She had nearly half an hour to waste before her meeting, so Sadie thought she might as well wander through the hotel’s gardens. But she would not follow the path where Leon had kissed her for the first time!
On the balcony of his suite Leon tensed as he looked out of the window and saw Sadie slowly walking through the garden. He tried to close his mind and his heart to the effect the sight of her was having on him, but it was impossible! His body had already made its feelings perfectly clear.
As he watched he saw Sadie turn and start in the opposite direction.
Unable to stop himself, he left his balcony, taking the flight of stone steps that led directly into the gardens two at a time, and calling out her name as he followed her down the path.
The moment she heard Leon calling her name Sadie froze. Somehow she made herself turn round and confront him.
He looked grimly forbidding, and for a moment her own resolve faltered. This was a business meeting—nothing more, she reminded herself. If she had hopes and dreams that were not going to be fulfilled, then she had only herself to blame.
Silently she fell into step beside him, careful to keep a clear distance between their bodies and he escorted her back towards his suite.
‘Is Raoul here?’ she asked, and then frowned as her mobile rang.
Excusing herself, she fished it out of her bag, her frown deepening when she realised that the caller was Raoul himself.
‘Sadie—I just thought I’d let you know that I have decided it’s best if you and Leon sort out your differences alone. Leon knows that I am not the one holding up completion of the acquisition. And you know how very important it is to me that this deal goes through. As your cousin, I beg you to remember this and to—’
‘Raoul, I am with Leon now,’ Sadie interrupted him sharply. ‘Where are you? Why aren’t you—?’
She gave a small hiss of exasperation as Raoul immediately ended the call.
‘That was Raoul,’ she told Leon. ‘He—’
‘I gathered what he said,’ Leon informed her curtly.
They had reached the stone staircase now, and Leon stood to one side to allow Sadie to precede him. Warily, she did so.
‘Raoul wants me to agree to sell my share of the business to you,’ she told Leon. ‘I understand that you have advanced certain monies to him and that legally you are entitled to demand their repayment in full.’
‘And so, to protect Raoul from such a fate, you are willing to—?’
‘I am willing to sell my share of Francine to you, Leon. That is all I offer. Nothing else.’
She had just started to mount the steps but stopped, turning to look at him. He was still a couple of stairs lower, and Sadie suddenly became aware that they were on the same eye level.
Disconcertingly, she realised that Leon’s gaze had dropped to her mouth. And that her mouth had suddenly become soft and eager with the memory of his kisses. Sadie could swear she felt her lips warming and parting, almost pouting as they gloried in Leon’s visual attention.
And what was sauce for the goose…
Whilst Leon’s attention was so engaged there was nothing to stop her from looking at him…at his face, his skin, his own mouth.
She was losing it, and in a big, big way, Sadie recognised helplessly when she heard herself give a small betraying moan as she leaned hungrily towards him.
‘Sadie!’
Was that a warning to stay away from him, or a warning that he could not…?
‘Sadie?’
‘Leon…’ Sadie was shocked to discover herself murmuring his name against his jaw, and to note that she was wrapped wonderfully and blissfully tightly in his arms. She was perfectly sure that if she turned her head, like this…
A shock of savagely hot pleasure burned through her as she returned the fierce passion of Leon’s kiss, somehow managing to wriggle her arms free so that she could fling them around him to hold him as tightly as he was holding her.
The unashamed hardness of his arousal against her body reminded her vividly of last night’s dreams. But this wasn’t a dream. This was wonderfully, gorgeously real!
Behind her closed eyelids, Sadie could see a bed, a large, wonderful bed, in a shadowy private room. And on those bed she could see Leon naked, aroused, reaching for her…
Leon, who had rejected her, who had compared her to a woman he hated…a woman who—
‘No!’
Fiercely, Sadie pushed Leon away.
‘This isn’t why I’m here, Leon,’ she told him firmly, quickly turning her head so that he wouldn’t have the opportunity to look into her eyes and see just how very vulnerable to him she actually was. After all, she had her pride, didn’t she? She wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to reject her a second time, was she?
‘As I’ve already said, for Raoul’s sake I am prepared to sell my share of Francine to you. So, now you’ve got what you want, if you don’t mind I—’
‘Got what I want? And if I haven’t got everything I want?’ Leon asked softly.
Sadie could feel her heart hammering against her ribcage This wasn’t a verbal prelude to a declaration of love or a plea for understanding and forgiveness, she told herself quickly. So there was no point in her stupid heart hoping that it was. Leon just wasn’t that kind of man. Leon didn’t want her. He wanted…
‘I haven’t changed my mind about the Myrrh formula, Leon—that formula was entrusted to me by my grandmother. Its history meant a great deal to her. If I were to sell it or change it in any way—’ Her mouth twisted with bitter sadness. ‘But of course I can hardly expect you to understand how I feel, can I? After all, in your eyes I’m another Miranda Stanton. I knew from your tone of voice that you were insulting me, Leon, but I didn’t realise just how much until I read up on just what she had done! I can understand how frightened and vulnerable you must have felt when she—’
‘I felt no such thing!’
The harshness in his voice made Sadie turn her head to look at him. It was obvious that she had found a chink in his emotional armour, but that knowledge made her feel more sad than triumphant.
‘Have you any idea how I felt, knowing you had compared me to her Leon? A woman so morally deficient, a woman who delighted
in hurting others, in cheating them for her own selfish ends?’
Every word Sadie said was making Leon feel increasingly uncomfortable and angry. He had spent the whole of the previous two days talking with one of the French perfume industry’s foremost chemists, trying to find out if there was a way that he and Sadie could reach a compromise over the creation of a new scent, so that he could tell her…But clearly all she wanted to do was touch an old but still raw wound he had no wish to have prodded and probed.
‘Sadie, I know you’re no Miranda. I…’ He pushed his hand into his hair and gave a small exasperated shrug.
‘Oh, you say that now, Leon, when you want me to agree to sell my share in Francine,’ Sadie told him coldly. ‘But there really isn’t any need for you to lie to me. I’ve already told you I—’
‘Lie to you! What the hell—! My God, Sadie I’m doing my damnedest to build bridges here, but as fast as I try you go pulling them down.’
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Sadie told him. ‘I’m not a complete fool, Leon—no matter what you might think. I can do simple maths and add up two and two, you know. You think that every woman you come across in business is potentially another Miranda, and I can understand why you’re afraid of history repeating itself, but—’
‘Hell and damn it, Sadie, I am not afraid of anything or anyone,’ Leon growled savagely. ‘And right now you are seriously off topic.’
‘Yes, you are, Leon,’ Sadie countered simply. ‘You’re afraid now and you will continue to be afraid all your life—unless you learn to let go of the past and—’
Sadie gave a small gasp of shock as suddenly she was in Leon’s arms and the words she had been about to speak were smothered by the hot pressure of his mouth grinding down fiercely on hers.
She ought to stop him. She knew that. Or at least her head knew it. Her body might know it, but if it did it certainly didn’t seem to care, because it was reacting to him with love-crazed enthusiasm: her lips softening and parting, her tongue stroking hungrily against his, her arms lifting to hold him equally as tightly as he was holding her. Her body was pressing itself into him, her hips grinding achingly against the hard thrust of his erection.