‘So I see,’ he said, coming further into the room. He was looking at Jemma, but her eyes were blank and staring, focusing on nothing. ‘You are feeling more yourself, agape mou?’
The endearment made her shudder. But, ‘Yes,’ she answered, and forced her eyes to focus on a point somewhere between the rigid set of his jaw and the dark brown skin at his throat. ‘May we leave now?’
‘Of course,’ he concurred. ‘The car is being brought round now.’
‘Good,’ she said, and made to get up. Leon reached out to help her and once again Jemma pulled violently away from his touch. ‘No,’ she rasped, and he stepped back jerkily.
She sensed the other two exchanging glances and knew she had to get away from here before she split wide apart. Her legs were barely supporting her and a hot sense of agitation was disrupting her insides. ‘M-my shawl,’ she murmured, glancing distractedly around her. ‘I c-can’t see my shawl—’
‘Jemma—’
‘Go and collect your wife’s shawl, Leon!’ Melva inserted quickly. She was on her feet and gently taking Jemma by the arm. ‘I shall walk Jemma to the door and we will meet you there.’
There was a short tense moment when Leon thought to argue, then more glances passed between the other two and he sighed impatiently and walked away.
‘Please, Jemma!’ Melva appealed urgently as soon as he had gone. ‘Try not to condemn him out of hand for what took place tonight! It was more his father’s fault than anyone’s—and of course that avaricious bitch, Anthia’s. She has been planning towards the evening—with a different result, of course—for twenty-eight years! She is shrewd and clever and totally without scruple. Leon had to use his weapons carefully or she would have twisted things to suit herself!’
As Leon had twisted things to suit himself, Jemma likened. ‘Just what is Leon to you,’ she demanded, ‘that you come down so completely on his side?’
‘She is the woman my father picked out for me to marry.’ Once again, Leon had come upon them without their realising it. ‘But I obliged Melva by refusing to accede to his threats—did I not, agape mou?’
‘Don’t tease the poor girl, Leon!’ Melva scolded. ‘Neither of us had any wish to be married to the other, and it really was as simple as that!’
/> Laughing up at him, she moved the few steps away from Jemma to kiss Leon on both cheeks. What she did next was so deftly done that Jemma wondered afterwards if she would have noticed if she had not been so hypersensitive to everything happening around her, but somehow, by the time Melva moved away from Leon again, Jemma’s shawl was in her hands and she turned—still smiling—to settle carefully the fine white silk around Jemma’s shoulders.
The thoughtful gesture brought a brief wash of tears to her eyes. She knew she didn’t want him to touch her, and she was saving both of them from any more discomfort.
‘I am well known on the island,’ she informed Jemma gravely. ‘If you ever find yourself in need of a friend, then just ask and you will be directed to my home.’
‘I... Thank you,’ Jemma whispered, but she knew she wouldn’t take her up on it. She was Leon’s friend, and therefore could not be Jemma’s as well.
They drove back to the yacht in complete silence, the presence of the chauffeur making conversation impossible—of the kind they would have, anyway. And Jemma was glad. She had no wish to speak to Leon— or, worse, listen to him while he tried to justify what he had done.
There could be no justification. He had used her. From the moment he had walked back into her life, he had cold-bloodedly planned, calculated and manipulated—everything, from the ruthless way he’d played on her reliance on Trina, to the way he had spent the last three weeks personally supervising her return to good health with his aim focused entirely on this evening. Even the beauty of yesterday had been a coolly thought-out calculation! she realised as hot tears of hurt sped across her eyes. He must have seen her moment of unhappiness as a sign of discontent and the last thing he needed so close to his ultimate aim was an unhappy wife standing by his side! So he’d set out to woo her—woo her into the soft, contented woman he wanted her to be in front of his family, and she, fool that she was, had fallen for it all like a lemming walking blindly towards its own destruction.
And, all the time, he’d known something else that she did not know. He’d known the sex of the child she carried for him. A boy child. More tears burned and she blinked them angrily away. His ultimate weapon in a power game so despicable that it filled her with a bilious disgust of all of them—Leon and his family.
The car turned in through the security gates and came to a stop at the yacht. She was trying to open the door even as the engine died.
‘Jemma—’ Leon’s hand on her arm sent a shudder of revulsion through her and she struck it away, not even looking at him as she got out of the car and walked quickly up the steps of the yacht.
She did not stop until she was in their stateroom with the door locked firmly behind her. Then she walked into the bathroom, switched on the shower, stripped off her clothes and stepped beneath the stinging hot spray.
Arriving back in the bedroom, wrapped into her long white towelling robe, she stopped dead, surprised to find Leon standing by the darkened window.
He must have sensed what she was thinking because he murmured, ‘I have a pass key to all the locks on board,’ without turning to look at her.
Of course, she thought wryly. He would have, wouldn’t he? It belonged to him, after all—which by his philosophy meant he had the right to open any door he chose to and damn the invasion of someone else’s privacy! Just as he had been damning his invasion of her privacy since he’d decided to make her one of his precious possessions!
Well, never again. ‘I’m tired,’ she informed him stonily. ‘Would you please leave?’
He turned to face her at that, his eyes dark and carefully guarded. ‘We have to talk,’ he said quietly.
Talk—? Her mouth tightened, losing all of its natural sensual softness. ‘The way I read it, it has all already been said.’
‘No,’ he denied. ‘There is a lot you haven’t heard. A lot you need to know if you are to understand why I had to do what I did tonight.’
‘Used me?’ she mocked him bitterly. ‘Used our child—and its sex!—as a means to an end, you mean?’