Читать книгу Modern Romance December 2019 Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Maisey Yates - Страница 16

IN THE BIG villa sited on the hill above the bay, Leo grabbed Letty’s hand when she would have followed the children and the nannies upstairs. ‘No, they’ve had enough of your attention for one day. Those kids were a nightmare to travel with,’ he said with a decided wince.

‘Because,’ Letty replied with emphasis, ‘they were overtired and overexcited and the journey totally disrupted their routine.’

‘Sometimes schedules have to be disrupted,’ Leo countered lazily, tugging her inexorably back to the entrance door and the darkness outside, which had prevented her from seeing much of the island as they flew in on a helicopter. ‘This was a special day and you wanted to share it with them. The downside of that decision was their exhaustion.’

Letty nodded, silently conceding that but more curious about where he was trying to take her. ‘Where on earth are we going?’

Leo recalled the flight out to Greece and the cross crying, continual demands and screaming from the children and gritted his teeth. Parenting was tougher than he had ever imagined but he was adapting because he hadn’t once contemplated leaving his nieces and nephews behind in London. Instead he had come up with a compromise for their honeymoon that would give Letty and him some much-needed space. Not for the first time that day his head spun with a definite sense of wonderment at the commitment he was about to make—one he had never anticipated. It was a huge step for him and he was still marvelling at the awareness that such an idea had even occurred to him.

‘There’s a guest cottage on the beach. We’re staying there.’

‘But we have to be here with the children,’ Letty began afresh.

Leo froze and turned back to her. ‘I am delighted that you have already become so fond of the children,’ he admitted truthfully. ‘But it would be good if you could concentrate…occasionally…on my needs.’

Her lashes fluttered in sheer bewilderment. ‘But why would I want to do that?’ she whispered as he urged her into the beach buggy awaiting them outside the villa.

‘We’ll discuss that over dinner,’ Leo assured her smoothly as the driver took off down a sloping trail.

Why on earth would he ask her to concentrate on him and his needs? Letty was utterly bewildered. Did he see that as some fundamental rule for an award-winning wife? Was she supposed to be considering his comfort ‘occasionally’ more than the well-being and security of the children? That was very possible, she conceded with a faint sigh of relief that she had finally grasped what he was driving at in his expectations of her. Really, sometimes, Leo was hopeless at communication! She supposed it was a reasonable request that she not put the kids first in every case and allow that now and again, much as Leo clearly loved the children and rejoiced in a wealth of nannies, he would appreciate some adult freedom and peace. In any case, she resolved, she could get up early in the morning and join the children for breakfast.

‘So, what’s this guest cottage all about?’ she asked as they climbed out of the buggy and had their luggage offloaded and carried into the substantial natural stone building sited on the edge of the beach.

‘My mother liked to paint and it was originally built as an art studio. Katrina renovated it and used it for guests. She had a great need to eradicate anything that reminded her that she was my father’s second wife,’ he stated grimly. ‘Strictly speaking, any changes to the properties here were illegal because even as a child the island was mine but, realistically, I was never going to prosecute my father.’

‘I suppose you would’ve liked to inherit it as your mother left it,’ Letty gathered quietly, picking up on Leo’s innate protectiveness when it came to anything relating to his mother’s memory. ‘But you knew your father couldn’t stand up to Katrina’s more forceful character.’

‘In a nutshell,’ Leo agreed as the door to the softly lit interior was opened and the luggage was piled in and carted upstairs. ‘Dad’s a wimp when it comes to Katrina.’

In silence Letty raised a brow, able to recognise how much Leo despised his father’s weakness when it came to Katrina and belatedly grasping that over the years he had come to regard his dead mother as a complete saint and a wronged woman.

The accommodation might not have been in the state which Leo would have preferred to inherit but it was contemporary and very stylish and, in Letty’s humble opinion, quite beautiful, with floor-deep windows overlooking the sea and the shore. The table at the far end was already set for a candlelit meal. She wondered who was providing the food and then heard noises of activity emanating from what appeared to be a kitchen to the rear. She was relieved not to have to cook because she was tired and she doubted that Leo, raised with attentive staff from birth, even knew how to switch on a kettle. He genuinely had grown up in a different world from hers.

‘Have I time to freshen up?’ Letty asked, already halfway up the spiral staircase.

‘Yes. I could use a shower too,’ Leo admitted, following her.

At the top of the staircase, Letty gazed in astonishment at the huge bedroom. Only one bedroom? Only one bed? Surely not? She slowly turned and watched Leo calmly stripping off his suit jacket and yanking off his tie as if she were invisible. She bent down to open a case and extracted a change of clothing, wondering if they were only to dine at the guest cottage and sleep up at the house, but there was something awfully like a statement about the fresh flowers on display and what looked like herbs or something scattered across the fancy silk cover on the bed. Of course, the staff would assume it was a normal marriage with a normal wedding night, Letty conceded, quelling her unease as Leo got naked right in front of her as if that too was quite normal.

Maybe he assumed that because she was training as a doctor she had few inhibitions about the human body, but Letty was shy, sexually inexperienced, and the sight of Leo’s lean, bronzed and very muscular physique naked brought her out in goosebumps of awareness. She hastened into the bathroom, considered locking the door and then abandoned the concept because she wasn’t a child or a frightened teenager, was she? He could use the shower—she could share the facilities, couldn’t she?

In haste she used the shower, scared the door would open but it didn’t, and then, in even greater haste, she donned a blue cotton maxi dress that she had bought with her own money to relax in. Leo’s credit cards had purchased all the wedding finery as if money were no object and she supposed to him it wasn’t. But expressing that little bit of independence had helped her come to terms better with the prospect of a new moneyed lifestyle which she hoped to become used to one small step at a time because spending was still so foreign to her. She had never had money to spend freely, had always had to live on a strict budget. She unwound her hair from its elaborate upswept bridal style and massaged her stiff neck muscles before walking out to the bedroom again.

Leo was out on the balcony beyond the bedroom, still stark naked and nonchalant as he gazed out to sea. Her breath feathered in her throat. He was like…perfect—she selected the word inwardly, her cheeks burning. A flawless pinup for an anatomy lesson. No longer need she wonder at the attachment women developed for him. Clothed, he was a very sexy box of tricks. Unclothed, he was undeniably gorgeous, every honed powerful line of him revealed.

‘You’re very shy…’ Leo breathed in apparent surprise when her flushed face met his and she glanced hurriedly away again, terrified her thoughts were showing in her expression. ‘I’m sorry… I didn’t think—’

He was more sensitive than she had given him credit for, Letty acknowledged, and she smiled. ‘No harm done. We’re supposed to be married. I’m sure there’ll be occasions when we have to share…er…stuff.’

‘We are married,’ Leo reminded her as if she might forget.

‘I’ll see you downstairs,’ Letty breezed with determination, mortified by the reality that she was behaving like a shrinking violet simply because he had undressed. Naturally, he wouldn’t have been expecting that, probably having assumed that she had had a man or two in her bed, and she wasn’t going to admit that she was a virgin because there was no reason for her to share such an irrelevant fact with him.

Unsurprisingly, Leo was accustomed to experienced women—women who probably stared and mentally oohed and aahed over his magnificent body. Modesty wasn’t a skill he had ever needed to learn, and he had, she strongly suspected, few inhibitions in the bedroom. As she sat down at the exquisitely set table, she smiled to herself. She needed to practise being less hidebound and conventional around Leo.

Leo came down again, garbed in jeans and a black shirt and still barefoot, black hair damp from the shower. He had shaved though, the dark stubble that had started to noticeably shadow his strong jawline gone. His lean, darkly arresting features held her gaze and only when she registered that she was staring did she hurriedly look away and address herself to the food now being brought to the table.

‘It feels so weird being waited on all the time,’ she confided.

‘You won’t mind it once you return to your studies,’ Leo forecast. ‘By the way, how is that going?’

‘Hopefully, I’ll be able to take up my studies again in London next year,’ Letty told him cheerfully. ‘I didn’t have time to get in more than my application before the wedding and there’ll be interviews and probably refresher classes and various hurdles to get past before I can start back. I’m lucky my academic record is good.’

There was no luck about it, Leo reflected wryly, wondering why she was so diffident about her achievements. Letty was extremely clever, had been top of her class in just about every subject at Oxford and had won several awards during her time there.

‘Let’s drink to that,’ Leo suggested, nudging her untouched glass with his own. ‘Go on, a couple of glasses isn’t likely to have a dangerous effect on you.’

Letty coloured to the roots of her hair, knowing that both of them were recalling that encounter in the limousine after her hen party. Leo read her well: he had guessed that she was nervous of alcohol now.

She snatched up her glass and sipped. ‘So, you said we had something to discuss… I seem to recall,’ she managed to say, relieved that she had stopped squirming and blushing like a teenager over that episode in the car.

‘Ne…yes,’ Leo translated for her as he subsided into Greek and seemed to hesitate as he searched for words, which was sufficiently unlike him to command her full attention and etch a frown between her fine brows. ‘It relates to our future as a couple…’

‘Yes, I’m sure there must be lots of little things we still have to iron out,’ Letty conceded with innate practicality.

‘This is not a little thing,’ Leo contradicted, studying her with dark golden eyes that were pure golden enticement in the candlelight.

‘Oh?’ Letty prompted, sipping her wine assiduously, irritated that Leo had guessed how she felt about alcohol after the virtual assault she had mounted on him. She pinned her attention to her plate and worked through the delicious first course and a silence that stretched much longer than she had expected.

Finally, Letty looked up again to catch Leo still studying her as though she were a complete mystery to him in some way. ‘You were saying?’

Leo breathed in deep and threw back his handsome dark head, his eyes gleaming. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever enter “sacred bond” territory in the manner that you meant,’ he murmured smoothly. ‘But I have reached the conclusion that it would only be practical for us to at least have a go at making this a real marriage.’

Letty literally froze with her glass halfway to her mouth. ‘A real marriage?’ she exclaimed.

‘A marriage in which we have sex,’ Leo specified with unashamed clarity.

Letty breathed in so deep she was surprised that she didn’t spontaneously combust into flames of outrage. ‘You have a mistress,’ she reminded him tartly.

Leo didn’t bat a single eyelash. ‘Not currently.’

‘That’s a lie!’ Letty shot back at him. ‘Elexis pointed Mariana out to me at the wedding.’

A dark frown formed on Leo’s lean strong face. ‘That was spiteful,’ he breathed with visible annoyance. ‘But I’m not lying. I was last with Mariana before I met you and I finished with her after I met you.’

‘Which is…what? All of four short weeks ago?’ Letty sniped, unimpressed. ‘So, why was she at our wedding?’

‘She wasn’t invited. She came with a male guest who was,’ Leo clarified. ‘I was irritated when I saw her too.’

Letty recognised the truth when she was hearing it and absolved Leo of inappropriate behaviour because, evidently, Mariana Santos had become old history. Not that that had the slightest cooling effect on her growing anger. That Leo could simply sit there and just proclaim that they should ‘have a go’ at being married as if it were a casual takeaway meal he could sample at will shocked her to the core.

The main course was brought out and Letty started eating again, although she was barely able to chew and swallow because she was so very angry with him.

‘You have nothing to say to my suggestion?’ Leo finally pressed in frustration.

‘Nothing you’d want to hear,’ Letty assured him curtly, pushing her plate away and lifting her glass because she needed a vat of wine, she told herself, to deal with Leo, who was twisty and manipulative and clever and utterly unaccustomed to any form of rejection from a woman.

‘Allow me to decide that,’ Leo urged.

Letty leapt out of her chair with her glass in one hand, unable to sit still any longer, and she crossed the room to stand by the patio doors. ‘We signed a legal agreement in which I agreed to overlook your infidelity,’ she reminded him stubbornly. ‘Now you want something else from me, something completely different.’

Leo sprang upright. ‘I want you, so kill me for it!’ he urged with sardonic bite, spreading his arms and splaying his expressive hands as part of the gesture.

‘You’ll want me for all of five minutes!’ Letty told him tartly.

‘I last longer than five minutes,’ Leo assured her, refusing to take that comeback seriously.

And at that provocative sally something Letty had never felt before erupted inside her like a volcano spewing lava. It could only have been described as hissing, spitting rage. She flung what remained of her wine at him. ‘You bastard!’ she launched at him as the clear liquid splashed his face. ‘I trusted you to keep your word but now you’re trying to move the goalposts, which is totally unfair to me. And over what? Sex?’ Letty grimaced in dismissal of that paltry motivation. ‘Just because you’re between mistresses? What else would suddenly make me so irresistible?’

‘It’s not like that,’ Leo delivered harshly. ‘I wanted you the first time I met you and I fought it. Now we’re married and it doesn’t make sense for me to go out and look for another mistress when the only woman I want right now is my wife.’

‘Don’t you dare call me your wife!’ Letty fired back at him hotly. ‘I married you to be a mother to your sister’s children and that was all you asked of me. I’m entitled to receive the agreement I signed up to and the terms I legally approved. You are not entitled to demand anything more from me. Is that clear?’

Shocked, Leo scrutinised her, registering that her passion that night in the limo should have forewarned him that she could have a much more tempestuous nature than he had initially appreciated.

‘Yes, I can see you’re shattered by that news. You know why, Leo? Women are too easy for you. Today, in the space of a few short hours, I had Mariana, Katrina and my Aunt Elexis all drooling over you and hating me for marrying you.’

‘Is that my fault?’ Leo asked with the first hint of anger he had shown. ‘Is it my fault that two women I have never been intimate with lust after me? Am I supposed to apologise for that? Clearly, it annoyed you, but—’

‘I didn’t say it annoyed me,’ Letty bit out in haste, recognising that she had hit the wall with that comment because it really wasn’t fair to blame him for being gorgeous and rich and highly desirable to other women. ‘What annoys me is that with clear forethought and planning you brought me here to a house with one bed and one bedroom in expectation of a positive answer!’

‘Theé mou…there’s nothing positive about your attitude,’ Leo acknowledged grimly, his lean dark face set in forbidding lines. ‘In fact, everything you think about yourself and my interest in you and our marriage is incredibly negative in tone. I didn’t mention my intentions before the wedding because I had to stay in Greece until shortly before it and it was scarcely a subject I could tackle on the phone.’

‘Whatever!’ Letty waved an angrily dismissive hand and hauled open the patio doors to walk down onto the sand, desperate for some fresh air and the space to think after that incredibly volatile rush of rage that had so disconcerted her, never mind him.

‘It’s dark out there!’ Leo asserted in warning from behind her.

Letty swung her head back, her honey-blonde mane fluttering in the cool breeze, green eyes gleaming like sea glass polished by the surf. ‘I’m not thinking of going for a swim!’

She stomped along the beach, powered by anger, frustration and a whole host of other emotions she could not immediately neatly label and identify. How dare he? She grimaced. Leo would always dare. Leo didn’t respect boundaries and assumed every woman was available should he show interest. But, even if that had been his experience, he shouldn’t assume the same thing about her!

And then that mortifying incident in the limo returned to haunt her and she groaned out loud because she had given him very willing signals that night, making it obvious that she was attracted to him. Perhaps it wasn’t quite so shocking that Leo had expected a positive response from her when she had already given him that much encouragement.

She hitched up her skirt as her heels sank into the sand and, with a muttered curse, bent down to flip off her shoes and walk barefoot, her shoes dangling in one hand.

Slowly, her breathing steadied and her heartbeat stopped thumping madly in her ears. Mariana was no longer his mistress and her departure from the scene had created a vacancy, which Leo hoped to fill with her. It was a practical proposition from a man who clearly saw sex as a need that had to be met. She didn’t think that he attached much more importance to sex than that or that he was offering to throw anything more lasting into the mix. Yet the suggestion that they make their marriage the real deal was still light years removed from what he had originally proposed. And that made Letty intensely curious to know what it was about her which had brought about that amazing change in attitude.

It was about her—it truly was about her. Leo had the hots for her and a choked little giggle erupted in the back of her throat, making her feel remarkably like a teenager again. She raised her brows and continued walking, although her pace had slowed. In the sense that Leo was highly desirable in his own right, his interest made her feel ridiculously flattered but, in another sense, it offended her. If they had sex, and she was honest enough to admit to herself that she was physically willing, where did they go from there? That was the big question.

Back at the beach house, Leo tossed back a brandy and paced, wondering where he had gone wrong in his approach because Letty had gone up in flames and that had never happened with a woman before, most definitely not when he was trying to show a woman attention. Was she still so locked into that ‘sacred bond’ viewpoint that she could not see past it to appreciate that there were other kinds of relationships that functioned perfectly well without twinned souls and romance and all the rest of that nonsense? Leo reasoned impatiently. In a sudden movement, he set down the glass and strode down onto the sand.

Registering that she was cold, for an October night on a Greek island was not that warm with a breeze blowing, Letty had started walking back towards the house. Seeing Leo’s tall powerful figure approaching in the moonlight, she sighed and wondered what she was going to say to him.

‘I am not an unreasonable woman,’ she told him before he reached her. ‘If we make this a real marriage, where do we go from there?’

‘I don’t have a crystal ball,’ Leo told her succinctly.

‘No, but you do have to think deeply about what you’re doing,’ Letty countered. ‘And I’ve yet to be convinced that you do think that much when it comes to women.’

‘Theé mou…’ Leo ground out.

‘You would have to promise to be faithful,’ Letty informed him ruefully. ‘But you said you couldn’t do that.’

‘No, I said I didn’t want to risk breaking a promise of fidelity,’ Leo qualified. ‘That was what that clause in the prenup meant.’

‘That still won’t work for me. Either you’re mine or you’re not mine. There’s no halfway house option on offer.’

Surprisingly, Leo felt amusement lick up through his dark mood of dissatisfaction. ‘You drive a hard bargain.’

‘But you expected that from me,’ she guessed.

A wolfish grin slanted Leo’s wide sensual mouth and he jerked his chin in acknowledgement. ‘If I am with you, I will be with no other woman,’ he intoned. ‘If I am not content with that, however—’

Shivering, Letty lifted a determined hand to silence him. ‘No, you don’t get to qualify it with me. It’s either yes or no; you’re all in or all out, no escape clauses, no excuses. But that’s not all I have to say. Are you viewing this marriage as a temporary aberration or as something that could have a future?’

Leo expelled his breath in audible frustration, his lean dark features taut as he started unbuttoning his shirt. ‘I don’t know the answer to that.’

‘I don’t want to enter into a “try before you buy” scenario, Leo. I’m worth more than that,’ Letty assured him, throwing her head high, her honey-blonde tresses blowing in the breeze, her clear gaze reflecting the light bouncing off the sea. ‘I won’t come cheap or easy. I’ll make demands. I’ll have expectations. I have no idea how a mistress behaves but I would imagine that if a woman is dependent on a man’s continuing interest she has to refrain from demands and expectations.’

Leo slid fluidly out of his shirt and draped it round her in a gesture that startled her. ‘You’re cold,’ he said simply.

‘I assumed it would be warmer,’ she admitted as he closed an arm around her to walk her back towards the beach house. ‘But my winter clothes would be too warm.’

‘I’ll take you shopping,’ Leo told her calmly. ‘So, yineka mou, if I’m now yours, what next have you in store for me?’

Letty chuckled. ‘I was rather hoping you’d take the lead there. I haven’t had sex before.’

Halfway into the house again, Leo stopped dead and turned to look at her with startled dark golden eyes. ‘You mean—?’

‘Yes. No experience at all,’ she admitted with an uneasy shrug.

Leo was frowning. ‘But why?’

‘Wasn’t interested enough to bother before. Clearly,’ Letty murmured with hot cheeks, ‘you float my boat, which is very apt for a shipping tycoon.’

Leo laughed with rich appreciation and swept her towards the stairs. ‘I can’t wait to get you into that bed,’ he admitted frankly. ‘Since that night in the car, you’ve been playing a leading role in all my fantasies.’

Warmth filtered into Letty’s chilled body at the concept of figuring in Leo’s fantasies. She guessed that it was the unexplored sensual side of her nature which enjoyed that admission of his and then she drew in a stark breath, wondering how he would react when he realised that she was a perfectly ordinary young woman with no box of bedroom tricks with which to amuse a sophisticate. Would he stay faithful then? She swallowed hard on her insecurities, censuring herself for holding such a low opinion of her own powers of attraction. Maybe sex was just sex to Leo and he didn’t look for bells and whistles as well, but it was hard to credit that a practised lover couldn’t offer much more than she could.

‘Leo…’ she began anxiously.

‘Stop fretting, Letty,’ Leo urged with his glimmering smile. ‘Don’t spoil the moment. I will also be sure to discreetly break the news to your grandfather that you came to me pure as the driven snow. That will set him back on his heels and teach him to respect you more.’

‘Leo, for goodness’ sake!’ Letty broke in, mortified by the idea.

‘No, you should be proud rather than apologetic or embarrassed,’ her bridegroom told her with conviction as he closed a hand over hers to tug her inexorably up the stairs. ‘I haven’t been with a virgin since my own first experience. I was sixteen and in the grip of first love. It was a demoralising episode.’

‘Why?’ Letty asked starkly.

‘She was lying—she wasn’t a virgin, and within the space of a week she was bedding one of my friends,’ Leo confided with a sardonic slant to his lean dark features. ‘Following on from my dysfunctional relationship with my stepmother, who was already giving me the come-on, it soured my outlook on women. I promised myself that I’d never fall in love again and I turned my back on the sentimental stuff. It was the most sensible move I ever made.’

Letty put that little fact along with the other stuff she had garnered about Leo’s background: the licentious and vindictive stepmother he had endured in his infatuated father’s hasty second marriage, the mother he barely remembered, the disillusionment provided by his first love. Grief and hurt and distaste had made him distrustful and pessimistic and his experiences as an adult had only reinforced that outlook. Yet, at the same time, he loved his nephews and nieces enough to surrender his freedom in an attempt to give them a happier and more secure life. There were two sides to Leo, Letty acknowledged, a loving side and a dark cynical side, and she wondered which side would take precedence in their marriage.

A practical sexless marriage about to become a real marriage. The shock of realisation that she was about to embark on that challenge shrilled through her taut length and jolted her because she was taking a risk on Leo, and Letty generally avoided risks. And Leo was a huge risk, a man only prepared to accept the concept of fidelity at the point of a gun. In a tempest of doubt, Letty turned pale and flicked at one of the dried flowers scattered across the silky bedspread.

‘What are these?’

‘Rosemary.’ Leo shrugged. ‘An ancient Greek belief in the power of rosemary to enhance fertility.’

‘I thought rosemary was for remembrance,’ Letty muttered uncertainly. ‘But I suppose I should mention that I’m not on the pill.’

Leo laughed with rich appreciation, dark golden eyes alight with amusement. ‘With four little children up in that house on the hill, that’s not a risk I will take…unless, of course, you ask me to.’

Letty coloured. ‘Er…no, thanks, not just yet.’

‘Relax,’ Leo purred, enclosing her taut body in the circle of his arms. ‘You don’t have to worry about stuff like that. I will take care of everything.’

Letty bridled at that assurance, her fierce independent spirit rebelling. ‘I take care of myself, Leo,’ she said drily.

Leo quirked an ebony brow. ‘Not any more. That’s my department now.’

‘We’ll see,’ Letty muttered.

‘No, we won’t,’ Leo contradicted, long brown fingers knotting into the breeze-blown tangle of her hair to tug her head back as he crushed her parted lips under his, every ounce of mastery in his erotic repertoire powering that kiss.