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‘I can’t imagine bringing up a child in the city,’ she had admitted, looking around his spartan, urban space and wondering whether there could possibly be anywhere less suited to a child. ‘I grew up in the country and I know it would be inconvenient, but if we get married, then we need to find a solution to that.’
He had agreed with alacrity. There was Surrey...there was Berkshire...there were countless towns and villages where she could find the space she needed, which would also be commutable to London.
‘You can keep your shop here, in London,’ he had said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe leave the running of it to your assistants? And start afresh wherever we settle. I imagine the provinces might prove a very lucrative market for wedding dresses unless, of course, you want to pack in working altogether, which would be absolutely fine with me.’
Celia had hurriedly turned down that suggestion. The thought of being dependent for ever on someone who didn’t love her and was only with her for the sake of the child they had conceived didn’t sit well.
There were moments when she almost wished that he weren’t quite so nice becausenicewas not what she wanted. She missed the Leandro who had looked at her with simmering passion, who had made love to her until she’d wanted to scream with pleasure. She missed the sexy, sensual familiarity that had grown between them during those magical days in Scotland, when they had been prisoners of the weather.
Now, he gave her respect and she didn’t know what to do with it.
The guy who had huskily asked her to continue what they’d started when they returned to London had gone for good.
In his place was the guy who, undeniably, wanted to do the right thing and quite frankly would turn out to be a great dad.
But he no longer touched her. He kept his distance and that hurt even though she knew, in a muddled way, that touching would just add to the complications.
Was he assuming that, because this was a business arrangement for him, what they would have would be along the same lines as what he had agreed with Julie? An open marriage of sorts where she would discreetly overlook any misdemeanours?
Or was he just biding his time? He might genuinely believe that two parents were better than one, but maybe, subconsciously, he also knew that a divorced guy had a lot more rights than one who had never married.
Was he playing a waiting game? He certainly no longer had any interest in her on the physical level.
It was a subject Celia dared not broach because of the worms that might start crawling out of the can.
Did she really want him to kindly tell her that she wasn’t his type after all? That what they’d had had worked in Scotland, where reality was something they had left behind? That it just wasn’t something, on reflection, that could survive the light of day?
Did she want him to know how much she missed him? No, she didn’t.
They would marry and who knew—it was possible that seeing him up close and personal all the time would put paid to the hold he had over her. How long could one person carry on loving someone who wasn’t interested?
The house was quiet by the time she made her way up to the bedroom that her mother had lovingly made up for them, right down to flowers in the vase on the chest of drawers and some kind of scent that filled the room with the smell of cedarwood.
She quietly pushed open the door to a semi-darkened room and Leandro on the bed and, suddenly, she was on red-hot alert, her senses quivering with forbidden excitement. The horse might have bolted and it might have been futile trying to bolt the stable door, but right now there was no comfort in the fact that they had been lovers.
She felt his dangerous presence and shivered.
‘You’re on the bed.’ Celia folded her arms and stared down at Leandro, who returned her gaze, unperturbed.
He was half naked and she hoped that the nudity didn’t extend beyond what she could see because she didn’t think her blood pressure could take it.
‘Where else am I supposed to be?’
‘Leandro,’ she muttered, but she could feel her fingers digging into her arms, ‘this isn’t going to work.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because...because this isn’t what we’re about now!’
No, Leandro thought. Under normal circumstances, wouldn’t this have been a good outcome? A marriage of convenience, admittedly, but one with the bonus of hot sex. With or without the hot sex, however, it was a union he had been determined to cement. The fierceness of what he felt for this unborn baby astonished him, but he wasn’t going to pretend it didn’t exist, and, that being the case, his mind had leapt several steps ahead, to a scenario in which they went their separate ways, sharing custodial rights.
A child toing and froing from one house to another. Different wardrobes in different places, treading a thin line between what was diplomatic to say to one parent in the absence of the other.
Eventually, another man would come on the scene. How long before that other man became central to his child’s life? How long beforehisflesh and blood started callinganother guyhisdad?
Right there and then, Leandro had known that no way was that ever going to be allowed to happen on his watch. And more than that...more than all those plausible scenarios was the uneasy recognition that she was pulling away from him. Hell! He didn’t want to care but he was finding that he did. He didn’t want her distance. He wanted...what? Could it be the ease of connection they had had before things had become complicated? Before a future he had never considered became the present with which they both had to deal?
Now here they were.
