that a little bizarre?
Had he reached a stage where novelty was so compelling? He had nothing against marriage, per se. He assumed he would marry eventually. Someone suitable. Someone from an equally wealthy background. He had had a narrow and salutary escape years ago, from a woman who had played the hard to get game to perfection. She had teased him for just the right length of time, convinced him of her shyness and her indifference to his money... Her real agenda had been uncovered only because he had happened to overhear a conversation she’d had on the phone to her mother...
So, sure, he would marry in due course—someone he knew was not after his money. His sisters were all married, after all, and his parents had had a long and satisfying marriage. He could enjoy the freedom of a bachelor life for as long as he wanted. But how satisfying, exactly, had that been of late?
He frowned and thought of the women who had cluttered his life over the years. Beautiful, sexy, compliant, always willing to fall in with whatever he wanted. On paper, it sounded good enough, but the reality of it was slightly different. His boredom threshold was narrowing with each passing relationship. The thrill of the chase had vanished a long time ago.
* * *
‘The earliest flight I could get was for the day after tomorrow,’ Emily said now with staccato crispness.
She wondered where he was now. Back at his apartment? In a restaurant waiting for some hot date? She didn’t want to waste time taking any mental detours in search of such details.
‘Time?’
She told him. Just vocalising the details of their flights brought home to her the reality of the trip.
‘Take tomorrow off,’ he said wryly. ‘I expect you’ll have all sorts of...things to do before we go...’
‘That’s fine.’ Emily adopted her best businesslike voice. ‘I’m sure there will be things that need completing on the work front before—’
‘Emily,’ he interrupted decisively, ‘I’ll be in before seven tomorrow morning. I’ll make sure whatever needs doing gets done.’
‘But won’t you want me to take care of the work transfer? Get Ruth on board to field the correspondence...?’
‘We’re not travelling to the outer ends of the Amazonian rainforest,’ he informed her. ‘There will be an internet connection. The bulk of the correspondence will be dealt with by us. You can see it as work as usual bar a change of scenery.’
‘Oh, good,’ Emily breathed.
Instantly Leandro had to fight down a spurt of annoyance.
‘Which doesn’t mean,’ he added, ‘that I’m expecting you to pack your starchy suits and high-heeled shoes...’
‘I do realise that that wouldn’t be appropriate,’ Emily snapped.
‘The swimming pool will be up and functioning...’
Emily pretended not to hear that. ‘Will you want me to meet you at the airport?’
‘I’ll send my driver for you. Or I can swing by your place and get you en route...’
‘That won’t be necessary!’
She shuddered at the thought of Leandro Perez seeing where she lived. If he were curious about her now, then he would certainly be collapsing under the weight of questions should he ever step foot in her house and see her sparse, substandard surroundings.
‘And it won’t be necessary for you to send your driver for me, Leandro. If you don’t trust the public transport system, then I’m happy to get a taxi and charge it to the company.’
‘Fine.’ He banked down his irritation.
A fortnight in the Caribbean... Sure, there would be work to be done, but still...sun, sea and sand.
A driver to fetch her and her enthusiasm was nil. But then...
His mind swung back to the mystery fiancé about whom he knew nothing.
‘So, what did...I forget his name...have to say about your trip abroad with the boss?’ Leandro asked, smoothly diverting the conversation to a destination which spiked his curiosity. ‘All hunky-dory with the time you’re going to be spending with me?’
‘Why shouldn’t he be?’
Emily tried and failed to imagine the situation Leandro was hinting at...a jealous lover laying down ground rules, maybe phoning every hour on the hour just to make sure that nothing untoward was going on... And then she went hot at realising where her mind was heading.
She could virtually hear the sound of him shrugging nonchalantly down the end of the line.
How had they managed to travel to this place where their conversations led away from work onto treacherous quicksand? Where her grip was so uncertain? Even removed from his presence, in the sanctuary of her own office, she could feel herself burning as her blood thickened and her mouth dried up.
Her breasts felt suddenly heavy, her nipples tingly and sensitive, and a rush of pure shame flooded her. Whatever this door was that had opened up a crack between them, she was determined to shove herself against it as hard as she could until it was closed again.
‘Well, if you’re absolutely sure that you won’t need me at work tomorrow...’
Leandro gritted his teeth as she once again skirted around the conversation he found he was keen to have. The eager, obliging and annoyingly forthcoming women he was used to had faded completely in their attractiveness. He marvelled that he had not become irritated with them before. Compared to Emily’s sparing, guarded, tightly controlled boundaries, they now seemed utterly lacking in any sense of challenge.
And a good challenge had always been something he enjoyed getting his teeth into.
‘Absolutely... Go out and have some retail therapy...’
‘I don’t do retail therapy,’ Emily responded automatically.
‘All women do retail therapy.’
‘All the women you know do retail therapy. At any rate, I shall take the time to pack and...and...’
‘And...?’
‘There are a couple of things that I shall need to do before I leave... It’s a long time to be out of the country...’
‘A fortnight?’
Emily sighed. Leandro Perez was persistent. If he wanted to acquire something he acquired it—whatever obstacles got thrown in his way. It was just the way he was built. He had once told her in passing, over a meal delivered to his office courtesy of one of the top restaurants in London because they had needed food after twelve hours of solid work on a thorny deal, that persistence was a gene he had inherited from his father.
‘He taught me,’ Leandro had said drily, ‘that if you want something you have to go for it, and that the things you most want seldom drop into your lap like ripe fruit falling from a tree...’
Emily
