Читать книгу Royals: For Their Royal Heir - Эбби Грин - Страница 16
ОглавлениеALIX 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 sudden. She could see her shop, dark and empty, and a faint prickle of foreboding caused her to shiver minutely.
Then she saw Alix in the reflection of the window. He was looking at her. She turned around. The air shimmered between them. He came towards her and in a bid to break the intensity Leila glanced away, still a little overwhelmed by how much he made her feel.
And then something caught her eye on a nearby table, and when it registered she let out a gasp. ‘Oh, no!’
Alix had spotted what Leila had spotted just a second afterwards and he cursed silently and vowed to have whoever had left the papers here sacked.
It was a popular French tabloid magazine and there was a picture on the front. A picture of Alix and Leila on a beach. They’d gone there the day before. They were sprawled in the sand, their swimwear leaving little to the imagination, but they were not naked, thankfully. Her face was turned away, up to his, so she wasn’t identifiable—but he was.
Leila had already picked it up, but Alix whipped it out of her hands and threw it away. He said urgently, ‘They didn’t get your face...it’s okay.’
She was pale, shocked. She looked up at him. ‘You knew about this?’
Alix’s conscience stung so much it hurt. Funny, he’d never considered himself to have much of a conscience. Before.
‘My assistant sends me updates on any news coverage.’
Leila looked wounded. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Alix gritted his jaw. ‘Because I was hoping you wouldn’t see it.’
Leila waved an arm. ‘Well, the whole of France has seen it now.’ She looked down to where the magazine was on the floor and read out, ‘“Who is the exiled King’s latest mystery flame?”’
Alix caught her chin and moved it towards him. He felt her resistance. When she was looking at him he said, ‘They don’t know who you are and I’ll make sure they won’t. Please—trust me.’
Something moved across her face—some expression that Alix didn’t like. Eventually she said, ‘This has to end after tonight, Alix. I’m not made for your world and I don’t want to be dragged through the papers as just another one of your women.’
Alix rejected everything she said, and a sense of desperation rose up inside him—that need to make her his. But he couldn’t articulate it. So instead he used his mouth, moving it over hers, willing her to respond—and she did, because she was as helpless against this as he was.
* * *
The following morning when Leila woke up it took her a long time to orientate herself. She was in a massive bed, with the most luxurious coverings she’d ever felt. She was naked and alone. And her body ached. Between her legs she was tender.
And then it all flooded back. Alix had led her in here last night and stripped her bare, as reverently as if she was something precious. Then he’d laid her down and subjected Leila to what could only be described as a sensual attack.
An attack that had been fully consensual.
It was as if everything he’d taught her had been only the first level, and his lovemaking last night had shown her that there could be so much more. Alix hadn’t been tender or gentle. He’d been fierce, bordering on rough, but Leila blushed when she thought of how she’d revelled in it, meeting him every step of the way, exulting in it, spurring him on, raking her nails down his back, begging hoarsely for more, harder, deeper...
Even the fact that her picture had been in that magazine, albeit not identifiable, had faded into the background now.
She had a vague memory of finally falling asleep around dawn, with Alix’s arms tight around her. Leila frowned as another memory struggled to break through her sluggish thought processes. Alix had kissed the back of her head and said, ‘You’re not going anywhere...this isn’t over...’
Leila frowned. Had she heard that? And what could it mean? The prospect that Alix had decided that something more permanent might come out of what they had made her silly heart speed up.
She needed to talk to him.
Leila got out of bed and made her way to the opulent bathroom that her small apartment could have fitted into twice over. Once showered and dressed, she made her way to find Alix, hearing his low, deep tones before she saw him.
She smiled. Even his voice made heat curl in her belly as she recalled the way he sounded in bed—all earthy and husky and desperate... Maybe, just maybe, there was something different between them? The fact that she wasn’t like his usual women—
Leila stopped in her tracks outside the door when she heard her name.
Alix spoke again. ‘Leila’s perfect, Andres. She’s beautiful, accomplished, intelligent, refined.’
Leila blushed to find herself eavesdropping like this—and to hear herself being spoken of this way.
But Alix sounded a little angry when he spoke next. ‘The very fact that she didn’t want to be seen with me is a point in her favour. She’s totally different to any other woman I’ve ever been with.’
Leila frowned minutely. A point in her favour? It sounded as if she was being graded.
She went to move forward, to let him know she was there, but when she got to the doorway she saw he was standing with his back to her, looking out of the window. So he didn’t see her.
And when he spoke again his tone had the little hairs standing up on the back of her neck.
‘To be perfectly honest,’ he went on, ‘I couldn’t have possibly engineered this to go better if I’d planned it to happen. We’re on the brink of a referendum that will return me to the throne and the ruling party haven’t a clue. They probably think I’m still sunning myself with her on a beach in the Caribbean. Everything is falling into place at just the right time.’
Leila stepped back through the doorway, out of sight, horror coursing through her, her skin going clammy with shock.
Alix laughed and it was harsh. ‘Since when has love had any relevance when it comes to the wife I will choose? The important thing is that she’s falling in love with me—I’m sure of it. This will be nothing like my parents’ marriage...toxic from the inside out.’
He continued, oblivious to the devastation taking place just outside the door as the full import of what he was saying sank into Leila.
‘How do I know? She was a virgin, Andres...a woman doesn’t give that up easily. To return to power with a fiancée by my side will put me in a much stronger position. Leila will make a great queen, I’m sure of it. She’s the right choice.’
He was silent again, and then he spoke in a low voice.
‘No, I’ve no doubt that she’ll say yes. If I need to reassure her that I love her too, to achieve my aims, then so be it. It won’t be a hardship. And the sooner we have children the better—an heir will be the strongest sign of stability for Isle Saint Croix. A sign of hope and things moving on.’
Leila’s heart was pounding so hard she thought she might faint. Sweat was breaking out on her brow.
She was a virgin...a woman doesn’t give that up easily. If I need to reassure her that I love her too...then so be it.
For a moment a sharp pain near her heart almost caused her to double over. What Alix was proposing to do made her feel sick. He would embark on a life with her based on lies and falsehoods just so that he could present the whole package to his precious island. An island that he was on the brink of regaining after he’d let her believe that it was a far distant possibility—not imminent. He’d lied to her face! And he would father a child purely to further his own political aims!
The irony was like a slap in the face—her own father had rejected a child for the same reasons. But Leila was in no mood to appreciate that dark humour now.
All their conversations took on a sinister glow now. His questions about her opinions on politics—had that been to make sure she wasn’t some kind of raving anarchist? His questions on her opinions on anything had just been an interview.
And the intensity of their lovemaking—had that been to make sure Alix felt she could sustain his interest long enough for him to father an heir?
What broke her out of her shock was the fact that Alix had stopped talking. Feeling sick, Leila walked to the door, silent on the carpet. He was still standing at the window with his hands in his pockets. Master of all he surveyed—including, as he obviously believed, his innocent, gullible lover. A ruthless man who saw her only as a vehicle to help him regain his throne.
Leila felt the slow burn of an anger so intense it made her tremble. She only wanted one thing: to walk away from Alix and forget that she’d ever met him, forget that she’d repeated the sin of her mother: falling for the first man to seduce her.
* * *
Alix’s brain was still whirring after the phone call. Had he really told Andres that he was prepared to make Leila his wife? His Queen?
Yes. He waited for a sense of regret, panic or claustrophobia. But even now it felt right. He’d never met anyone like her. She was sweet, innocent...and yet not so innocent any more. His body tightened as he recalled how quickly she’d learned, her shyly erotic, bold moves in bed, how she’d taken him in her mouth and tasted him a few short hours ago.
His body went still. A familiar figure walking quickly across the square came into his line of vision and his breath caught.
It was Leila, and she was carrying her holiday bag—the only woman he’d ever known not to travel with twelve pieces of luggage. Where was she going? His skin prickled uncomfortably when he recalled the phone conversation—was there a chance she’d overheard him?
But if she had why was she walking away? What woman would walk away from the prospect of a man like him making their union permanent?
A small voice whispered: A woman like Leila.
Alix was about to follow her when his phone rang again. He picked it up and said curtly, ‘Yes?’ He could see her now, disappearing into her shop, and he didn’t like the flare of panic in his gut. The feeling that if he didn’t follow her he’d never see her again.
‘Your Majesty, are you there? We need to discuss plans for when the result of the referendum is announced tomorrow.’
Tomorrow. Tomorrow was when his life would change for ever. That reminder was a jolt to Alix. A jolt that told him he was in danger of losing focus when he needed it most. Over a woman. Even if she was the woman he’d chosen to be his Queen, she was still just a lover, a woman, peripheral to his life.
Alix pushed the insidious feeling of something slipping out of his grasp out of his head and concentrated on the call. For half an hour. When it was finally over he went to look out of the window again, and when he took in the view, every muscle in his body locked tight.
Leila was across the square, closing the door to her shop. The blinds were down and she was dressed in jeans, sneakers and a jacket. With a wheelie travel bag.
And as he watched she hitched up the handle on her bag and started to walk swiftly away from the shop, the bag trailing behind her.
* * *
Leila was almost at the corner of the street when Alix caught up with her, catching her arm. She didn’t turn around and he felt the tension in her body.
‘How much did you hear?’ He directed the question to the back of her head.
She turned around then, and Alix steeled himself for some emotion, but Leila’s face was expressionless in a way he’d never seen before. It sent something cold through him—along with a very uncomfortable sense of exposure.
‘Enough. I heard enough, Alix.’ She pulled her arm free and said, ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch.’
Alix frowned. Just a couple of hours ago he’d left her sated and flushed from their lovemaking in his bed. He’d whispered words to her—words he’d never thought he’d hear himself say to any woman. That sense of exposure amplified.
‘Where are you going?’
Leila looked surprised. ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’ve got to go to Grasse to discuss sharing new factory space with an old mentor of my mother’s.’
Alix felt panic and he didn’t like it. ‘No, you didn’t tell me.’
Leila looked at her watch. ‘Well, I must have forgotten to mention it—’
She went to walk around him but he stopped her with a hand on her arm again. It felt slender under his hand.
Leila looked expressively at his hand. ‘Let me go, please.’
‘You had no plans to go anywhere until you overheard that conversation.’
Her eyes blazed into his. ‘Don’t you mean your royal decree?’
Alix was aware that they were drawing interest from passers-by and he saw the glint of something in the distance that looked suspiciously like the lens of a paparazzi camera.
He gritted his jaw. ‘We need to talk—and not in the street.’
Leila must have seen something on his face, because she looked mutinous for a second and then pulled her arm free again and started back towards her shop.
Alix took her case from her hand, although she held on to it until she obviously realised it would end up in a tug of war. She let him take it and the incongruity of the fact that he, Alix Saint Croix, was tussling over a case in the street with a woman was not lost on him.
When she’d opened the door to her shop they stepped inside and she shut it again. Alix fixed his gaze on her pale face. ‘Why were you leaving?’ And without saying goodbye... He bit back those words. Women didn’t say goodbye to him—he said goodbye to them.
She folded her arms across her chest. She was mad at him—that much was patently obvious. ‘I was leaving because I need to sort my business out. And also because your arrogance is truly astounding.’ She unlocked her arms enough to point a finger at herself. ‘How dare you assume that I’m falling in love with you? We’ve only known each other for two weeks. Or did you think that because I was a virgin I had less brain cells than the average woman and would fall for the first man I slept with?’
Alix felt something violent move through him at the implication that there would be more men and that he’d just been the first.
Now she looked even angrier. ‘You told someone called Andres I was a virgin. How dare you discuss my private details with anyone else?’
Alix gritted his jaw harder. ‘Unfortunately the life of a royal tends to be public property. But it wasn’t my right to divulge that information.’
Leila huffed a harsh-sounding laugh. ‘Well, that’s a life I have no intention of ever knowing anything about, so from now on I’d appreciate it if you kept details of our affair to yourself. You can rest assured, Your Majesty, I’m not falling in love with you.’
Alix told himself she wouldn’t have run like that if something about overhearing that phone call hadn’t affected her emotionally.
His eyes narrowed on her. ‘So you say.’
‘So I mean,’ Leila shot back, terrified that he’d seen something else on her face. ‘I’ve saved you the bother of having to pretend that you feel something for me, so I’ll save you more time with the undoubtedly fake romantic proposal you had in mind...the answer is no.’
Alix lifted a brow. ‘You’d say no to becoming a queen? And a life of unlimited wealth and luxury?’
Leila’s stomach roiled. ‘I’d say no to a marriage devoid of any real human emotion living in a gilded cage. How can you, of all people, honestly think I’d want to bring a child into the world to live with two parents who are acting out roles?’
Alix’s eyes were steely. ‘You weren’t acting a role this morning.’
Immediately Leila was blasted with memory: her legs wrapped around Alix’s waist, fingers digging into his muscular buttocks. What had she turned into? Someone unrecognisable.
She huffed a small unamused laugh. ‘Surely you don’t mean to confuse lust with love, Alix? I thought you were more sophisticated than that?’
His face flushed at that but it didn’t comfort Leila. She felt nauseous.
‘Look,’ Alix said tersely, ‘I know that you’re probably a little hurt. The fact is that the woman I choose to be my Queen has to fulfil a certain amount of criteria. We respect each other. We like each other. We have insane chemistry. Those are all good foundations for a marriage. Better than something based on fickle emotions or antipathy from the start.’
Something dangerously like empathy pierced Leila when she thought of what he’d told her about his parents’ marriage.
And then she thought of his assessment of her being a little hurt, and the empathy dissolved. The hurt was all-encompassing and totally humiliating. The last thing she wanted was for him to suspect for a second how devastating hearing that conversation had been.
‘You never even told me you were so close to regaining your throne,’ she accused.
Alix’s jaw was hard as granite. ‘I couldn’t. Only my closest aides know of this.’
‘So everything—the whole trip to your island—was all an elaborate attempt to throw your opponents off the scent? And what was I? A decorative piece for your charade? A convenient lover in the place of the last one you dumped so summarily?’ Leila laughed harshly and started to pace. ‘Mon Dieu, but I was a fool, indeed. Two times in a row now.’
Alix sounded harsh. ‘I am not like that man, and you were not a fool.’
Leila’s gaze snapped back to his, but she barely saw him through her anger. ‘Yes, I was. To have believed for a second that a trip like that was spontaneous.’ She recalled something else about the conversation she’d overheard and gasped. ‘You had someone take those pictures of us, didn’t you?’
Alix flushed. He didn’t deny it.
Leila shook her head and backed away from him. The tender shoots of something that she’d been frantically trying to ignore finally withered away. She’d thought they’d been sharing intimate moments alone...he’d led her to believe they were alone on the island. She’d bared her body and soul to this man and he’d exploited that. She had to protect herself now.
She needed to drive him away before he saw how fragile she really was underneath her anger.
She affected nonchalance. ‘To be perfectly honest, Alix, I used you.’
* * *
I used you. Alix reacted instantly, with an inward clenching of his gut. Pain.
An echo of the past whispered at him—another woman. ‘I used you, Alix. I wanted back into Europe and I saw you as a means to get there and restore my reputation.’
He went cold and hard inside. ‘Used me?’
Leila nodded and shrugged lightly. ‘I wanted to lose my virginity but I’d never met anyone with whom it was a palatable prospect...until you walked into the shop.’
Her eyes were like hard emeralds.
‘It was only ever about that for me, Alix. And excitement—I won’t deny that. My mother was over-protective, but now I’m finally free and independent, and I’m not about to shackle myself to some marriage of convenience because you deem me a suitable candidate for being your bride and the mother of your precious royal heirs.’
A mocking expression came over her face.
‘I’m annoyed that you used me for your own ends, but that’s the extent of any hurt. And surely you don’t think you’re the first rich man to invite me up to his suite for a private consultation?’
She didn’t wait for a response.
‘Well, you weren’t the first, and you probably won’t be the last.’
Alix’s vision blurred for a moment at the thought of Leila going into another suite, smiling at some man, taking out her bottles. Getting under his skin. Concocting the perfect scent for him like a sorceress. Sleeping with him.
Darkness reared up inside him. She’d used him. Just as he’d been used before. He’d vowed never to let it happen again. Yet he had. The evidence of such weakness made him feel bilious. He’d been prepared to woo her into becoming his bride. He’d been prepared to take her into his life, parade her as his Queen. Prepared for her to bear his children. The heirs of Isle Saint Croix.
One thing broke through his mounting rage. ‘You could be pregnant.’
The thought was repugnant to him now, when a couple of hours ago he’d thought it might be something used to persuade her to agree to marriage.
Leila went a little paler, but then her chin lifted. ‘I’m not.’
Alix wanted there to be no doubt. None. ‘How do you know?’
‘I got my period this morning.’
Alix smiled humourlessly. ‘And I suppose you’d have me believe that if you were pregnant you wouldn’t come after me for everything you could?’
Alix was aware of her arms dropping and her hands fisting at her sides. He felt nothing, though. Only a desire to lash out.
‘Your cynicism really knows no bounds. And now I have that train to catch. Please leave.’
Alix took a step back and forced himself to be civil when he wanted to swipe a hand across the nearest glittering shelf covered in glass bottles and bring them all crashing to the ground. To crush Leila under the burning anger in his gut, forcing her out of this hard obduracy. Force her to be soft and pliant again.
The desire made him feel disgusted with himself.
He turned and walked out of the shop.
It wasn’t until Alix reached his suite in the hotel that his brain cleared of its dark haze.
He couldn’t even accuse Leila of avariciousness. There were a million other women who would have heard that conversation and used it to inveigle their way into his life, take everything he offered and more. But not her.
The dark irony mocked Alix.
He saw the rumpled sheets on the bed out of the corner of his eye—and something else. He strode into his bedroom and picked up the House of Leila perfume bottle, containing his signature scent.
An image came to him of Leila in the bath, after they’d made love for the first time. He saw it as clearly as if she was in the room right now. The small sensual smile that had played around her mouth, her hand on her breast, a nipple trapped between her fingers. That smile scored his insides now like a knife. She’d looked satisfied. Mission accomplished. I used you.
Acting on a rising tide of rage, Alix lifted his arm and hurled the bottle at the nearest wall, where it smashed into a million tiny shards and scattered golden liquid everywhere. And that smell reached into his gut and clenched hard.
He lifted the phone and gave curt instructions that he and his entire team were to be moved to another hotel. And just after that call he got another one from Andres. The man was excited.
‘The polls are in and they’re all suggesting a landslide victory. The government is panicking but it’s too late. This is it, Alix. It’s almost time to go home. When you return with Leila on your arm—’
Alix cut him off coldly. ‘Do not mention her name again. Ever.’
There was silence on the other end of the phone before the man recovered with professional aplomb and went on as if nothing had happened.
Alix listened with a grim expression.
When the conversation was finished, staff appeared, scurrying to do his bidding. Alix cursed himself for overreacting. Leila Verughese was just a woman. A beautiful woman. And it had been lust that had clouded his judgment. Just lust. Nothing more. If anything, it was a timely and valuable lesson.
By the time Alix was getting out of his car and entering his new temporary home, Leila Verughese wasn’t a recent or even a distant memory. She had been excised from his mind with the kind of clinical precision Alix had used for years to excise anything he didn’t want to think about. Women...the death of his brother.
His destiny was about to be resurrected from the ashes like a phoenix, and that was the most important thing in the world.
* * *
It was only when the train had left Paris far behind that Leila felt some of the rigid tension seep out of her locked muscles. Her jaw unclenched. The ache in her throat eased slightly.
She sent up silent thanks for the old friend of her mother’s who would let her stay for a while with her in Grasse. There was no meeting about sharing factory space, but it would get her out of Paris until Alix was gone.
And then the pain started to seep in from where she’d been blocking it out. The pain that told her it had taken more strength than she’d thought she had to stand in front of Alix and pretend he’d meant nothing to her. That she’d used him.
He’d used her. Thank God the press hadn’t discovered her identity.
Her naivety made her want to be sick. And that reminded her of the slightly nauseous feeling she’d had for the last few days—not strong enough to cause concern, but there in the background. She’d put it down to Matilde’s rich food.
She’d lied to him about her period. It hadn’t come yet. But she’d wanted him gone. If he’d thought there was the slightest chance... Horror swept through her at the prospect.
She put her hand on her belly now and told herself fiercely that she wouldn’t be pregnant, because the universe wouldn’t be so cruel as to inflict the sins of the mother on the daughter. It couldn’t.
If she was pregnant she didn’t want to contemplate Alix Saint Croix’s reaction. After their last conversation he would advocate only one thing to protect his precious ascent to power: termination. Because Leila Verughese had just comprehensively ruled herself out of the suitable bride stakes.
