Exotic Nights

Angel nodded, surprised that Leo seemed to understand.

‘Yes.’

Silence fell, and Angel felt awkward. She’d just told Leo more than she’d ever willingly shared with another person. When he got up to put away the jam and peanut butter she felt a question of her own bubbling up inside her. It was something her father had mentioned that fateful night she’d found him with the will. Afraid to ask, but emboldened after what she’d shared with him, as he came back she said, ‘What happened to your mother?’

Leo stopped in his tracks and put his hands on his hips. The temperature in the air around them dropped a few degrees. But Angel was determined not to be intimidated; she was only asking him what he’d asked her.

‘Why do you ask?’ he said sharply.

Angel gulped. She couldn’t lie. ‘Is it true that she committed suicide?’

Leo went even more still. ‘And where did you pick up that nugget of information?’

Angel had to say it, even though she knew that it would damn her to hell for ever in his eyes. ‘The will.’

His body had gone taut, his eyes to obsidian black. No gold. He seemed distant, as if he wasn’t even really aware that Angel was there any more. And then he laughed curtly. ‘The will. Of course. How could I have forgotten? Yes, I do believe that my mother’s suicide is mentioned there—while omitting the gory details, of course.’

Angel wanted to put out a hand and tell Leo to stop; he was looking at her but not seeing her.

‘I saw her. Everyone thinks to this day that I didn’t see her, but I did. She’d hung herself with a torn sheet from one of the banister railings at the top of the stairs.’

Horror and sorrow filled Angel’s heart. But instinctively she kept quiet.

‘My parents’ marriage was an arranged one. The only problem was that my mother loved my father, but he loved building up the business and reclaiming our home in Greece more than her—or me. My mother couldn’t cope with being sidelined, so she got more and more manipulative, more and more extreme in trying to get his attention. She started with emotional outbursts, but that just turned my father in on himself. The more tears, the less he’d react. Then she started self-harming and claiming that she’d been mugged. When that didn’t work, she took the ultimate step.’

Angel had gone cold inside. What a hideous, hideous thing to have borne. She knew from reading between his words that Leo had seen a lot more than anyone had believed. Not just the suicide. She remembered his reaction to seeing that couple arguing in public, how disgusted he’d looked.

She stood up from the stool. ‘Leo, I …’ She shook her head. What could she say that wasn’t going to sound inept, ridiculous?

Leo finally looked at her properly, as if coming to, and a shiver went down Angel’s

spine. She’d no doubt that he’d resent having told her this.

‘ “Leo, I …” what?’ he asked, his voice harsh.

Angel stood tall. She knew that he hurt, but it wasn’t her fault. ‘There’s nothing I can say that won’t sound like a worthless platitude … except that I’m sorry you went through that. No child should have to see something so awful.’

Angel’s lack of crocodile tears and her simple yet sincere-sounding statement did something to Leo. It broke something apart inside him. He felt a nameless emotion welling upwards, and knew the only way to push it down would be to find release. A release he’d been denying himself in the belief that he was regaining control, when control was the last thing he seemed to have in his possession.

He was done with denying himself what he wanted and what he needed. But damned if he was going to let Angel know how badly he needed her. She was going to admit her hunger for him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

LEO was looking at her so intensely that Angel quivered. And then he just said, in a hard voice, ‘We’re not here to chat and swap life stories, Angel, charming as this has been. I’m done with talking. What I’d like right now is for you to show me what you’ve learnt and seduce me.’

Angel just looked at him, hurt slicing through her at the way he was dismissing what they’d just shared and closing himself off again. She could deduce that he wanted to punish her in some way for having encouraged him to talk, but for her to seduce him? Show him what she’d learnt? She still had no idea what she was doing in bed—no conscious thought anyway. The minute Leo touched her she forgot time and space, everything but the building fire in her body, and now he wanted …

He said it again, as if he could hear her inner dialogue. ‘I want you to seduce me … You’re my mistress, that’s what mistresses do.’

More hurt sliced through Angel. She was his mistress, and she’d forgotten for a tiny moment. The last days when he’d not come to her bed had left her feeling on edge. She hated to admit it now, especially when he was being so cold, but a part of her thrilled at the thought of being free to touch Leo any way she wished.

She told herself that when he pushed her back like this it should make it easier to cut out her emotions … but she caught his eyes and in a flash something glimmered in their depths. Something indefinable. She didn’t believe it for a second, but Leo looked almost vulnerable. It made her make her mind up. Along with the way her pulse had jumped to think he was inviting her to take the initiative.

She put the bottle of water down on the island behind her and then turned back. She stepped up to Leo and stood in front of him for a long moment. He was so much taller than her, and so broad that she could see nothing behind him.

From here she looked up, to see Leo looking down from under hooded lids. He wasn’t moving a muscle. But Angel could see the golden lights in his eyes again, and curiously that comforted her. She brought her hands to his chest and took a deep breath, spreading them out, moving them up over his pectorals, which she could feel under the material of his soft T-shirt.

She moved her hands under the collar of his T-shirt and on tiptoe, spread them out and around his neck. She tried to bring his head down to her level, so she could kiss him, but he wasn’t budging. Angel bit back a retort. Determination fired her blood: he wasn’t going to make this easy.