‘Christmas,’ she told him, smiling wistfully. ‘I spent it in Barbados with Trina. We had a great time.’
‘Lots of men, I suppose,’ Leon growled, pretending to sound jealous, but Jemma now knew better. Leon did not get jealous—and why? Because he did not care enough for her, that was why. Not with any emotions which really mattered, anyway. He fancied her like hell still, could still lose himself in her body with enough passion actually to shock her sometimes. But as for any deeper feelings, they just did not exist.
He was in London for a week. And they saw each other every night. But her continuing virus and all the late nights began to take their toll on her, and she was actually relieved when he went away again.
She only wished she could have a break from Josh, too. He had become a boor to work for, his bitterness with Cassie reflecting in his attitude to all women—including her now. He was brusque and impatient all the time. ‘If you can’t do your work to your usual standard, Jemma,’ he snapped at her one day when she had somehow mislaid a file he wanted, ‘then perhaps you should start thinking about either giving up Stephanades or giving up this job!’
‘This thing with Cassie has really soured him,’ she confided in Leon when Josh had been worse than nasty all day and she felt exhausted by the time she met Leon for dinner that night.
‘What do you expect?’ he countered coolly. ‘To be tricked as Cassie tricked him is, in my opinion, the ultimate betrayal.’
Something in the way he said that hit her on the raw. It was if he was warning her—try that kind of trick on me and see what you get!
She shuddered and changed the subject. But that weekend her manner towards him cooled slightly. It wasn’t that she wanted it to, it was just that, after over two months of living exclusively for him, she was beginning to realise how hopeless the relationship really was. After all, there was still the nice Greek girl with the dowry waiting somewhere for Leon to give in to family pressure and marry. And she could suddenly appreciate what Cassie had meant when she’d said, ‘What chance does a not-so-nice English girl with nothing to offer him but a great body have against all of that?’ None, Jemma acknowledged, and began to wonder if it was perhaps time to start weaning herself off Leon Stephanades.
If he noticed her coolness, he said nothing, not until Sunday evening, that was, when he was dropping her off at her flat, and he surprised her by saying, ‘Before you go, Jemma, I have a proposition I want to put to you.’
‘A proposition?’ she repeated curiously.
He nodded, his expression unusually grim. ‘Next week, I close a take-over deal I have spent the last year putting together in New York,’ he informed her. ‘When it is done, I will be hard put to come up for air during the following few months while I drag the company up to the standard the Leonadis Corporation requires of all its subsidiaries. The company is in a bad way, has been badly run, badly managed, and recklessly bled by its owners to the extent that nothing short of some ruthless tactics will give it a hope of surviving the next few months...’ He paused, watching her face. ‘I will not be able to come to London as often as I have been doing,’ he explained. ‘Maybe not at all, the way things are stacking up.’
‘So...’
Jemma kept her voice steady by sheer strength of will ‘...this explanation is your way of saying goodbye?’ she assumed, feeling the weight of knowledge bearing heavily down on her. She had been so busy trying to cool her own feelings for him that she had not noticed that Leon was going through a similar process for her!
But his reaction surprised her. ‘No!’ he denied, reaching out to haul her across the gap separating them so that he could issue a hard, angry kiss to her lips. ‘What in hell gave you that idea?’ He actually sounded shocked enough to bring weak tears floating into her eyes. ‘Damn you, Jemma!’ he muttered. ‘I have never known such a difficult woman to read as you! You spend the whole weekend giving me the cold shoulder—then have the cheek to suggest it is me who is doing the cooling off!’
‘I haven’t been feeling well...’ she offered as a very lame excuse for her behaviour.
He nodded curtly and kissed her again. ‘And you think I have not noticed—or, worse, have not cared? I said I had a proposition for you, and it is with your poor state of health and my refusal to let you go out of my life that I offer it! Come with me,’ he invited huskily. ‘Next weekend will be the last I can promise to devote to you here in London. But if you will come with me to New York, I will promise to devote every moment of my spare time to you!’
‘M-me—to New York?’ she choked, hardly daring to believe he was offering it. ‘But—my flat—m-my job!’ She sat up and away from him, trying to make her whirling brain think.
‘You said yourself that Tanner is becoming impossible,’ he inserted. ‘Losing that job will not come as any hardship—except financially, of course,’ he added when she sent him a wry glance. ‘But I am not just asking you to come to New York, Jemma,’ he went on softly. ‘I am asking you to move in with me, be my woman. Allow me to worry about all the practicalities of your life while you just worry about making yourself beautiful for me.’ His hand slid beneath her hair to curve her nape. ‘I want you—need you there with me, agape mou,’ he murmured softly. ‘Will you come?’
Well, will you? she asked herself for the hundredth time that same night. She lay alone in her small single bed, missing him, missing the warmth of his body curled up against hers, missing the scent of him, the soft sound of his breathing when he slept.
Will you—can you give up everything here for the man you love, knowing that he wants you to only because his desire for your body has not yet worn out?
Not that Leon saw any of that as a reasonable excuse not to give him an answer straight away. ‘What is there to think about?’ he’d demanded when she’d asked for time to do just that. ‘Either you want to be with me or you do not. It really is as simple as that!’
‘Is it?’ she’d mocked, then sighed heavily. ‘You’re asking me to uproot my whole life for you, Leon!’ she’d cried. ‘I would have to be crazy not to think carefully before making that kind of decision!’
‘Or not crazy enough about me to know instinctively that where I am is where you want to be!’ he’d suggested, his pride touched.
‘And for how long would I be welcome there?’ she’d thrown back. ‘I am to uproot while you simply exchange one of your many addresses for another. What happens to me when you grow tired of me and find someone to take my place?’
‘That can work both ways, you know,’ he’d countered. ‘I am not so conceited that I don’t see the way you can enjoy other men’s company!’
‘Nor am I so conceited that I don’t see how you enjoy other women!’ she had snapped.
‘I am not promiscuous!’ he’d stated haughtily.
‘And neither am I!’
He had sighed. ‘No, I know you are not,’ he’d agreed, then sighed again, heavily this time. ‘Look,’ he’d said, ‘I am not ready to lose you, my darling! Do you think I would be making a proposition like this one if I were?’
She’d thought about that, and had to decide that no, Leon was nothing if not scrupulously fair. He would not be asking her to change her whole life for him if he did not think the change worth her making it.