effect on his senses. It impacted deep down in his gut—so many layers of scent, filtering through his brain and throwing up images like a slideshow going too fast for him to analyse.
He was thrown back in time to his home on the island, with the sharp, tangy smell of the sea in the air, and yet he could smell the earth too, and the scent of the exotic flowers that bloomed on Isle Saint Croix. He could even smell something oriental, spicy, that made him think of his Moorish ancestors who had given the island its distinctive architecture.
He wasn’t prepared for the sharp pang of emotion that gripped him as a memory surged: him and his younger brother, playing, carefree, near the sea.
‘What’s in it?’ he managed to get out.
Leila was looking concerned. ‘You don’t like it?’
‘Like’ was too flimsy a word for what this scent was doing to him. Alix stood up abruptly, feeling acutely exposed. Dieu. Was she a witch? He strode over to the window and kept his back to her, brought his hand up to smell again.
The initial shock of the impact was lessening as the scent opened out and mellowed. It was him. The scent was everything that was deep inside him, where no one could see his true self. Yet this woman had got it—after only a couple of meetings and a few hours.
LEILA STOOD UP, not sure how to respond. She’d never seen someone react so forcefully to a scent before.
‘I researched a little about the island, to find out what its native flowers were, and I approximated them as closely as I could with what I have available in the shop. And I added citrus and calone, which has always reminded me of a sea breeze.’
Alix Saint Croix looked huge, formidable, against the window and the autumnal darkness outside. Her first reaction when she’d met this man had been fascination, a feeling of being dazzled, and since then her instinct had been to run away—fast. But now her feet were glued to the floor.
‘If you don’t like it—’
‘I like it.’
His response was short, sharp. He sounded almost...angry. Leila was completely confused.
Hesitantly she said, ‘Are you sure? You don’t sound very pleased.’
He turned around then and thrust both hands into his pockets. His chest was broad, the darkness of his skin visible under his shirt. He looked at her closely and shook his head, as if trying to clear it.
Finally he said, ‘I’m just a little surprised. The fragrance is not what I was expecting.’
Leila shrugged. ‘A customised scent has a bigger impact than a generic designer scent...’
His mouth quirked sexily and he came back over to the couch. Leila couldn’t take her eyes off him.
‘It certainly has an impact.’
‘If it’s too strong I can—’
‘No.’ Alix’s voice cut her off. ‘I don’t want you to change it.’
A knock came on the door then, and Leila flinched a little. She was so caught up in this man’s reaction and his charisma that she’d almost forgotten where she was. The seductive warmth of the bourbon in her belly didn’t help.
Alix said, ‘That’s dinner. I took the liberty of ordering for two, if you’d care to join me?’
Leila just looked at him and felt again that urge to run—but also a stronger urge to stay. Rebel. Even though she wasn’t exactly sure who she was rebelling against. Herself and every instinct screaming at her to run? Or the ghost of her mother’s disappointment?
She justified her weakness to herself: this man had thrown more business her way than she’d see in the next month. She should be polite. Ha! said a snide inner voice. There’s nothing polite about the way you feel around him.
She ignored that and said, as coolly as she could, ‘Only if it’s not too much of an imposition.’
He had a very definite mocking glint to his eye. ‘It’s no imposition...really.’
Alix went to the door and opened it to reveal obsequious staff who proceeded straight towards a room off the main reception area. Within minutes they were leaving again, and Alix was waiting for Leila to precede him into the dining room—which was as sumptuously decorated as the rest of the suite.
She caught a glimpse of a bedroom through an open door and almost tripped over her feet to avoid looking that way again. It brought to mind too easily the way that woman had stripped so nonchalantly for her lover. And how Alix had maintained that nothing had happened in spite of appearances.
Why should she even care, when he was probably lying?
Leila almost balked at that point, but as if sensing her trepidation, Alix pulled out a chair and looked at her pointedly. No escape. She moved forward and sat down, looking at the array of food laid out on the table. There was enough for a small army.
Alix must have seen something on her face, because he grimaced a little and said, ‘I wasn’t sure if you were vegetarian or not, so I ordered a selection.’
Leila couldn’t help a wry smile. ‘I am vegetarian, actually—mostly my mother’s influence. Though I do sometimes eat fish.’
Alix started to put some food on a plate for her: a mixture of tapas-type starters, including what looked like balls of rice infused with herbs and spices. The smells had her mouth watering, and she realised that she hadn’t eaten since earlier that day, her stomach having been too much in knots after seeing Alix Saint Croix again, and then thinking about him all afternoon as she’d worked on his fragrance.
She could smell it now, faintly—exotic and spicy, with that tantalising hint of citrus—and her insides quivered. It suited him: light, but with much darker undertones.
He handed her the plate and then plucked a chilled bottle of white wine out of an ice bucket. Leila wasn’t used to drinking, and could still feel the effects of the bourbon, so she held up a hand when Alix went to pour her some wine.
‘I’ll stick to water, thanks.’
As he poured himself some wine he asked casually, ‘Where are your parents from?’
Leila tensed inevitably as the tall, shadowy and indistinct shape of her father came into her mind’s eye. She’d only ever seen him in photos in the newspaper. Tightly she answered, ‘My mother was a single parent. She was from India.’
‘Was?’
Leila nodded and concentrated on spearing some food with her fork. ‘She died a few years ago.’
‘I’m sorry. That must have been hard if it was just the two of you.’
Leila was a little taken aback at the sincerity she heard in his voice and said quietly, ‘It was the hardest thing.’
She avoided his eyes and put a forkful of food in her mouth, not expecting the explosion of flavours from the spice-infused rice ball. She looked at him and he smiled at her reaction, chewing his own food.
When he could speak he said, ‘My personal chef is here. He’s from Isle Saint Croix, so he sticks to the local cuisine. It’s a mixture of North African and Mediterranean.’
Relieved to be moving away from personal areas, Leila said, ‘I’ve never tasted anything like it.’ Then she admitted ruefully, ‘I haven’t travelled much, though.’
‘You were born here?’
Leila reached for her water, as much to cool herself down as anything else. ‘Yes, my mother travelled over when she was pregnant. My father was French.’
‘Was?’