at five-thirty, Becky, and so have I.’
She deliberately presented Leandro with her back to attend to some imaginary ‘necessary’ task, but not before she saw him push the envelope he’d written on further up the desk towards her …
CHAPTER FIVE
ISABELLA walked up and down the smart London street with its ‘perfect’ but way out of her price range terraced houses twice before plucking up the courage to ring the bell at the address that Leandro had given her. Number Sixty-six. Sixes and threes were always lucky for Isabella and she could certainly use some good fortune now, given the task ahead of her.
How would he take to the news that he was a father? Would he show her the door and tell her that he didn’t want anything to do with either her or their child ever again? Isabella told herself that she was quite prepared for such an eventuality even though it would be dreadfully hard to bear. Leandro was, after all, no ‘innocent’ party she was wilfully trying to implicate. They had both had an equal part in creating Isabella’s gorgeous little boy and it had been heartbreaking for her not to even be able to tell him about what had happened after she’d left the Port of Vigo and perhaps share the anxieties of her pregnancy and Raphael’s birth with him—instead of going it alone all this time.
Well …she’d learned a tough lesson but Isabella wasn’t resentful. How could she be when she had Raphael? Motherhood had definitely changed her for the better and she’d met the challenges with courage and resourcefulness. And although admittedly in an ideal world it would have been preferable and perhaps easier to be part of a couple, she had nonetheless become a very capable single parent. So, it wasn’t as though she needed Leandro’s help or intervention, was it? She was merely going to tell him the truth at last. Even though she’d no doubt be emotionally crushed by his rejection when confronted with it face to face …’Come on, Isabella, you can do this!’
Turning up the collar of her long winter coat to help fend off the freezing night air, she finally plucked up the courage to press the doorbell.
He had been like a man anticipating an urgent visit from his lawyer and a quick thankful release after being unlawfully detained in prison—such was Leandro’s impatience and insistent craving to see Isabella again. He could not remember the last time that he had done so much useless pacing in all his life! Picking up the screenplay that he had been in consultation with his script editor with for most of the morning, which—if he was honest—he was still vaguely unhappy with, he silently cursed his too distracted mind for making it almost impossible for him to concentrate. Rescuing the mug of strong black coffee that he’d made himself earlier, which was rapidly chilling since his thoughts had been so preoccupied, he settled himself determinedly in his friend Richard’s agreeably comfortable high-backed armchair and struck his long legs out towards the fire blazing in the Edwardian fireplace. Resting his bare feet on the matching well-used footstool, he endeavoured to overcome his persistent preoccupation and try to relax instead. But it was just too hard to stop thinking about Isabella.
Seeing her at the library earlier had activated a need in him that he could scarce believe. Had he ever felt this agitated about seeing a particular woman before? He didn’t think so …In fact nearly all of his previous girlfriends had accused him of being far too aloof and distant and not nearly as attentive as they would like …including the girl who had betrayed him with another man. When the doorbell sounded suddenly, chiming its incongruous cheerful tune throughout the house, Leandro bit back a relieved curse and levered his athletic frame with fluid ease out of his chair. Discarding the too cold mug of coffee on a small side-table, he drew in his breath and padded out in his bare feet to the sedately decorated corridor to answer the door. ‘Sedate’ because he’d wryly observed that the English seemed to have something against the use of bright vivid colour in their homes. Maybe it was something to do with the long months of ‘grey’ weather they had to endure?
Madre mia! Leandro’s second sighting of Isabella’s smiling but apprehensive beautiful face in the space of two short hours set his heart to racing. A surge of pleasure so profound captivating him, he found himself momentarily at a loss for words.
‘Hello,’ she greeted him softly, holding the collar of her coat tightly together with one pale slim hand—her protective action and pinked cheeks reminding Leandro just how severely the temperatures had dropped since the morning.
‘Isabella …Come in.’
Moving aside, he suddenly detected something different about her that he hadn’t noticed before. What it was he did not know, because she was, in his eyes, lovelier than ever. As she passed him Leandro was aware of so many things about her that aroused him all at once. From the scent of the sharp cold air that clung to her clothing, to the deep sexy sheen of her blue-black hair beneath the hall light and her delicate, yet almost defiant jaw. A jaw that declared the señorita had claws beneath that deceptively sweet demeanour and should not be underestimated. Had he not had a glimpse of her temper in the library earlier?
Idly wondering how soon it would take him to turn that ignited passion to his own advantage should it arise again, Leandro could not help smiling in secret delectation at the libidinous nature of his thoughts. In the past eighteen months he had been around several lovely feminine creatures—mostly in the arena of his work—and none of them had had such a startling effect on his libido as this woman. In fact as Isabella brushed by him in the small compact hallway the heady pleasure that had mesmerised Leandro on immediate sight returned twice as vehemently. He cleared his throat as he shut the door behind them both, silently advising himself to rein in the trail of lust she unwittingly left in her wake.
‘Turn to your left,’ he instructed a little hoarsely. ‘There is a fire in there to warm you.’
Surveying her with almost jealous possession as she went and stood near the fireplace and stretched out her hands towards the bright dancing flames, Leandro realised it was a supreme test of strength to tear his hungry gaze away for even a moment. It would have been entirely natural to perhaps assume that the time they had been apart had diluted the fierce attraction that Leandro had experienced towards Isabella practically on sight—but he was discovering to his immense satisfaction, that the reverse was true.
‘You have no need of your coat now that you are inside. Here, let me take it.’
Before Isabella could properly compose her nerves, he was at her side, distracting her intensely with his disturbing presence. Her senses were immediately enraptured by the alluring warmth from his body and the disarming masculinity that electrified the air and seemed to be able to make her thoughts focus on not much else but sex. Her knees trembled as he dutifully waited for her to unbutton her coat and pass it to him. When she did, his returning, distinctly flirtatious glance kept her feet rooted to the floor. It was a wonder that smoke hadn’t appeared! Now as she stood before him in the outfit she had so carefully selected to wear this evening to tell him her momentous news she worried that the plain black long-sleeved dress that skimmed her narrow waist and fell in fluid, easy lines to her knees was a little too severe. A little too staid and ‘old maid-ish.’ Well, it was too late now to do anything about it. All Isabella had been mindful of was dressing appropriately in deference to the gravity of what she had to reveal to Leandro.
When he returned from the hallway where he had briefly disappeared to take care of her coat, Isabella glanced quickly away from those ‘heat-inducing’ eyes of his with a jolt. The truth was, it was hard to rest her gaze for long on Leandro Reyes without feeling herself coming apart. He was so ruggedly handsome with his disreputably mussed dark hair and disturbing quicksilver gaze that a girl would have to have zero sex-drive and be deprived of all her senses not to be turned on by just the sight of him. The things an ordinary pair of softly faded denim jeans and a loose white shirt could do to that mouth-wateringly
