slightly to look into her flushed, trusting face.
‘There’s something I want to ask you, Phoebe. I know...’ And that had been when Lil had walked in.
‘I heard you arrive so I’ve brought you coffee.’
Bea had not been pleased at the interruption. She’d had a sneaky suspicion that Lil was acting as a chaperone, and she’d been sure of it when the older woman had sat down and poured the coffee into three cups before asking about their evening out. An hour later Bea had gone to bed, still wondering...
Now, seated with Leon at the breakfast table, Bea sighed and drained her cup of coffee, her blue eyes resting wistfully on the top of his dark head. He was apparently oblivious to her presence, reading the morning paper. Whatever he had been going to ask her last night, he had obviously forgotten it this morning, she thought morosely. In a few hours he would be gone and it was back to studying for her, for her A level exams. A place at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne was waiting for her, providing she passed them.
‘Don’t look so sad. It might never happen.’ Leon’s deep voice cut into her morbid thoughts.
Glancing across at him, she almost said, It already has; you’re leaving. But, young as she was, she had the sense to keep her true feelings to herself, and instead said, ‘But it will... Exams start in six weeks’ time; it’s nose to the grindstone time for me. Whereas you will be flitting around the world, chatting up every beautiful woman you meet.’ She tried for a teasing smile but it did not quite come off.
Her innate common sense told her Leon had simply been flirting with her the past few days. There was no way a man like him could really be interested in her on a personal level. He was kind to her because of their fathers’ relationship, and because technically they were now business partners—though the reality was that Leon was her trustee, along with Mr Nicholson, her late father’s lawyer, until she was twenty-one.
‘Jealous, Phoebe?’ he teased back, and, putting the newspaper down on the table, he stood up. ‘There is no need.’
He was tall, well over six feet, and incredibly handsome; he had to be nearly thirty-two now. Far too old for her. But he looked so vitally male, so elegant in his immaculate, conservative three-piece suit, and yet subtly powerful and superbly healthy—which, given his lifestyle, was something of a miracle. If the papers were to be believed, he played as hard as he worked. Fascinated, Bea watched as he strolled around the table and reached out a hand to her.
‘Come on, sweet Phoebe, a walk before I leave. And hopefully we will escape your guardian angel Lil for a while.’
Bea put her hand in his and was pulled to her feet. Five minutes later Leon, still holding her hand, opened the garden gate with his other hand, and then guided her onto the path.
They talked of her exams, her university course, her ambitions. It was only when they were out of sight of the house that Leon suddenly stopped a few feet away from a large willow tree.
‘The infamous tree where you were held captive,’ he declared, and grinned down at her.
Bea tilted her head back. She laughed up at him. ‘Yes, and I haven’t forgotten I got no supper. Because of you, I was confined to my room.’
His dark eyes narrowed for a moment on her young, girlish figure. She was wearing figure-hugging blue jeans and a blue sweatshirt. Her high, firm breasts, clearly defined against the soft fabric, made it obvious she wore no bra. Leon dropped her hand and curved an arm around her waist, pulling her against his lower torso. ‘I wish I could confine you to my room.’
She looked at him, thrilled by his statement, but all her youthful uncertainty was reflected in her wide blue eyes. ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘For heaven’s sake! Don’t look at me like that. You make me feel like... Never mind...’ Leon hesitated, then walked on until they were at the tree. Leaning his back against the trunk, legs splayed, he turned her loosely in the circle of his arms, so she was standing between his hard-muscled thighs.
The light touch of his hands on her waist and the subtle male scent of him both conspired to make her heart leap in her chest. She wanted to move forward, just a fraction, enough to make contact with his hard body, to have that proud head bend and his firm mouth on hers. She didn’t know herself. Bea had never felt like this with any man before. Only Leon had the power to turn her into a quivering heap of over-active nerves, passions, feelings...whatever! She only knew his virile masculine aura was such that it promised everything a female could desire, with the certainty that he could deliver...
‘Did you ever see either of those two little monsters again?’
‘What?’ She jumped as his question cut into her overheated thoughts. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact I did.’
Leon sent her a mocking glance. ‘Not here, I hope. Surely you weren’t stupid enough to be caught twice?’
If Leon had one fault, Bea thought mutinously, it was arrogance. He was so clever, of such towering intellect, he tended to think other people were dumb.
‘No, actually. Jack, the older of the two—not the one who was about to scalp me—’ she clarified, ‘is a good friend. He’s in his second year at Oxford, and doing well, already a rugby blue. We went to a couple of parties together when he was home for the Christmas break; we have the same friends. I got a card from him last week. He’s spending the Easter break in Switzerland. He’s also a keen skier—in fact an all-round sportsman.’ As she spoke what she had wished for earlier happened.
Leon slipped one arm completely around her waist and hauled her hard against him. With his free hand he clasped her chin and tilted her face up to his.
‘Is he now?’ His lips were quirking as he cast her a curious glance. ‘Well, I hope he breaks a leg.’
‘Leon! That’s rotten.’
‘No, realistic,’ he returned with a laugh. ‘If anyone is going to tie you up ever again, it’s going to be me.’ And, swinging around, it was suddenly Bea who had her back against the tree.
‘You wouldn’t, and anyway you have no rope,’ she shot back.
‘Who needs one?’ Leon murmured, and, fastening her to the tree with the pressure of his large body, his dark head bent and his lips brushed softly over hers. ‘Will you let me tie you to me, Phoebe?’ he asked huskily, his teeth nibbling her bottom lip while his hand clasped the nape of her neck and held her head firm. He scattered kisses over her brow, her eyes, her cheekbones, and back down to her softly parted lips.
She was helpless against his gentle persuasion as he trailed kisses down her throat, and then his hand cupped her breast through the thickness of her sweater, his thumb unerringly finding its rigid tip and squeezing ever so slowly. ‘Will you be tied to me, metaphorically speaking, my own sweet Phoebe? Will you be my wife?’
Of course she said yes. She said yes to everything he suggested. Their engagement would be a secret until she had finished school, and on her eighteenth birthday, in August, he would take her to the family villa in Cyprus and declare it to the world. They would marry a few weeks later and, if she liked, she could still go to university.
Bea sailed through her last term at school. Her grief at losing her father at the beginning of the year still lingered, but her love for Leon and knowing he loved her somehow made everything better. She even applied herself to her exams
