By morning she had forgotten her night fears, her fingers clumsy in her feverish haste to dress and reach Alexis. She glanced at herself in the mirror, noting the changes that were there already; the flush high along her cheekbones, the brightness of her eyes, one minute sparkling, the next disconcertingly slumbrous. Excitement made it impossible for her to eat, to do anything more than snatch a cup of coffee as she hurried to get ready.
Alexis was waiting for her in his suite, studying a pile of letters. He looked up when she walked in but made no move to touch her. ‘I’m just about to leave.’ He smiled wryly when he saw her face and added softly, ‘Ah, no, I must not kiss you, otherwise I shall never make it to my meetings—never make it any further than the bedroom that lies beyond that door, but tomorrow is Saturday. Would you like to go for a drive? To have lunch somewhere perhaps, and then in the evening we could see a show?’
All I want to do is to be with you, she ached to tell him, but instead she followed the lead he had given her, assuring him that she ought to have finished the dictation he had given her the previous day by the time he got back and that she could find no fault in his plans for the following day.
And so it continued. During the day they worked together in comparative harmony. Sienna grew gradually to learn more about his business empire and to admire his shrewd grasp of all that went on within it, even though at times his hard determination had the power to disturb her. That he could be cruel as Gill had said he was she could now perceive was true, and she shivered sometimes, wondering what she would do if that cruelty was ever directed towards her. At those times he would look up from what he was doing and smile at her as though he guessed her thoughts and wanted to assure her that her fears were groundless.
He often asked her about Rob, and when he did Sienna sensed as she had done on that first day that he resented—and if that could be possible without their having met—even disliked her brother, but when she tried to question him about his own family he always changed the subject.
A week and then ten days went by. She arrived one morning to discover him on the telephone. New York,’ he said crisply when he replaced the receiver. ‘I have to go over there—there’s a problem with the merger.’
Sienna knew that one of his companies was taking over an American rival, but her face fell when Alexis was speaking.
‘How long… how long will you be gone?’ How long will you be away from me, was what she really wanted to know, and yet how long would he be staying in London for anyway? His home was in Greece, on a small island called Micros, he had told her. He had talked about it to her, with love and pride and an assurance that she would share it with him.
‘I don’t know. Three weeks, maybe a month. It will take that long to sort out all the legal tangles.’ He saw her expression and muttered huskily, ‘Sienna, don’t. You know I don’t want to leave you, and we still have this weekend. Would you like to go away somewhere…. Just the two of us?’
‘Oh, Alexis!’ Her eyes and voice betrayed her, and he did something he never did when they were working, he got up from his chair and crossed the room, taking her in his arms and kissing her with the same deep hunger she could feel heating her own blood.
‘Does that mean “yes”? You know if it does that I shall not be able to kiss you chastely goodnight and leave you, Sienna. You know, don’t you,’ he asked roughly, ‘that when you say “yes”, you are saying yes to snaring my bed? Do you still say “yes”?’
She shook her head and he tensed, holding her away from him and staring down at her with dark, almost angry eyes, and Sienna knew that despite all his protestations he wanted her enough to persuade her if she did not agree voluntarily. Not that there was any need. She wanted this weekend with him, needed it with an urgency that still had the power to leave her slightly shocked. ‘Then what do you say?’ he demanded curtly.
She smiled up at him, feeling the tension in the arms that held her, a brief smile curling her mouth as she said softly, ‘I say “yes, please”, Alexis.’
She felt the surge of tension leaving him, and just had time to be surprised by the look of sheer triumph glittering in his eyes as he bent towards her, kissing her more gently this time, merging her body with his, his fingers tangling in her hair as he released her lips to caress the soft skin of her throat, his fingers deftly moving to the buttons of her blouse, releasing them and exposing the pulse thudding at the base of her neck and the beginnings of the soft swell of her breasts, her nipples tautly outlined beneath the fine cotton of her blouse.
Strange, he had not yet touched her intimately, but when he did so, pushing aside the protection of her blouse, stroking over the curves her delicate lace bra did nothing to conceal, her body leapt in immediate response, her low groan of pleasure stifled somewhere at the back of her throat as his head moved downwards and she gasped as she felt the heat and dampness of his mouth through the fine fabric, coupled with an anguished ache to lie naked in his arms and enjoy that same caress with the barrier of clothes removed. The phone rang, disorientating her, her body still awash with hunger. Her mind was too bemused to respond to the abrupt summons of the telephone. Alexis answered it, frowning into the receiver, reminding Sienna where they were. She dressed quickly, with shaking fingers, wondering heatedly what her reaction was likely to be to his full possession if she could be affected so much by a mere caress. She was still lost in a maze of thoughts when he replaced the receiver and came to stand behind her.
‘You look like a child who has suddenly discovered Christmas,’ he told her with amusement, obviously relishing her embarrassment. ‘What a contradiction you are! Outwardly so cool and calm, and inwardly so responsively sensual, and I only have to look at you and I see mirrored in your eyes what will be there when I make love to you. I cannot believe no man has make you feel like this before. Has there, Sienna? Has there been a man who has made the earth shake for you, a man with whom you have shared desire?’
She shook her head and watched his eyes lighten with relief, and wondered if he knew what joy it gave her that he should be the first, that she had waited for the magic of giving herself to him and sharing with him her body’s arousal from innocence to desire.
‘I am going to take you away somewhere where no one will disturb us, where we will be completely alone, where when I want to kiss and touch you I can do so and know that we won’t be interrupted.’ He kissed her briefly then, his mouth hard and warm and the same delirious drunken feeling of disbelief she had experienced on first seeing him surged giddily through her again. ‘You love me?’
‘So much,’ she told him huskily, ‘So very, very much!’
When she got home there was a letter from Rob telling her that his return was likely to be delayed and that it could be several more weeks before he returned. She was disappointed. She would have liked Alexis to meet him before he went to New York. She wanted Alexis to understand why she loved him and why that love was no threat to the way he felt about her, but she didn’t want to spoil their weekend together, so she firmly banished her disappointment and concentrated on what she ought to pack.
Alexis hadn’t told her where they were going apart from the fact that it was in the country and they would be completely alone, and she packed accordingly, jeans and sweaters, one simple dress that would cover eating out, a soft tweed suit to travel in and… she tried not to feel guilty as she added up the cost of the expensive, delicate underwear she had bought on impulse on her way home the previous evening. She had paused outside the shop, admiring as she always did its elegant window, staring at the costly wisps of silk and lace, knowing how far they were outside her reach and yet wanting Alexis to see her dressed in something so essentially feminine, knowing instinctively that such a very male man would find pleasure in the knowledge that it was worn only for him.
And so she had gone in, and come out again half an hour later, carrying the boxes whose contents she was now carefully packing into her case. The silk chiffon nightdress was soft pale peach trimmed with écru lace, handmade and delicate as cobwebs. The underwear she was wearing to travel in was cream silk-satin, and her fingers smoothed it absently as she tried to still the quiver of excitement starting