‘We’re not travelling to the outer ends of the Amazonian rainforest,’ he informed her. ‘There will be an internet connection. The bulk of the correspondence will be dealt with by us. You can see it as work as usual bar a change of scenery.’
‘Oh, good,’ Emily breathed.
Instantly Leandro had to fight down a spurt of annoyance.
‘Which doesn’t mean,’ he added, ‘that I’m expecting you to pack your starchy suits and high-heeled shoes...’
‘I do realise that that wouldn’t be appropriate,’ Emily snapped.
‘The swimming pool will be up and functioning...’
Emily pretended not to hear that. ‘Will you want me to meet you at the airport?’
‘I’ll send my driver for you. Or I can swing by your place and get you en route...’
‘That won’t be necessary!’
She shuddered at the thought of Leandro Perez seeing where she lived. If he were curious about her now, then he would certainly be collapsing under the weight of questions should he ever step foot in her house and see her sparse, substandard surroundings.
‘And it won’t be necessary for you to send your driver for me, Leandro. If you don’t trust the public transport system, then I’m happy to get a taxi and charge it to the company.’
‘Fine.’ He banked down his irritation.
A fortnight in the Caribbean... Sure, there would be work to be done, but still...sun, sea and sand.
A driver to fetch her and her enthusiasm was nil. But then...
His mind swung back to the mystery fiancé about whom he knew nothing.
‘So, what did...I forget his name...have to say about your trip abroad with the boss?’ Leandro asked, smoothly diverting the conversation to a destination which spiked his curiosity. ‘All hunky-dory with the time you’re going to be spending with me?’
‘Why shouldn’t he be?’
Emily tried and failed to imagine the situation Leandro was hinting at...a jealous lover laying down ground rules, maybe phoning every hour on the hour just to make sure that nothing untoward was going on... And then she went hot at realising where her mind was heading.
She could virtually hear the sound of him shrugging nonchalantly down the end of the line.
How had they managed to travel to this place where their conversations led away from work onto treacherous quicksand? Where her grip was so uncertain? Even removed from his presence, in the sanctuary of her own office, she could feel herself burning as her blood thickened and her mouth dried up.
Her breasts felt suddenly heavy, her nipples tingly and sensitive, and a rush of pure shame flooded her. Whatever this door was that had opened up a crack between them, she was determined to shove herself against it as hard as she could until it was closed again.
‘Well, if you’re absolutely sure that you won’t need me at work tomorrow...’
Leandro gritted his teeth as she once again skirted around the conversation he found he was keen to have. The eager, obliging and annoyingly forthcoming women he was used to had faded completely in their attractiveness. He marvelled that he had not become irritated with them before. Compared to Emily’s sparing, guarded, tightly controlled boundaries, they now seemed utterly lacking in any sense of challenge.
And a good challenge had always been something he enjoyed getting his teeth into.
‘Absolutely... Go out and have some retail therapy...’
‘I don’t do retail therapy,’ Emily responded automatically.
‘All women do retail therapy.’
‘All the women you know do retail therapy. At any rate, I shall take the time to pack and...and...’
‘And...?’
‘There are a couple of things that I shall need to do before I leave... It’s a long time to be out of the country...’
‘A fortnight?’
Emily sighed. Leandro Perez was persistent. If he wanted to acquire something he acquired it—whatever obstacles got thrown in his way. It was just the way he was built. He had once told her in passing, over a meal delivered to his office courtesy of one of the top restaurants in London because they had needed food after twelve hours of solid work on a thorny deal, that persistence was a gene he had inherited from his father.
‘He taught me,’ Leandro had said drily, ‘that if you want something you have to go for it, and that the things you most want seldom drop into your lap like ripe fruit falling from a tree...’
Emily had inwardly sniggered. That being the case, he had clearly never really wanted any of the women he had dated, because one of the most stunningly predictable traits they had in common was their ability to fall like ripe fruit from a tree straight into his lap.
She had said with her customary politeness that sometimes you just had to give up on certain things because that was the wiser option, and had then immediately clammed up when he had tried to draw her into an explanation of what she had meant.
‘Yes. A fortnight.’
‘You took two weeks off last year in a stretch...’ he reminded her.
‘But I didn’t leave the country.’
He had assumed she had. Of course when he had shown interest she had shrugged her shoulders and thrown him a something and nothing reply.
‘Where did you go?’ he asked curiously. ‘I recall you took a fortnight off in October...not a brilliant time of year to relax in this country—not if you’re looking for anything other than wall-to-wall rain and wind...’
‘Last October the weather was beautiful.’
She tensed as he unwittingly came close to a subject she definitely had no intention of talking about. He might have dragged Oliver’s name out of her, but that had been unavoidable. She should have had the foresight to know that her resignation would prompt his curiosity. Beyond that, however... No, there were no more roads she would be lured down.
‘Was it?’
‘Yes, it was. You must be keen to get off the phone, Leandro. Are you at home?’
‘Not currently.’
Emily wondered where he was and assumed the obvious. Her voice was correspondingly cool when she said, after a brief hesitation, ‘I’ll make sure not to disturb you for the remainder of the evening, even if I need to ask you anything.’
‘And why would that be?’
‘I’m assuming that you’re on one of your dates.’
She could have kicked herself. Yet again her tongue had run away from her and she needed to rescue this unruly twist in the conversation—one that had been prompted by her!
She wondered if the stress of everything happening in her life at the moment had weakened her defences. Whether, combined with that, the sudden, unexpected shift in her normal working relations with Leandro had further thrown her off course.
Kicking herself every time she slipped up wasn’t going to help matters.
‘In which case,’ she added briskly, ‘I wouldn’t dream of interrupting.’ She emitted a forced chuckle at this point, if only to demonstrate to him how fatuous she actually found their conversation. ‘I do know that you don’t like to be disturbed when you’re with one of your...your...’
‘My...? Don’t forget you’ve made yourself crystal-clear on what you think of my...my... Now, how would you describe them...?’
‘I never said anything about the sort of women you go out with,’ Emily muttered. ‘I only told you that I don’t like running errands involving them on your behalf. I’ve only met a couple of them and they both seemed very...very...nice...’
‘Damned with faint praise.’
‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ Emily burst out angrily. ‘I don’t want to be having this conversation with you. If you’re out with someone then I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed. If you need to get in touch with me tomorrow for some reason then you have my mobile number. I shall make sure I check it at regular intervals just in case.’
Leandro, who had no time for any show of histrionics in women, relaxed and half closed his eyes. This was the most rattled he had ever heard her. In fact over the past twenty-four hours she had blossomed into a real three-dimensional person, and he was enjoying the conversation—passing histrionics and all.
‘And you’ll be in London should I need to call on you to come in for some reason? Highly unlikely but, as you pointed out, a fortnight with both of us out of the office is unheard of...’
‘No,’ Emily said shortly. ‘I probably won’t be in London if I have a day off. Would you like me to come in to work after all?’
‘No...’
Leandro found his mind wandering off course as his imagination, previously rusty, kicked into gear. A day off having mind-blowing sex with the mystery fiancé?
‘I think I’ll cope. You go off and do...whatever it is you have planned. Excluding, of course, that terminally boring retail therapy which you’re not into. I’ll see you at the airport. Bring your computer, Emily. And don’t forget...pack for the weather...’