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Leon laughed softly. ‘But this time will be different,’ he promised, adding ruefully, ‘If only because the good doctor prescribed rest and no excitement!’ Taking her by surprise, he kissed the top of her nose, then released her. ‘Now,’ he said on a complete change of subject, ‘I want to know your opinion of boats.’
‘Boats?’ She just stared blankly at him. ‘What have boats got to do with anything?’ she demanded bewilderedly.
‘A lot if you like them,’ he replied. ‘Nothing if you are prone to seasickness. Your body has enough to contend with from that particular malady without my wanting to worsen it.’
Jemma lowered her eyes, refusing to tell him that she had not felt sick once since he arrived back in her life. The doctor had hinted at worry and stress as being the culprit. And she was beginning to believe he was right.
Heart sickness, not morning sickness? that small voice inside her head suggested.
‘Are you?’
‘What?’ She glanced up at him, having lost the thread of the conversation in the tangle of her own troublesome thoughts.
‘Prone to seasickness.’ He sighed out patiently as if he were talking to a child.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘I used to belong to a sailing club when I was a teenager. And I did a bit of sailing with Trina last Christmas when we were in Barbados without feeling any ill effects. But I don’t see—’
‘Good,’ he cut in. ‘Because I have one—or,’ he then amended wryly, ‘I have a yacht. The doctor prescribed rest, good food and no excitement for the next few weeks while we bring you back into decent health, and I cannot think of a better place to ensure all three than cruising the Greek islands on my y
acht with the most exquisite chef your tastebuds have ever encountered. What do you think?’
What did she think? For the first time since he had walked back into her life, she felt the stirring of pleasure. ‘I think it sounds lovely, but...’
‘No buts,’ he dismissed arrogantly. ‘We will pick the yacht up in Corfu on Tuesday, and work our way south through the Ionian islands—a good idea for a honeymoon, eh?’
Honeymoon? Jemma couldn’t help it, she shuddered, the whole idea sounding utterly hypocritical to her. ‘You don’t have to put the rest of your life on hold for me, Leon,’ she told him huskily. ‘I am quite aware that I must have messed up your...schedule enough as it is!’
‘Have you?’ he murmured thoughtfully. Then, ‘Yes, I suppose you have,’ he agreed. ‘Still,’ he added with a careless shrug, ‘that is what we will do. Now,’ he went on before she had a chance to make up her mind whether to be hurt or not by his answer, ‘I’m hungry. Let’s go and see what there is to eat.’
They ate in the kitchen with no formality, just as they used to do before. And Jemma was rather surprised at how easily they slipped back into their old easy ways. By the time they had cleared away, her long day had thoroughly caught up with her, and she couldn’t stifle a weary yawn.
‘Bed,’ Leon commanded, turning her towards the stairs. ‘There are five bedrooms up there, agape mou. Take your pick.’ It was a reassurance and the allowance of one small victory for her. Jemma accepted it with a tired smile and a contrary sense of disappointment inside. ‘Take what you need for the night, but leave your cases where they are until the morning. I have several hours of work to get through before I can retire,’ he added. ‘So I will say goodnight now.’ He bent to press a light kiss against her lips.
She responded—couldn’t stop herself even as she damned her own weakness for it. As Leon drew away, it was her lips that clung, her soft sigh which whispered between them filled with helpless longing. Opening her heavy eyes, she then wished she hadn’t when she found herself staring into his, so dark with knowledge that it made her want to weep at her own pathetic vulnerability.
‘I wish I could really hate you,’ she whispered helplessly.
‘Do you?’ He smiled strangely, as though the idea that she could hate him was not that impossible to imagine. ‘Well,’ he murmured, his gaze roaming over her pale, wan face, ‘I will be giving you no reason to hate me tonight, so go to your bed. And be at peace.’
* * *
And she was, totally, utterly at peace, Jemma decided two weeks later as she lay in the depths of a sublime laziness on the sun-drenched deck of Leon’s disgustingly luxurious yacht, shading the sun from her eyes with one hand while the other held up a letter she had just received, via the speed launch that came skimming across the water from the mainland to pull alongside them every morning, bringing Leon any business papers that might need his attention.
It had surprised her that he had not shown the least inclination to get back to the cut-throat excitement of a powerful tycoon’s life. But, if there was one new thing she had learned about him during these weeks—and there had been several—then his ability to play the sloth had been the most surprising. Oh, he worked, certainly. A man with his responsibilities could not simply close shop and forget about it completely. But he restricted his time spent shut up in his fully equipped stateroom to a few hours every morning and the same in the afternoon while she took her enforced rest. Between times, he became a lazy, good-natured, intoxicatedly charming companion, willing to indulge her in anything from lying next to her here on the sun-deck for hours on end without bothering to move, or taking her out in the on-board speedboat to the nearest island where she could enjoy her newly acquired skills at snorkelling around the rocks.
The improvement in her health had been remarkable, even to Jemma herself. The sickness had gone, she had acquired a very carefully nurtured but rather attractive golden tan to her skin, and a bloom to her features which was a one hundred per cent improvement on the hollow-eyed pregnant wraith she had been threatening to become.
She had stopped being self-conscious of her new maternal shape within hours of arriving on the yacht, forced to dismiss how she looked by the sheer heat of the sun and the utter arrogance with which Leon had walked up to her while she stood on the sun-deck in one of her long, baggy T-shirts, boiling hot and wondering if she dared slip away to the delicious coolness of her cabin—which was more like a luxury hotel suite with its en-suite bathroom and delicious air-conditioning—so that she could hide away from yet another day of fierce Greek sunshine. But Leon had had other ideas. He had simply reached out and coolly stripped the T-shirt right off over her head! Then, while she’d stood there red-faced and struck dumb with mortification because she was left wearing only the briefest pair of cotton panties, he’d taken his time exploring every inch of her and even gone as far as to grip her wrists and wrench them apart when she had attempted to cover herself.
‘Now we have got that embarrassing little moment out of the way,’ he had drawled eventually, ‘perhaps we can begin to relax and enjoy this cruise as it was meant to be enjoyed?’
Since then she had lived in one of the bikinis Leon had provided for her—sometimes topless, sometimes not—or in a light cotton shirt when it was sensible to cover herself from the sun for a while.
They lived, ate and slept on the yacht, and her feet had only touched dry land on the few rare occasions Leon had let them visit a secluded bay for the odd picnic. And in general she was more than at peace with herself, she was happy. At least, she amended ruefully, she was happy within the confines of the contented little bubble she was living in just now.
Which was probably why she was looking at Trina’s letter without reading a single word of it. She was afraid her friend might say something that could burst the bubble. Remind her, perhaps, of the realities she had so successfully thrust aside.
‘Read,’ she told herself firmly, and forced her eyes to focus on the tightly crushed and very rushed lines of words. Trina began:
