made Letty feel sad for him because her mother had always been reliable. His insecure background had most definitely damaged Leo’s ability to trust either himself or anyone else but she knew he wouldn’t appreciate that information.
As Letty’s gaze fell on a familiar face at a nearby table, she stiffened and interrupted Leo to hiss, ‘What’s Dido doing here? Is she one of your special guests?’
Leo froze. ‘No, but she’s a famous actress. I imagine she got a free ticket from the organisers. The more celebrities that attend, the more headlines the event garners,’ he countered drily, closing a hand over hers to guide her over to a more secluded table in the corner.
As she sat down a waiter arrived with a tray carrying a birthday cake and another with a bottle of champagne.
‘Happy birthday, Letty,’ Leo murmured as the cake was ceremonially sliced and the champagne was uncorked to froth down into glasses. ‘I had a gift bought for you, but it no longer seemed appropriate so I had to get creative. As an alternative gift, I’m signing that apartment your mother and brothers are living in over to them,’ he said quietly. ‘Owning the property will give them a greater feeling of security.’
‘Oh, Leo, that’s so…so generous of you!’ Letty gasped and hauled him into a hug, painfully aware of how rigid he remained in her hold and quickly drawing back with the sense that she had crossed a boundary she should’ve respected. ‘But what did you originally buy me?’ she prompted, hopelessly curious on that score.
‘It was an eternity ring.’ Leo grimaced. ‘I returned it.’
Disappointment filled her because it had been a personal present and an eternity ring from Leo, the studiously free man, would have been a very satisfying item to wear.
As she fumbled for the right words with which to respond, Dido slid into the seat beside Leo. ‘Leo, just the man I’ve been needing to see!’ she carolled in English, before shifting into Greek.
Letty strove to be polite and contrived to drain a glass of champagne and even munch on a slice of cake while Dido, once again, ignored her presence. But by the time her glass was refreshed such restraint was becoming a challenge and anger was stirring like green fire in her gaze because the other woman had, very rudely, broken in on a private moment.
‘Get rid of her,’ she bit out in Leo’s ear. ‘Or I will!’
Leo shot her a startled appraisal and then rose from the table to effectively bring the conversation to an end. ‘Excuse me,’ he murmured smoothly, long brown fingers capturing Letty’s to raise her by his side. ‘My wife and I are in the midst of celebrating her birthday…’
‘DON’T YOU EVER, for as long as you live, address me like that again!’ Leo launched at Letty in a furious undertone as he tugged her up the spiral staircase in the corner and flung open a door into an office, already occupied by an older man.
‘Sorry, Dmitri… I need a private space,’ said Leo, and the other man quickly vacated the room to leave them alone.
‘I am fed up with your ex-girlfriends swarming like piranha fish around us!’ Letty sliced back at Leo. ‘They’re everywhere we go, demanding your attention!’
Leo regarded her, his anger mysteriously ebbing from his bright golden gaze. ‘You’re a jealous, possessive woman, yineka mou,’ he declared, utterly disconcerting Letty as she squared up to him with angrily clenched fists. ‘And that is remarkable behaviour from a woman who told me to embrace my sexual freedom and kicked me out of bed!’
‘I did not kick you out of bed!’ Letty fired back at him, still trying to work out when she had lost the plot to the extent that she had blamed Leo for Dido’s rudeness and persistence and had literally snarled at him. Her cheeks went red. ‘But I am not jealous either.’
Leo stalked forward, crowding her back against the desk. ‘You were jealous,’ he persisted with the most curious edge of satisfaction stamped on his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘So, how are you planning to handle me being with these other women you want me to sleep with?’
‘Like a trooper!’ Letty threw back at him. ‘It wouldn’t mean anything to me. I’m tough.’
‘You may be tough,’ conceded Leo, framing her hectically flushed face with two big hands. ‘But you are a lousy liar! You want me and you don’t want to share me. I wouldn’t want to share you either because you’re mine—’
‘Oh, take a hike with the property claim!’ Letty advised with acid bite. ‘I don’t belong to you in any way!’
‘Let me show you then,’ Leo growled, rough and low, crushing her mouth under his with such insistence that her knees went weak, all the fiery intensity that was Leo powering his passionate assault on her tender mouth.
With the unfamiliar knowledge that her temper was out of control, Letty’s mind was a whirling turmoil of contrasting reactions. She wanted to slap him but she wanted to kiss him back too, and the liquid heat pooling in her pelvis wouldn’t let her push him away. Instead she traded kiss for kiss, hard and fierce and so necessary to her in her current mood that she could not have restrained that desperate need hurtling up through her.
And suddenly Leo was settling her down on the desk, long fingers smoothing up her inner thighs to yank with force at her knickers. And Letty was shocked but not outraged, hunger for him driving her, ensuring that she too unconditionally craved the drivingly urgent invasion of his body into hers. She yanked at his tousled black hair as he endeavoured to don protection while she ran her greedy hands below his shirt, over the smooth flexing muscles shifting below her every caress.
‘You’re driving me insane!’ Leo rasped in a tone of raw arousal, his eyes blazing like polished gold ingots set between sweeping black lashes.
He sank into the slick wet welcome of her body with an uninhibited groan of appreciation. The desk creaked under that very physical onslaught. Her body jolted, hot sweet delight laced with savage excitement making her heart hammer and her blood race. With every sinuous twist of his lithe hips he hammered the exact spot inside her that maximised her pleasure. The pressure inside her built and built until it surged up through her in a wild white-knuckle climax that made her cry out his name.
‘Would this be the right or the wrong moment to say thank you for sharing your birthday with me?’ Leo murmured huskily above her head, still panting to catch his breath from his exertions.
As Leo righted his clothing, Letty leapt off the desk like a scalded cat and discovered her legs were too wobbly to hold her upright. ‘It was the champagne,’ she muttered between clenched teeth.
‘One glass? Even you are not that much of a lightweight. No, finally accept that we have crazy good chemistry together,’ Leo asserted without remorse.
And why was she looking for remorse from him? she asked herself fiercely. Of course he had no regrets, having just comprehensively proved that he could break down her barriers and persuade her to do what she had sworn not to do. A guilty sense of having failed her own standards afflicted Letty.
‘So good it’s off the charts,’ Leo grated, hauling her into
