Читать книгу Modern Romance December 2019 Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Maisey Yates - Страница 14

‘HE’S A LITTLE like a magician,’ Gillian Harbison contended as she looked out dreamily at the little garden of the ground floor apartment she had moved into the day before. ‘Leo, I mean. He just waves his magic wand and suddenly your wildest dreams come true.’

‘That’s Leo.’ Letty studied her mother, seated in her wheelchair by the patio doors that led out into the garden. The lines of stress and tension had eased on the older woman’s face. She was booked in for surgery at a private clinic the day after the wedding. Her sons would be staying with their father until she was back on her feet again and her best friend was moving in with her to support her during her recovery. The bright modern flat with three bedrooms and more space than Gillian had enjoyed in years was simply the icing on the cake. It was the moment when Letty accepted that any sacrifice had to be worthwhile when it made her nearest and dearest so much happier.

That was why she had bitten her tongue and surrendered to almost every demand that Leo had made of her. Accepting his generosity without complaint or protest, not to mention his insistence on security precautions, was a key challenge for her independent soul but seeing her family blossom in response was her reward. Furthermore, she couldn’t pretend to be a loving bride and fight with Leo at the same time, particularly when she was currently only able to fight with him on the phone, for Leo had been in Greece longer than he had expected. He had uncovered suspect financial practices in her grandfather’s company that required his immediate attention.

Letty had visited the children every day since Leo’s departure. She would go over in the afternoon, share an evening meal with them and then stay until bedtime. The night before, Popi had given her a hug after she had read her and Sybella a bedtime story. Slowly but surely the barriers were coming down as Letty became more familiar to the children. Since she had handed in her notice at work she had been incredibly busy, dealing with the wedding planner, shopping for a wedding gown and coordinating the million and one things that she now had to do. That had included searching for outfits for the children to wear at the wedding and dealing politely but firmly with her grandfather’s demand that he play a bigger part in the ceremony. Isidore Livas had been keen to walk her down the aisle but Letty’s mother was fulfilling that role in her wheelchair, having already confided that it would be the proudest moment of her life.

‘So, what are you wearing for the hen do tonight?’ Gillian asked with a smile.

Letty hadn’t wanted a hen party, but her friends and former work colleagues did and it had felt mean to deny them the chance of a good night out because once she had mentioned her plans to Leo, he hadn’t scrupled to organise that for her as well. He had obtained entry for all of them to a VIP section in an exclusive nightclub where their entertainment and their drinks would be free and, much as Letty had resented him taking over, she hadn’t had the heart to rain on everyone else’s parade.

‘We’re all wearing denim shorts,’ Letty revealed with a grimace. ‘I haven’t worn shorts since the summer before university and I had to buy a new pair because I’ve expanded since then. We’ll freeze.’

‘Not with a limo ferrying you round,’ her mother said quietly. ‘Letty…you’re only young once. Enjoy it. You don’t get a rerun when you realise what you’ve missed out on. Go out and have a good time tonight with your friends.’

‘I will. I promise.’ Letty bent down to hug the older woman, annoyed that she had put a troubled furrow between her brows.

‘You are so lucky to have found Leo. I couldn’t be happier for you,’ Gillian confided. ‘He takes such an interest in all of us. I just don’t understand why you haven’t already moved into his home… I mean, you’re trekking back and forth to his house every day and I can manage fine on my own.’

Letty had coloured at her mother’s natural assumption that she was already sleeping with Leo. ‘Leo and I will be together soon enough… It’s only forty-eight hours until the wedding,’ she pointed out.

‘And you do love him, don’t you?’ Gillian pressed anxiously. ‘His wealth and those looks of his haven’t turned your head too much? Because neither of those things will keep you together if you don’t love him.’

‘Mum… I realise that I’m not the world’s most demonstrative person but believe me,’ Letty urged with as much conviction as she could muster. ‘I love him! It was practically love at first sight.’

Lust at first sight, she adjusted with an inner wince of embarrassment as she dried her hair in the new bedroom that would only be hers until the wedding. She hated lying to her mother, but she didn’t have a choice. And she felt guilty because she wasn’t seeing the children that evening. The chaos of moving to a new apartment and the hen party organised for the same night hadn’t left her a moment to call her own, even though Leo had sent professional house movers to smooth the way. The sheer speed at which Leo accomplished things still shook her.

Money talked, she thought ruefully—money definitely talked. Her grandfather had been positively warm when he called to congratulate her on her decision to marry Leo. He was elated at the prospect of his retirement from business, although, from a couple of stray comments he had made, she also suspected that he regretted that Letty, rather than his adored daughter, her Aunt Elexis, was to be the bride.

Letty rarely touched alcohol. When tensions were high in her mother and stepfather’s marriage, Robbie had resorted to drink and the scenes and arguments that had resulted had put Letty off alcohol. At least her stepfather had never been violent, she conceded, seated with her friends and feeling ridiculous in her fake tiara and bridal sash. In truth she felt like the spectre at the feast. Her companions were having a whale of a time, but Letty was much too conscious that she wasn’t a true bride on the brink of marrying a man that she loved and it not only made her sad but also made her thoroughly irritated with her oversensitivity.

In response, she decided to have a few drinks and within an hour she was contriving to laugh naturally at the silly sex jokes that usually made her stiffen up, painfully aware of her own ignorance in practice. An hour after that, she was game for taking a turn on the pole on the podium, following the example of her two university friends, who were better at letting their hair down than she was. The three of them had attended pole-dancing classes for several years, relishing the strength, skill and flexibility they had gained from the experience.

Leo was travelling home from the airport when Darius phoned him. He had grown up with Darius, whose father had been his father’s bodyguard, and there was no one he trusted more to look after Letty. Yes, he had given way on the name because she refused to answer to Julie or Juliet or any other diminutive. And her opposition on that score had intrigued him because women rarely challenged Leo and, once he had got to know Letty, her name had mysteriously grown to fit her.

‘How’s the party going?’ Leo enquired with amusement against the backdrop of loud thumping music.

‘Your bride is having a blast,’ Darius replied. She’s waiting her turn to pole-dance. I tried to head her off because it’s a little too public here but she’s…well, she’s her own woman.’

Leo came off the phone, struggling to even picture Letty on a pole. At worst she would hurt herself, at best she would embarrass herself. He groaned out loud and raked an impatient hand through his black cropped hair. He had assumed she was too sensible to get involved in any kind of mischief and he most certainly didn’t want her photographed for posterity doing anything that would mortify her in daylight. Without hesitation, he told his driver to head to the club. ‘She’s her own woman,’ Darius had said tactfully, meaning that Letty was as stubborn as a mule and had dismissed his attempt to dissuade her.

Theos. Well, she wasn’t going to dismiss him as easily, Leo reflected with resolve, springing out of the car, leaving his own security team struggling to follow him at the same speed. He strode through the club and up the stairs to the VIP section, with a hasty gesture dismissing the manager who came running to attend him. It was his club and he knew it like the back of his hand. Unlike his father and Isidore, Leo had diversified, refusing to rely on shipping as his sole means of profit and that more liberal approach to business had served him well in the entertainment industry, in the hotel trade and in property development.

At the top of the stairs, only vaguely aware of Darius approaching him, Leo came to a sudden unrehearsed halt, transfixed by the sight of Letty spinning effortlessly round the pole, blonde mane of hair flying as she dipped and flipped upside down and then went off into a handspring that took his breath away.

Certainly, she wasn’t going to embarrass herself, he conceded in shock, his attention locking to the tight denim defining her curvaceous hips and the extension of one long shapely leg that revealed a creamy stretch of inner thigh. Her chest heaved below the light top she wore, the firm swell of her breasts pushing against the fabric as she sucked in oxygen, her tiny waist and flat stomach revealed as the top lifted. It was the most erotic thing Leo had ever seen and there was nothing visually arousing that some woman somewhere, some time hadn’t already treated him to.

‘So, how are you planning to handle this diplomatically?’ Darius prompted with unhidden curiosity.

‘Like a caveman,’ Leo admitted thickly, fighting the nagging pulse of arousal with the greatest difficulty because lust was surging through him in a volatile wave.

He strode through the crush, forcing everyone to yield to let him past, and pounced on Letty without hesitation. He lifted her before she could get a hold on the pole again and walked back to the table Darius indicated to sit down in the midst of the chattering women with Letty sprawled across his lap.

‘I’m Leo,’ he said cheerfully.

‘This is a girls’ night out,’ one of the women told him tartly.

‘Letty’s tired,’ Leo murmured, rearranging his bride like the floppy rag doll she resembled when her legs threatened to slide off him again.

‘Leo…’ Letty looked up at him with a sunny laidback smile.

Letty wasn’t tired: she was drunk.

‘I’m taking you home.’

‘Party pooper,’ she mumbled, burying her face in his neck. ‘You need a shave but gosh, you do smell amazing…’

Disconcerted, Leo grinned.

‘Letty never drinks. We egged her on,’ someone said.

‘We wanted her to have fun.’

Leo gazed down at her, long brown fingers brushing her tousled hair off her brow. ‘Did you have a good time?’

Letty made an admirable effort to sit up without the support of his arm. ‘I had a fabulous time,’ she told her companions with careful diction. ‘Thank you all for coming.’

‘I’m dizzy,’ she complained on the stairs.

‘Of course you are,’ Leo assured her.

‘I’m not drunk.’

‘Only well-refreshed,’ Leo incised.

‘I don’t want to go home like this.’

‘I’m taking you home with me,’ Leo told her smoothly. ‘It’s too late to phone your mother.’

‘I’ll text her. She won’t sleep until I’m home or she’s heard from me.’ Letty sighed, pulling out her phone and discovering that she was all fingers and thumbs and that it was a battle to focus.

While she texted she swayed and Leo breathed in deep and slow. She was a vision, honey-blonde hair tangled and falling round her, crystal tiara lurching to one side, green eyes myopic in their intensity, her classic profile taut with concentration.

When she had finished, Leo scooped her off her feet and she exclaimed, ‘I can walk perfectly well!’

‘Not in those heels you can’t,’ Leo assured her as he settled her into the limousine, relieved that no paparazzi had been awaiting them outside. ‘Imagine if you broke an ankle—’

‘And then we couldn’t get married!’ Letty pointed out. ‘Let me go back and break an ankle before we make the biggest mistake of our lives!’

‘I don’t make big mistakes,’ Leo intoned, recognising the hint of panic in her wide gaze before stretching across her to grab the seat belt and secure it firmly around her, the fingers of one lean brown hand brushing against a slender thigh as he did so. ‘All you’re suffering from is an attack of cold feet.’

Letty shivered, goosebumps breaking out at that fleeting and entirely accidental touch. She looked up into smouldering dark golden eyes and her breath was held suspended in her throat for a long timeless moment. Close up, his eyes were stunning, an absolutely riveting mixture of tawny shades and those lashes made her weak at the knees. The portrait of the beautiful brunette on the landing in his house was of his late mother. The resemblance between mother and son was arresting, particularly around the eyes. She wondered what his father looked like because, having had a glimpse of Leo’s mother, she wasn’t at all surprised that Leo had the flawless beauty of a dark angel.

‘Besides, I’d take you even with a broken ankle,’ Leo told her huskily. ‘Popi says you read much better stories than I do.’

‘Sybella likes the same one over and over again but Popi needs more stimulation,’ Letty muttered unevenly, oxygen seesawing in and out of her lungs as though she had been running because, that close to Leo’s raw masculinity, she felt weak and breathless. ‘And Cosmo only listens if you put pictures of cars or trains in front of him.’

Leo studied her flushed face, the languorous fresh green eyes welded to his, and he tensed and shifted in his seat, disturbingly aware of how aroused he was by her. The sight of her, so relaxed and confiding, was incredibly sexy. He was striving very hard not to relive those few staggering moments when he had seen her twirling round that pole with fluid grace and a sensuality that had taken him wholly by surprise.

‘I’d listen if you were on that pole,’ Leo muttered in a driven undertone. ‘Sexiest show I ever saw.’

Letty frowned at him, her disapproval palpable. ‘It was exercise, Leo. I went to classes for years and found it a great way of keeping fit and strong. It’s not sexy, except to a certain type of man.’

‘You were sexy,’ Leo told her before she could christen him a pervert.

Her eyes widened because no man had ever given her that label before and it knocked her off balance. She had always been the sensible, practical one in her circle of friends, the one who looked after her mates and guarded the drinks and the handbags. She didn’t know how to be sexy, had occasionally envied those to whom it came naturally but had ultimately decided that she was happier having her brains.

‘Incredibly sexy,’ Leo purred, threading a straying strand of hair back behind one small ear. ‘But if you dance like that again in a public place…well, you won’t like my reaction. I don’t want other men perving over your body like that.’

Leo was so close that her head swam. Her throat tightened and her mind went blank and her chest heaved as she pulled in as deep a breath as she could manage. ‘I don’t think you should be saying that to me.’

Leo’s hand came up to curve to her cheekbone. ‘It’s said. It was the truth. Don’t argue with the truth.’

‘But it sounded possessive, territorial,’ Letty whispered in troubled rebuke.

‘I’m not possessive,’ Leo muttered thickly as his head lowered. ‘But I probably am territorial. I can’t change who I am to fit some perfect male blueprint.’

‘Not asking, not expecting perfection,’ she mumbled, mesmerised by the golden glitter of his eyes on hers and the trail of fireworks sparking off somewhere deep down inside her.

One hand wound into her hair to turn her face, the other curving to her spine to ease her closer.

And then his mouth came down on hers with a fierce lancing urgency that took Letty by storm. His tongue tangled with hers and it was as if every kiss she had ever dreamt of was being delivered all at once. He tasted of mint and brandy. With that first little taste, the power of his demanding mouth was on hers, pausing to stroke her lips wider apart and nibble seductively on the lower lip before invading the moist interior of her mouth for a second time. His explosive passion sent her spinning with her heartbeat thundering in her ears and her body flushing and heating in reaction. He was very passionate, teasing one moment, carnally sensual the next. Her fingers speared into his dark hair, delving into the thickness, marvelling at how silky it was.

Her other hand braced on a long muscular thigh to hold herself steady. She wanted more—for the first time ever with a man, she wanted more. A stampede of angry elephants wouldn’t have dragged her out of Leo’s powerful hold. Her fingers trailed down his neck and clawed into his jacket, her heart racing, the very blood in her veins on fire with a hunger that hurt. Every sensitive spot on her body seemed to ache and throb. In a sudden movement, she released her seat belt with jittery fingers and clambered clumsily over him, needing to be closer, needing that full body contact to settle her racing pulse.

Taken aback by that change in attitude from the most buttoned-up bride a man had probably ever contemplated marrying, Leo absolutely froze for a split second. He knew he couldn’t do anything because only alcohol had released her inhibitions. He knew she would never forgive him if he took advantage of her. But he also knew that a rejection of any kind when she had made the first move would bury him deeper than Australia because he knew women. At the same time, he was fiercely aroused and sheet lightning couldn’t have prevented the groan that escaped him when she ground down on him in a basic approach that was shockingly effective. As her pelvis pressed down on his, Leo was electrified by hunger.

‘Leo…’ Letty pronounced with distinct satisfaction as she studied him, pale soft hands cradling his cheekbones, fingertips gently smoothing the skin.

Leo thought she was waiting for him to do something, and he had sworn he would do nothing, so he was entirely unprepared for Letty to lean back where she perched on him and tug off her crop top, revealing the scorchingly lush swell of her breasts in an unexpectedly pretty embroidered bra. He had expected serviceable white cotton. A slight shudder ran through him as he contemplated those pale full mounds of flesh and he closed his hands to her hips in protest—hands somehow sliding down over those pert swells to flirt with the hem of her shorts. Shorts—Letty in short shorts—he thought in abstracted wonderment, fighting for the control he lacked.

‘I thought you’d be all over me like a rash,’ Letty confided hoarsely, big green eyes wide with surprise and innocence. ‘I thought you were a player…but maybe I just don’t do it for you.’

In desperation, Leo kissed her with urgent force and she ground down on him again, dredging a grudging groan of appreciation from his wide muscular chest as his fingertips grazed the soft silky skin of her inner thighs in an attempt to hold her still and prevent her from teasing him further. The tip of a finger slid beneath the hem and learned the damp silky welcome of her there and a breathless moan parted her lips beneath his and Leo was lost in the magic of her response. In all his life Leo had never been in such a state of excitement over so little and his control broke.

Letty was in a heaven without boundaries, her body seduced and sensation seducing her. Nothing had ever felt so physically good to her before, no previous experience had ever lit her up like a star from the inside out. He was touching her and she liked it, dear heaven, she liked it, indeed loved how with every mesmerising skim of those clever fingers she shivered and shook on the edge of something she didn’t know but had somehow always secretly craved. Her hips were moving of their own accord, little sounds brimming beneath the erotic pressure of his mouth still on hers. And then suddenly the pressure tightening in her pelvis became unbearable and she was flying sky-high and inwardly screaming from the sheer glory of sexual delight that engulfed her.

Well, now you’ve done it, a snide little voice announced to Leo inside his swimming head. He shifted Letty into a more comfortable position until a faint little snore that brought a grin to his taut mouth warned him that fate had taken care of the problem for him. He would put her to bed and say nothing, make his usual dawn start at the office and thereafter act as though nothing had happened. Ignore, ignore, he urged himself firmly. She had called him a player and, in terms of what he estimated to be her level of experience, perhaps she saw that as an apt label, even if it wasn’t.

Leo was perplexed when he settled Letty down on a guest room bed and removed her shoes only, before spreading a quilt over her. What was it about her that turned him on so hard and fast? He behaved like a sex-starved teenager with Letty and, while it was true that he was currently between mistresses and without a woman in his life, no other woman had ever made him lose focus and control as he had in the car with her. Hunger and need had overwhelmed him and he didn’t like it. In retrospect, he didn’t like that at all. Leo was careful never to lose control, never to want a woman too much. He wouldn’t risk falling in love with the wrong woman, as his father had with his vindictive stepmother, who had loathed Leo purely because he truly knew what a slut she was, one who had tried to climb into her stepson’s bed when he was twenty-one…

Loving the wrong woman could blind a man to his family’s needs and make him weak and treacherous. It had happened to Leo’s father, Panos Romanos. He had married a much younger woman. Katrina had wed him only for his wealth and had never loved him back. That marriage had slowly but surely destroyed Leo’s family. As soon as she could, his sister Ana had fled that unhappy background and married far too young, desperate to create a happy family life. Leo, less vulnerable than his sibling, had merely decided that sex and marriage should always remain separate entities. He didn’t need to love a wife to be a good husband, he only needed to like and respect and care for her. But then, had it not been for Ana’s four needy children, he might never have married at all, he acknowledged grimly.

Letty wakened with a splitting headache. A hangover, she registered in dismay, sitting up in bed and noticing the glass of water and the painkiller set on the cabinet beside her. She reached for both with a groan, her brain a swirl of tangled images. She had got on that pole in public, she recalled in dismay and embarrassment, and then she recalled kissing Leo…and more.

Dear heaven, in the grip of urges stronger and more primal than she had ever dreamt existed, she had flung herself at him like a nymphomaniac, she recalled in horror. She had an image of peeling off her crop top and throwing it. And she remembered every second of what had followed with shuddering accuracy. Her sense of humiliation was so intense that she moaned out loud with self-loathing. How could she have done that? How could she have behaved like that?

He had been aroused too. She shifted in the bed, a mortifying heat warming her pelvis at the knowledge that she had had that effect on him. But she needn’t be feeling like some wildly sexy seductress, she censured herself bitterly. Just about any man would’ve been put in that state by what she had been doing. It was certainly not a compliment to her personal attractions, such as they were. She wanted to blame him for what had happened but knew it would be unfair when she had offered so much encouragement. She couldn’t imagine how she would ever look Leo in the eye again, which wasn’t good when it was their wedding day in less than twenty-four hours.

It was a huge relief to go downstairs in her embarrassing shorts and discover that Leo had left for the office hours before. Popi’s giggles at her appearance were somehow healing, the little girl’s innocence soothing, and by the time Letty had cuddled Theon, set Cosmo’s cars out in a line for him and done Sybella’s hair in a princess style adorned with the bridal tiara from the night before, Letty was well on the road to recovery and telling herself that she was too sensitive, too naïve…

Leo, however, was having a difficult morning. No matter how hard he tried to shut it out and regain his usual deep concentration, he kept on remembering the feel and look of Letty on his lap in the limo and the taste of her on his lips. He was fantasising about a woman he had sworn he would leave untouched, he acknowledged grimly. A woman who set him on fire. A woman who had broken down his disciplined barriers and subjected him to a long, hot, sleepless night craving what he couldn’t have. He had chemistry with Letty to a level that inflamed him. But he was not ready to embrace anyone’s sacred bond.

Those two words said it all to Leo. He was not and would never be a one-woman man. Look at what that obsession for Katrina, his stepmother, had done to his spineless father! It had brought his father low, blinding the older man to his beloved’s flaws.

And while Leo agonised and regretted, with a series of curses that he was rarely driven to use because sexual frustration was new to him, the solution finally came and it was stunningly simple. His brain had thrown out the obvious answer.

He blinked, the lush black lashes that enthralled Letty shooting up, a glow of satisfaction and relief warming the tawny depths of his eyes… Of course—the only answer that made sound practical sense and it would surely appeal to Letty as much as it appealed to him.