must miss her.’
Leila unpeeled herself from Alix and sat up, pulling her knees to her chin and wrapping her arms around them. She looked out over the stunning view from their elevated height in the garden at the back of the house, where the pool was.
Quietly, Leila said, ‘I miss her, of course. It was always just the two of us.’
Leila was afraid to look at Alix in case he saw the emotion she was feeling. A mix of grief and happiness. And gratitude to be in this place. To be with this man and yet to know not to expect more. Even if her heart did give a little lurch at that.
Alix came up on one elbow beside her, his long half-naked body stretched out in her peripheral vision like a mouthwatering temptation.
‘The man you were with before—what did he do to you?’
Leila glanced at him. Damn. She’d forgotten that she’d mentioned Pierre, even in passing. She shrugged. ‘He was a mistake. I was naive.’
‘How?’
Leila bit her lip, and then said, ‘It was just after my mother died—I was vulnerable. He paid me attention. I believed him when he said he just wanted to get to know me, that he wouldn’t push me. But one night he came up to my apartment and said he was tired of waiting for me to put out. He tried to force himself on me—’
Alix sprang upright in one fluid move and caught Leila’s arm, turning her to face him. Anger was blazing from his eyes. ‘Did he hurt you?’
Leila was shocked at this display of emotion. ‘No. He...he tried to, but I had some mace. I threatened to use it on him. So he just insulted me and left.’
‘Dieu...Leila...he could have—’
‘I know,’ Leila said sharply. ‘But he didn’t. Thank God. And I was proved a fool for believing that he—’
Alix’s hand tightened on her arm. ‘No, you weren’t a fool. You just wanted reassurance and some attention.’
Words trembled on Leila’s lips. Words about how much she’d wanted to believe that love and security did exist. Could exist. But she couldn’t let them spill. Not here, with this man. He’d made no promises. He was offering her this slice of paradise—that was all and if she’d been foolish before she’d be triply so if she started dreaming about anything more with a man like Alix.
He urged her gently back down onto the lounger and pushed their books aside. Tugging her over his chest again, he cupped the back of her head, fingers threading through her hair. ‘The man was an idiot, Leila.’
He brought her mouth down to meet his and they luxuriated in a long and explicit kiss. Leila felt emotional—as if Alix was silently communicating his gratitude to her for trusting enough in him to let him be the one to take her innocence.
The kiss got hotter, more desperate. Alix’s free hand deftly untied the strings of her bikini and she felt the flimsy material being pulled from between their bodies. Then his hand was smoothing down her back, cupping her buttock and squeezing gently, and then more firmly, long fingers covering the whole cheek, exploring close to where the seam of her body was wet and hot.
Obeying the clamouring of her blood, Leila moved over Alix so that her legs straddled his hips, breasts pressed to his broad chest. With an expert economy of movement, barely breaking their connection, mouths and body, Alix managed to extricate himself from his shorts and disposed of Leila’s bikini bottoms too. Now there were no barriers between them.
Leila had got so used to their privacy being respected that she felt completely uninhibited. Her legs were spread and she could feel him, hard and potent, at her buttocks. Alix moved so that his erection was between them, and Leila luxuriated in moving her body up and down, her juices anointing his shaft, making him groan...making them both want more.
Until she couldn’t stand teasing him any more and rose up, biting her lip as Alix donned protection, and then letting her breath out in a long hiss as he joined their bodies and he was deep inside her. Nothing existed in the world except this moment. This exquisite climb to the top of ecstasy.
ALIX HAD HIS HANDS in his pockets and he was looking out over one of the back lawns to where Leila was deep in conversation with his head gardener. He smiled and realised that in spite of the fact that he was standing on the precipice of possibly the most tumultuous period of his life he’d never felt so calm...or content.
The last ten days had been unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He’d never spent so much time alone with a woman. Not even the woman he’d thought he’d lost his heart to all those years ago. That had been youthful lust mixed up with folly and arrogance and hurt pride.
Leila was easy to talk to. Disturbingly easy to talk to. He’d told her things that he’d never discussed with anyone else. Not even Andres.
And their chemistry was still white-hot. Alix frowned. He knew he had to let Leila go. Within days the news was going to break that Alix’s people had voted for him to return to Isle Saint Croix. His life would not be his own any more. And he couldn’t return to the island with a mistress. It would undo all his hard work. He had to return alone, and then find a wife.
He felt heavy inside, all of a sudden. And then Leila looked up and spotted him, a smile spreading across her face. She said something to the gardener and shook his hand. The old man looked comically delighted with himself and Alix shook his head. The Leila effect. Yesterday he’d found her in the kitchen, showing Matilde how to make a genuine hot Indian vegetarian curry.
She hurried towards him now with a box in her hand, dressed for travelling in slim-fitting trousers and a sleeveless cashmere top. He drank her in greedily...something elemental inside him growled hungrily. He wasn’t ready to let her go—and yet how could he keep her?
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.’
Alix smiled even as an audacious idea occurred to him. ‘You didn’t. Was Lucas helpful?’
Leila smiled. ‘Amazingly! He’s even given me some flower cuttings to take home in special preservative bags. I’ve never smelled anything like them. If I can just distil their essences somehow—’ She broke off, embarrassed. ‘Sorry—we should get going, shouldn’t we?’
Alix’s chest felt tight. ‘Yes, we should. The plane is waiting.’
‘I’ll just get my handbag.’
Leila moved to go inside, but then stopped beside Alix and looked up at him. Her voice was husky. ‘Thank you...this has been truly magical.’
He reached out and cupped her jaw, running his thumb across the fullness of her lower lip. ‘Yes, it has,’ he agreed.
And right then he knew that he wasn’t ready to let Leila go, and that whatever it took to keep that from happening, he would do it.
* * *
‘Stay with me tonight?’
Leila looked at Alix across the back seat of his chauffeur-driven car. It was very late—after midnight—and the rain-wet streets of Paris were like an alien landscape to Leila. She realised she hadn’t even missed it. And she also realised that, in spite of her best intentions, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Alix.
She nodded jerkily and said, ‘Okay.’
The Place Vendôme was empty when they arrived, and they were escorted into the hotel with discreet efficiency. It gave Leila a bit of a jolt to see how the staff fawned over Alix, and how he instantly seemed to morph into someone more aloof, austere. She’d forgotten for a moment who he was.
When they entered his suite, low lamps were burning. Alix took off his jacket and Leila walked over to the window, feeling restless all of a