LEILA WAS MEASURED for her new robes and slippers. It went on for the entire afternoon. She chose from swatches of heavy silks in light colours and made her selection of beads and threads. It was so different from home where her clothes simply arrived and Leila was expected to wear them without comment.
‘They’re going to be beautiful,’ Leila said as she told James about them when he came out of the shower to dress for dinner with his parents. ‘I have chosen soft colours—back at home it was all silver and gold...’ She could sense his distraction and her voice trailed off. ‘What should I wear to meet your parents?’
‘Whatever you feel most comfortable in,’ came James’s less than helpful response.
She could feel his tension and she recognised it, for it was how Leila had felt every day when she had lived at the palace.
Leila selected her gold robe and she did up the little buttons at the back that her maid had usually done. James tried not to watch the small struggle it took for her to do that. He tried not to remember the night she had unzipped her dress for him while, at the same time, Leila sulked that he did not help her.
‘Did you get buttons at the front for your new robes?’ James asked once Leila had finally done them up.
‘A woman of standing has buttons at the back and doesn’t do up her own. It is common to have them at the front.’
She noticed him, too, though.
There were beads of water on his back that he had missed while drying. As he went to get out his shirt, Leila wanted to take up the towel and dry his back. She wanted to kiss his tense shoulders, but instead she watched as he slipped his shirt on and selected a tie.
‘You didn’t shave,’ Leila commented because he had said that he was going to.
‘And I didn’t cut my hair,’ James clipped, and then he saw her frown. ‘You’ll see.’
They were driven to his parents and Leila attempted conversation. ‘I am thinking that maybe I should try and ring my parents,’ Leila said. ‘Though no doubt I have been disowned.’
‘I dream of the day my parents disown me...’ James stared moodily out of the car window and then stopped. ‘That was insensitive.’
‘You are at times.’ Leila turned and smiled. ‘I like that about you.’
‘Like what?’
‘That you speak your truth.’
‘Well, you’re the only one who does!’
He took her phone and she gave him the number of the palace phone and he found the international code for Surhaadi, which he tapped into the phone.
‘It’s there when you’re ready to call them.’
‘It rings in their lounge,’ Leila said, and she closed her eyes remembering the last time she was there. She knew she might never be brave enough to ring them.
It helped to know that she could though.
‘Come on then,’ he said as they arrived at his parents’ home. God, he remembered the misery of coming home on school holidays... James was certain it was going to be a miserable night.
James took her hand and they walked from the car to his parents’ door.
As they stepped inside and he introduced Leila, James was aware again of her incredible poise and beauty and he was aware, too, of the pride in his voice as he introduced her.
‘This is my fiancée, Leila.’ He watched as her father offered his hand and he saw she was a touch tentative taking it but Leila did.
‘This is my mother, Emily.’
‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ Leila said, and though Emily nodded she didn’t offer her hand, she was too busily clinging to her wine glass.
‘This is my brother Spencer.’
Spencer offered his hand and Leila tapped her heart.
‘That means she doesn’t want to shake your hand, Spencer.’ James grinned, quite sure that it was for the very last time that night.
It wasn’t.
‘Nice of you to shave,’ Michael said to his son as they took a seat in the lounge.
‘It’s a family dinner,’ James pointed out, and declined his usual whisky and asked for sparkling water and a slice of lime instead.
Leila watched as Michael raised his eyes and James let out a breath. ‘Don’t worry, Father, just because I’ve asked for water it doesn’t mean that I’m gay.’ He glanced over to Leila. ‘Real men drink whisky apparently.’
His father’s criticism towards James was as constant as it was relentless and it felt a lot like home to Leila. She gave James a tiny wink when his father called him Jiminy and it caught James by surprise and he gave her a little wink back.
Nothing could really ease it though.
‘You could at least get your hair cut,’ Michael said, and smacked James upside the head in a gesture that was surely designed purely to humiliate as James took a seat at the dinner table. ‘You’re in the press a lot of late.’
‘I don’t dress for the tabloids.’
‘No, it would seem that you undress for them.’
James shot his father a warning look that went ignored.
‘Well,’ Michael graciously conceded, as he rudely referred to Leila’s pregnancy, ‘at least you’ve dealt well with the current mess you’ve found yourself in. It’s good to see that you’re doing the respectable thing by the Chatsfield name for once.’
This time James didn’t warn him with his eyes. He didn’t like his father speaking like that in front of Leila—and pointing out that they were getting married for the sake of the pregnancy was one step too far, though of course they were.
Leila surely didn’t need it rammed down her throat and so James challenged him. ‘Don’t think for a moment that Leila and I are marrying for the sake of the Chatsfield name.’
‘I’m just saying it’s good that for once you’re behaving.’
‘I always behaved. I was the perfect son for eighteen years...’
‘And then an absolute disgrace for the next decade.’
‘Ah, but it was fun,’ James said, taking a slug of sparkling water and wondering what the hell had possessed him to give up booze for the next six months.
They limped through dinner with only one highlight.
Leila did mind her manners with his parents, but James suppressed a smile when she called one of the maids over and told her to re-serve her meal but this time without meat.
‘Is she a vegetarian?’ Emily frowned. ‘James, you could have at least warned us.’
‘No, I’m not a vegetarian,’ Leila said. ‘It’s not James’s fault—I just don’t like the way the cook prepared the meat tonight.’
Yes, he grinned, but as he sat at the table and James saw the zoned-out expression of his mother as she topped up her wine glass, he thought of Leila, forced to be with someone she didn’t want to be with. He loathed the absolute charade that his parents’ marriage was and all because neither had the guts to get out.
Leila had the guts.
Was he forcing her into this?
No, James decided as dessert was served. For he respected Leila and cared for her and he was doing this for the sake of their child.
Still, a night with his family meant that any seeds of doubt as to what he was doing to Leila got a very thorough soaking.
He wanted out of there; he wanted back to his sham of a relationship with Leila because it felt a lot better than his parents’ home.
Even before his hastily drained coffee cup had hit the china saucer James was standing.
‘We’re going to go.’
‘Already...’
‘Leila gets tired,’ James said.
‘Don’t use me as an excuse again,’ Leila warned as they drove back to the hotel, but James ignored her and so she said it again when they were back in their suite.
‘I said, don’t use me or the baby as an excuse, just because your father is a vile...’
‘Oh, please,’ James interrupted, ‘surely there has to be at least one perk to having a pregnant fiancée, and if it means I get out of dinner with my family early, I’m going to use it.’
‘Oh, so that’s the only perk, is it?’
‘Well, it’s certainly not...’ James stopped but not in time, and Leila soon worked out what he’d been about to say.
‘So much for dating me,’ Leila said. ‘So much for taking our time.’
She huffed off to the bathroom and removed her make-up and when she came out James had undressed and was in bed.
She pulled back the sheet and climbed in and lay there bristling.
‘Sorry about that,’ James said. ‘They just bring out the bastard in me.’
‘I get it,’ Leila said, because her own family didn’t exactly bring out the princess in her.
She really did get it.
Leila thought back to the night when everything had come to a head, how she’d run to a foreign land.
To him.
He pulled her into his arms and she lay there. He kissed the top of her head and Leila couldn’t tell him that she’d never been happier in her life. That she’d never been sadder too. That she’d never felt more than she did right now.
‘Are they always so critical?’ Leila asked.
‘Always,’ James said. ‘That’s actually them on a good day.’
‘Your mother doesn’t say much,’ Leila commented.
‘When would she get a chance? I want away from them, Leila, but I keep getting dragged back in.’ James closed his eyes but not to go to sleep. They were all nagging for it to be a Chatsfield wedding, given that James had made it such a public proposal.
The most annoying part for James as he lay there was that he’d dragged himself back into it this time.
For one reason.
Make that two.
She felt his tension also and she wanted it gone. She remembered her own and how he had soothed hers away that one night. She was truly scared though to give that part of herself to him again. To call his name out, to admit to loving him, which she had come to realise she truly did. Despite herself.
He already had her heart forever.
Leila would just prefer for him not to know it.
She could never forget what he had done for her though, and Leila wanted to do something for him.
Leila remembered removing the condom and kissing him intimately, and how it had driven him right to the edge and then he’d taken her.
She could do that without giving him her love.
‘Er, Leila...’ James said as her hand moved down his stomach and then she felt him beneath her fingers.
He felt like the red velvet panties, as soft and as forbidden as they were. Yet, this was alive and it grew to her touch. She started to kiss down his chest as her head moved down his stomach and James lay there frowning. ‘Leila, you’re not asleep, are you?’
‘No,’ Leila laughed, and he felt her breath and it stirred him.
‘You’re not having a rude dream that I’m going to have to somehow explain in the morning?’ James checked, and she laughed again as she shook her head and started to kiss the softest skin.
Leila liked how he grew; she liked, too, that when she took to her knees, his hand sought to touch her but she removed it. She licked him as she had that night until he was hard and aching for more pressure. He had to have been, for when her lips went over him and she took him in, he moaned at the temporary relief her mouth gave. Temporary because the hand on her head urged her to take him deeper and then with brief apology he removed it.
Leila reached for his hand and led it back to her head, not just because she liked the guidance but it was safer there, for she wanted him to touch her too.
It had been for him, yet it was turning her on in a way she chose to deny.
Her face was as hot as her sex as his thighs tensed with the effort of not thrusting.
She used her mouth more, she used her tongue more, she used her mind more because she wanted to move her hips. Leila wanted her sex on his face and as James suddenly swelled she recognised that he was close to the time when he had come inside her; the memory was enough for Leila. As tension peaked and then started to leave him, Leila came too. As she tasted and swallowed and then tasted some more she denied though that she was. Even as she sat back on her heels and swallowed the last of him down, she denied the pleasure between her own legs that was still flickering and told herself that it had been only for him.
‘It was a one-off,’ Leila warned as she went back to his arms. ‘For dealing with your family.’
It was the third time James grinned that night. ‘Shall I ring them now and tell them we’ll be there for breakfast?’
She rather hoped that he might.