LITMIR.BIZ

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gasped at the woman’s confidence. She’d never have the nerve to strip in that way in front of a man.

      And then Alix Saint Croix moved. He turned away from the woman and walked to the window. For a second he loomed large in Leila’s glasses, filling them with that hard-boned face. He looked intent. And then he pulled a drape across, obscuring the view, almost as if he’d known Leila was watching from across the square like a Peeping Tom.

      Disgusted with herself, Leila threw the glasses down and got up to pace in her small apartment. She berated herself. How could a man like that even capture her attention? He was exactly what her mother had warned her about: rich and arrogant. Not even prepared to see women as anything other than mistresses, undoubtedly interchanged with alarming frequency once the novelty with each one had worn off.

      Leila had already refused to take her mother’s warnings to heart once, and had suffered a painful blow to her confidence and pride because of it.

      Full of pent-up energy, she dragged on a jacket and went outside for a brisk walk around the nearby Tuileries gardens, telling herself over and over again first of all that nothing had happened with Alix Saint Croix in her shop that day, secondly that she’d never see him again, and thirdly that she didn’t care.

      * * *

      The following evening dusk was falling as Leila went to lock the front door of her shop. It had been a long day, with only a trickle of customers and two measly sales. Thanks to the recession, niche businesses everywhere had taken a nosedive, and since the factory that manufactured the House of Leila scents had closed down she hadn’t had the funds to seek out a new factory.

      She’d been reduced to selling off the stock she had left in the hope that enough sales would give her the funds to start making perfumes again.

      She was just about to turn the lock when she looked up through the glass to see a familiar tall dark figure, flanked by a couple of other men, approaching her door. The almost violent effect on her body of seeing him in the flesh again mocked her for fooling herself that she’d managed not to think about him all day.

      The exiled King with the tragic past.

      Leila had looked him up on the Internet last night in a moment of weakness and had read about how his parents and younger brother had been slaughtered during a military coup. The fact that he’d escaped to live in exile had become something of a legend.

      Her immediate instinct was to lock the door and pull the blind down—fast. But he was right outside now and looking at her. The faintest glimmer of a smile touched his mouth. She could see a day’s worth of stubble shadowing his jaw.

      Obeying professional reflexes rather than her instincts, Leila opened the door and stepped back. He came in and once again it was as if her brain was slowing to a halt. It was consumed with taking note of his sheer masculine beauty.

      Determined not to let him rattle her again, Leila assumed a polite, professional mask. ‘How did your mistress like the perfume?’

      A lurid image of the woman putting on that striptease threatened to undo Leila’s composure but she pushed it out of her head with effort.

      Alix Saint Croix made an almost dismissive gesture with his hand. ‘She liked it fine. That’s not why I’m here.’

      Leila found it hard to draw in a breath. Suddenly terrified of why he was there, she gabbled, ‘By the way, you left far too much money for the perfume.’

      She turned and went to the counter and took out an envelope containing the excess he’d paid. She’d been intending to drop it to the hotel for him, but hadn’t had the nerve all day. She held it out now.

      Alix barely looked at it. He speared her with that grey gaze and said, ‘I want to take you out to dinner.’

      Panic fluttered in Leila’s gut and her hand tightened on the envelope, crushing it. ‘What did you say?’

      He pushed open his light overcoat to put his hands in his pockets, drawing attention to another pristine three-piece suit, lovingly moulded to muscles that did not belong to an urban civilised man, more to a warrior.

      ‘I said I would like you to join me for dinner.’

      Leila frowned. ‘But you have a mistress.’

      Something stern crossed Alix Saint Croix’s face and the grey in his eyes turned to steel. ‘She is no longer my mistress.’

      Leila recalled what she’d seen the previous night and blurted out, ‘But I saw you—you were together—’ She stopped and couldn’t curb the heat rising. The last thing she wanted was for him to know she’d been spying, and she said quickly, ‘She certainly seemed to be under the impression that you were together.’

      She hoped he’d assume she was referring to when she’d seen the woman waiting for him outside the shop.

      Alix’s face was indecipherable. ‘As I said, we are no longer together.’

      Leila felt desperate. And disgusted. And disappointed, which was even worse. Of course a man like him would interchange his women without breaking a sweat.

      ‘But I don’t even know you—you’re a total stranger.’

      His mouth twitched slightly. ‘Which could be helped by sharing conversation over dinner, non?’

      Leila had a very strong urge to back away, but forced herself to stand her ground. She was in her shop. Her space. And everything in her screamed at her to resist this man. He was too gorgeous, too big, too smooth, too famous...too much.

      Something reckless gripped her and she blurted out, ‘I saw you. The two of you... I didn’t intend to, but when I looked out of my window last night I saw you in your room. With her. She was taking off her clothes...’

      Leila willed down the embarrassed heat and tilted up her chin defiantly. She didn’t care if he thought she was some kind of stalker.

      His gaze narrowed on her. ‘I saw you too...across the square, silhouetted in your window.’

      Now she blanched. ‘You did?’

      He nodded. ‘It merely confirmed that I wanted you. And not her.’

      Leila was caught, trapped in his gaze and in his own confession. ‘You pulled the curtain across. For privacy.’

      His mouth firmed. ‘Yes. For privacy while I asked her to put her dress back on and get out, because the relationship was over.’

      Leila shivered at his coolness. ‘But that’s so cruel. You’d just bought her a gift.’

      Something infinitely cynical lit those grey eyes and Leila hated it.

      ‘Believe me, a woman like Carmen is no soft-centred fool with notions of where the relationship was going. She knew it was finite. The relationship was ending whether I’d met you or not.’

      Leila balked. She definitely veered more towards the soft-centred fool end of the scale.

      She folded her arms and fought the pull from her gut to follow him blindly. She’d done that with a man once before, with her stupid, vulnerable heart on her sleeve. It made her hard now. ‘Thank you for the invitation, but I’m afraid I must say no.’

      His brows snapped together in a frown. ‘Are you married?’

      His gaze dropped to her left hand as if to look for a ring, and something flashed in his eyes when he took in her ringless fingers. Leila’s hands curled tight. Too late.

      The personal question told her she was doing the right thing and she said frostily, ‘That is none of your business, sir. I’d like you to leave.’

      For a tiny moment Alix Saint Croix’s eyes widened on her, and then he said coolly, ‘Very well, I’m sorry for disturbing you. Good evening, Miss Verughese.’

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