JACQUELINE BAIRD - The Reluctant Fiancee

With trembling fingers she slit open the envelope, took one glance and then she was whirling Lil around the hall in a wild polka. ‘I’ve passed! I’ve passed! Four straight As.’

To make her happiness complete, after spending two hours on the telephone calling all her friends, Leon arrived. She was still on the telephone when a deep voice murmured in her free ear, ‘Miss me, Phoebe?’

Bea squeaked, ‘Got to go,’ and dropped the receiver on the hall table. A strong arm encircled her waist and turned her around. ‘Leon, you’re back,’ she murmured inanely, suddenly inexplicably nervous.

Leon’s hand cupped her chin and tilted her head back as his dark eyes scrutinised her lovely face. ‘Is that the best you can do in the way of a welcome, Phoebe, darling?’ he drawled mockingly. ‘Months apart and you say “you’re back”?’

‘One hundred and thirty-two days, actually.’ Bea glanced at her watch, ‘And twenty-two hours.’ Wrapping her slender arms around his neck, with a wide, beautiful smile curving her full lips, she added, ‘I have missed you during every one of them.’

A long, satisfying kiss later, Bea gazed dazedly into Leon’s dark eyes. ‘I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.’

‘Change of plan—I have to be in Athens tomorrow.’ Leon spent the next ten minutes explaining why, but Bea barely took it in. She was too entranced to have him beside her, to hear his voice, to be able to feast her eyes on his large, all-male body.

Her happy, dazed state lasted until the aeroplane touched down at Athens airport, and beyond...

Sighing, Bea let the paperback book, number one on the New York Times bestseller list, fall to the ground beside the sun lounger on which she was reclining. She didn’t seem able to get interested in anything today.

Leon’s villa was set high on the hills above Paphos, in the Greek sector of the island of Cyprus. The view before her was magnificent: an enticingly cool-looking swimming pool and beyond it the garden, flowing down the hillside in a mass of flowers and shrubs, the whole enclosed by an undulating white wall. Beyond, in the far distance, the ancient port of Paphos and its magnificent fortress stood by the Mediterranean Sea.

Her only garment was a minuscule bikini, and yet the heat was still stifling. Glancing at her half-naked body, she hauled herself into a sitting position and idly picked up a bottle of sun lotion and began massaging it into her arms and legs, across her flat stomach. The trouble was, she thought wryly, it wasn’t so much the heat outside that was making her so restless, but the heat within her.

Last night had been wonderful. Leon had held a huge party and they had become officially engaged. A tiny smile pursed her lips as she twisted the magnificent diamond and sapphire ring on the third finger of her left hand. Every time she looked at it she got a lump in her throat, not just for its beauty, but for what it represented.

Her engagement party had been perfect; she had danced the night away in the arms of the man she loved, the man she was going to marry, and she had met all of Leon’s friends and his stepmother, Tany, who seemed a very nice lady. But Tany’s daughter by her first marriage, Amy, Bea was not so sure about, and Amy’s friend from America, Selina, Bea had certainly not taken to. The woman had given her the most peculiar look, and a positively evil smile. Still, all in all it had been a great party.

Bea sighed again, and lay back down. She only had one slight niggle—and she knew she was being stupid—but... After the guests had left, and the house guests had retired for the night, finally she and Leon had been alone. He had walked her to her bedroom door and taken her into his arms.

Her eyes fluttered closed—just for a moment—as she relived the sensations his kiss had aroused. Her lips had quivered beneath the light touch of his mouth, then he had lazily nibbled her bottom lip, his tongue exploring when her mouth opened to him. Her hands, of their own accord, had moved up his arms to cling to his broad shoulders, glorying in the strength of his taut muscles and the power of his broad frame. He’d deepened the kiss with an ease and sensuality that had made her whole body burn with a trembling need that reached the very core of her being.

She’d murmured his name: ‘Leon.’ At last they were engaged, and the bed was just behind the door. Her firm young body had arched into him, the power of his arousal against her pelvis making her ache with frustration.

‘No, Phoebe,’ he’d murmured against her lips. ‘Ten days is not too long to wait.’ He’d eased her away from him. ‘I want you to have a perfect wedding, and a perfect wedding night. You deserve it. And that means keeping my desire under control until then.’

Sighing for the third time, Bea rolled over onto her stomach on the lounger. It had been a noble sentiment on Leon’s part, but had done nothing for the frustration burning inside her... With her head resting on her folded arms, she dozed off...

She raised her head groggily and turned onto her back, not sure what had awakened her. The lounger, placed as it was near the house, was now in the shade. ‘Thank goodness for that,’ she muttered to herself, realising she could have been burned to a crisp. Then she heard it again. Her name being called from inside the villa.

Good, Leon was back. He had gone into Paphos to see someone on business earlier. She was just about to stand up and make her whereabouts known when another voice floated from the open window not three yards away.

‘Looking for your proposed child bride, Leon, darling?’ It was Selina, the American girl, who spoke. ‘I don’t think you’ll be in such a hurry to find her after you hear what I have to say.’

‘Selina, there is nothing you have to say that I want to hear.’

‘Leon, don’t be like this. This is me, Selina, you’re talking to. Your lover for the last three years. You can’t fool me.’ A shuffling sound followed.

Bea gasped and, raising her hand to her mouth, she bit hard on her knuckle to stifle her cry of pain.

‘Let go, Selina, you’re wasting your time. I told you it was over months ago. You career women are all the same. You say you are equal to a man in every way, and you willingly enter into an open relationship, quite clearly defined, mutual pleasure only. Then, as soon as you are told it is over, instead of acting like a man and walking away, you revert to sniffling feminine tricks.’

‘Please, Leon, you have to listen to me. I know you care for me—you can’t possibly love that schoolgirl. Even your stepmother said your engagement was more about cementing the business partnership firmly under your complete control than about any love on your part.’

‘My reasons are my own, Selina, and are not up for discussion. Now get out of my way and stay out of it.’

‘That might be hard to do. Especially in seven months’ time when our child is born.’

‘Impossible, and anyway I always use protection—mainly to prevent just this type of blackmail. Do yourself a favour and leave, before I have you thrown out.’

Bea could not believe her ears. This was a Leon she had never heard before: hard and totally ruthless. But worse was to follow.

‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Leon? Two months ago, at the Mackenzies’ house party in Newport? You flew in, partied half the night, and woke up in the morning in my bed. Protection was not something you bothered about. I know; I was there...’

For a long moment there was silence. Then, ‘You bitch, Selina. You did it deliberately. Didn’t you?’

Bea didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. She had heard enough. Staggering to her feet, she silently crept around the outside of the house and entered by the kitchen. She took the servants’ stairs to her room and once inside locked the door. She collapsed on the bed, but could not cry. She was too traumatised for tears. Instead she stared blankly at the white walls, asking herself over and over again, How could I have been such a fool?