‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ He asked immediately.
‘Was your appointment today with Arnaud Lebrun?’ she challenged him.
‘Yes, it was. But—’
Sadie felt sick with shock and pain.
‘Leon, this just isn’t going to work between us!’ she told him fiercely.
‘Last night I thought that perhaps…That given what I believed we felt for one another we might be able to reach a compromise with regard to Francine’s new scent. But though I know that logically I have no right to feel this way because you have approached Lebrun to create a new perfume for you. I just wish you had told me—that’s all. I had hoped that you were prepared to meet me halfway. I just wish that you cared enough—not just about me, but about my professional opinion, my work ethic—to want to find that compromise, just as I want to find it with you! But now…’
‘Sadie—’
‘No. It’s no good. Being involved sexually with you is just not enough for me. And I don’t even think that being involved with you emotionally is either. I’m a modern woman, Leon. I want to play a full role in my partner’s life. I want my own career too.’
‘Sadie, I went to see Lebrun to ask his advice about the feasibility of creating a new scent that was a combination of natural materials and synthetics, that was all! He’s the best in the business and I wanted to see not only if he thought if it could be done but also if it was done if it could be done within a budget that would make it affordable to every woman who wanted to wear it. I’d already decided that I was going to strong-arm my board, even put money in myself, if that was what it took to get the thing off the ground. And do you know why I was doing all that, Sadie? Do you know why I’ve been pacing my bedroom floor at night and staring out of my damn office window instead of concentrating on my business? Do you even care why? Or are you so damned intent on being right that you just can’t see beyond that? I did it for you…for my love for you and our future together. It was for you, Sadie!’
As she stared at him in silence Sadie felt sure she could hear the tiny sound of something precious breaking.
‘You should have trusted me,’ Leon told her angrily, confirming her thoughts. ‘But, no…’
Battling against her tears, Sadie gazed at him.
‘Yes, you’re right—I should,’ she agreed quietly. ‘But that goes both ways, Leon. We’re two people who feel very strongly about certain things inside ourselves. I love you, and—’
‘And I damn well love you,’ Leon growled, giving her a look that made her ache to run into his arms and demand to be told that nothing else mattered other than that love.
But even love could not shut out reality and the world for ever. Buried problems had a way of growing and erupting, and if she and Leon could not reach a compromise…if they could not trust one another now, when their love was new…
‘I asked Lebrun for his opinion because I wanted to come to you and tell you that I had changed my mind. I wanted to give you that change of mind as a gift of my love, Sadie.’
‘I would rather you had given me your trust and treated me as an equal, not as a child to be given “gifts”,’ Sadie told him huskily.
But somehow she had moved, and so had he, and they were once more in each other’s arms. From there it was just a few short, passionate moves to the bed, their discarded clothing littering the floor as they took refuge in the thing that bound them most securely together both physically and emotionally.
Through the blur of her tears Sadie saw the scratches she had left on Leon’s back, scarlet weals of passion, inflicted in an agony of ecstasy he had induced and shared.
‘We can’t go on like this,’ she whispered in despair. ‘How can we be like this with one another when we don’t trust each other? What’s happening to us now is killing me, Leon, and I’m afraid that it will kill our love as well.’
‘I know what you’re saying,’ Leon agreed. ‘We need to start afresh, Sadie. Without any hidden agenda between us. I want you to create a new scent for Francine, but you will have to create it within a certain budget. You need time to think about whether or not you want to do that. And you need time to learn to trust me as well. What do you say to us having three months apart? I know how I feel about you, but you have to trust me, Sadie, and right now I don’t believe that you do.’
‘Three months apart sounds a good idea to me,’ Sadie told him hollowly.
She was lying! Oh, how she was lying! The very thought of spending three hours apart from Leon right now was almost more than she could bear, but her pride would not allow her to say so. Why hadn’t he just talked to her, instead of consulting Lebrun? Didn’t he trust her?
Listening to Sadie agree to his plan, Leon clenched his jaw. How could he be such a fool? Right now what he longed to do more than anything else was pick Sadie up and carry her off somewhere he could have her all to himself—and for ever!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SADIE’S hand trembled as she stoppered the small precious bottle and wrapped it carefully in bubble wrap.
Her ticket was booked and there was no way she was going to give in to the nervousness and self-doubt that were making her hands tremble so much.
But what if, when she got to France, Leon reminded her that it was only three weeks since they had last been together and refused to see her? What if he insisted that they stick to their agreement not to see one another for three months? Or what if he had changed his mind altogether and simply no longer wanted her? What if…?
Sadie impatiently dismissed her wayward thoughts. Her flight was booked and her bag packed. Now all she needed to do was to place this precious phial of hope and love and compromise in her bag.
She was waiting in the departure lounge when her mobile rang. Answering it, she way surprised to hear Mary’s voice.
‘Sadie, where are you?’ Mary demanded.
‘At the airport,’ Sadie replied. ‘My flight has just been called, Mary.’ She stood up to go and join the queue lining up for boarding.
‘Stop right where you are,’ she heard Mary urging. ‘And if you aren’t sitting down then I think you ought to be!’ she added dramatically, pausing theatrically before continuing, ‘You’ve got a visitor, Sadie.’
‘A visitor?’
Sadie felt her hand start to tremble and then her whole body as the small burst of aching disbelief inside her flowered warmly into hope.
Her mouth dry, she begged. ‘Is it…is it Leon, Mary?’
It couldn’t be, of course, and she was every kind of fool for even thinking that it might be, but…
>
‘You’d just better come home,’ Mary answered her obliquely. ‘And you’d better get back here fast, because if you don’t I might just be tempted to make off with him myself.’
It was the longest drive of Sadie’s life! Mary hadn’t said specifically that it was Leon who was her visitor, but Sadie hoped and prayed with every mile passing that it was. And that he would wait. And that he would listen. And that he would still want her. And…Her heart jerked, the uneven beat sending her pulse-rate scattering live bolts of nervous excitement through her body.
Please let it be Leon.
It was dark when she finally arrived home, and at first Sadie didn’t see the dusty black Mercedes pulled to one side of her drive.
She was still focusing on it when the door of the house opened and Leon came walking out. How had he got in? Sadie momentarily wondered. Mary, of course! She had a spare key!
‘Le—’
She didn’t even get as far as finishing saying his name before she was dragged into his arms and kissed until she could hardly breathe.
‘It is you. You are here!’ she whispered shakily She was too thrilled to bother to hide her joy. ‘Mary wouldn’t say, but I hoped, and…Leon. Mmm…’ She protested as he started to kiss her again, until somehow she discovered that they were both inside her house and the door was closed firmly behind them, shutting out the outside world.
‘Let me look at you,’ Leon demanded rawly, cupping her face and studying her features. ‘You’ve lost weight,’ he accused her gruffly.
‘A little,’ Sadie admitted, still breathless from his kisses. Inside her body the ache of longing which had begun pulsing there long before she had even got as far as the airport, never mind learned that Leon was here in her home, had become a demanding urge of embarrassing intensity. To try to ease it she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and then gasped as she inadvertently bumped into him.