‘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.