Emily lowered her eyes. He was currently without a woman. She had dispatched the last hapless member of his harem several weeks previously. The poor woman had not had a very long run, although in fairness her brief appearance in his life had certainly been an expensive one, and she had left the better for several expensive items of jewellery and a red moped which she’d claimed matched her preferred choice of nail colour and was essential for getting around London.
So was there another waiting in the wings? She felt the familiar antipathy towards his life choices rise up into her throat like bile. She knew she shouldn’t. People lived their lives the way they chose to live them, and she should be indifferent and non-judgemental, and yet...
Leandro continued to look at her. He felt as though he were seeing her in 3D for the very first time. At least partially in 3D. Certainly he realised that her pose was very familiar to him, although it had always been one to which he had paid next to no attention. Whenever he had casually asked her to buy a parting gift for a woman she had always lowered her eyes in very much the same way as she was doing now. Her mouth would purse and she would comply with whatever he asked without complaint, but, yes...in the light of what she had told him about her views on his love-life...
Disapproval was stamped on her face. It was running through her head that he was leaving early because he had a hot date with a woman. Leandro decided that he would give her all the freedom she wanted to imagine what she clearly considered the worst interpretation.
‘Right. I’ll see you in the morning, Emily. And...’ He paused, just in case she thought that she might disappear without a backward glance and leave him high and dry. ‘Don’t even consider doing a vanishing act, because if you do I’ll pursue you to the ends of the earth and take you to court for breach of contract. I’ve been an exemplary employer and I expect exemplary service in return—even if it’s only for the duration of a month. Understood?’
‘I wouldn’t dream of vanishing.’ But there would be some loose ends to tie up before she went away with him.
On her way back to the tiny bedsit she rented in South London, she contemplated those loose ends and was frustrated to discover that her mind wasn’t completely on the task at hand.
In fact her wayward thoughts insisted on disappearing around corners, streaking off down blind alleys and generally refusing to be tied down. After that conversation with Leandro, which was not one she had predicted, she found that she couldn’t quite get the man out of her head.
She unlocked her front door and realised that she didn’t quite know where the commute had gone, because she had been so busy playing over that encounter in her head.
Now, looking around her ridiculously small bedsit, she grounded her thoughts by reminding herself that once this matter had been sorted, once this marriage was out of the way, she would no longer have to live in a place that was, frankly, a dump. The paint on the walls was peeling, there were signs of rising damp, and the heating system was so rudimentary that it was preferable to leave it off in winter and just make do with portable heaters.
She wondered what Leandro would think if he were ever to stray accidentally into this part of the world and into her cramped living quarters.
He would be horrified. On the salary she was paid she should have been able to afford somewhere more than halfway decent in a good part of London. But after her money was spent there was precious little left for life’s small indulgences, such as passably comfortable living quarters...
She got on the phone to Oliver before she could begin to wind down, and he picked up on the second ring.
There would be a slight delay in their plans, she told him, and sighed wearily. She perched on the chair in the hall. It was so uncomfortable that she felt her landlord must have redirected it to the house when it had been on its way to the skip to be disposed of, because that was all it was good for.
In her head, she pictured Oliver. The same height as her, fair hair, blue eyes—hardly changed at all from the boy of fifteen she had once dated for the laughably short period of three months, before exam fever had consumed her and before he and his family had sold their mansion and disappeared off to America. They had kept in touch sporadically, but even that had faded after his parents had died in an accident ten years previously.
‘What sort of delay?’
She explained. Two weeks away, and then she would be back and they could progress. She knew that it was a delay barely worth writing home about, but she was desperate to get this whole thing wrapped up—although she made sure to keep that desperation out of her voice.
She spent the rest of the evening in a state of mild panic. Two weeks abroad with Leandro. Two weeks in the sun. Sunshine was synonymous with holidays, with relaxing, and yet she would be on tenterhooks the whole time, guarding herself against...
Against what...?
As she continued to tie up her loose ends—loose ends that needed to be securely tied up before she left—her mind continued to play with that suddenly persistent question.
Guarding against what...?
Unbidden, thoughts of Leandro floated past her walls of resistance, lodged themselves in her head. Thoughts of how he looked, the way he had stared at her with those dark, semi-slumbrous eyes, the soft, silky angle of his questions, the way their conversation had dipped into murky uncharted territory...
There had been no mention of what sort of clothes she should take. She vaguely knew the layout of the resort—knew that it comprised individual cabanas on the beach: sweet little one and two-bedroom huts that looked as though they had been there for time immemorial but which in fact were equipped to the highest possible standard and had only been standing for six months tops.
They formed a charming cluster in front of the main hotel, which itself was small and likewise very organically designed. There was a pool which mimicked a waterfall, plunging into a quirkily laid out lake, but each of the cabanas came with its own plunge pool anyway.
It was the height of luxury and, like it or not, she was not going to be able to pull off her usual uniform of starchy suits and sensible court shoes.
Swimsuits, shorts, sundresses. The sort of clothes she didn’t possess. And she had neither the time nor the inclination to go out on a shopping spree.
* * *
The prospect of facing him the following morning was not a pleasant one, and she made sure to arrive, yet again, shortly before nine. If he interpreted that as some sort of restrained rebellion then so be it.
In fact she arrived to find a message on her desk telling her that he would be out for the day. Judging from the list of instructions for her, it seemed that he had hit the office even earlier than he normally did.
And the number one instruction was for her to sort out flights to the island. As if she were in any danger of forgetting it!
By five Emily was drained, and she was getting ready to leave when the phone rang and she was accosted by the dark timbre of his disembodied voice down the line.
How had she spent so long never being affected by that? How was it that his voice had never made her toes curl the way it was doing now?
In the act of putting on her jacket, she literally had to sit down and control her breathing as he demanded a debrief on the various things he had asked her to do. Had she sent those emails to the Hong Kong subsidiary of the electronics plant he was taking over...? Had she seen the response from the Briggs lawyers...? The Glasgow arm of his telecommunications outfit needed confirmation of price bands for new contracts and—could she make sure to hard copy all the relevant data by the morning...? And, last but not least, had she booked their flights.
* * *
Leandro relaxed back in his chauffeur-driven car. He had spent the day in a buoyant mood. He had one more company under his belt after some hard bargaining, and the following day...