Margo took down her hair, and Leo felt a frisson of sensual pleasure as he watched her raise her slender arms, anticipating the sudden tumble of dark, wavy hair down to her waist.
‘What does that mean?’ she asked as she reached for the satin nightdress she wore to bed and quickly undressed.
Leo had tantalising glimpses of her breasts and thighs, milky-pale and soft-looking, before she shrugged the nightdress on and slid under the covers, pillows propped behind her as she looked at him and waited for his answer.
‘We have ten years of hard history,’ Leo said slowly. ‘Even though we’ve talked about it and tried to put it behind us, I don’t think it’s that easy or simple.’
‘No,’ Margo agreed quietly. ‘It isn’t.’
He knew she was thinking of her own past hurts. As much as she might want to, could she move on from her appalling childhood and the many wrongs that had been done to her? Could they move on from the hurt they’d caused each other?
He wasn’t about to ask those questions. They spoke of his own past, his own uncertainty and fear. He’d spent his childhood trying to prove himself to his father—wanting Evangelos to love him,and receiving only rejection.
And it was those experiences that kept him silent now.
‘Do you think things will get better in time?’ Margo asked, her gaze serious and intent on him.
For a second Leo thought she was asking about things with them. Then he realised she meant Antonios.
‘Maybe,’ he said with a shrug.
He didn’t sound hopeful.
Wanting to end the discussion, he reached for her, wrapping a thick tendril of hair around his wrist as he pulled her gently towards him. She came with a smile, her features softened and suffused with desire, their bodies bumping up against one another as Leo brushed a kiss across her mouth.
They’d made love many times in the days since Christmas Eve. Their chemistry had always been explosive, right from the beginning, but in the last week it had become even more intimate and arousing.
Margo let out a soft little sigh as she brought her arms up around his neck, her body yielding to his in a way that made Leo’s head spin and desire spiral dizzily inside him. He slid his hand from her shoulder to her waist to her hip, loving the silky feel of her skin, the ripe fullness of her breasts and hips.
She twitched slightly beneath his caress and he stilled his hand. ‘What is it?’
‘Just the normal fears of a pregnant woman,’ she said with an uncertain little laugh. ‘I feel fat.’
‘Fat? Fat? Margo, you are not remotely fat. You are fecund and beautiful and glowing. I like your body more, I think, than before you were carrying our baby.’
‘You do not!’
‘You doubt me?’ he said in a mock growl, and she let out another laugh, this one breathless with anticipation.
‘I do.’
‘Then perhaps I should prove to you just how beautiful you are,’ Leo said, and bent his head to her breasts, taking his time to give each one his full, lascivious attention.
Margo let out a sigh of pleasure, her hands tangling in his hair, and Leo lifted his head.
‘Does that satisfy you?’ he demanded, and she gazed at him with a mischievous smile.
‘Not...quite.’
‘I see I’ll have to prove it to you some more.’
‘You just might.’
Laughing softly, he slid a hand between her thighs. ‘I can do a lot of proving,’ he murmured, ‘if that’s your wish.’
‘It is,’ Margo whispered back, her hips arching upwards. And then they lost themselves to their shared pleasure.
* * *
The next day Leo and Antonios repaired to the office, to discuss matters relating to Marakaios Enterprises, and Lindsay sought out Margo up in the soon-to-be nursery, where she was comparing fabric swatches.
‘Hello,’ she said, poking her head around the door, and Margo gave a self-conscious smile before welcoming her in.
‘Sorry, I’m not trying to hide away.’ She rubbed her lower back while motioning to the swatches. ‘Just trying to make a decision about fabric. It can take ages for it to come in once you place an order.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Lindsay answered with a laugh. ‘But Leo mentioned you worked in decorating before...?’
‘I was a buyer for a department store in Paris. Home furnishings.’ It occurred to her this must seem like a rather useless job to a brilliant mathematician, but Lindsay appeared genuinely interested.
‘Do you miss it? When Antonios and I lived here I missed my old life a lot more than I thought I would. My old job...’
Margo was intrigued to think that Lindsay and Antonios’s marriage hadn’t always been as perfect as it now seemed.