Chapter Seven
LEO HAD THROWN down his gauntlet. He’d been nothing but truthful when he had told her that being attracted to her had been an unforeseen curveball.
She had skittered away like a Victorian maiden, shrieking with pious moral outrage, but then he’d kissed her and she had melted into his arms. He had needed no further evidence that she would be his.
Naturally, he wasn’t going to pursue her.
He had been taken aback when they reached the suite to discover that she seemed to be sticking to her hands off moral high ground.
She had stood in front of the bedroom door, like a bouncer on a mission to deter unwanted riff-raff, and informed him that she would be having a bath and perhaps he could make good on his promise to work until she had fallen asleep.
She had actually used the term make good, while he had stared at her as it had slowly dawned on him that she might just be sticking to her guns.
Leo had been genuinely confused. He’d taken the rash decision to bypass common sense and lay his cards on the table and, having done so, he had been gratified to find that the attraction worked both ways.
So where was the problem?
He had hit the bedroom an hour and a half after she had disappeared and had found her barricaded on her side of the bed, with two of the sausage-shaped cushions separating them.
He had woken at five-thirty, as he always did, wherever in the world he happened to be, and she had given no indication that she was awake. Her back had resolutely been turned to him and she hadn’t moved a muscle as he’d made for the bathroom, showered, dressed and then exited the bedroom.
For the first time in living memory, Leo was finding it impossible to concentrate on work.
He kept looking at the closed bedroom door as the time ticked by. What was she doing? Was she up? Getting dressed? Abseiling down the side of the building in an attempt to get away from him?
He was distracted and he didn’t like it. He was making himself a cup of coffee when the bedroom door finally opened so he remained where he was, lounging against the kitchen wall, cup in hand, watching her over the rim of it as he sipped his coffee.
‘Get you some?’ He raised the mug towards her and Sammy nodded politely.
Whilst she felt as though the bags under her eyes were as big as suitcases and just as obvious, he looked as fresh as a daisy.
And as drop-dead gorgeous as she’d hoped he wouldn’t.
She’d heard him the second he had slipped out of the bed and every nerve in her body had tensed.
Then he’d run his shower, not even bothering to shut the bathroom door fully behind him, and she’d sneaked a surreptitious glance at him, peeking out from where she was safely cocooned under the sheets and blanket.
Her heart had almost stopped beating. He had taken his jeans into the bathroom with him and he was as indecently clad as any human could be whilst wearing trousers.
The top button was undone, the zip slightly down and, in the back light from the bathroom, she could make out every detail of his sinewy and completely bare upper half.
The jeans rode low down lean hips and as he padded to the chest of drawers, quietly retrieving a tee shirt, she was treated to perfection in motion.
He’d slipped the tee shirt over his head and she had squeezed her eyes tightly shut and drawn her breath in sharply because watching the ripple of muscle was just too much.
She had felt light-headed. How on earth was she going to be able to keep him at arm’s length? No, more to the point, how on earth was she going to keep herself away from him at arm’s length?
She’d never been so tempted by anyone in her entire life and she couldn’t understand how it was that someone like him, who had absolutely none of the qualities she looked for in a man, would be the person to tempt her.
She had waited until he had shut the bedroom door behind him, then she had nodded off briefly before waking up and listening to make sure that he was well and truly absorbed in his work outside.
She’d felt like a thief, hiding out in a closet, forced to keep perfectly silent or else risk being caught red-handed with the family heirlooms.
Except what did she have to be sneaky about?
She’d kissed him back but then she’d pulled away and let him know in no uncertain terms that she was not up for a romp in the hay. She had stood her ground and she had retired to bed rather proud of herself.
The trouble was that her body refused to play along.
She’d never found herself in the position of having to exercise denial when it came to a guy and denial physically hurt.
Between her legs had throbbed and her breasts had ached.
Her whole body had felt as though it needed to be touched and, lying in the darkness, her mind had been filled with images of him caressing her, taking her. ..
But Sammy knew that she couldn’t allow herself to forget that this was a game. It would be dangerous to start blurring the edges between fiction and reality.
Consequently, she had dressed for the day ahead in the most sensible of the outfits she had bought.
It was going to be baking hot outside. She wasn’t sure what the plans for the day were but she assumed that he would spend the morning working. At any rate, she would encourage him to do so, which would leave her free to explore the city until Adele was dropped off at midday.
She was wearing pale blue flip-flops, loose-fitting cotton trousers, also pale blue in colour, and a loose-fitting sleeveless top, patterned with a riot of tiny flowers that stopped at the waist so that when she moved a little sliver of tummy was visible.
She had tied her hair in a high ponytail and escaped tendrils framed her heart-shaped face.
Leo took his time looking at her and when she blushed, he grinned and shrugged.
‘I won’t touch. At least not unless the occasion demands it.’ He held his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender. ‘But,’ he drawled, ‘I never promised that I wouldn’t look.’
He turned around, fixed her a mug of coffee and sauntered towards her. Her blue eyes were wary but stubborn and he liked that.
‘You shouldn’t look at me like that,’ Sammy said shakily.
‘I can’t help it.’ He handed her the mug but he didn’t move back. Instead, he remained towering over her, crowding her.
‘I’m not going to sleep with you.’
‘Did you hear me ask?’
‘No, but...’
‘I’m not going to pretend that I don’t want to, though,’ he said pensively, sipping the excellent coffee, amused when she shimmied away from him. He wondered whether she was scared that she might be driven to touch if she stayed too close to him.
His whole body went into overdrive when he imagined her coming to him, unable to fight the force of their mutual attraction.
‘What are your plans for the day?’ Sammy thought that if she didn’t change the conversation he would carry on looking at her with those brooding, amazing, fabulously sexy eyes and she would go up in flames.
‘My plans?’
‘I thought as we aren’t due to meet Adele until lunchtime that you might want to get some work done.’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Because you obviously have a lot on your plate. I mean, you don’t get to bed until very late and you’re up early so that you can catch up.’
‘A wild number of misconceptions in that statement,’ Leo said lazily.
‘I’m my own boss. I’m not a hamster on a treadmill, running furiously for fear of getting left behind.
And yes, I don’t happen to need much sleep but I assure you that I would be more than happy to hit the sack early and get out of it late if the incentive was right. ..’
‘Will you stop doing that!’ But it turned her on.
Why bother to pretend otherwise? She liked the way his eyes on her made her feel.
She enjoyed the slow, crazy burn she got when he talked like that, saying things that made her feel sexy and feminine, which were two things she had never felt in her life before.
He was the equivalent of a slab of wicked, wicked chocolate.
You wanted it so much but you knew that you had to fight the temptation because one bite wouldn’t be enough and it certainly wouldn’t be good for you.
‘I wouldn’t dream of leaving you to your own devices today,’ he said, pocketing his cell phone and heading towards the door. ‘We’ll get breakfast, then do some city exploring and get back here in time to meet Adele.’
Sammy knew when she was beaten. She hoped he wouldn’t wage his devastating assault on her senses. She found herself fast-forwarding to conversations they might or might not have. She braced herself to keep pushing him back.
She was disproportionately disappointed when the morning passed with him being the perfect gentleman.
He held her hand but he didn’t try to kiss her. He looked at her, but those looks didn’t linger longer than necessary. She had expected to spend three hours rigid with tension but he seduced her into talking about herself and, afterwards, she couldn’t imagine how he had done that.
How had he managed to bypass her guard?
‘Are you nervous?’ she asked as they were making their way back to the hotel.
‘About what?’ Leo looked at her with a frown. It had taken more willpower than he knew he possessed not to touch her.
‘Seeing Adele.’
‘The only thing I’m nervous about is this custody battle not going in my favour. My father wouldn’t recover.’
‘Have you spoken to him?’ Sammy’s voice softened for she was hugely fond of the elderly man.
‘Two emotionally charged emails and one phone call where he sounded as though a nervous breakdown wasn’t far away. This has to work out. There’s no choice.’
‘Do you have much experience of children?’
‘Is that a necessity?’
‘It helps.’
‘I don’t.’ He turned to her as they entered the cool of the hotel lobby. ‘So it’s just as well that I have someone by my side who can make up for my shortfall, isn’t it?’
He looked past her and then pulled her close to him and dropped a kiss on her head.