Exotic Nights

Leo felt a surge of something rip through him at her casual words. She just stood there, in jeans and a T-shirt, looking so effortlessly sexy that he felt weak inside. He heard himself say harshly, ‘Don’t get any ideas about Ari Levakis, he’s a happily married man.’

The look of sheer incomprehension on Angel’s face made Leo want to alternately shake her for acting and kick himself for being so obvious. But something about the way Ari had visibly warmed towards Angel, evident in the fact that he’d asked her for this commission, had sent something ominously dark into Leo’s belly the other night.

He could remember the look of pure happiness on Angel’s face when she’d returned from meeting Ari at his office to discuss the designs. For some reason Leo had decided to stay at home to work that day, and he’d walked into the hall when he’d heard her return. She’d been humming. But the minute she’d seen him her face had changed to wariness. She’d stopped humming.

Leo had walked over to her and all but dragged her into his study, where a passion like nothing he’d ever experienced before had made him take her on the edge of his desk like a hormonal teenager.

Now she just looked at him, her mouth looking bruised. Her eyes looking bruised. With hurt?

‘I am well aware that Ari is a happily married man, and I can assure you that even if I had designs on the man, which I do not, he’d be about as likely to look at me twice as you will ever believe I’m innocent of trying to steal from you.’

Leo’s chest tightened. ‘Which is impossible.’

She hitched in a little breath, barely perceptible, but he’d heard it. ‘Exactly’ was all she said, but with a curious resignation in her voice. Almost defeated.

Later, when they returned from the opening night of a new restaurant, exhaustion was creeping over Angel in earnest. That little exchange in the jewellery workshop earlier had taken more out of her than she cared to admit. She was caught in such a bind. Apart from the fact that if she was ever to defend herself to Leo about that night in the study he’d have to trust her word, at this stage she was all too aware of Delphi’s wedding looming on the horizon, and how important it was that nothing jeopardise it. Defending herself was futile. She was angry with herself for even wanting to be able to do so. For even feeling the need. As if Leo would ever show her another side of himself. She was damned because of who she was, no matter what.

She trailed Leo up the main staircase, hardly able to lift her head. She even bumped into him at the top of the stairs and gave out a yelp of fear when she felt herself falling backwards into thin air.

In a second Leo had turned and caught her, hauling her into his body. He looked down at her, frowning. ‘What is the matter with you?’

Angel shook her head. Despite the aching tiredness, she could already feel the predictable response heating up in her body. Stirring it to life. ‘Nothing, I’m just … a little tired.’

Leo continued to look down at her, until Angel started to squirm uncomfortably in his arms. Abruptly he let her go and backed away. Angel felt curiously bereft, and nearly fell down in shock when Leo just said, ‘Go to bed, Angel. I have some calls to make to New York. I’ll be on the phone for a couple of hours.’

Angel nodded, and tried not to acknowledge the stab of disappointment low down in her belly. Just before she turned away she stopped and said, ‘I’m going to be out all day tomorrow with my sister. We’re shopping for our dresses.’

And then she said hesitantly, ‘I never said thank you for making sure Delphi’s wedding could be organised so quickly.’

Leo’s face was cast in shadow, so Angel couldn’t see his expression, and all he said was ‘It was part of our agreement, remember?’

Angel’s mouth felt numb. ‘Of course.’ And she turned and went into her bedroom.

Leo knew he should be making his calls—they were important, and an entire boardroom was in New York right now, waiting for him to contact them—but … he couldn’t get Angel’s face out of his head. And the dark shadows of tiredness he’d seen under her eyes. He couldn’t get the roller coaster of the past days and nights out of his head, when everything as he knew it had been turned upside down and inside out. When only one thing seemed to make sense: Angel Kassianides in his bed.

It was as if the fog and haze that had clouded his brain since he’d caught Angel in the study was clearing slightly, and the extent to which he’d become consumed by her shocked him. The anatomy of their relationship was so utterly different from any other he’d known. And he still couldn’t get a handle on Angel. She was an enigma. A dangerous enigma.

He couldn’t get out of his head the way she’d just thanked him for organising her sister’s wedding. When she had been so quick to jump on it and use it as a bargaining tool—no doubt ensuring her own future as well as her sister’s. There had been something about it that niggled at him now.

Leo knew that she’d had plenty of opportunity to speak with her father, and yet she hadn’t. On the few occasions she’d gone out it had been to meet her sister. She’d gone nowhere near her own home. So that pointed to her father not being involved. But Leo knew he would be a fool to let go his suspicions entirely.

One thing he knew: the more time he spent with Angel, in bed or out, the less logical he became. Maybe it was time to start pulling back, getting some perspective on things.

He finally picked up the phone, and spent the next couple of hours doing his best to forget all about the woman asleep upstairs.

A week later Angel lay in bed. Alone. It was late. Leo had rung earlier to say that he had to work late and that she should eat at home. It wasn’t the first night in the past week that this had happened, and, rather than making Angel feel relieved at having a reprieve of sorts, it made her feel slightly nervous.

Leo had been so all-encompassing, so passionate since the moment they’d met, that it was a shock to see this more distant side to him. She heard a noise then: the unmistakable sound of Leo moving ar

ound his room. She held her breath, but as the minutes ticked by he didn’t come in.

Angel turned over and stared into the dark. She hated the fact that she couldn’t feel relieved he wasn’t coming in. Hated the fact that her body throbbed with need. She closed her eyes, but opened them again quickly when lurid images filled her mind. She’d never thought that sex could be so … so … exciting. And addictive. She felt like some kind of sex addict; the minute she saw Leo her hormones seemed to go into overdrive and she had zero will-power when it came to resisting him. He only had to look at her and she caught on fire.

Angel couldn’t help but suspect that this had to be part of his plan of revenge. After all, he was so much more experienced than her.

She tried her best to sleep, but even after everything had gone silent next door sleep still eluded her, so she gave up and sat up, swinging her legs out of bed. She’d get some water from the kitchen …

Padding down through the quiet villa, Angel felt a jolt, thinking back to the party that night, all those weeks before. Never in a million years would she have imagined that she’d be here, ensconced as Leo Parnassus’ mistress.