Andrea Laurence - Seduced At Sea

‘Because you want to sleep with me but you’re torn.’

She shook her head. Oh, to be so confident. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you but … like I said, you have secrets and they scare me.’

‘Believe me, moya milaya , it would scare you more to know them.’

She shivered and wrapped her arms around her waist and Leo cursed himself for saying what he had. Then he cursed her for being the person she was. She was too genuine and almost innocent in her view of the world. She made his conscience spike and he knew that pursuing her after this would be selfish and he’d promised himself he’d never be selfish again after Sasha’s death.

He heard a discreet cough behind him. ‘Someone had better be dead, Danny,’ he growled, not looking at his EA.

‘You might wish that were the case in a minute.’

Leo turned at the serious note in Danny’s voice. ‘What is it?’

‘You said to inform you immediately if we got word from Amanda.’

Leo’s eyes narrowed. ‘You found her, then.’

‘Not exactly. I’ve been checking your emails all day and this came in.’ He handed him a piece of paper and Leo took it, a sense of dread forming a knot in his belly.

He scanned the email and started sweating like a man trapped in a steel cage with a dozen hungry lions for company. ‘Married?’ He shook his head. ‘She can’t do this.’

Danny didn’t say anything and Leo knew that his worst nightmare had come true. Amanda was demanding that he take full custody of Ty. She had remarried and Ty didn’t fit into their lifestyle.

He felt the fist in his belly rise to his heart and emotion and pain clawed at him as memories of the past hurtled into his consciousness.

Air became choked in his lungs and Leo felt the panic he had experienced at the childcare centre when he’d first seen Ty take hold.

He needed space.

Time to think. Without looking at either occupant on the deck, he crumpled the piece of paper into his fist and stalked off.

LEXI wandered down the long walkways and spiral staircases until she came to her and Ty’s suite of rooms. She checked on Ty and smoothed his hair off his forehead as she watched him sleeping peacefully. He looked so much like Leo and her mind automatically wondered where he had gone. What he was doing.

He had said ‘married’ in such a tortured voice Lexi could only surmise that Amanda had remarried and the news had clearly devastated him. Her heart clenched in reaction and her skin grew hot. Her earlier assumption that he still harboured strong feelings for Amanda Weston was clearly correct.

She straightened Ty’s sheets and let herself out of his room and crossed to her own. She knew Carolina was asleep in the other room with the monitor on and that she would not be needed any more tonight.

She kicked off her heels and wandered out onto her private terrace. The air held a faint chill now that a soft breeze had picked up and she rubbed her bare arms. She turned back inside and poured herself a glass of water and sat down at the small writing desk, running her fingers over the edge of her laptop before jumping up again. She was too wired to sleep and too restless to work.

Again her mind drifted to Leo and she wondered if he would want someone to be there for him when he was feeling terrible. Instinctively, she knew that he wouldn’t but sometimes people didn’t know what they needed until they had it. She knew he wasn’t a talker but maybe he’d never had anyone offer a listening ear before. She might question his morals and his life choices, but he was a human being in pain and everyone needed someone at a time like this.

Not questioning her motives too closely, Lexi donned her heels and decided that the only way to put her mind at rest was to find him, make sure he was okay and then return to her room.

Pleased with her plan, she took the elevator up to his level and tapped lightly on his door. After a minute she knocked harder and then, still hearing nothing, turned the door knob and opened the door.

She hadn’t really expected it to be unlocked and now she was faced with the dilemma of whether to just close it and leave or … close it definitely!

‘Remind me to station security outside my door.’ Leo’s gruff words carried across the room and nearly gave her a heart attack and Lexi let the door swing further open, just in time to see Leo disappearing into the opposite doorway.

Okay, so he wasn’t dead … Lexi let her gaze drift over the room in front of her and gasped at the size and understated opulence that greeted her eyes.

It was a living room with a huge cream sofa and matching chairs that looked comfortable enough to sleep on. Large domed lamps flanked the sofa and gave the room an intimate, golden glow that set off the smooth polished cabinetry around the room to perfection. A flat-screen TV lined one entire wall and opposite that an open doorway led into what Lexi assumed was the bedroom Leo had just disappeared through.

Before she could stop herself she crossed the carpeted floor, trying not to think about the last time she had entered Leo’s bedroom in his London apartment, and peeked inside. It was his bedroom and it was dominated by a huge bed facing curved floor-to-ceiling windows that looked onto a private deck. Clearly the man liked his views.

Lexi saw him sprawled on one of the sun loungers outside and wandered to the open doorway; the light of the moon casting him in shadows.

‘What do you want?’

He didn’t turn and Lexi hovered there, uncertain as to whether she should stay or go, some inner instinct telling her that he needed her right now. ‘I wanted to make sure you were okay.’

Stars twinkled overhead in the navy sky and the only sound was that of water slapping as it broke against the side of the yacht. ‘Still trying to solve the problems of the world, angel?’

Lexi returned her gaze back to him. He wasn’t looking at her, but lay with his eyes closed and his hands folded behind his head. ‘No. I thought you might like company.’

He opened his eyes, his gaze raking her from head to toe before closing them again. ‘You’re wearing too many clothes for the company I need right now.’

‘It might help if you talked about what’s wrong.’

‘Really.’ His voice was snide and Lexi questioned her decision to interrupt him. ‘Let’s give it a try, shall we. I don’t want Amanda to be married and to leave me in charge of the care of my son.’ He bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. ‘ Net . Still married. What a surprise.’

Lexi moved out onto the balcony and shivered as she felt the chill in the air descend on her bare skin. Or was that just the frost coming off the brooding man with his eyes now fixed on some dark spot in the distance? She perched on the matching chair beside his. ‘I know you’re upset at the news.’

‘Upset? I’m not upset, angel. I’m furious.’

‘Because you love her?’ she acknowledged ruefully.

‘You think that’s what’s going on here? You think that I love Amanda Weston?’

‘You seemed devastated by the email she sent and—’

His sneer stopped the rest of her words. ‘And you thought it was a love gone wrong. I don’t do love, angel.’

‘If it’s not love you feel for Amanda, then … I’m confused. Why do you act as if Ty doesn’t exist?’

‘Because to me he doesn’t.’

Lexi’s breath caught in her throat. She wouldn’t believe that. She couldn’t . ‘I don’t believe you.’

He paused and she didn’t think he was going to answer her.

‘You want to know what happened with Amanda, I’ll tell you. She came onto me at the Brussels Airport when all flights were grounded and we had sex. It was never going to be anything more than one night but she was looking for a rich husband and we used her condom—which I later found out she had already tampered with. It was a one-night fluke but she hit the jackpot.’