LITMIR.BIZ

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recovers its equilibrium.’

      His quiet and yet firm encouragement made something glow in Leila’s chest. She ruthlessly pushed it down. This man could charm the devil over to the light side.

      ‘Don’t you have more important things to be doing?’

      A curious expression she couldn’t decipher crossed his hard-boned face before his mouth twitched and he said,‘Not right now, no.’

      Leila’s stubborn refusal to accede to his wishes was having a bizarre effect on Alix. He could quite happily stay here for hours and spar with her, watching those expressions cross her face and her gorgeous eyes spark and glow.

      ‘Don’t you know,’ he said carefully, watching her reaction with interest, ‘that feigning uninterest is one sure way to get a man interested in you?’

      Immediately her cheeks were suffused with colour and her back went poker straight with indignation. Eyes glittering, she said, ‘I am not feigning uninterest, Mr Saint Croix, I am genuinely mystified as to why you are persisting like this—and to be perfectly frank I think I’d prefer it if you just left me alone.’

      He took a step closer. ‘Really, Leila? I could let you walk out of this suite right now and you’ll never see me again.’ He waited a beat and then said softly, ‘If that’s really what you want. But I don’t think it is.’

      Oh, God. He’d seen her disappointment. She’d never been any good at hiding her emotions. She’d also never felt so hot with the need to break out of some confinement holding her back.

      She hadn’t felt this hungry urgency with Pierre. He’d been far more subtle—and ultimately manipulative. Alix was direct. And there was something absurdly comforting about that. There were no games. He wasn’t dressing his words up with illusions of more being involved. It made her breathless.

      Her extended silence had made something go hard in Alix’s eyes and Leila felt a dart of panic go through her. She sensed that he would stop pursuing her if she asked him to. If he did indeed believe she was stringing him along. Which she wasn’t. Or was she? Unconsciously?

      She hated to think that she might be capable of such a thing, but she couldn’t deny the thrilling rush of something illicit every time she saw him. The rush of sparring with him. The rush each time he came back even though she’d said no.

      Leila felt as if she was skirting around the edges of a very large and angry fire that mesmerised her as much as it made her fear its heat. She’d shut down after her experience with Pierre, dismayed at coming to terms with the fact that she’d made such a huge misjudgement. But now she could feel a part of her expanding inside again, demanding to be heard. To be set free. Another chance.

      She’d never been to the opera. Pierre’s most exciting invitation had been to a trip down the Seine, which Leila had done a million times with her mother. The sense of yearning got stronger.

      She heard herself asking, ‘It’s just a trip to the opera?’

      The hardness in Alix’s eyes softened, but he was careful enough not to show that he’d gained a point.

      ‘Yes, Leila, it’s just a simple trip to the opera. If you can close a little early tomorrow I’ll pick you up at five.’

      Closing a little early would hardly damage her already dented business. She took a deep breath and tried not to let this moment feel bigger than it should. ‘Very well. I’ll accept your invitation.’

      Alix took up her hand and raised it to his mouth before brushing a very light, almost imperceptible kiss across the back of it. Even so, his breath burned her skin.

      ‘I look forward to it, Leila. A bientôt.’

      * * *

      At about three o’clock the next day Leila found herself dealing with an unusual flurry of customers, and it took her a couple of seconds to notice the thickset man waiting just inside the door. When she finally registered that it was Ricardo, Alix’s bodyguard, she noticed that he had a big white box in his hands.

      She went over and he handed it to her, saying gruffly, ‘A gift from Mr Saint Croix.’

      Leila took the box warily and glanced at her customers, who were all engrossed in trying out the samples she’d been showing them. She looked back to Ricardo and felt a trickle of foreboding. ‘Can you wait for a second?’

      He nodded, and if Leila had had the time to appreciate how out of place he looked against the backdrop of delicate perfume bottles she might have smiled.

      She suspected that she knew what was in the box.

      She ducked into a small anteroom behind the counter and opened it to reveal layers of expensive-looking silver tissue paper. Underneath the paper she saw a glimmer of silk, and gasped as she pulled out the most beautiful dress she’d ever seen.

      It was a very light green, with one simple shoulder strap and a ruched bodice. The skirt fell to the floor from under the bust in layers of delicate chiffon. On further investigation Leila saw that there were matching shoes and even underwear. Her face burned at that. It burned even more when she realised that Alix had got her size spot-on.

      She felt tempted to march right across the square and tell him to shove his date, but she held on to her temper. This was how he must operate with all his women. And he was arrogant enough to think that Leila was just like them?

      * * *

      ‘What do you mean, she wouldn’t accept it?’

      Ricardo looked exceedingly uncomfortable and shifted from foot to foot, before saying sotto voce, mindful of the other men in the room, ‘She left a note inside the box.’

      ‘Did she now?’ Alix curbed his irritation and said curtly, ‘Thank you, Ricardo, that will be all.’

      Alix had been holding a meeting in his suite, and the other men around the table started to move a little, clearly anticipating a break from the customarily intense sessions Alix conducted. He dismissed them too, with a look that changed their expressions of relief to ones of meek servitude.

      When they were all gone Alix flicked open the lid of the box and saw the plain piece of white paper lying on the silver paper with its succinct message:

       Thank you, but I can dress myself.

       Leila.

      Alix couldn’t help his mouth quirking in a smile. Had any woman ever handed him back a gift? Not in his memory.

      He let the lid drop down and stood up to walk over to the window of his suite, which looked out over the square below.

      For a large portion of his life, ever since his dramatic escape from Isle Saint Croix all those years ago, he’d felt like a caged animal—forced into this role of pretending that he wasn’t engaged in an all-out battle to regain his throne. The prospect of being on his island again, with the salty tang of the sea in the hot air... Sometimes the yearning for home was almost unbearable.

      Alix sighed and let his gaze narrow on the small shop that glinted across the square in the late-afternoon sunlight. He could see the familiar slim white-coated shape moving back and forth. The caged animal within him got even more restless. The yearning was replaced with sharp anticipation.

      It would be no hardship to pursue Miss Verughese and let the world think nothing untoward was going on behind the scenes. No hardship at all.

      * * *

      Leila looked at herself in the mirror and had a sudden attack of nerves. Maybe she’d been really stupid to send Alix’s gift back to him? She’d never been to the opera—she wasn’t even sure what the dress code was, except posh.

      The scent she’d put on so sparingly drifted up, and for a moment she wanted to run and wash it off. It wasn’t her usual scent, which was light and floral. This was a scent that had always fascinated her: one of her mother’s

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