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Celia, having weathered the worst week of her life, had been gripped by a sense of inevitability as she had stood, hovering and indecisive, in front of the towering glass spire in which Leandro’s offices were housed.
It had taken every scrap of moral fibre not to turn tail and flee.
Unfortunately, there was no choice in the matter. This was going to be step one of a journey she had not anticipated and the prospect of all the other steps to follow made her feel sick.
She’d wondered whether he would even agree to see her at all and had worked out what she would do in that eventuality.
The bald fact of the matter was she had turned down his suggestion that they carry on seeing one another when they were back in London. Until such time as it came to a natural conclusion. He hadn’t had to say that in so many words, but the implication had hung in the air between them like the sword of Damocles.
So much tantalising promise, dangling in front of her eyes like a banquet in a famine and, oh, how she had longed to jump at his offer. How she’d yearned to keep the door firmly shut against reality and continue to live in the delicious bubble they had constructed for themselves.
She had been deep frozen and he had brought her to life. That was how it had felt out there in the middle of nowhere, with the snow locking them in and making it easy to pretend that what they had was real.
It wasn’t. Not for him. It was real forher. She’d gone into a situation with her eyes wide open and yet had been totally unprepared for the consequences.
Again!
She’d cheerfully told herself that he wasn’t her type, at least not on any level that counted for anything. Yes, he was utter physical perfection and, sure, she reacted to him as any woman would, but there was no way sleeping with him could get complicated. Complicated was when emotions entered the equation and she was older and wiser and well able to recognise the sort of guy who could introduce complications.
But he’d touched her and she’d melted and he’d kept on touching and holding and captivating her and, bit by bit, the ground had shifted under her feet without her even realising.
She’d gone from hostile and suspicious to enthralled in supersonic speed and when the snow had finally petered out and London had beckoned, she’d been horrified to realise just how hard she had fallen for him.
Not justfallen. Fallen somehow implied she could pick herself up and dust herself down as she had with Martin, even though at the time she hadn’t realised just how easy that had been. She’d been too busy feeling sorry for herself and humiliated because he had found her replacement in record time.
No, she had lost herself in Leandro and she’d known that finding her way back from that place was going to take strength she wasn’t even sure she had.
And the only way she could even begin to do that was to walk away from him.
He hadn’t even bothered to hide the fact that, as far as he was concerned, whatever they had wasn’t going to last. It would run its course and come to an end, probably when he got bored with the novelty of having her around.
At which point, he would pick it back up with the sort of women he was really drawn to.
But fate had had other ideas.
It had been bad enough dithering outside the impressive building, but it had been ten times worse when she’d stood in front of that granite counter, with the bustle of city professionals swarming around her, and been told that, yes, Leandro would see her.
‘Hadn’t expected to see you.’
Leandro’s dark, sexy drawl snapped her back to the present and Celia blinked as the door behind her gently clicked shut.
She’d barely paid any attention to her surroundings as she’d been shown up to his office and she hardly noticed them now. She was one hundred per cent riveted to Leandro’s face, to the lazy sprawl of his big body behind the desk and the uncanny way he had of looking at her as though he could see right down to her very soul.
How could she have forgotten just how powerful his presence was? How shockingly good-looking he was? Darker, harsher, more forbidding than she remembered, but then they were no longer in the same place, where they were relaxed and laughing and all over one another, eager to get back in the bed as soon as they were out of it. Sometimes, not even making it to the bedroom. He was back to the guy she’d first met when he’d shown up unannounced at her shop.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’ Celia hadn’t moved one inch from the spot to which she was rooted by the closed door. ‘I thought I’d try and catch you before you left.’
‘What are you doing here? Just passing by? Thought you’d swing by for old times’ sake?’
Leandro had thought, when they’d parted company, that the snowbound isolation of their situation might have exaggerated her sexual appeal, but the second she’d walked into his office he’d known just how far off target he’d been in that assumption.
He was grimly aware that his libido, which had done less than zero on the two occasions he had opted for distraction tactics and got in touch with a couple of women he knew, was now hale and hearty and ready to party.
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair and scowled.
‘Sit.’ He nodded to the chair positioned in front of his desk and couldn’t help the fall of his gaze on her breasts, swaying under the...whatever it was she was wearing. What was she wearing? Some kind of suit and a jacket and some furry ankle boots.
She was nervous as hell, that much he could see, and it occurred to him that if she’d come to fling herself in his arms, then she surely wasn’t dressed for the occasion. Not, he thought with a kick of masculine appreciation, that she didn’t look as cute as hell in her get-up. Her hair was clipped back but, with almost no leap of his imagination, he could picture it as he had seen it so many times, in wild, copper disarray around her face.
