CHAPTER NINE
‘IHAVEAsurprise for you,’ Leandro’s voice was low and lazy. He stroked her with one finger, trailing the feathery touch from her cheek along her shoulder blades and then dipping down to her cleavage.
Celia smiled and sighed, enjoying the familiar tingle his slightest touch produced in her.
They seemed to have spent the past five days in bed, a blissful orgy of love-making only interrupted by occasional sightseeing and food.
The sweeping swimming pool had largely remained unexplored and they had only actually gone to the beach once.
‘Perhaps not the best of ideas...’ Leandro had murmured, toying with her copper hair, twirling strands around his long, brown fingers, ‘not with your colouring. You might burn.’
‘There’s a reason why sunblock was invented,’ Celia had responded wryly, ‘and, strangely, I tan pretty easily for a redhead. I must have inherited some of Dad’s genes there.’ But she had succumbed fast enough to the promise of what he had had in mind as an alternative.
She couldn’t resist him. She would never be able to resist him. For now, she knew that it was mutual, but how long would that last for him? Surely not for ever, because the sweaty heat of passion always calmed and into that calm came the glory of contentment, but only if there was love as a stepping stone. Without that, there was always the danger that a replacement would be found to fill the vacuum.
Celia tried hard not to project into the future because their future was hardly straightforward with a baby in the mix. He was proving himself in so many ways he was probably not even aware of...proving himself in his kindness and his generosity, and she knew that that would translate into just the qualities that went into great parenting.
And the power of parenthood could be stronger than the tug of lust, especially for a man like Leandro, an honourable man who knew, from first-hand experience, the bitterness of an incomplete home. He was prepared to marry her for the sake of his baby and with that, he would surely realise, would come a curtailment of his freedoms? Once, she had wondered whether he might put their arrangement on a par with what he had had with Julie, but he and Julie had been platonic friends with the understanding written in from the start that they would discreetly take lovers, as need be.
That was quite different from whattheyshared. There would be no open doors when boredom with her kicked in, when he grew tired of the novelty of sleeping with her.
He would risk jeopardising the very thing he wanted to protect if he thought that he could look elsewhere, but would that be sufficient to stop him if and when that time arrived?
And what would she do if she were to be confronted with that situation?
These were uncomfortable questions that Celia thought it best to leave be. Why look for pain in advance? Why not throw herself into what they had and hope that the future was different from the one she predicted?
‘A surprise?’ she said now, still smiling, making sure her eyes didn’t give away the tenderness she felt every time she looked at him. She had learned how to conceal what needed concealing and only revealed her emotions when he was asleep, when she could look at him with unguarded love.
‘Last night here and then it’s back to London.’
‘I know.’ She groaned and flung herself back to stare at the ceiling for a couple of seconds before facing him once again, stomach to stomach, their bodies pressed against one another. She grinned. ‘I’d forgotten how nice it is being away from the grindstone for a bit.’
‘We’ll have a proper honeymoon later,’ Leandro promised. ‘Wherever you want to go.’
That was music to Celia’s ears and she smiled. ‘I’ll start searching as soon as we’re back,’ she teased. ‘Sure you can take more time off work?’
‘I own it all. I can do whatever I want. If there’s one thing money and power buy, it’s freedom. That’s all I ever wanted and I have it now, so yes. I can take whatever time I want away from the desk.’
‘Were you and Julie planning on having a honeymoon?’ Celia wasn’t sure whether this question overstepped boundaries and then she decided that, as he was her husband-to-be, she should be free to overstep them. She would never ask him any question unless his answer couldn’t hurt her. She would never ask him if he could ever love her...or how much she meant to him...those were lines her own self-defence mechanisms would never allow her to overstep, but everything else?
This was all part and parcel of the sort offriendshipzone he had in mind, surely.
‘No,’ Leandro admitted without any hesitation. ‘Ours was purely a business arrangement and, to be honest, Charles wouldn’t have been too surprised at the lack of a honeymoon. He’s always known me for the workaholic that I am. I expect, for the sake of appearances, we might have gone to some city or other for a weekend, but I would have worked and she would have shopped.’
‘I guesswecould have done that,’ Celia mused. ‘I mean, when you first thought about having one. It’s not as though...well...’
‘As though we were planning on picking up where we’d left off?’ Leandro shifted, thinking that there was no way thatworkandshoppingwere going to be the only things they did. That would have been impossible.
‘Tell me what the surprise is.’
‘Dinner.’
‘Dinner?’
‘There won’t be any air conditioning where we’re going tonight and the views might be slightly different from what you’ve sampled before, but I’m hoping you enjoy the experience.’ He grinned and began easing himself off the bed. ‘We’re being collected in an hour...so bath time, I think. Although...’ his grin broadened and there was a glint of wicked invitation in his eyes ‘...wecouldhave a bit more fun before we get changed...’
Celia took her time in the bath. Leandro was making calls. With the door to the bathroom open, she could dimly hear his deep voice and could picture him sprawled on the leather sofa in the sitting room, lazily telling his army of CEOs what to do and when.