‘It feels so weird being waited on all the time,’ she confided.
‘You won’t mind it once you return to your studies,’ Leo forecast. ‘By the way, how is that going?’
‘Hopefully, I’ll be able to take up my studies again in London next year,’ Letty told him cheerfully. ‘I didn’t have time to get in more than my application before the wedding and there’ll be interviews and probably refresher classes and various hurdles to get past before I can start back. I’m lucky my academic record is good.’
There was no luck about it, Leo reflected wryly, wondering why she was so diffident about her achievements. Letty was extremely clever, had been top of her class in just about every subject at Oxford and had won several awards during her time there.
‘Let’s drink to that,’ Leo suggested, nudging her untouched glass with his own. ‘Go on, a couple of glasses isn’t likely to have a dangerous effect on you.’
Letty coloured to the roots of her hair, knowing that both of them were recalling that encounter in the limousine after her hen party. Leo read her well: he had guessed that she was nervous of alcohol now.
She snatched up her glass and sipped. ‘So, you said we had something to discuss… I seem to recall,’ she managed to say, relieved that she had stopped squirming and blushing like a teenager over that episode in the car.
‘Ne…yes,’ Leo translated for her as he subsided into Greek and seemed to hesitate as he searched for words, which was sufficiently unlike him to command her full attention and etch a frown between her fine brows. ‘It relates to our future as a couple…’
‘Yes, I’m sure there must be lots of little things we still have to iron out,’ Letty conceded with innate practicality.
‘This is not a little thing,’ Leo contradicted, studying her with dark golden eyes that were pure golden enticement in the candlelight.
‘Oh?’ Letty prompted, sipping her wine assiduously, irritated that Leo had guessed how she felt about alcohol after the virtual assault she had mounted on him. She pinned her attention to her plate and worked through the delicious first course and a silence that stretched much longer than she had expected.
Finally, Letty looked up again to catch Leo still studying her as though she were a complete mystery to him in some way. ‘You were saying?’
Leo breathed in deep and threw back his handsome dark head, his eyes gleaming. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever enter “sacred bond” territory in the manner that you meant,’ he murmured smoothly. ‘But I have reached the conclusion that it would only be practical for us to at least have a go at making this a real marriage.’
Letty literally froze with her glass halfway to her mouth. ‘A real marriage?’ she exclaimed.
‘A marriage in which we have sex,’ Leo specified with unashamed clarity.
Letty breathed in so deep she was surprised that she didn’t spontaneously combust into flames of outrage. ‘You have a mistress,’ she reminded him tartly.
Leo didn’t bat a single eyelash. ‘Not currently.’
‘That’s a lie!’ Letty shot back at him. ‘Elexis pointed Mariana out to me at the wedding.’
A dark frown formed on Leo’s lean strong face. ‘That was spiteful,’ he breathed with visible annoyance. ‘But I’m not lying. I was last with Mariana before I met you and I finished with her after I met you.’
‘Which is…what? All of four short weeks ago?’ Letty sniped, unimpressed. ‘So, why was she at our wedding?’
‘She wasn’t invited. She came with a male guest who was,’ Leo clarified. ‘I was irritated when I saw her too.’
Letty recognised the truth when she was hearing it and absolved Leo of inappropriate behaviour because, evidently, Mariana Santos had become old history. Not that that had the slightest cooling effect on her growing anger. That Leo could simply sit there and just proclaim that they should ‘have a go’ at being married as if it were a casual takeaway meal he could sample at will shocked her to the core.
The main course was brought out and Letty started eating again, although she was barely able to chew and swallow because she was so very angry with him.
‘You have nothing to say to my suggestion?’ Leo finally pressed in frustration.
‘Nothing you’d want to hear,’ Letty assured him curtly, pushing her plate away and lifting her glass because she needed a vat of wine, she told herself, to deal with Leo, who was twisty and manipulative and clever and utterly unaccustomed to any form of rejection from a woman.
‘Allow me to decide that,’ Leo urged.
Letty leapt out of her chair with her glass in one hand, unable to sit still any longer, and she crossed the room to stand by the patio doors. ‘We signed a legal agreement in which I agreed to overlook your infidelity,’ she reminded him stubbornly. ‘Now you want something else from me, something completely different.’
Leo sprang upright. ‘I want you, so kill me for it!’ he urged with sardonic bite, spreading his arms and splaying his expressive hands as part of the gesture.
‘You’ll want me for all of five minutes!’ Letty told him tartly.
‘I last longer than five minutes,’ Leo assured her, refusing to take that comeback seriously.