Leila was easy to talk to. Disturbingly easy to talk to. He’d told her things that he’d never discussed with anyone else. Not even Andres.
And their chemistry was still white-hot. Alix frowned. He knew he had to let Leila go. Within days the news was going to break that Alix’s people had voted for him to return to Isle Saint Croix. His life would not be his own any more. And he couldn’t return to the island with a mistress. It would undo all his hard work. He had to return alone, and then find a wife.
He felt heavy inside, all of a sudden. And then Leila looked up and spotted him, a smile spreading across her face. She said something to the gardener and shook his hand. The old man looked comically delighted with himself and Alix shook his head. The Leila effect. Yesterday he’d found her in the kitchen, showing Matilde how to make a genuine hot Indian vegetarian curry.
She hurried towards him now with a box in her hand, dressed for travelling in slim-fitting trousers and a sleeveless cashmere top. He drank her in greedily...something elemental inside him growled hungrily. He wasn’t ready to let her go—and yet how could he keep her?
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.’
Alix smiled even as an audacious idea occurred to him. ‘You didn’t. Was Lucas helpful?’
Leila smiled. ‘Amazingly! He’s even given me some flower cuttings to take home in special preservative bags. I’ve never smelled anything like them. If I can just distil their essences somehow—’ She broke off, embarrassed. ‘Sorry—we should get going, shouldn’t we?’
Alix’s chest felt tight. ‘Yes, we should. The plane is waiting.’
‘I’ll just get my handbag.’
Leila moved to go inside, but then stopped beside Alix and looked up at him. Her voice was husky. ‘Thank you...this has been truly magical.’
He reached out and cupped her jaw, running his thumb across the fullness of her lower lip. ‘Yes, it has,’ he agreed.
And right then he knew that he wasn’t ready to let Leila go, and that whatever it took to keep that from happening, he would do it.
* * *
‘Stay with me tonight?’
Leila looked at Alix across the back seat of his chauffeur-driven car. It was very late—after midnight—and the rain-wet streets of Paris were like an alien landscape to Leila. She realised she hadn’t even missed it. And she also realised that, in spite of her best intentions, she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Alix.
She nodded jerkily and said, ‘Okay.’
The Place Vendôme was empty when they arrived, and they were escorted into the hotel with discreet efficiency. It gave Leila a bit of a jolt to see how the staff fawned over Alix, and how he instantly seemed to morph into someone more aloof, austere. She’d forgotten for a moment who he was.
When they entered his suite, low lamps were burning. Alix took off his jacket and Leila walked over to the window, feeling restless all of a sudden. She could see her shop, dark and empty, and a faint prickle of foreboding caused her to shiver minutely.
Then she saw Alix in the reflection of the window. He was looking at her. She turned around. The air shimmered between them. He came towards her and in a bid to break the intensity Leila glanced away, still a little overwhelmed by how much he made her feel.
And then something caught her eye on a nearby table, and when it registered she let out a gasp. ‘Oh, no!’
Alix had spotted what Leila had spotted just a second afterwards and he cursed silently and vowed to have whoever had left the papers here sacked.
It was a popular French tabloid magazine and there was a picture on the front. A picture of Alix and Leila on a beach. They’d gone there the day before. They were sprawled in the sand, their swimwear leaving little to the imagination, but they were not naked, thankfully. Her face was turned away, up to his, so she wasn’t identifiable—but he was.
Leila had already picked it up, but Alix whipped it out of her hands and threw it away. He said urgently, ‘They didn’t get your face...it’s okay.’
She was pale, shocked. She looked up at him. ‘You knew about this?’
Alix’s conscience stung so much it hurt. Funny, he’d never considered himself to have much of a conscience. Before.
‘My assistant sends me updates on any news coverage.’
Leila looked wounded. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Alix gritted his jaw. ‘Because I was hoping you wouldn’t see it.’
Leila waved an arm. ‘Well, the whole of France has seen it now.’ She looked down to where the magazine was on the floor and read out, ‘“Who is the exiled King’s latest mystery flame?”’
Alix caught her chin and moved it towards him. He felt her resistance. When she was looking at him he said, ‘They don’t know who you are and I’ll make sure they won’t. Please—trust me.’
Something moved across her face—some expression that Alix didn’t like. Eventually she said, ‘This has to end after tonight, Alix. I’m not made for your world and I don’t want to be dragged through the papers as just another one of your women.’
Alix rejected everything she said, and a sense of desperation rose up inside him—that need to make her his. But he couldn’t articulate it. So instead he used his mouth, moving it over hers, willing her to respond—and she did, because she was as helpless against this as he was.
* * *
The following morning when Leila woke up it took her a long time to orientate herself. She was in a massive bed, with the most luxurious coverings she’d ever felt. She was naked and alone. And her body ached. Between her legs she was tender.
And then it all flooded back. Alix had led her in here last night and stripped her bare, as reverently as if she was something precious. Then he’d laid her down and subjected Leila to what could only be described as a sensual attack.
An attack that had been fully consensual.
It was as if everything he’d taught her had been only the first level, and his lovemaking last night had shown her that there could be so much more. Alix hadn’t been tender or gentle. He’d been fierce, bordering on rough, but Leila blushed when she thought of how she’d revelled in it, meeting him every step of the way, exulting in it, spurring him on, raking her nails down his back, begging hoarsely for more, harder, deeper...
Even the fact that her picture had been in that magazine, albeit not identifiable, had faded into the background now.
She had a vague memory of finally falling asleep around dawn, with Alix’s arms tight around her. Leila frowned as another memory struggled to break through her sluggish thought processes. Alix had kissed the back of her head and said, ‘You’re not going anywhere...this isn’t over...’
Leila frowned. Had she heard that? And what could it mean? The prospect that Alix had decided that something more permanent might
