‘I don’t know,’ she replied, hurting for him because she could see the real hurt his anger was trying to hide. ‘Because I’ve never been in love to know.’
‘I feel betrayed,’ he confessed. ‘Bloody betrayed!’
They sat in dull silence for a while after that, Jemma completely sympathising with Josh even though she could partly understand Cassie’s motives. The woman had not tried to hide her ultimate goal, after all. Marriage and children. The full works. But the really sad fact among all of it was that Jemma had a sneaking suspicion that Cassie would have got it all from Josh if she’d only been a bit more patient. He’d been crumbling, she was sure of it. But now...?
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked him huskily.
He sighed and got up. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered flatly. ‘All I do know is that she’s had it as far as I—me personally—am concerned. She’s pregnant; there isn’t a damned thing I can do about that now. If she wants to keep it, then I’ll support her and it. If she wants an abortion, then I’ll pay for it. But if she wants me, she can go to hell before she’ll get me again.’
Fagged to death by the time she let herself into her flat that night, Jemma just dropped her bag and sank into the nearest chair. They had managed to get some work done during the afternoon, but not much, and what there was had been achieved in a grim mutual silence that had eventually left its mark on her throbbing head.
Trina walked into the room, chewing on a banana. ‘Bad day?’ she enquired when she saw Jemma’s drained face.
‘Hmm,’ was all she could manage.
‘Want cheering up?’ Trina, the sexiest Mrs Mop in the domestic cleaning game, tended to finish work several hours before Jemma, simply because most people liked their homes cleaned and vacated before three o’clock in the afternoon. She ran her own business from the flat with the help of a veritable army of part-timers who worked in teams, and not one of them wore a turban on her head or dared have a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. They wore uniforms which rivalled the smartest airline ones, and they travelled around in neat little vans with neat little smiles and a brisk friendly manner. They were all paid well, but then Trina’s charges were high. You get what you pay for, was her motto, and London, especially up-market London, had accepted and acknowledged that long ago. Trina had a waiting-list of potential clients almost as long as her list of real ones. She’d wanted to expand at one time, but the current recession had put paid to that idea—that and her super-sharp accountant-cum-boyfriend Frew. Trina was a tall, slim, easygoing redhead, with green eyes, a sharp tongue and a nasty sense of humour.
Jemma opened her eyes long enough to scrutinise Trina’s deadpan face, then closed them again and shook her head. ‘Not tonight, thank you,’ she refused the offer. ‘I don’t think I’m up to one of your nice surprises.’
‘Shame,’ Trina pouted. ‘Because this one is rather a cut above the ordinary. Still...’ Jemma sensed her friend’s shrug as she turned to leave the sitting-room-cum-office again ‘...I suppose it will keep.’
Jemma sighed, remained exactly where she was and how she was for the space of thirty delicious seconds, then sighed again and hauled herself out of the chair. ‘All right!’ she called after Trina. ‘You win! I can’t stand not knowing. What’s the nice—? My God!’ she choked. ‘Where did those come from?’
She had walked out of the sitting-room and down the hall to the kitchen while she was talking; now she just stood, rooted to the spot in the kitchen doorway, staring at the largest basket of out-of-season fruit and flowers she had ever seen.
‘Looking at them,’ Trina said sardonically, ‘from all over the world, I’d say.’
It filled their small kitchen table. The basket, an exquisitely woven affair of rich golden cane with a tall rounded handle, simply spilled over with flowers. Pretty, star-shaped lilies, sensually scented pure white jasmine, blood-red hibiscus heads that were almost too heavy for their stems. Pink, purple and the palest lilac sprays of bougainvillaea clustered everywhere, and at the base were oranges with the dark green leaves still attached to their short stems. Peaches as big as grapefruits. Grapes, green and black, in huge, succulent bunches. And figs, fresh, plump, juicy figs that made the mouth water just to look at them.
There was a card. Trina plucked it from the centre and mockingly passed it over to Jemma. ‘For you, ma’am,’ she drawled, watching her face as she took the card then dragged her rounded eyes down to focus on it. ‘Methinks you have a passionate admirer. The writing on the envelope is sexy, too,’ she pointed out. ‘All sharp strokes and dramatic curves. I wonder who it can be?’
Jemma wasn’t listening. She was trembling instead, staring at the envelope and frightened to open it. She knew who it was from; there was a little voice inside her head repeating his name over and over again. How he had found out her address she had no idea, but that cynical part in her she hadn’t known existed until today was telling her that for a man like him it wouldn’t be that hard.
What had Josh said about him? From one of the richest families in the world, was what he had said. Powerful. A man not to mess around with.
And Cassie? What
had she said about him? Sexy. Loyal. Invincible. Even his own father could not dictate to him.
And what have you learned about him yourself, Jemma? she asked herself shakily. Beautiful, she replied. Dangerous. Fair-minded but cocksure and arrogant with it. Determined, if this basket was a sign of determination to get his own way. Honest, if his proposition was serious. Deadly, if her own tangled feelings were anything to go by. He had succeeded in tying her in sensual knots within seconds of setting eyes on him.
She sucked in a shaky breath, her fingers trembling as she slowly broke the seal on the envelope and took out the gold-embossed card inside.
The words blurred then slowly cleared before her wary eyes.
Today was no way to meet someone who is destined to become the most important person in my life. It was a day of bad smells and acid tastes. So I send you these. Fruits to sweeten your mouth and the flowers of my homeland to freshen the air around you. Keep the flowers warm and moist or they will wither and die before I can see you again. Eat the fruit, enjoy the sensual tastes of my native land and think of me.
Leon.
The air left her lungs on a tremulous sigh as she looked back at the basket filling the table, only to find its beauty superimposed by his darkly attractive and smoulderingly sensual face.
God in heaven. She pulled out a chair and sat down, the hand holding the card going up to cover her eyes.
‘Bad news, then—not good?’ Trina prompted, curious at Jemma’s reaction.
She held out the card for her friend to take. ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,’ she murmured, and left Trina to make of that what she may.
‘Who is this Leon?’ she asked after smothering several muffled chokes as she read the blatantly evocative words. ‘I’ve never heard you mention a Leon before.’