JAMES WASN’T PARTICULARLY looking forward to meeting with Spencer, but instead of the angry man who had spoken to him yesterday, Spencer was all smiles when James walked into his office.
In fact, Spencer stood and actually patted him on the back when James would far prefer that he didn’t.
‘Well done!’
‘As I said, I thought the term used was congratulations.’
‘I’m not talking about the baby.’ Spencer grinned. ‘Thanks to your little charade yesterday The Chatsfield is now the place to stay. Anyone who’s anyone has got their PA ringing to make a reservation. We’ve got a certain royal couple coming over to New York to do some shopping. They’ve actually requested that the booking be changed from The Harrington to here! Isabelle will be spitting...’
James said nothing, or rather James said little throughout the meeting. He loathed the work side of things and did his best to avoid being at The Chatsfield unless it was for social reasons. It also irked him that everyone saw the baby as some sort of marketing opportunity, and Spencer naturally assumed that the wedding would be held here.
‘We haven’t even got around to discussing that.’
‘Well, do,’ Spencer said. ‘A few more royal guests wouldn’t go amiss. You could have a ceremony there if her parents wanted and then another one here...’
‘Don’t try and organise my wedding for me.’ James stood. He could think of nothing worse than a Chatsfield wedding. ‘We’ll be going for something small and discreet.’
‘It’s a bit late for that,’ Spencer said. ‘Oh, and are you aware that Mommy Dearest has been trying to call you?’
‘I am.’
‘She thinks we should have a small dinner party in a couple of days to celebrate.’
James rolled his eyes. ‘I’m busy.’
‘Might as well get it over with,’ Spencer said. ‘You know what they’re like. For appearances’ sake they’ll want it seen that you’ve taken your fiancée to meet them.’
‘I couldn’t give a rat’s about appearances right now,’ James interrupted. ‘Isn’t a public proposal enough?’
‘If you are going to marry, then they’ll have to all meet up sooner or later.’
James shuddered at the very thought, as he imagined Leila snapping her orders and his parents’ response to the same. Still, with a sigh that Spencer recognised, he knew he’d have to face it.
‘I’ll tell them that you and your gorgeous fiancée will be there, shall I?’
James gave a very brief nod. ‘I need to get back...’
‘Are you worried she’s going to abscond the moment your back’s turned?’
‘Her name is Leila,’ James corrected, and then stalked out and headed back to the suite.
‘Leila...’ He knocked as he let himself in, but it soon became apparent that she wasn’t there.
His heart galloped in his chest. Maybe Spencer’s little dig about her absconding hadn’t been such a remote possibility. He opened up the wardrobes and saw that all of her things had been delivered and put away. God, could Leila shop! There were clothes and shoes and bags and boots and when he walked in the bathroom there was a counter full of make-up and fragrances.
There must be a hundred of them!
There nearly was.
There was one for every day she had been here.
He understood her disappoint now as James remembered all the fragrances laid out on the table at her hotel and he thought of her in search of her own scent.
James walked back into the bedroom; the safe was open. Though he’d already guessed that if she couldn’t operate the phone properly, then the safe might be beyond her. Finally he breathed again when he opened a drawer and found it stuffed full of cash and saw that her passport was there too.
Perhaps she’d decided to have a spa.
Or shopping perhaps, but no, he hadn’t sorted out a credit card for her yet. James got on to that and as he was ordering one he pulled a curtain and looked down, worried about her out there alone and then telling himself she’d been here for three months now and had survived.
James then spent his requisite half hour updating his portfolio and was just about to take a very big gamble and move an awful lot of stocks into something not quite so secure, but with rapid potential indeed, when he hesitated. God, it had all been Monopoly money to him until now. All he had wanted to achieve was enough money to carry on living his depraved lifestyle and to leave his dysfunctional family behind.
He had much more than that on his mind now and it would seem that he might just have ended up with the most high-maintenance wife in the world! He chose a slightly more sensible option and just played the gamble with half.
And then he thought about Leila, searching for her own scent and the tears she had shed last night and he picked up the phone to fix the little he could.
She was a mystery.
A complete one because at 4:00 p.m. he looked up as the door opened and a very different-looking Leila walked in carrying several bags.
She was dressed in gold, and her long black hair was flowing; her eyes were made up with kohl. He had possibly never seen anything more beautiful but, just as relief hit, he also remembered how worried he’d been. ‘Where have you been, Leila?’
‘We’re not married yet,’ Leila said, and hit him with his own response to her question this morning.
‘You look...’ He was rather lost for words. ‘Amazing.’
‘Thank you,’ Leila said. ‘Though really I am so tired of wearing this robe but it is the only one I brought with me...’ She was honest. ‘I don’t do well with the clothes here. I have tried so many things—I like to be covered but long dresses make me feel like a gypsy and trousers make me feel like a man.’
‘You are so not a man, Leila.’
‘I like being covered though.’
‘I’ll have someone come and bring a selection of clothes...’
‘Authentic Surhaadi robes?’ Leila shook her head. ‘I think that might be a little hard for even James Chatsfield to arrange.’ She opened up her handbag and took out a large wad of cash. ‘Look at my tips.’ Leila smiled.
‘Tips?’ James did a double take. ‘Leila, where have you been?’
‘Working.’
James blinked.
‘So you were wrong yesterday—I do know about hourly rates!’
He couldn’t believe that she’d gone and got a job.
‘Where are you working?’
She told him where and James frowned; it was a very exclusive Middle Eastern restaurant close to where he lived, a restaurant that James visited on occasion. ‘You’re not waiting tables?’ James checked.
‘Of course not.’
‘Dishes?’ James asked in horror.
‘Oh, no, I tried that three times and I got let go three times.’
‘Belly dancer!’
She heard the hope in his voice and narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t be crude,’ Leila said, but she gave in to his curiosity, as it was incredibly nice to have someone who actually asked about her day and seemed interested. ‘I play the qanun in the restaurant. They are delighted with me and have asked if I will do nights too.’ She saw his mouth gape open. ‘Did you think that I would have stayed hiding in my room, James?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted.
‘I earn little—one week would not pay for even one night here.’
‘Er, it probably wouldn’t get you an hour.’
‘I get that, but it is the only job I could do. Now they are offering me more shifts for more money. It really is a start. I will not be a burden on you forever.’
‘You don’t need to work.’
‘But I like it,’ Leila said.
‘I don’t think you understand that you’re known now.’
‘I wear my veils to work,’ Leila said. ‘None of the customers know who I am. I like getting dressed up and playing my music. I like the appreciation. I like that I get a meal each day that I provide for.’ She picked up some of the bags she’d brought in and took them over to the bar fridge and started to load it with containers of food. ‘I like that I nourish my baby with food that I understand. James, I really do not need a husband. We don’t need to get married...’
‘Aside from everything, Leila, and it’s just a minor point, but if you want to live here, then it might be preferable for you to be a US citizen and possibly the easiest way for you to get that is to marry me.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You can’t just choose which country you reside in. Don’t take my word for it though, maybe check with the Surhaddi embassy.’ James rolled his tongue in his cheek. ‘If there is one.’
‘I shall,’ Leila snapped back. ‘I mean it, James. I can support my baby. You are welcome to visit us when you wish but you don’t have to fund me.’
She tested his patience but in a way that was starting to amuse him.
‘So where are you going to live?’
‘I will find somewhere.’
‘On your music money?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what happens when the baby gets here?’
‘I will still work. I will get a nanny.’
‘On your music money?’
‘Yes,’ Leila answered, but then thought for a moment. ‘Though you could maybe buy me a house.’
‘And a couple of servants?’ James checked, and Leila nodded.
‘That would be very kind.’
‘How about I try and see if there’s a fiscal awareness course for displaced princesses?’
‘How about you accept that despite your lavish proposal, despite your attempt to pressure me, it is not what I want. I don’t want to be married to a man with a penis that acts like an untrained puppy jumping to greet any vague passerby.’
She looked at him and saw that he was smiling.
The oddest thing was, that even though she hadn’t been joking, Leila found herself smiling back.
‘Was that a row?’ Leila checked.
‘It was a discussion,’ James said. ‘Now, I’ve found an OB—you have an appointment tomorrow, at six.’
‘Six?’ Leila checked. ‘But I eat my dinner at six.’
‘She’s staying back to accommodate you.’ James rolled his eyes at her ingratitude. ‘I’ve also booked dinner in the restaurant tonight for seven but I can change it to six if you prefer.’
She wrinkled her nose.
‘What?’ James asked. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Your array of silverware tires me,’ Leila said, and then flounced off to bed for a rest as she often did in her life, simply to pass time.
She was very used to a knock on the door that woke her in the evening and told her she was allowed to come out for dinner.
Leila sighed as James gently knocked and reminded her that dinner awaited. She rolled from the bed and padded out to get a glass of water before she dressed up for dinner and then she froze.
The lights were dim; there was cloth on the floor and cushions too. The food she had brought back from the restaurant was dressed on beautiful plates and there was a package of silver in the middle with a bow.
‘I thought that we might eat here,’ James said as she sat down. ‘Not a fork in sight.’
He poured her some lovely cool tea and she sipped it. As she tore some pita and ladled it with minted lamb, her eyes were drawn to the silver box, but she did not comment.
‘Why are we not eating in the restaurant?’
‘Because...’ James shrugged and then looked over to her. ‘I didn’t think you’d prefer to eat here. Most people like eating out.’
‘I do,’ Leila said. ‘I was very excited to try it when I first came here, but I find it all just so confusing. I like the restaurant that I work at. I recognise the food there.’
‘I might have to pay it a visit again,’ James said. ‘I hear they have an amazing musician.’
He got the reward of a small smile.
‘Don’t tell me if you ever come in,’ Leila said. ‘It might make me nervous to play.’
‘Well, you’ll see me if I do,’ James said, but Leila shook her head.
‘I don’t lift my eyes to meet the guests.’
The food was amazing, even by James’s high standards, and yes, he might drop in for dinner one night to hear her play.
‘Maybe it would be nice to eat out more,’ Leila mused as she thought of going out to dinner with James and the nice way he explained things to her. She didn’t tell him that part though. ‘Now that I don’t feel so unwell.’
‘How long have you felt unwell?’
‘Pretty much since the morning you left.’ Her voice was accusing and she looked at him and then acknowledged to herself that those early days after he had so coldly left her had been grief. She had lain on her bed crying and shut herself away just to mourn the man who had walked out on her. ‘Well, a couple of weeks after you left me alone after a whole night of making love to me...’ She watched the press of his lips as she remade her point. ‘Then the ill feeling started. I had no idea what was wrong.’ She blinked and he could see her confusion as to that time.
‘Tell me,’ James said, because he had missed out on so much. ‘When did you know you were pregnant?’
‘Not for a few weeks. I was ill and thought it was because of the different food, but even when I stopped eating it and went to a restaurant where the food was more familiar, still I felt sick. I asked the hotel to send me honey water but it tasted wrong. In my home the honey is from bees that pollinate orange blossom. I have a very sensitive palate... I told them to call for a doctor when I could not even keep honey water down. She came to the room and...’ Leila could still recall the shock, from being told to pass urine onto a plastic stick of all things, to being told that she was with child. ‘I told her I was on the pill.
‘I tried calling you and then when Zayn tracked me down I had to tell him what was wrong.’ She was a little bit more giving with information. ‘My sister, Jasmine, was in trouble with men when she died. That is why my brother is so protective of me,’ Leila lightly explained. ‘When I told him you left after one night and didn’t come back, that you didn’t even call...’
‘It was supposed to be a one-night stand.’
‘Well, it didn’t feel like it,’ Leila said, and she stared at him. For the first time she saw colour darken his cheeks and he shifted in discomfort, for no, it had not felt like a one-night stand at the time.
‘How do you do it, James?’ Leila challenged. ‘How do you kiss with such passion and make love to a body and then walk away?’
‘Leila, I sent you flowers not once but five times and still you didn’t pick up the phone. Do you really think I was going to stay celibate just in case ten years from now you might suddenly decide that you’d changed your mind?’
‘You sent me flowers?’ Leila frowned.
‘You didn’t get them?’ James checked, furious at the florist and about to declare that heads would roll when Leila spoke.
‘The floral displays that were delivered to my room were all from you?’
‘Hello!’ James said. ‘Did you not read the cards?’
‘What cards?’ Leila said.
‘The card that came with the flowers? Didn’t you read them? Did you even notice them?’
‘The flowers at the palace get changed every day. I thought it was that. I told them off for not taking the old ones out.’ She was still frowning. ‘Why would you send me flowers?’
‘To thank you for that night, to ask you to dinner, to ask you to please just pick up the phone...’
‘I rang the number three and complained when the floral displays stopped arriving,’ Leila said, and was surprised by the sound of his laughter.
Not just surprised that he was laughing, but surprised at how much she had missed it and how that very sound made her lips want to smile.
She did not let them though; instead they pursed because she was so very hurt by him.
‘When the flowers clearly weren’t working I went to France.’ James explained a little of what had been happening to him. ‘I went there in an attempt to get you out of my head. It didn’t work. I came back a couple of weeks ago and, sad bastard that I am, was heading to The Harrington hoping to see you when I ran into your brother—after that I decided to head back to France till the dust had settled and only then...’ He didn’t elaborate.
He didn’t need to.
It was a regrettable fact for both what had occurred from that point on.
‘Why don’t you try speaking with your brother?’
‘I miss my brother,’ Leila said. ‘But I am cross with him.’
‘What about your parents?’ James pushed. ‘Surely the fact we are getting married must help.’
‘I doubt it. I just hope that, though they won’t forgive me, they don’t hate my baby,’ Leila said. ‘I want them to love my child and not take it out on him or her.’
Which, to James, seemed a rather reasonable request.
They carried on eating and when her eyes lingered again on the present, James moved it towards her.
‘Are you going to open it?’ James asked, for he was as impatient as she was.
‘What is it?’
‘A present.’
‘For?’ Leila checked, for she was used to her mother and to Jasmine getting presents. She had been gifted stones from other palaces although she did not dare get her hopes up that this might be a present for her.
‘You.’
She had never had a personal present before. Especially not one that was wrapped in pretty paper and had a bow that took forever to open.
‘Come on, Leila,’ James said, but not with the snarky impatience he had used the day she had taken forever to dress.
‘What is it?’ Leila asked, and opened a box and stared at a small dark bottle.
‘Open it.’
She unscrewed the small lid and bent her head and James watched as she closed her eyes and inhaled her scent.
‘It’s me,’ Leila said, and poured some oil on her fingers. ‘But how?’
‘I’m not telling you,’ James said, and watched as she ran her fingers through her hair and added a drop to her throat.
She smelled now of that night and it was a dangerous place to recall. Especially when James later said goodnight and stretched out on the sofa. But the glitter of tears in her eyes when she’d opened it had made it worthwhile.
Leila stared at the ceiling. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and this time he heard it.
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Why did you buy me a present?’
‘Why not?’ James asked.
‘But why?’ Leila persisted.
‘I hate that you’re homesick.’
She wasn’t though. Leila stared into the dark and tried to recall a night when she had known such care of her heart, even if it came from a man who didn’t love her.
When later she cried, James walked over and shook her shoulder, and when still she cried, instead of lying on top of the bed this time he got in. Leila rolled into him and he inhaled the delicious scent of her. He’d had his shirt, the one that held her fragrance from their one night together, analysed. Now a scent with a base of jasmine and a woody note of oud, frankincense and musk lingered in delicate combination, and James drew her closer in.
Oh!
Leila lay with his heartbeat in her ear and strong arms around her and lovely hairy legs beneath her smooth ones and a hand that caressed her arm. She awoke to it too, and lingered there just a moment, trying to pretend she was still asleep, just to revel in the feel of another. The crinkle of hair on his stomach had her fingers itching to explore but she denied them.
‘You got in,’ Leila said as she untangled herself and lay on her back on a sheet that felt too cool.
‘You didn’t complain when I did.’ James looked over and smiled. ‘You were purring like a cat.’
Leila poked out her tongue to him and then got back to staring at the ceiling.
‘I don’t feel sick.’
‘Yay!’
‘Do you think that could be bad?’
‘Of course not, you’re a textbook pregnancy. Well, according to Dr Internet—morning sickness fades in the second trimester.’
‘You looked it up.’
‘Of course I did.’
She liked that he did.
‘You can ask the physician all your questions this evening,’ James suggested. ‘I know what I want to ask her...’
‘You?’ Leila frowned. ‘I don’t want you there.’
‘Well, I have to be there,’ James answered tartly, and got out of bed.
‘Where are you going?’ Leila asked.
‘To the shower,’ James said.
‘But breakfast will soon be delivered,’ Leila protested because she was enjoying speaking with him.
‘I’m over impressing the maids too,’ James responded.
‘You’re cross.’
‘Yep.’
‘Because?’
‘I’m sure you shan’t bother to work it out.’
They barely spoke all morning and it was a relief when Leila went to work. James rang Manu to ask about a dressmaker for Leila but was taken aback when Manu responded angrily.
‘Did you speak with her family before you proposed to her?’ Manu asked. ‘Have you included them in your plans?’
‘No.’
‘That is offensive,’ Manu said.
‘I’m trying to do the right thing here,’ James said. ‘I asked her to marry me, didn’t I? Surely that’s the right thing to do by them?’
‘James, she is a princess, her father is a king...’
‘Well, what the hell was I supposed to do?’
‘Not railroad her into marrying you. Not cause irreparable damage between her and her parents might have been a good start. You should have listened to me when I told you not to do this.’
‘Just give me the name of a dressmaker,’ James snapped, irritated, yet Manu’s words had rattled him. And they were still niggling even as they sat at the doctor’s and he filled out five hundred forms that made even him blink.
He was rather tempted to ask if her harp money might fund an overseas visitor to the US for a pregnancy but decided to choose his battles wisely.
And he chose not to say anything when the receptionist called her name and Leila stood.
‘Did you want James to come in?’ the receptionist offered. ‘Catherine will be doing an ultrasound.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Leila said. ‘You may not believe it but I’m actually quite capable.’
God, she was arrogant, James thought as Leila strode in.
Leila wasn’t just arrogant, she was terrified.
She did not want to be examined, and neither did she like all the questions that Catherine asked. However, when she lay there trying to be brave as Catherine put some jelly on her stomach, Leila did work out why James had been cross this morning.
Only then did she understand why James might have wanted to be here because there on the screen was their baby. This tiny little thing with a tiny head, arms, legs, fingers, hands and a nose. It even kicked its little legs and Leila was almost overcome with emotion as she saw what that night had made.
‘We’ll do a more thorough ultrasound at eighteen weeks but for now everything looks completely fine. Do you have any questions?’
Leila shook her head.
Catherine tried to engage her, tried to get more information from her, but Leila refused to go there. As she stepped out of the examination room there was James waiting and she could see the anxiety on his features.
‘It is the size of a pea pod,’ Leila said, and held up her thumb and finger in a guess of the size. ‘It has a nose.’
‘That’s good to know,’ James said, and she handed him a photo.
‘If you want to, there is another ultrasound in about five weeks’ time. I think you might like to see it.’
‘I’d like that a lot,’ James said.
‘Where I come from a man would not be there for such a thing. I thought you were offering to come in with me out of sympathy...’
James gave her a smile as they worked a little more of the other issues out. ‘Dinner?’ he asked.
Leila nodded.
Choosing to walk, James dismissed his driver and they went to a gorgeous Italian restaurant that was tucked away from the busy crowds. It was so nice to sit and relax and simply talk and eat as they both took turns to look at the ultrasound photo and admire a very beautiful nose.
‘Are you going to find out?’ James asked.
‘Find out what?’
‘If you’re having a boy or girl.’
‘Does it matter?’ Leila asked, and her voice held a challenge.
‘Of course not.’
‘It did in my family,’ Leila said. ‘My parents hoped I would be a boy.’
‘Well, I’m very glad that you’re not,’ James said, and when she didn’t return his smile he knew there was a much bigger hurt there. He could never have fathomed just how much. ‘I am sorry for the trouble with your family.’
‘It is not your fault.’
‘I’m quite sure that your parents don’t agree,’ James said. ‘Do you miss them?’
He watched her struggle to respond. Leila truly didn’t know how to answer him, for yes, she missed them but she had missed them all her life.
‘Maybe once the baby is here they’ll come around?’ James gently suggested, but she gave a small shake of her head and he could see that she was struggling so he left it.
For now.
‘I got you this...’ James went into his pocket.
‘Another present?’ Leila excitedly asked, and then pouted when he gave her a phone. ‘So you can track me.’
‘You can track me too.’
‘I don’t know how to use it,’ Leila admitted.
‘It’s all set up for you.’ James pulled out his and her phone bleeped and Leila looked to the screen that said James.
He was very patient and walked her through it and she smiled when she saw the text he had sent.
We make beautiful babies.
It was a very nice first text to have from him and it took a few goes but finally Leila replied to him.
We do.
Dinner was served and Leila discovered that she loved pasta and was delighted at a new use for her fork as she twirled spaghetti around it, like James did, pressing it into the spoon.
‘It tastes so good!’ Leila said. ‘Just so creamy and fantastic!’
‘And it comes in so many shapes and sizes too!’
His sarcasm was completely wasted on Leila; she just smiled. ‘Does it? I can’t wait to try them all.’
‘Well, while I’ve got you in such a good mood, I have two things to tell you. Do you want the good news first or the bad news?’ James offered.
‘The bad news,’ his back-to-front fiancée replied.
‘We have to go to dinner with my parents tomorrow night.’ He pulled a face. ‘Spencer will be there too. It will be awkward and uncomfortable and I just want to tell you up front that any tension has nothing to do with you—in public they’re fine, in private it’s a subdued hell.’
‘You really don’t like them!’
‘I really, really don’t,’ James said, and he chose to explain the strange dynamics to her. ‘My father, Michael, isn’t the sunniest person. They married young and my father, just like his brother, cheated...’
‘At what?’ Leila asked.
‘He cheated on my mother,’ James explained. ‘He had affairs, rather a lot of them. Anyway, he was always a bastard growing up, especially to Spencer, and recently we found out why. Well, I found out why. My other brother Ben found out when he was eighteen and it turns out that was the reason he left home...’
‘Found out what?’
‘That my mother had an affair of her own, and it turns out that Spencer isn’t my father’s...’
‘Your mother cheated too!’
‘She did!’ James matched her wide eyes. ‘You are so completely shockable.’
‘But it is shocking. Does your father know?’
‘Yep. There was a massive row a few years back and it all came out. He’d always guessed, which is why he was even meaner to Spencer. No one mentions it now though.’
‘They just carry on as normal?’
‘Hardly normal,’ James said. ‘You’ll see it for yourself soon. Anyway, I’m very sorry to inflict them on you.’
‘It’s fine.’ Leila shrugged. ‘What is the good news?’
‘I’ve found you a dressmaker,’ James said. ‘I’ve asked her to come tomorrow afternoon. You shall have new robes...’
‘And slippers?’
‘And slippers,’ James said.
He had found more than a dressmaker. On Monday he was starting Arabic lessons. Whatever James put his mind to he succeeded at, and he had no doubt, after intensive private lessons that, in a few weeks’ time, he would be able to speak with her father and explain the little that Leila wanted—for them not to take their anger with him and Leila out on their child. Not that he told Leila that. His father had been so demanding, so critical, that James never revealed anything till it was achieved.
It was a cool evening but they again chose to walk, and was it for potential cameras that they held hands?
Leila wasn’t sure; she just knew that she liked it.
And she wasn’t sure if the hand that went around her waist when they passed a rowdy group standing on a corner was for her sake, or the sake of the baby.
They walked towards The Chatsfield and just a little way away from it James stopped and turned her around.
‘A kiss for the cameras?’
‘Where are they?’
‘Oh, the press are always sniffing around The Chatsfield. There’s always some scandal going on.’
‘One kiss then,’ Leila agreed.
One blissful kiss that was light and delicious. His lips were warm and they teased, and when he pulled her a little into him, his hand was back on her waist. He hadn’t shaved since the proposal and she liked the roughness of his jaw and remembered how it had felt on her mouth that night.
He stepped in a fraction closer and she wanted his coat around them; she remembered how they had danced. Leila remembered how those lips, how that rough jaw, had felt when he had kissed her some place other than her mouth and her lips parted.
She wanted more passion, she wanted a more intimate taste of him, and she opened her eyes to find his were open too, smiling into hers as he refused her his tongue.
‘Once bitten...’ James said, pulling away, very, very pleased as to how much she had liked it.
Oh, she had.
She was blushing in the elevator as she remembered the kiss he had given her in here. She didn’t know that the tune he was whistling was ‘Memories’; she just knew she was under a different but delicious attack by his mouth.
They headed up to their suite and when Leila came out from taking her make-up off James was in bed.
‘If I go to the sofa I’m staying there for the whole night,’ James warned, and he knew that he’d won because she shrugged and came over to the bed and climbed in.
‘You’ve got a bump,’ James commented, because he had noticed the little swell of her stomach as she came out of the bathroom.
‘I know!’
She picked up her little bottle of oil and rubbed some into her hands and then smelled them.
‘Will you buy our baby such nice presents?’ Leila asked.
‘I already bought it one when I got your ring.’
‘Really?’ Leila said, and then examined the ring that she hadn’t so much as glanced at when he had put it on.
‘It’s actually very beautiful,’ Leila admitted. It was. A platinum band was beaded with little diamonds but it was the huge centre stone that Leila was examining, and she sat up in bed watching it sparkle under the light. ‘Who gifted the stone?’
James smiled at her odd question. ‘Tiffany’s.’
‘I can’t believe that it fits.’
James could.
As he watched her long slender fingers he recalled buying the ring. The jeweller had said it could be sized later. And yet, he had pictured her fingers so many times. Pictured them tracing his body and he had also suckled each one with his lips. He had placed the jeweller’s sizer on the very tip of his little finger and had known beyond doubt that the ring would fit.
Leila turned out the light. James had remembered just a little too much of that night and the kiss downstairs had only confirmed their attraction and so he reached for her.
Leila fought with herself as she lay there on her side with her back to him. His hand was on her stomach and she could feel the heat of his palm as he stroked her newly emerged bump.
He held her most mornings but that was when she went to him.
This was different from that, Leila knew.
She was angry at the want in herself, at the temptation to turn around to his mouth as he started to kiss her shoulder and move his lips up to her neck. She was angry because as his hand stroked her stomach she was willing it to move down.
It obliged.
And still she lay there, fighting herself, for she wanted the roam of his hand and Leila wanted the skill of his mouth. She didn’t want to be in want of him; she didn’t want the power of his touch to enslave her again. She didn’t want the weakness that his touch and words procured, for he was telling her now that he was crazy about her, that he craved her scent, her skin.
He turned her towards him and he came half over her, his mouth seeking hers, his erection nudging against her thigh, and the weight of him was blissful. She ached for his kiss, yet she refused it; she would not give all of herself to him. Leila moved her head so that when she spoke it was to his cheek.
‘Just do it.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You don’t have to kiss me, you don’t have to caress me, you don’t have to tell me you care—just do it...’
‘Can you feel that?’ James asked, and didn’t wait for her answer. ‘I doubt it, because it isn’t there any more.’
She got then that he was talking about his erection, or what had been one.
He cussed and then turned on his back and they lay in tense silence until Leila broke it.
‘Is it me you want?’ Leila checked. ‘Or is it just that I am here.’
James rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ He looked over. ‘You’d be a pretty hard fantasy to top.’
She turned her back to him.
‘Look what happened when I wasn’t here.’
‘Yes, I do get what you’re saying,’ James conceded. ‘We’re forced together, but that doesn’t mean...’
‘You forced us together, James,’ Leila interrupted. ‘You pushed for this just because you want to be close to the baby, so that I couldn’t take him or her with me. So please don’t rewrite history and don’t try to pretend that you gave me a choice.’
‘Why don’t we rewrite our history?’ James nudged. ‘Why don’t we start being nice to each other and try dating—holding hands...’ He yawned. ‘Conversation. All the stuff that I’ve spent my life avoiding.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m hot for you, Leila,’ James said, and he made her cheeks pink. ‘Because I remember how good we were and it’s going to be a bloody long seven years otherwise.’
‘James...’ She turned and looked at him, at her very honest playboy, and she offered a suggestion. ‘It isn’t a turn-on when you keep pointing out we have a limited time frame.’
‘Noted.’ James smiled at the progress they made. ‘I’m going to date you, Leila.’ He watched as she tried to hold on to a very reluctant smile. ‘And given I can’t wine you, I’m going to have to dine you. A lot. After tomorrow though.’
‘After tomorrow?’ Leila checked.
He let out a sigh. ‘We’re having dinner with my parents, remember?’