‘The cross-channel bit might be taking the talented streak a little far...’
Alert now to her body language, Leandro was feeling the pull of attraction tucked away behind her nervous laughter and light-hearted remarks—and, hell, it had him firing on all cylinders. He folded his arms and tilted his head to one side, his body language redolent of a man waiting. Waiting for her to strip off...
No big deal. Her swimsuit was as daring as a nun’s habit. A black one-piece. Yet she was still burning with self-consciousness as she pulled the tee shirt over her head and eased her shorts off, folding both neatly and depositing them on the rug without once glancing in his direction.
‘I didn’t realise we would be staying in one spot,’ she muttered. ‘I thought you mentioned exploring the island.’
‘And we’ll be doing just that.’ Leandro began walking towards the water. ‘But the drive was just so hot that I thought we could kick off the day with a little swim to cool down. Coming?’ He threw the word over his shoulder.
She watched, hesitating, as he waded into the sea and then, when he was quite a long way out, pushed off and began to swim vigorously, until he was just a small speck on the horizon.
Safely far away.
Only then did she venture in. A quick, harmless paddle...
But the water was shallow, and very clear, and amazingly warm. Unable to resist the temptation of actually doing a little proper swimming, she eventually took the plunge. She hadn’t been in a public swimming pool, let alone the sea, for as long as she could remember, and although she was an okay swimmer, it was comfortingly reassuring being able to feel the sand under her feet. She flipped over, ducked under the surface, emerged and lay on her back, eyes closed against the glare, arms outstretched as the water lapped around her still body.
She wasn’t aware of Leandro slicing through the water towards her until she felt his arms, his body, and in a state of surprised panic she spluttered back to reality, half ducking under before breaking the surface, arms flailing, because the comforting bank of sand was no longer within reaching distance of her toes. And the more she flailed—partly out of surprise at discovering that she had drifted away from the shore, and partly because Leandro’s wet proximity was throwing her into a state of mental chaos—the tighter he circled his arms around her.
‘Hey! I’ve got you!’
‘And you can let me go! Right now!’ She tried to pummel his chest, but that was near impossible given the situation.
‘Clasp your arms around my neck, Emily, and we can swim back to shore. You drifted.’
‘I’m perfectly...capable...of swimming back unaided!’
She gave one final liberating push and began striking back towards the beach, her swimming jerky and frantic.
She waded out angrily. He was right behind her. There was no need for her to turn around to ascertain that fact. What the heck did he think he was playing at?
‘I don’t appreciate being...being...’ When she finally spun round she was safely wrapped up in her towel and breathing so fast that she felt on the verge of hyperventilation.
‘Being...?’ Leandro drawled silkily.
He took his time sitting down, reaching for his shades, then stretching himself out on the rug with his legs lightly crossed—the very picture of a man utterly at ease, oblivious to her spluttering anger.
Emily looked at him. She was overreacting. She knew it. She had told him that she wasn’t a strong swimmer and she had managed to float her way out of her depth... He had probably fancied himself as lifeguard, saving a damsel about to find herself in distress.
‘I’m sorry if you thought I was...in trouble,’ she said ungraciously, before quickly remembering that she was still his employee, he was still her boss—even if it didn’t feel like that out here, far removed from their daily routine. ‘And I appreciate that you thought you needed to save me. I can actually swim, Leandro. I just can’t enter competitions.’
She wished she could see his eyes, get a handle on how he was reacting, but his dark sunglasses hid everything.
‘Why don’t you lie down and recover?’
He patted the space next to him without glancing in her direction and Emily looked at his hand with the suspicion of someone eyeing up a deadly snake.
‘But don’t forget to apply sunblock. I can do without it because I’m dark, but...’
‘You don’t want the liability of a secretary who can’t perform her duties because she has to take to her bed with sunburn?’
Leandro lifted his shades and looked at her evenly. ‘For the past year and a half I’ve wondered what was going through your head. I now realise that you were wrapped up imagining the very worst about me. If you don’t want to protect yourself from the sun, then by all means don’t.’ He replaced his sunglasses and folded his arms on his chest.
She had been dismissed. Along with her churlishness, her childishness, her petty heated responses.
‘Have you been to all of the beaches on the island?’ She lay down and resumed their conversation in a placatory voice.
Without having to look at him, with only the sky above her to witness her nervous jumpiness, Emily felt a little more at ease.
‘I...I suppose you must have had to do a great deal of background checks before you decided to invest your money in this venture...’
‘Why did you decide to choose secretarial work over becoming a vet if your grades were good...?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I visited the island once, shortly before you joined me. I made sure everything and everyone was in place and then I delegated—so, no, I don’t know every beach on the island. That’s your question answered. Now answer mine. Why sit in front of a computer when you could be in the great outdoors, tending to sick animals?’
Leandro didn’t need to look at her. He could sense her confusion, her unwillingness to run with this conversation. Behind the dark shades his eyes were closed as he allowed the silence to develop between them.
‘And don’t...’ he rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow so that he was now looking at her profile, taking in the way her nostril quivered and her tongue slipped out to moisten her lips ‘...even think of changing the subject...’
Emily kept perfectly still but she could feel his eyes on her. He wasn’t going to give up. Perhaps he was bored—perhaps that was what lay behind this curiosity which had never been in evidence before.
His normal weekend in London would have been packed with fun and probably spent in the company of his latest woman. Maybe trawling through overpriced jewellers so that he could let the lucky lady choose something involving diamonds followed by lunch somewhere cool and hip, an afternoon romping in the sack and then something cultured...a night at the opera. The lucky lady might not get to grips with it, but she would certainly appreciate the glamour of the event...
Instead here he was, stuck in Paradise with her. His curiosity had been piqued by her resignation, by her tight-lipped responses when questioned, and with nothing better to do on a Saturday, with the sun beating down and none of the usual distractions, the devil was beginning to work on idle hands.
Those semi-flirtatious remarks...the lazy drift of his eyes towards her...standing there the way he had so that he could watch her peel her tee shirt off and strip down to her swimsuit...the relentless way he insisted on dragging their conversation away from the polite and into the murky waters of the personal...
She was leaving his employ. There was no longer any particular need to cultivate distance between them. That worked both ways. Maybe, in the absence of anything better to do, he wanted to have some fun with her.
‘I have no idea why you would be interested in my...my past life choices, Leandro!’ Emily laughed lightly.
‘Call me crazy, but some of us are like that. Interested i
n other peoples’ past life choices...’ Not strictly true, of course. He had never been over-curious about any of his girlfriends’ past life choices. Perhaps that was because they had always insisted on telling him all about them...
‘It was too expensive,’ Emily said bluntly.
‘Too expensive?’
‘That’s right.’ Suddenly restless, she sat up and wrapped her arms around her legs.
Leandro sat up as well, so that they were both now staring out at the glittering sea.
‘You probably don’t know what it feels like to have to reconsider your options because there’s just not enough money in the bank. But some of us do.’ And yet, she thought bitterly, it need not have been that way. She should have been able to fulfil her dreams. But instead she had had to resort to a Plan B she had never considered while growing up.
‘Your family could not have helped you realise your ambitions...?’
‘I will not discuss my family.’ She glanced across to him with a cool, unreadable expression.
He was locked out. It was as if the shutters had dropped, sealing off all points of entry. Why wouldn’t she discuss her family? What was so taboo about that? But then, what was so taboo about discussing her engagement? Clearly quite a lot.
‘Well, then,’ he drawled with lazy insistence, ‘why don’t we discuss your boyfriend?’
He turned to face her and removed his shades. Then he reached forward and removed hers. Just like that. Before she had time to take preventative measures. Before she could pull back from feeling the touch of his fingers on her face.
‘I thought we’d covered that topic already.’ She began raising her hand to her face, to brush away the feel of his fingers, then thought better of it and lowered it to her side. Instead she stood up and put on her tee shirt before strolling down to the shoreline, just far enough for the warm water to lap over her feet before ebbing away.
Everything about this situation screamed danger, and yet she felt so...so alive.
Antennae she hadn’t even known she possessed warned her that he was behind her without her having to turn around.
‘Have we?’ Leandro murmured.
He was standing slightly behind her, the warm breeze whipping her hair against him, and his fingers itched to reach out and yank that little blue elastic band out of her hair so that he could appreciate it loose and unencumbered.
‘Spoken much to him since we’ve been here?’
‘I don’t think that’s any of your business,’ Emily blustered.
‘Missed him much?’
‘How dare you ask questions like that?’ She spun round to look at him and immediately regretted it because she was now only inches away from him. The broad, naked width of his powerful chest confronted her like an implacable wall. ‘And...and...can’t you put on a tee shirt?’
‘Why? Does it bother you seeing me like this?’
‘Of course it doesn’t!’
‘So why would I want to put anything on? It’s hot.’
‘We should be thinking of carrying on with this tour,’ Emily said agitatedly. ‘We’ll never cover the island at this rate.’
‘The island is the size of a postage stamp. Trust me. We can stay here for another hour and still cover it twice over before dark. The reason I ask whether you’re pining for your one true love is because I don’t think you are.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard me, Emily. You haven’t mentioned the man once since we’ve been here.’
‘I’m an extremely private person. You know that.’
‘So private that when Nigel Sabga, the hotel manager, asked you whether you were married you told him that you didn’t believe in marriage?’
‘You were eavesdropping on our conversation?’ It had been a question asked in passing and answered truthfully and without thought. But then, she hadn’t realised that Leandro had been lurking behind a wall somewhere, earwigging.
‘You probably didn’t see me. I was sampling some of the wines behind a screen in the dining area.’
He stared at her until she felt hot colour crawl into her cheeks.
‘So... Peculiar remark, wouldn’t you say? For someone about to tie the knot with the love of their life? But then, I don’t imagine he is the love of your life.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you have no right to...to...’
‘Of course I have no right!’ Leandro shrugged his shoulders with eloquent nonchalance. ‘But you’re soon to be my ex-employee. All bets are off when it comes to walking carefully round one another. Why are you marrying the guy if you don’t believe in marriage? Are you scared of ending up on your own? You shouldn’t be. You’re not old enough to have such fears...’
‘Of course I’m not scared of ending up on my own,’ Emily retorted scornfully. ‘Why should I be?’
‘Who knows how you feel on the subject?’ He paused, dark eyes still fixed on her flushed face. ‘After all, you’re marrying a guy you clearly don’t love, for reasons best known to you, and from what I can see it’s not a marriage driven by that other all-important criteria either...’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Leandro.’ Caution and common sense told her to do something—anything rather than stay where she was, like a fly trapped in a spider’s web—but her head was refusing to take orders. ‘What “all-important criteria” are you talking about?’
For a few seconds she really was puzzled, but realisation dripped in and she went bright red. Sex. That was what he had been talking about. What else?
She tried to activate the appropriate response of disgust at a man whose mind could only travel down one track, but it seemed that in the space of only a few days he was no longer the one-dimensional figure she had pegged him to be.
She jumped to her feet and began walking restlessly towards the sea, before branching off to explore the rest of the beach and give herself time to harness her chaotic thoughts.
When she sneaked a look over her shoulder it was to find that Leandro had lain back down on the beach rug, hands folded behind his head, sunglasses firmly back in place. The very picture of relaxation.
Emily tightened her lips and continued to walk away from him. If the beach had been longer she would have disappeared and left him to his own devices for as long as she possibly could, but after ten minutes she was forced to stroll back towards him. He had not moved a muscle. Had he even noticed that she had walked away?
‘What are you trying to say?’ She addressed his prone figure and he lifted his sunglasses to squint up at her.
‘Come again?’
Gone was the cool, controlled woman who had performed her duties without once revealing the slightest hint of what went on behind the polite facade. Bit by bit he had witnessed that façade being eroded at the edges, turning her from a statue into a living, breathing woman—a woman with depth and passion and the sort of complexities that could keep a man riveted for a lifetime.
‘That remark you made... You know nothing of my relationship with Oliver!’
‘I don’t have to,’ Leandro responded wryly.
He replaced his shades, concealing his eyes, and infuriatingly looked as though he might be on the point of nodding off to sleep in the tropical sun.
‘And what does that mean?’ Irritated, she poked him in his side with her toe.
He caught her foot before she could pull it away.
‘I really would avoid doing that,’ he drawled, removing the sunglasses to lodge them on the top of his head.
‘Or else what?’
Leandro dealt her a slashing smile and kept hold of her foot. ‘If you start touching me you might find that I start touching you back...’
Emily’s heart slowed and heat suffused her face. She had never been so conscious of her
body before—even though he wasn’t looking at it, even though his eyes were firmly fixed on her face, even though his expression, despite the innuendo behind his words, was deceptively amused.
‘And that’s what I’m talking about...’ he continued, with silky-smooth intent.
Emily stared at him in silence. She didn’t want him to carry on. She really didn’t want to hear what he had to say on a subject she had no desire to talk about. But she felt like a rabbit, frozen in the headlights while a car moved inexorably at full speed towards it.
‘Ah, I see you get where I’m coming from...’
He sat up and his hand snaked to her wrist, tugging her down beside him so that she half fell onto the rug before shuffling into a sitting position whilst glaring impotently at him.
‘The cat is out of the bag, Emily. You’re no longer the personal assistant hiding behind a bland exterior with a non-existent private life.’
She was so close to him that he could see the flicker in her eyes...could almost smell the scent of an awareness she was desperate to conceal.
‘You’re engaged to be married to a man for whom you have feelings of...what? Exactly? Certainly not love and—let’s be honest, here—definitely not physical attraction. And do you know how I’ve come to that conclusion?’
He ran his thumb along the side of her cheek in a gesture that was shockingly intimate and she pulled away sharply.
‘Point proved. I’ve come to that conclusion, my dear personal assistant, because you’re attracted to me...’
CHAPTER SIX
EMILY WAS NOT looking forward to the evening that lay ahead of her, terrifying in its uncertainty, filled with the dreadful potential to do damage in places she least wanted.
‘Because...my dear personal assistant...you’re attracted to me...’
She recalled Leandro’s absolute amused certainty as he had spoken those words, the way his dark eyes had held hers for just a second before roving indolently over her, touching every part of her body until she felt as though she was going to go up in flames.
The Argentinian's Demand Page 9
