by Penny Jordan
But at least it was there, the tentative beginnings of the relationship, the trust, the love he believed they would one day share.
Oh, she would make him pay for the past, make him earn their future, test him and go on testing him until she was sure, until she felt safe, but that was his fault, not hers.
Inwardly he thanked God and fate that he had been given this second chance with her, with both of them. God, fate, and Davina.
Davina … When he’d left England he had told himself that he was not going to think about her, not going to allow himself to become full of self-pity and yearning, but the ache, the need, the love he felt for her was always there; would always be there, he recognised.
‘Dad … I’m hungry …’
‘Don’t you ever think about anything but your stomach?’ he heard Josey responding to Tom’s complaint with sisterly disgust.
Hunger. One of man’s most basic instincts, Saul reflected as he dutifully headed for the fridge. In all its many forms.
* * *
Tiredly Leo stretched his muscles, trying to ease their tension. Davina had welcomed his proposals with an enthusiasm that had made him reflect again how closely attuned they were in their outlook and values, how in a way, like two orphans, they turned instinctively and needfully to one another for support and reaffirmation of all that they believed in, clinging together as they tried to blot out the dark shadows.
‘By the way,’ she had told him apparently casually, ‘I saw Christie Jardine the other day. She mentioned meeting you at a conference. She asked if I’d heard anything from you recently.’
She didn’t say any more, but it was enough. More than enough to ease the doubting ache that had been tormenting his heart, making him ask himself if, after all, all that he was doing would mean nothing to her … if it was, after all, him she had been rejecting and not, as she had told him, his role within Hessler Chemie.
And if she did reject him, would he have any regrets about the decision he had taken?
He smiled to himself. No. He had known the moment he had realised that Anna was right and that there was always a way, that he could no longer go on playing a role which had been so onerous to him.
Duty was one thing; self-sacrifice was another, especially when there was no need for that sacrifice.
He flew into Manchester at lunchtime the next day, and drove straight to Christie’s.
She had woken up with the beginnings of a migraine and had gone straight back to bed.
The sound of someone ringing her doorbell brought her abruptly out of her drugged sleep. Blessedly her head felt clear, although her body was lethargic and heavy.
It had been a hot, sultry morning, and she had been feeling too ill to do more than remove her clothes and slide into bed. Now she quickly pulled on a loose T-shirt and hurried down to answer the door. Being a doctor meant that she was always aware that the unexpected impatient summons could herald more than merely an unwanted caller.
As she opened the door she pushed the heavy weight of her hair back off her face, blinking in the brightness of the sunlight, so dazzled by it that at first all she could see was Leo’s outline and the golden halo of his hair.
And then she felt the warmth of his touch on her skin, heard the familiar softness of his voice, drowned in the physical and emotional responses of her senses to him as he pushed her gently inside and then took her in his arms, his back against the door as he pushed it closed.
In her imagination she had pictured them as lovers, savoured all the intimacies of their relationship, all its nuances and passions many times, and yet strangely she had never actually imagined the innocence of them sharing a kiss.
And yet now that they were doing that, she recognised with a sharp leap of her heart that she had been foolish in not doing so. Because if she had done she might have been better guarded, better protected against the actuality of Leo’s kiss.
It was slow, thorough, gentle, demanding, tentative and knowing, giving and taking, and she was drowning helplessly in the sharply sweet pleasure of it, clinging to him like a teenager to her first real love as she pressed herself against him, so that they were locked closely together, body to body, mouth to mouth, and she could feel the suddenly urgent change in his heartbeat as his body reacted to hers.
And then she did something she would never in a hundred lifetimes have imagined herself doing. She panicked and reacted to his arousal like a virgin with her first real experience of a man’s sexuality, breaking the kiss and pushing frantically against his chest, her face and body hot with tension as she demanded huskily, ‘Leo. No … please … I don’t …’
She wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d shown either disbelief or irritation. She was sure she would have done in the same circumstances, but instead he released her immediately, watching her with concerned eyes, gently tucking her hair behind her ear and touching her hot face with cool fingers.
‘It’s all right,’ he told her gently. ‘Christie, it’s all right.’
She had to turn her back on him so that he wouldn’t see her emotion; her weakness.
‘No, it isn’t,’ she told him savagely. ‘How can it ever be all right for us, Leo? You know it can’t. You know—’
‘I know that I love you,’ he interrupted her. ‘And I know that I believe you love me.’
Christie swung round. ‘Of course I love you, damn you,’ she raged at him. Her body was aching tautly now for all that she had denied it and all that Leo’s touch had promised it. She was having to fight herself as well as him, she recognised as she battled to save herself the added anguish and humiliation of begging him to take her to bed, of telling him she wanted to ignore … to forget everything but the need to at least once experience the intimacy of sharing her body, her desire, her need … her love with him. ‘But what the hell does that mean? I love you, Leo … but I can’t live with you. You know that. We both know that.’
‘I thought it was Hessler Chemie you couldn’t live with.’
The words were quiet, casual almost, but he was watching her intently, his body held stiffly, as though he was half expecting to have to ward off a mortal blow.
‘You … Hessler’s … what’s the difference? You’re one and the same thing,’ she retorted bitterly, angry with him and with herself because his tension and her awareness of it weakened her, made her ache to touch him, to hold him … made her want to weep for having made him so vulnerable.
‘No, we aren’t,’ Leo corrected her. ‘Not any more.’
It took several seconds for what he had said to actually sink in. When it did, her face lost all its colour, her body swaying slightly.
‘You don’t mean that,’ she whispered drily. ‘You can’t. It isn’t possible. You are Hessler Chemie.’
‘I was,’ he corrected. ‘I’m not any more.’ He watched her gravely and then told her, ‘There isn’t time for any more pretence between us, Christie. I love you. I want us to be together. Hessler Chemie is no longer a part of my life. If you want me …’
‘Of course I want you.’
She was laughing and crying at the same time, unable to deal with her own emotions, her own shock.
‘But what are you going to do?’ she protested as he took hold of her. She heard him laugh.
‘What I am going to do is what I should have done in Edinburgh. I’m going to take you to bed and make love to you—unless, of course, you’ve got any better ideas.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant …’
Leo knew what she meant, but there would be time enough later to tell her about his plans. Right now …
He kissed her as he picked her up, and Christie, who had never considered herself the kind of tiny, fragile woman who would ever be idiotic enough to enjoy that kind of male drama, was astonished by the fierce frisson of pleasure that went through her.
* * *
Leo was a sensual lover, more so than, perhaps, she was herself, Christie recognised as her body relaxed into postcoital torpor.
>
His self-control had surprised her as well; a tiny satisfied feminine smile curled her mouth. But she had very quickly shown him that she was more than able to demolish that control. He had protested at first at the warm touch of her mouth against his body, as she had caressed him intimately, but then he had allowed her to have her way, groaning softly under his breath as she alternately stroked him with her tongue and whispered to him that she had ached to know him like this, to know his scent and taste, to know the shape and texture of his flesh.
He had had his revenge, though, if it could be called revenge. She smiled ruefully to herself, remembering how in the end her own self-control had broken and she had begged him, pleaded with him to let her feel his mouth against her body. Her breasts still ached a little now from that loving, were still vaguely tender.
‘I’m never going to let you go now. You know that, don’t you?’ Leo murmured against her ear.
She had thought he was asleep, and she gently punched him, warning him, ‘I’m not someone who can be owned, Leo. I’m an individual.’ But inwardly she knew she was committed to him now and that she would never want him to let her go.
It humbled her a little to know what he had done. In his shoes, would she have been able to make that decision … to put her love for him first?
‘Where’s Cathy?’
Christie smiled. ‘She has tennis practice today. She won’t be home until six … Of course, if you’ve had enough …’
Leo laughed. ‘Never,’ he told her. ‘Never, never, never …’
* * *
There were things to be discussed, of course, arrangements to be made, following Leo’s and Davina’s future plans for Carey’s.
When Davina approached Giles to tell him what was happening her manner was so businesslike and matter-of-fact that Giles knew immediately that whatever might once have been on the verge of happening between them was now very firmly in the past.
‘I’d like to stay on,’ he told Lucy when he explained to her what was happening. ‘It will all be quite different, of course. Nothing like the old Carey’s, and there’s no guarantee that it will be successful, although von Hessler seems to know what he’s talking about.’
‘If it’s what you want then I’m quite happy to stay,’ Lucy told him, and then added quietly, ‘besides, we could hardly leave Nicholas’s tree, could we?’
* * *
‘I can take charge of the research and development side of things,’ Leo told Davina one evening as they discussed the finer points of how the new company would be run. ‘You say you’re happy to take over staff personnel from Giles, and he will handle the day-to-day running of the place. But we need someone else, someone who can have an over-view of the whole thing, someone well enough versed in the business world to sell our ideals to it, to make it treat us seriously.
‘We need someone who can bridge the gap between the establishment and industry, someone whose word carries weight in both worlds. I can’t do it,’ he frowned. ‘I’m a biochemist, not a negotiator, and, besides, the fact that I’ve left Hessler Chemie is bound to cause an adverse reaction in certain circles, initially at least. No … what we need …’
‘I think I know what we need,’ Davina told him quietly. ‘And I know where to find him.’
Davina wrote to Saul that night, explaining what was happening.
‘There is a place here for you, if you want it,’ she told him, and wondered as she wrote the words if when he read them he would also read what she had not said and know that it was not just a job that waited for him.
She waited for a week, her heart in her mouth every morning when the post arrived, every time the phone rang, but there was no response from him.
She knew from Christie that he was back from Provence and making arrangements for Josey to transfer to another school. She had only spoken briefly to him by telephone, Christie told her casually when Davina had enquired about him. Christie was too wrapped up in Leo and what was happening between them to be aware of anyone else’s emotions, Davina recognised thankfully. A warm relationship was beginning to develop between the two women.
She was not going to marry Leo, Christie had told Davina positively. Relationships changed when lovers married, expectations, even feelings were somehow altered. She was an individual, a woman, a person with her own needs and goals, which she could not, would not subordinate to those which would be involved in being Leo’s wife. She marvelled at the sacrifices he had made to be with her, admired all that he was doing, was interested in it and excited by it, but she still had her own life to lead, her own career path to follow.
‘But you do love him?’ Davina had asked her.
‘Yes, I love him,’ Christie agreed. ‘Too much, I sometimes think,’ she added ruefully. ‘And Cathy adores him.’
‘Yes,’ Davina acknowledged, laughing. But when she was on her own she didn’t feel much like laughing.
There had been no response from Saul, and she simply didn’t have the courage, the forcefulness she suspected Christie would have exhibited. She could not take things any further by phoning him, or even writing to him a second time.
She had made her offer. He must know that it had not only been the job that was waiting here for him; that she too … She bit her lip and told herself stoically that it was perhaps, after all, all for the best, but her rebellious heart refused to accept it.
* * *
All the way from London Saul had been rehearsing what he intended to say—that he didn’t need her job, didn’t want her charity or her pity—but when Davina opened the door to him and he saw the look on her face he reacted instinctively and emotionally rather than logically, and simply opened his arms to her.
The few seconds for which she hesitated seemed like the longest space of time he had ever known. He wondered if he had been wrong after all, if he had misinterpreted the message in her eyes, and then she smiled at him. Not her normal controlled, grave smile, but one that wobbled slightly and revealed a vulnerability that made him ache as she took one step towards him and then another, while he waited, hardly daring to breathe until she was close enough for him to lock his arms around her and hold her, rocking her gently against him as they kissed and then kissed again.
‘I still can’t believe this is really happening,’ Davina told him shakily some time later.
They were in her sitting-room, her body tucked snugly into his as they sat together on the settee.
Saul slid his hand against her throat, breathing in the warm scent of her skin and hair. ‘Do you wish it weren’t?’ he asked, watching her.
‘No,’ she told him positively. ‘Do you?’
‘No.’ He paused, and then said quietly, ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’ He saw the quick startled glance she gave him and grinned. ‘No, not this,’ he corrected, kissing her briefly. ‘I meant I’ve never allowed myself to act like this before … never even allowed myself to think of acting like this … spontaneously, naturally, following my own needs … my own path.’
They had been talking for hours, exchanging information with one another. Davina knew about his childhood, his father, and he knew about hers. She touched him gently now, love and compassion mingling in her eyes.
‘I want you,’ he told her softly. ‘I want you so much, but if you’d prefer to take things more slowly … to wait … to—’
‘No,’ Davina told him swiftly, cutting through his hesitant speech. ‘No … I … I want to celebrate what we have, Saul. I want us to … to take each other on trust. To have faith that—’
‘That we aren’t wrong in allowing our emotions, our instincts, our feelings to govern us. Both of us have had to repress those feelings and instincts for too long, haven’t we? It’s time to give up those lingering shadows from the past and look to the future.’ He touched her gently. ‘I’m so afraid of disappointing you. I’m only human, Davina. If you find I’m not the man you want … if it doesn’t work out … then what?’
His own humilit
y hurt her more than she could bear. ‘Then at least we shall have had this,’ she told him fiercely, lifting her head and placing her hand against his jaw as she kissed him.
He wasn’t sure what he had expected. He knew he desired her, and how much. Her letter had shown him that she was prepared to acknowledge that she desired him, but her kiss took his breath away. It was so sweet with promise and trust, so open in its ardour, so giving and generous in its warmth that it was seconds before he could do anything other than simply passively wonder at everything she was giving him.
He had had no idea that there could be a woman like this one, strong enough to cast aside her own defences and to come to him without their protection, soft enough to tremble when he touched her; sure enough of herself, of her sensuality to want him to share its potency with her and so honest in her admission of her needs and fears that she made him ache to wrap her in tenderness and love.
Love.
‘We hardly know one another yet.’ He said the words against her mouth.
‘Not yet, but we will.’ It was a statement and not a question.
‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed huskily. ‘We will.’
Her lovemaking was a revelation and a joy, her sensuality a deep, deep pool in which he could totally submerge himself, totally lose himself and yet still feel safe.
She watched him gravely as he studied her naked body and then studied his with equal gravity plus an open appreciation he had not expected.
‘Nice,’ she told him with a smile that was almost a grin, and then she leaned forward and kissed him, first at the base of this throat and then along his breast-bone; then the flat plane of his belly.
‘Davina,’ he protested as he hauled her away.
‘I want you,’ she told him quietly.
‘I want you as well.’
‘Show me. Show me so that I can show you how much you can please me, and how much I want to please you.’
No, there had never been a woman like her before and he knew there never would be again. She was unique, special, rare, precious. He told her so in between kisses and caresses while she laughed a little and then fell sharply silent as her body responded to his touch.
