A Greek Escape(37)
LOOKING BACK, LEONIDAS wasn’t sure how he had managed to stop himself making love to Kayla that afternoon. Heaven knew he had wanted to. A fact not made any easier by the knowledge of how much she had wanted him, too. But there were ethics to be observed, and there was no way that he could have taken all she had been offering when he wasn’t being straight with her. It had all boiled down to guilt, he decided shamefully. Guilt because he wasn’t telling her the truth.
But the truth was that he had come here to be alone. Not to indulge in any social or sexual entanglements with a girl who could carry him along with her ridiculous yet infectious sense of make-believe. Well, make-believe to her, at any rate. Because he could afford that island, had it been for sale—and a dozen like it, did she but know it. But it seemed like a lifetime since he had indulged in that childish game, and he had found it oddly refreshing.
In the world he moved in there was no room for fantasising or dreaming. Only for cold hard facts and figures. Securing deals. That was living the dream. Or so he had thought.
Until now, though, he hadn’t begun to realise how deeply and for how long his dreams had been buried. Firstly by his father, and then more recently beneath the weight of his own responsibilities. He had been so busy making money—reaping the benefits of all he had worked for during the past decade or more—that he hadn’t taken the time even to question where those dreams had gone. And now this little nobody had come along, making him question his values. He was annoyed with himself for allowing her to get under his skin to such a degree. But that didn’t change the fact that he wanted her more than he had wanted any woman in a long time—much less one who would have been in her own marriage bed right now if things had worked out as they should have.
A hard possessiveness kicked in as he imagined her naked with the faceless, double-crossing character who had betrayed her—he could only temper his indignation at the thought of the two of them together by imagining himself in Kayla’s bed. And that brought other problems as his body hardened in response to imagining her sobs of pure pleasure directed at him and him alone as he made himself master of her body.
But things couldn’t go on as they were. He was either going to have to come clean at some stage, he decided grimly, or end their relationship before it went any further. Neither prospect filled him with any pleasure.
He knew exactly what she thought about company men, and after the experience she had had with that lowest of the low fiancé of hers—not to mention her father—she’d be blameless for thinking he was no better. Yet staying away from her wasn’t an option he welcomed either. He was just relieved that his secretary had e-mailed him with some plans that needed his urgent attention, so that for today at least he didn’t have to think about how he could come clean with Kayla. However he chose to tell her, he knew she wasn’t going to welcome finding out…
When Leon didn’t put in an appearance that day, and didn’t come down the next morning, Kayla jumped at Philomena’s suggestion that she drive up to the farmhouse with some bread Philomena had just baked.
She’d scarcely given a thought to her ex since Leon had taken her over to that island, she realised, noticing how it seemed to shimmer in the morning sun. She couldn’t help marvelling at the difference between the two men and wondering what she had ever seen in Craig.
Had her love for him been so shallow that the first man who came along could make her forget him and the hurt he had caused her so completely? But then Leon wasn’t just any man, she reminded herself, with a sudden tightening of her breasts and that familiar stirring of heat at the very heart of her femininity. He made her feel like no other man had ever made her feel.
A throbbing excitement leaped along her veins at the memory of their afternoon on that islet, when he had driven her crazy for him, playing with her like a love-toy, winding her up only to let her run wild with delirious sensation as he had taken her to heights her mental and physical being had never scaled before.
She had wanted him so much! And it had been patently obvious that he wanted her. So why hadn’t he taken their lovemaking to its ultimate conclusion? Was it because there was someone else? But he had called her imaginative when she had broached the subject with him, so perhaps it was simply that he didn’t think she was ready to embark on a relationship with him—in which case, she decided with a delicious little shiver, it was up to her to show him that she was.
When she arrived at the farmhouse her heart gave a little leap when she saw the truck parked outside.