voice lingered over the words and the idea of sleeping with her
filled him with groin-aching desire.
"I…must go…." Thoughts of William sleeping peacefully in his bed surfaced
through her muddled brain. She nearly had a heart attack on the spot.
"You want to go home alone? Are you trying to convince yourself or me? Why don't
I drop you at your home? What is it like?"
"No!" Panic surged through her but beneath the panic, the irresistible, powerful
pull of desire was making her thoughts sluggish. She couldn't afford to be like
this, barely able to think clearly. She had too much to protect. But…
"I have a room here, Ellie. A suite…"
"Don't say that!"
"Why? You are trembling. Is that for me?"
His voice was thick and ragged and with a soft moan, Ellie leaned forward and
captured his mouth blindly with hers, offering herself freely to him, curving
into him, heading for an oblivion she had to have but one that she knew she
would regret….
Ellie could feel her heart beating wildly as she followed him into the elevator.
Leo's arm was still around her, draped over her shoulder, and her fingers were
linked through his. They looked the picture of a normal couple in love.
Was this how she had felt four years ago? In love? Had fun become something
deeper? She couldn't think about that now, not when the lift doors were opening
and he was walking along with her toward a door, slotting in the card used by
the hotel in lieu of keys, closing the door behind them….
Then their hands were everywhere. Before they could even make it to the
king-size bed that she could just glimpse through the door ahead of them, her
back was pressed against the door and her eyes were closed as she fumbled with
his belt, helping him to yank it away, one less obstacle between the eventual
touching of flesh against flesh.
The light, soft wool of her dress felt like a uniform of iron, her tights were
like cling film around her legs. She couldn't wait to free herself.
And he couldn't wait to free her. Gone was the mastery and self-control he
usually brought to his lovemaking. In its place were raw, primitive urges that
had him shaking. He tugged the long zipper of her dress and pulled it down until
her lacy brassiere was all that lay between his hands, his mouth, and the soft
paleness of her heaving breasts.
Craving was something he hadn't felt for a woman, not since…
Attraction, yes, but this sharp pull on his senses was driving him crazy,
turning him into a madman.
He slid the straps of her bra down and groaned as his eyes feasted on the jut of
her breasts, the big circles of her nipples with their hard, throbbing nubs that
were begging for his mouth.
With one easy movement, he lifted her off her feet and carried her swiftly
through to the bedroom, then he lay her on the bed and watched her watching him
as he stripped himself of his clothes.
It was all very gratifying to see her feasting her eyes on his impressively
aroused masculinity. It was also doing nothing to slake the frenzy of desire
that had burst through him like water breaking free from a dam.
"You don't know what you are doing to me," he moaned, finding the bed, finding
her body, divesting it of dress, tights, underwear. "I came on a mission…."
He had to touch her. Everywhere. Breasts, mouth, stomach. His fingers found the
moistness between her legs, rubbed her until she was crying out and fingers were
not enough.
He felt as if he were coming home. He hated the feeling but he was drowning in
it.
Making love had never been this good and afterward, lying with a woman had never
felt this satisfying.
Ellie sighed and turned on her side so that they were facing each other, her
breasts squashed against his powerful, broad chest. Their legs were tangled
together under the sheet.
"Good?" He looked down at her and reached to stroke some hair away from her
face.
"You don't really think I'm going to pander to your ego by admitting that it was
fantastic, do you?" she teased. When he smiled back at her, she felt as if she
were surrounded by a blanket of warmth.
How could she not confess about William? How could she not tell him that he was
father to a toddler who looked uncannily like him, same set to his mouth, same
shape to his eyes?
She cleared her throat and in the fraction of time it took for her to try to
think of a way of composing her words to say what she had to say, the telephone
rang.
Leo barely moved to reach it. Just leaned onto his back with his arm still under
her and snatched up the receiver.
Then he was sitting up and so was she, watching the tense set of his shoulders
and knowing that something had happened….
Leo slung his legs over the side of the bed and spoke softly into the telephone.
Behind him he was aware that Ellie was looking at him. He had just slept with
her, had delighted in every second of it. He should be feeling as guilty as hell
right at this moment, with Caroline speaking to him, but he didn't.
"How did you know where I was?" he asked in a low voice. Without looking
backward, he disappeared into the sitting room adjacent to the bedroom without
bothering to shield his nudity.
"Well, Antonio wouldn't tell me and it all sounded so…mysterious." She
didn't sound thrilled with the mystery, however. She sounded furious. "In case
you'd forgotten we were supposed to be spending the weekend with my parents and
the Robinsons. Very difficult now that you're no longer even in the country,
wouldn't you say, Leo?"
"How did you know where I was?" he repeated. Caroline had been the natural
conclusion to a relationship that had commenced eight months previously through
an artificial setup by her parents, who were keen to see her married to someone
rich and powerful enough to maintain her lifestyle. He had fitted the bill and
she, likewise, had suited him.
Her voice grated at him down the end of the receiver and he was keenly aware of
the naked, passionate creature waiting for him in the bedroom, waiting for his
hands to touch her, set her alight once again.
"You're…what?" His mind had drifted from what she had been saying but it
became very alert now.
Caroline, in a first ever interruption of her hectic social life, with its
lunches and facials and manicures and shopping in only the most exclusive of
designer stores, had come to London. He suddenly felt vastly irritated.
He didn't want her here.
He didn't, he thought, want her.
What the hell was wrong with him! His face was grimly set when he strode into
the bedroom five minutes later. Lord, but she looked edible sitting there on the
bed with her knees drawn up and the sheet pulled to cover her breasts.
"What's the matter?"
"I apologize but you're going to have to go."
Ellie didn't say anything. The stranger with the shuttered, angry expression was
back and all the warmth she had felt, the certainty that she would tell him the
absolute truth of their situation, drained out of her like water down a plug
hole.
"Right."
"Don't look at me like that," he muttered, raking his long fingers through his
hair.
"I'm not looking at you like anything."
"You know…I would rather you stayed." But he was already slinging on his boxer
shorts, pacing the room with a sort of restless energy that made her wonder what
the heck that phone call had been about.
Business? Trouble at the office? Did it matter? He had slept with her and now he
was ready for her to clear off so that he could get back to his real life.
Her heart was beating fast as she took her cue from him and got dressed in
record time, not bothering with the tights, which she shoved into her handbag.
The silence stretching between them was agonizing.
"I need to see you again," he told her roughly, closing the space between them
so that he could grip her forearms with his hands. "I had not planned for…this
to happen."
"Should I be flattered by that or insulted?" Ellie asked coldly.
"I have something to sort out."
"Yes." She grabbed her coat and glared furiously at him. "The small matter of
our divorce. Just send me whatever papers I need to sign, Leo, and I'll sign
them. No need for us to lay eyes on each other again. Let's just put this down
to a spot of fun."
"I'll be in touch."
"You have my phone number. Use it. I don't want to see you again. Twice is
enough…."
Leo and Caroline met for breakfast in his hotel restaurant. She was still
fuming. A few hours of slumber had done nothing, he noted dispassionately, to
ease her temper. Caroline was not accustomed to upsetting her plans for anyone
and trekking to London behind him was a stupendous upset of all her plans.
Credit to her that sheer cunning had led her to him. But her anger was certainly
going to go up by several notches when he told her what he had to. However neat
a business arrangement their marriage would be, he didn't want it. He was
shocked that he ever had. But then he had forgotten the nature of passion, the
animal craving that could turn your life upside down, the vital ingredient of
any successful marriage, surely. And all those old feelings, still there, had
only ever been resting. Crazy but true.
"Caroline," he interrupted her wearily in midtorrent, "this isn't going to
work."
For the first time since she had stormed over to his hotel, he saw a flicker of
alarm mar those perfectly proportioned features.
"Yes, you're right, my darling." She leaned forward, the essence of blond,
expensively maintained chic and he instinctively drew back. "I'm behaving quite
out of character. So let's just forget any explanations of why you're here and
enjoy ourselves a little." She smiled coyly. "Perhaps choose a wedding ring?
What better place than wonderful London?"
"You do not seem to have heard."
This time the alarm blossomed into full-blown fear.
"It is over between us. I do not love you nor do you love me."
Of course it couldn't end there. In his dreams, maybe, she would have gracefully
allowed him to leave, but she didn't. She followed him back up to the hotel
room, refused to give him the luxury of retreating from a situation he had
drifted, stupidly, into.
"What exactly has been going on here, anyway?" she asked, narrowing her glacial
blue eyes, and Leo's face flushed darkly.
He just wanted her out, wanted to get on the telephone and call Ellie. Just the
prospect of hearing the soft modulations of her voice filled him with a sense of
yearning.
And he had work to do. Had to sort out her understandably hurt feelings at the
way he had been forced to ask her to leave, no explanation given.
"Nothing has been going on," he lied, mostly to spare her feelings even though
he knew that whatever she said, Caroline would bounce back from this rejection,
no broken heart involved. "I needed to think so I came here. A place where my
face is not known. And now," he informed her, "I am going to have a very long
bath. When I come out, Caroline, I do not want you to be here. We have said all
there is to say."
"And what am I supposed to do? Tell everyone? My parents? Friends? That I
have been ditched?"
Leo took one step forward, his face cold. It was enough.
"You'll pay for this, Leo," she said, stumbling backward a couple of paces, but
as far as he was concerned, the conversation was at an end. He turned his back
on her, strode toward the bathroom and slammed the door very firmly and very
pointedly behind him.
As soon as he figured Ellie was back from school, he would call her, throw his
pride to the four winds and do whatever it took to convince her to see him
again.
Four years ago and in the space of only a matter of hours, she had crawled under
his skin and lodged there. Sleeping with her one more time had cured him of
nothing. If anything, it had stoked his desire.
Things were not working out quite the way he had expected….
Ellie heard the ring of the doorbell only minutes after she had stepped foot
back into the house and her heart lurched in her chest.
She didn't want it to be Leo, but at the same time she desperately hoped that it
was. They had parted in anger and it wasn't right. That was the thought that had
taken root in her treacherous mind and refused to budge.
Besides, there was the problem of William to address. She had spent the whole
day thinking about that, chewing on the issue like a dog with a bone and was no
nearer to knowing what she should do.
Of course, she should tell him. She knew where he was staying. One phone call.
But then the thought of doing that, facing yet more rage, not to mention the
host of complications that would ensue, made her mind clamp down on the thought.
If that was him at the door then so be it.
She pulled open the door, already braced to see him, fortifying her unsteady
heart not to respond and her mouth dropped open in bewilderment.
"You must be Eleanor James."
"Who are you?"
"May I come in?" Caroline didn't wait for an answer to that one. She gently
nudged against the door, relying on curiosity and the very British capacity for
politeness to work in her favor. It did.
"You must be wondering what I'm doing here," she said, looking around her. Small
house. Very unimpressive. But the girl had something, something she couldn't
quite put her finger on. "Let's just say that I managed to rescue your name and
address from a certain electronic diary that was lying carelessly on top of a
certain dressing table."
It took a few minutes for Ellie to gather herself together and remind herself
that this was her house and whoever the beautiful blonde was standing there,
peering around with a barely concealed expression of distaste, she was the
intruder and should be the one answering the questions.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" She folded her arms together and
coldly scanned the face now finally registering her presence after an insolent
inspection of her surroundings.
"I do apologize. Caroline. Caroline Hoffberg."
"Well, Miss Hoffberg, I don't know what you're doing here but I would like you
to leave."
"Oh, I'm sure you wouldn't. Not yet, anyway. Not until you hear what I've got to
say."
Ellie felt a sickening mix of bewilderment and apprehension race along her
spine.
"You may not have heard of me, but I wonder…have you heard of Leo Silva? Ah,
yes, I can see from your expression that you have. I don't suppose he's
mentioned me, has he?" The smile was a mask of hatred. "No, no, he wouldn't
have. Not many men feel free to discuss their fiancée to another lover."
"Fiancée?"
"That's right, and here's the engagement ring to prove it. One question…how long
has it been going on?"
"Please. Leave." But her voice was unconvincing. She wanted a hole to open up
and swallow her whole, or better still to open up and swallow the viper standing
in front of her. He had slept with her, made love to her, and he was getting
married. It all made sense. His anxiousness to sort out their little problem,
the phone call, her hasty departure. She felt soiled, mortified.
"How long?"
"Nothing's going on between us," Ellie stumbled over the words. "Yes, I know him
but I haven't laid eyes on him for four years. Last night was the first time
I've seen him…since then."
"Really." She paused, allowed her eyes to drift behind Ellie who followed her
gaze in terrified slow motion to where William had appeared from the direction
of the kitchen, clutching a toy truck.
"And who…is that? No, please, allow me to guess…."
Things couldn't get any worse, could they? Caroline had taken one look at
William, seen the significant resemblance to Leo, and had taken a
shot-in-the-dark guess at the secret Ellie had been miserably clutching to
herself. She knew.
"Well, well, well. Now there's one for the books. So this was the reason
for Leo's sudden dash to get over here. Did you contact him? Try to blackmail
him? Oh dear, that wouldn't have thrilled him. Not at all." She laughed with
malicious delight at the implications extending in front of her like a river of
possibilities.
"I did nothing of the sort," Ellie gasped. She scooped William up from the
ground and hugged him to her. "Now go."
"Of course. I wouldn't dream of keeping you further." The smile was still
there, still promising all sorts of mischief as Caroline walked slowly toward
the front door. "Well, I must say, we may no longer be New York's fairy-tale
golden couple, but —" she opened the door slightly, while continuing to afford
Ellie her malevolent amusement "— if it had to come to an end, then I really
couldn't have imagined a more dramatic way for it to do so.…"
"And what way would that be?" The voice that startled them both was soft,
dangerous, and very male and filled Ellie with such paralyzing dread that she
felt her arms tremble convulsively around her son.
"Into the kitchen, darling," she whispered, setting him on the ground, snatching
her window of opportunity as Caroline and Leo exchanged words that she could
only guess at. "Play with your trucks for a little while and Mummy will give you
a chocolate when she comes in."
When she straightened back up, it was with the one wish that Caroline was still
there, odious though she was. Just another adult who might dilute the
inevitable.
Her eyes slid in panic up to Leo's face. His killer looks still had the ability
to shoot right through her and anchor her to the spot.
What had Caroline said? Had she told him? Surely she had not been there long
enough to do that final piece of damage.
But then she could see the answer. His expression was still, but it was with the
stillness that comes before a storm.
"What are you doing here?" she finally asked weakly.
"Something to tell me, Ellie?" He took a few steps closer to her. "I hope not. I
sincerely hope that what Caroline just said was nothing more than the words of a
scorned woman."
Ellie closed her eyes briefly and inhaled.
"I…I was going to tell you," she whispered.
"Going to tell me…what?" A few more steps. Now he was standing directly in front
of her. She could breathe him in, could smell that unidentifiable scent that was
all him, a clean, masculine, rugged scent that filled her nostrils and made her
want to collapse.
"Four years ago…that night…" The silence was deafening. William was obviously
doing as he had been told with the promise of a chocolate spurring him on to
good behavior, but it no longer mattered anyway.
"I have a child."
His flat statement shot straight into her like an arrow and she nodded.
"I have a child and it was so unimportant a fact that you decided to keep it to
yourself." His mouth was a grim line and she could tell that he was trying very
hard to keep his rage on a leash.
"I… You don't understand…."
"Enlighten me."
"Look, this isn't the place or the time…." She glanced nervously behind her and
on cue, William appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, just as he had only
minutes before. Impeccable timing.
She turned back to Leo but he was no longer staring at her. His eyes were all
for his son, his black-haired son who was such an exquisite carbon copy of
himself….
Since their confrontation in Ellie's hallway, time had passed in a blur of
misery and confusion. There had been no chance for them to talk at that time,
although the parting glance from Leo had promised that talk would come soon
enough, and she would not like what he had to say.
And now, here she was, a mere one day later, waiting in the same sitting room
where she had watched Leo with his son. William was with Jenny. The promised
talk was only a matter of minutes away.
The ring of the doorbell made her stiffen in the chair for a few moments, then
she walked with deadened feet toward the door and pulled it open.
"Come in."
"Look at me," Leo commanded, as she turned her back to him, preceding him into
the sitting room. "When I have this conversation with you, I want to see every
expression on your face."
"If you intend to start threatening me, Leo, then I'm going to ask you to
leave." She had rehearsed in her head all the possibilities and had come to only
one conclusion: She would not be browbeaten into anything. Leo might be rich and
powerful and influential but he wasn't going to do anything that she didn't
want. Like take William away from her. That thought had crossed her mind in her
nightmarish imagined scenarios and it had made her sick with fear.
"You are in no position to do any such thing." He sat down on the chair opposite
her and then immediately stood back up and began pacing the room, as though his
restless, raging energy simply couldn't be contained.
"Why," he asked, pausing by the window to stare down at her with icy loathing,
"did you never contact me to tell me that I had fathered a child?"
"Because I couldn't!"
"Couldn't? Or wouldn't?"
"I never knew your last name. At least, I couldn't remember it. Like I said,
there was a lot I really couldn't remember about that night."
"So you say."
"It's the truth!" Her eyes flashed angrily at him. "And anyway, would you really
have appreciated it if I had stormed into your life and informed you that you
were going to be a daddy after a one-night stand?" Ellie laughed bitterly. "I
can't imagine you would have thrown your arms around me and whooped with joy!"
With seething self-disgust, Leo thought that he might possibly have done just
that.
"Anyway, I couldn't even if I had wanted to."
"And had you?" he ground out.
"Had I…what?"
"Wanted to tell me."
"I…" Ellie lowered her eyes. "It had never been an option."
He let that go. "Right, so let's just go along with this excuse of yours for a
minute. Why the hell didn't you tell me as soon as I contacted you?" Another
surge of violent anger made him smash his fist heavily on the window ledge and
she jumped. "Did you intend to say anything at all?"
"Did you intend to tell me about your fiancée?" she threw at him in retaliation.
"Or was it perfectly all right to sleep with me while you had another woman in
tow?" Under cover of being a perfectly reasonable accusation, Ellie heard her
jealousy surge out into the open, and jealous she had been. Bitterly hurt,
angry, and wrenchingly jealous.
"That is beside the point!"
"Oh, it is, is it? It's a crime for me to keep William to myself for a few
hours, to give myself a chance to think about the situation, but it's just fine
and dandy for you to do whatever the heck you want without any fear of being
criticized!"
"This is getting us nowhere," Leo said coldly, pushing himself away from the
window to continue his restless prowl of the room. "I have thought about the
situation and I have decided that there is only one thing to do…."
Ellie's head flooded with possibilities but only one took root, and it was the
one she had been mentally shying away from over the past few hours.
Leo wanted to take his child from her. She had watched the way he had played
with his son the day before, seen the tenderness on his face, had known that he
would not relinquish his hold or even think twice about the impact it would have
on his neatly ordered life.
"We will remain married. There will be no convenient divorce, but you will
return to America with me to take up the position as my wife and mother to my
son."
For a few seconds, Ellie wondered whether she had heard correctly, then she
looked at the expression on his face and realized that she had.
"I beg your pardon," she said, however.
"You heard me." Leo picked up one of the pictures of William and looked absently
at it, before replacing it on the shelf by the window.
"You're mad!"
"Mad? From where I am standing, this is the only sane solution I can see." He
moved to where she was sitting in shocked nervousness and bent down, placing his
hands squarely on either side of her. "And I really do not see your opposition
to the idea considering that you married me once four years ago on the spur of
the moment. I would say that this time there is all the more reason for us to be
united, for the sake of our son."
"I didn't know what I was doing! We both behaved in a silly, irresponsible
fashion! We were under the influence of alcohol and swept up in the heat of the
moment!"
"I tell you this now, Ellie. My son will be where I am. I do not intend to play
the role of absentee father, nor do I intend to conveniently divorce you so that
you can return to your life as single mother, struggling to make ends meet."
"I do not struggle to make ends meet, Leo."
"There will be no argument on this subject."
"And what will you do if I refuse?" She felt as if she was literally choking,
with his face thrust so aggressively close to hers. The impact of his proximity
was so intense that it was almost like a physical force pushing her back into
the cushioned chair.
"Fight you every inch of the way."
"You wouldn't stand a hope in hell!" she retorted, squashing the thought that he
might just stand more of a chance than she was prepared to admit. "I'm his
mother, he's spent his whole life living with me, here, in England. You can't
buy everything with money, you know."
"Ah, but how do you think he would feel when he gets older and he discovers that
his mother knowingly denied him the opportunity to be with both his parents,
that his father was prepared to look after you both, but for purely selfish
reasons you decided to turn your back on the suggestion and carry a helpless
infant along with you for the ride. Will he love you for that? Maybe not…."
"You…you…"
Her eyes blazed helplessly into his and slowly his expression changed. He
lowered his eyes, giving her a view of fabulously long, dark lashes. When he
looked at her again, there was a soft, dangerous smile playing on his mouth.
"Besides, do you not think that the situation might not actually be as bad as
you imagine? Hm?"
Ellie gasped as he removed one hand from the side of the chair to expertly slide
it into the neck of her shirt so that he could cover her bare breast with his
hand.
She squirmed but already, dismayed, she could feel a treacherous heat begin to
rush through her body. When he began to stroke the tight bud of her nipple, all
she could do was groan.
She needed to clear her head but how, when her body was already slipping down
the chair, preparing itself excitedly for a touch she knew she craved….
Their lovemaking was as gentle as a summer breeze, even though Ellie knew that
it had only been initiated by Leo to prove a point, to show her that at least,
for a while, if she agreed to live with him as his wife, then she could bank on
a fulfilling sex life if nothing else.
He undid the buttons of her blouse and feathered her breasts with kisses. He
cupped them in his hands and rolled his thumbs over her nipples until she was
panting and powerless.
Then he carefully unzipped her jeans and tugged them down. She did nothing to
stop him. She just remained feverishly sprawled in an attitude of shameless
abandon, allowing him to divest her of her underwear, to part her legs so that
he could gently and lingeringly sample with his exploring tongue the honeyed
moistness waiting for him there.
Her arms had flopped over the sides of the chair and she watched from under her
lashes as he got rid of his own clothes, then she reached up and pulled him
toward her so that he could slide deep into her, fill her up, move until her
body heaved and shuddered against his.
"There is this, my darling," he murmured, after he had carried her to the
full-length sofa so that they could lie entwined.
My darling? If only… "It's not enough. Sex is never enough when it comes
to marriage. Sex…disappears." She gave voice to the question that had been
nagging dully at the back of her mind. "What about…Caroline?"
"We are finished."
"I gathered that…but why? You knew that I would divorce you, that that piece of
paper was just a formality!"
"That is not why I finished with her." Leo felt himself flush.
"Then why?" Ellie pressed.
"It was an arrangement," he said shortly.
"What kind of an arrangement?"
"It suited the both of us at the time. Let us not discuss it."
"Why not?"
Leo sighed with exasperation but gave in. "It was simply something that seemed a
good idea at the time."
"Like us getting married four years ago, you mean?"
"No, not like that." Not like that at all, he thought ruefully. That had
been about love, which was why giving this woman up, with or without the added
benefit of having a child, was out of the question. He would teach her to love
him and they already had a springboard. Physically, they slotted together as
neatly as a hand in a glove.
"And what are you proposing to me now, Leo, if not another kind of arrangement?"
Her voice was sad but gentle.
"You are not comparing like with like."
"Different situation, admittedly, but the net result is almost the same." And
the fact that he could even have contemplated marrying a woman as a sort of
business deal left her in no doubt that love and marriage did not go hand in
hand for him.
But she loved him. How could she live as wife to a man who didn't
love her back?
"Look, Leo," she said gently, "I can't come back with you, and before you jump
in and start bellowing at me, I'll tell you straight off that you can spend as
much time as you would like with William. I'll never stop you. I know it'll be a
bit tricky with you living on the other side of the world, but you must come
over here on business fairly often and you can come and see him then, no need to
give me any notice at all. And of course, when he gets older, he can come across
and see you. He can travel as an unaccompanied minor."
"Why won't you become my wife? In the full sense of the word?"
Ellie heard the autocratic demand in his question with a sinking heart. Because
I love you too much to subject myself to a loveless union.
"Because we don't love one another," she said simply.
"I could fight you." Ellie knew Leo wouldn't. He would never have dreamed of
doing any such thing.
"You would lose."
"Did you ever…think of me?"
The question jumped out at her and knocked her for a loop. Ellie felt a soft
flush creeping into her cheeks. Yes, she had thought of him. She hadn't realized
how much until now, that she had seen him again. Unconsciously, she had compared
every man she had met to him and had found them all wanting. Logic had helped to
keep away the demons but emotions, hidden deep down, had never obeyed logic.
"Well…yes, of course. I mean, you were…my first lover, Leo. It was only
natural…."
"But aside from that…"
She could feel the conversation getting into tricky waters, waters with enough
undercurrents to drag her down.
"And then when I got pregnant," she carried on quickly, "I couldn't help but
think of you. You were the father of my child. But there was no means of getting
in touch with you and besides, I've read enough to know that the last thing most
men want is to be encumbered with a baby. Especially you."
"Why especially me?"
"Because you had your whole career ahead of you. You were bright and talented
and wealthy. A baby would have been like a chain round your ankles for a man
like you."
"And it wasn't for you?"
"I…I've never once regretted having William." Because, she now realized, he had
always been her constant reminder of the love she had lost.
"You have had three years, more, of our son. Do you not think that I deserve the
chance to be a father?" He would remain here until the cows came home, drumming
every reason he could think of into her head, but she wasn't going to get away
from him again. He felt that in his bones, an unshakable truth.
"Of course you do! And like I said…"
"I could have the job part-time. I know what you said."
"That's not what I meant…."
"And what when you find someone else? Does my part-time role get reduced to
nothing? Will my son get used to calling some other man Dad? And what about
financial considerations? Do you not think that I might want to support my son?
Give him things? Watch him grow?"
"Yes, I suppose…." The undercurrents were back again, this time in a different
format, and Ellie frowned as she tried to separate the strands of confused
thoughts running through her head.
"How can I watch my son grow from thousands of miles away, across the Atlantic?"
"You don't want me as your wife!" Ellie protested. "You didn't track me down to
tell me that you love me and that you still wanted me! You tracked me down to
get a divorce so that you could marry someone else!"
"That's true," Leo admitted urgently, "but…"
"But what? You've only changed your mind because of William!"
"I broke it off with Caroline before I knew that William even existed."
"Yes, but…"
"And why do you think that is?"
"Because…" Hope sent up a few tentative shoots, which Ellie stalwartly tried to
ignore.
"Because?" he prompted softly. "Follow the thought, Ellie, and tell me what you
find…."
Ellie fell silent and watched Leo, not daring to hope.
"Why do you think I married you four years ago?"
"Because you got carried away with the excitement of the New Year approaching
and the excitement of being in Las Vegas and you'd had a little too much to
drink…."
"It wasn't the first time I had been in Las Vegas," Leo told her, speaking
slowly and carefully and taking his time because he was not going to allow pride
to alter a word he had to say. "And it certainly was not the first time I had
attended an extravagant New Year's Eve celebration. Carry on with your
explanation."
"You weren't in complete control…neither of us were…."
"I was in sufficient control to arrange a limo to take us to get the marriage
license and then on to that ridiculous drive-through affair. So go on…."
"Why then?" She seemed to be holding her breath in heady expectation of an
answer she just knew wasn't going to come.
"Do you remember what I told you that night? What I told you on several
occasions, in fact, during the course of the time we were together?"
"Well…you said that you loved me." Ellie laughed quickly, rushing in to dismiss
the possibility that that love still existed, but the gravity of his expression
sent all her impulses racing wildly through her.
"I saw you and you took my breath away. I talked to you and I felt like I had
never felt with any other woman in my life before, and there had been many." He
slid his fingers through her hair and held them there so that the warmth of his
hand pressed against her scalp. "You enchanted me and I fell in love with you.
It was no game for me. I married you because I wanted to. Can you imagine how I
felt when I woke up to find that you had disappeared? I tried to track you down
but all roads led to a brick wall and for the past four years I now see that I
was inwardly raging. Caroline was my screwed-up attempt to kill the past and I
know that now. When I saw your picture in the newspaper, read your name, knew
that at last I could find you, all the old emotions came to the front again, and
then I saw you. You still took my breath away. I talked to you and you filled my
soul up just like you did all that time ago, swept away all the cynicism that I
had built up about the institution of marriage. That's when I knew that I had to
break it off with Caroline."
Ellie felt as though she might faint at any moment. Was that what it felt like
when dreams come true?
"I tried to hate you when I realized that your bombshell was far bigger than
mine had been, but in the end, all I could think was that I had my wife and a
son. That's why I want you to come back with me, Ellie. Because I want you. I
want to wake up to your glorious face every morning, I want to have my son with
both of us, I want you to have more babies for me…and if you don't love me now,
then you can learn to. I can teach you…." There, he had laid his heart on the
line and he watched her face anxiously, not quite knowing what he would do if
she rejected him again.
Then she smiled and her smile said it all.
"I've been waiting…." Ellie murmured. "I was waiting all my life to meet you and
then I did, and I've spent the past four years in a vacuum, waiting for you to
come back, not even realizing it. My darling, I'm so glad you've returned…."
"You love me." There was fierce joy in the statement and it intensified when she
nodded her head. "My darling," he said shakily, kissing her gently on her mouth,
"our lives begin right now…."
The End