She paused in sliding the cream raincoat from her shoulders, a pang so painful that it held her breathless for a moment, slicing right through her. He looked so wonderful to her hungry senses, so big and dark and achingly withdrawn. He had showered recently, and his hair lay in a sleek, damp gloss flat against his well shaped head. And gone were the business clothes he would have travelled home in and instead he was wearing a casual pale blue cotton shirt and grey trousers that hung loosely over his flat stomach from the fashionable pleating at the waist. His eyes were so dark that she couldn’t see anything in them but a grim reflection of her paler self, his mouth a thin straight line that told her that, like herself, he had prepared himself for this meeting.
Despair suddenly drenched her, and she remained standing there, wanting to run to him, wrap her arms around him, soothe that closed expression from his face, make him smile, laugh, pick her up and hug her tightly while he gave her that first long satisfying kiss they usually shared at this moment.
But, ‘Yes,’ she answered him huskily, and followed him with her eyes as he simply grimaced and walked into the book-lined room to pour them both a stiff drink.
She shook her head in refusal when he offered her a glass, unable to hold his gaze when he remained standing in front of her, sipping out of his own glass while he studied her pale face narrowly.
‘Have you found someone else?’
‘No!’ Her head shot up, sheer surprise at the question making her answer honestly, but later she realised it might have been easier on both of them if she’d had the foresight to lie and use another man as her excuse. As it was, things only got worse.
‘Leon—you knew last week that I wasn’t very—enthusiastic about the idea of leaving everything I know and feel safe with, to go to New York with you!’ she reminded him with an appeal in her voice. ‘And the more I’ve thought about it, the more sure I’ve become that it just isn’t the right thing for me to do!’
‘Why not?’ Nothing else, just the blunt enquiry.
Jemma swallowed on her dry and tense throat. He was not going to make this easy. ‘There’s no future there for me,’ she said dully.
He took his time absorbing that reply, his eyes so black they were impossible to read. Then his mouth tightened again and he said coolly, ‘If you’re angling for a marriage proposal, Jemma, then you’re in for a disappointment. It is an institution I have no intention of joining, whoever I have to sacrifice to keep that vow.’
That brought the sparkle back into her eyes. She glared at him angrily. ‘And I never for one moment so much as considered marriage as an option!’ she snapped with an honesty he would never be able to appreciate. ‘But neither am I prepared to become any man’s mistress! At the moment we share a relationship,’ she went on more calmly, ‘in which I have a job and a home of my own and a level of independence which allows me to keep my pride and self-respect. But the word “mistress” is an ugly one, Leon. Yet that is exactly what I would become if I agreed to come and live with you in New York.’
Silence met that, and it came down around Jemma like a death-knell, sinking her into a helpless despair because she knew, as she watched Leon turn slowly and go over to pour himself another drink, that she had achieved exactly what she had set out to achieve.
The end to their relationship.
‘So, this is it.’ It was he who put it into words.
‘Yes,’ she answered huskily. ‘You said no commitment, Leon,’ she reminded him, seeming to need to hammer the point home for her own benefit as much as his. ‘Honesty and loyalty, you said. Well...’ She took in a deep breath, her voice beginning to tremble along with her body. Inside she was weeping just as she had wept every night this awful week. ‘You’ve h-had my loyalty, and now I am giving you my honesty.’ Liar, a small voice jeered inside her head. You’re lying to him with every word you say! She flinched but ignored it. ‘I c-care for you deeply, but...’
‘Not enough to trust yourself to me,’ he finished for her.
She shook her head, the tears managing to find a crack in her defences and creep into her eyes. He saw them and sighed, slamming down his glass to come striding over to her. ‘No,’ he muttered as he took her into his arms. ‘Forget I said that. It was unfair and unworthy. In fact,
when I have had time to come to terms with your decision—’ he was deliberately instilling a lighter tone into his voice ‘—no doubt I shall even learn to admire you for it. But,’ he sighed, lowering his head so that he could kiss the trail of salty tears away, ‘at the moment I see only the end to a very special period in my life, and for that I hurt too, just as these tears tell me you are hurting.’
He hurts, she repeated achingly to herself, and wanted to hold him tightly to her until his hurt went away. Her arms went around his waist, revelling in the feel of warm, taut skin beneath her fingertips, her face burrowing into his throat on this one last surrender to this weakness she had which was him.
‘Ah, Jemma,’ he murmured heavily. ‘Are you sure I cannot change your mind?’
She shook her head, but held him all the closer, and he laughed softly. ‘But maybe it would be enjoyable if I were at least to try?’ he suggested.
He lifted her chin, his eyes dark and intent as they ran over her pale, unhappy face, then he sighed again, and his mouth came down to meet with hers. His hunger and her need met in a powerful kiss which verged on desperation.
Their tongues tangled, their bodies melting together as though they were drawn like that by some power beyond their understanding. It wasn’t sexual, it was something else far more disturbing. With the prospect of a final parting and the emotion which came with such an end, it was as if each fine nerve-end was pushing its way up to the surface of her skin in an effort to absorb every last ounce of him into her.
A muffled sob broke in her, and Leon groaned, his mouth hot as it buried itself in her throat. ‘Change your mind,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Neither of us is ready to give this up.’
Jemma came spiralling down from whatever heights she had been flung to, with a shiver that racked her whole frame. ‘No.’ She shook her head, having to force her fingers to break the anguished grip they had on him.
His own hands slid up her body to curve her ribcage then tightened painfully, stopping her from moving away from him. ‘Then give us this weekend!’ he urged. ‘One last wild, beautiful weekend, Jemma, to lose ourselves in each other before we must part!’
Oh, she was tempted, so severely tempted. She wanted him and he wanted her. It was like manna from heaven to her aching heart. But she dared not give in to it. She knew even as she hovered on that fine dangerous line between self-delusion and sanity that just in this last week since she accepted her condition the changes in her body had been too obvious to dare take the risk of him noticing them—and ultimately drawing the right conclusions.
So, ‘No,’ she breathed, and took the last vital step which would separate them forever. ‘I’m sorry, Leon, but I can’t.’
‘Cannot or will not?’ he mocked, changing from sweet to bitter in response to her rejection.
‘Can’t, Leon—can’t!’ she choked out wretchedly, then whirled away from him, the tears blinding her eyes as she snatched up her coat, desperate to get away from him before her control snapped altogether.