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Immediately her body reacted and she tensed. Alix shot her a look before sliding the ring onto her ring finger and Leila held her breath. It was as if the fates and the entire universe were conspiring against her, because it fitted her perfectly.
Alix’s hand was very dark next to her paler one, his fingers long and masculine. Hers looked tiny in comparison.
He didn’t let her go and she looked up, confused.
Alix’s expression was unreadable. ‘There’s one more thing.’
‘More jewellery? I really don’t need—’
But her words were cut off when Alix’s head lowered and his mouth slanted over hers. She was so shocked she didn’t react for a second, and that gave Alix the opportunity to coax open her mouth and deepen the kiss.
When Leila recovered her wits she tried to pull away, but Alix had a hand at the back of her head and stopped her from retreating. Everything sane in Leila was screaming at her to push him away, but her body was exulting in the kiss, drinking him in as if she’d been starved in a desert for weeks and had just found life-restoring water.
His scent intoxicated her, and before Leila could stop herself she was clutching at Alix’s jacket and pressing her body closer to his.
A sharp rap at the door broke through the fog and Alix broke contact. Leila didn’t have time to curse him or herself, because Andres was popping his head around the door and saying, ‘They’re ready for you.’
Alix said abruptly, ‘We’ll be right there.’
Andres disappeared and Leila realised she was still clinging onto Alix’s jacket. He was barely touching her. She took a step back. He was looking at her almost warily, as if she might explode. And she had almost exploded—in his arms. It was galling.
‘What was that in aid of?’ Her tongue felt too large for her mouth.
‘The world’s press are waiting for us downstairs. We need to convince them that this was a lovers’ tiff and we are now happily reunited. That the pregnancy is the happy catalyst that has brought us back together.’
The speed and equanimity with which Alix seemed to be reacting to this whole situation, not to mention his attention to detail—that kiss—just confirmed for Leila how ruthless he was. And how she’d never really known him.
She wanted to kick off her heels and run as fast as she could for as long as she could. But she couldn’t. Together they had created a baby, and that baby had to come first. Exactly as Alix had said.
She smoothed clammy hands down her dress and drew her shoulders straight. ‘Very well—we shouldn’t keep them waiting, then, should we?’
Alix watched Leila walk to the door and open it. Her spine was as straight as a dancer’s and her bearing was more innately regal than any blue-blooded princess he’d ever met. Something like admiration mounted inside him, cutting through the eddying swirl of lust that still held his body in a state of heightened awareness and uncomfortable arousal.
He’d tried to block out the effect she had on him, telling himself it couldn’t possibly have been as intense as he’d thought. But it had been more.
CHAPTER NINE
THE PLANE THAT was taking them to Isle Saint Croix was bigger than the plane Alix had used before. The fact that Leila had only ever travelled on private jets was something she should have found ironically amusing, but she couldn’t drum up much of a sense of lightness now.
The press conference had passed in a blur of shouted questions and popping cameras. Leila had just about managed to lock her legs in place so they hadn’t wobbled in front of everyone.
Andres had sent someone to retrieve her m
ost important and portable possessions from her apartment and they were in a trunk in the hold.
Alix’s staff, whom she’d seen in the suite in Paris, were all down at the back of the plane now, including Andres, and she and Alix were alone in the luxurious front. There was a sitting room, dining room and bedroom with en-suite bathroom. Stewards had offered dinner, but Leila had only been able to pick at it. Her stomach was too tied up in knots.
She thought of how Alix had responded to a question about her father at the press conference.
He’d said curtly, ‘If Alain Bastineau is so certain he is not my fiancée’s father, then let him prove it with a DNA test.’
Huskily Leila said now, ‘When they asked about my father...you didn’t need to respond like that.’
Alix looked at her. ‘Yes, I did. Any man who rejects his own child is not a man. You’re to be the Queen of Isle Saint Croix and I will not allow you to be speculated about in that way.’
Immediately Leila felt deflated. He’d only stood up for her because of concerns for his own reputation. She’d been stupid to see anything else in it, however tenuous.
‘You need to eat more—you’ve lost weight.’
