Obsessed (BBW Billionaire Light Romance) (13 page)

James had gone over to the mullioned window and was looking out into the distance, over the lake, at the expansive grounds and the woods. She stood behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning her head on his shoulder.

"Thank you for the weekend, it's been great," she said.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it. I love this place, but I look out, sometimes, and it's hard to think that this is really all mine. It's not just the house. There's the estate, too. The farms, the other people relying on me. Now it's just my mother most of the time and me occasionally. No father, no Robbie. It seems such a huge place to keep going just for us, but it's been in the family for generations."

"Maybe you'll have your own family one day," Leah said gently.

"I don't know if I'm ready for that," he replied. He sounded suddenly edgy, and she sensed that it would be better to stay silent, but instead she ploughed on, ignoring the danger signals.

"What about
Elizabeth
. You've known her sometime. How does she feel about marriage or a family?" Leah asked. She felt him tense beneath her hands; she had probed too far.

"Elizabeth has nothing to do with you. Understand? She's
my
problem to sort out."

"And does she know about the other women?" Leah snapped back. Suddenly she wanted to know the answer.

"No more questions, please. Just leave it alone," he said, as he strode away from her across the room and picked up her grubby rucksack, throwing it roughly onto the bed. "Get packed, I'm going to say goodbye to Mrs Forbes, I'll see you at the front."

He walked towards the door, then stopped.

"Make sure you leave the bathroom tidy."

Once he was gone, Leah went back into the bathroom feeling deflated. She looked around, then put the tops back on all the bottles of expensive lotions, picked up the damp towels and wondered where to put them. She tried all the numerous cupboards and eventually found a linen basket. She lifted the lid and saw the robe that James had worn and then towels he had used, then she put own bundle on top.

She felt her stomach churning. She’d been too questioning about Elizabeth, about the future, and she’d spoilt a perfect weekend. She was a fool. He was obviously edgy about his relationship with his beautiful part time girlfriend, not willing to discuss it, so why hadn't she left it well alone? She felt that she couldn't take the stress, it was all getting too much for her.

Leah packed her small rucksack and then looked around the bedroom to make sure she hadn't left anything, realising, with a sinking feeling, that she would probably never visit this house again.

With a sudden impulse, she went back into the en-suite, opened the linen basket and took out the navy robe. She held it to her face, and breathed in the clean, soapy James smell. She rolled it up into a small bundle, then put it into the top of her rucksack and zipped it up.

James was waiting by the Land Rover. He took her rucksack from her and put it into the boot, then held open the passenger door whilst she got in; perfect manners.

But nothing was said. He started the car and drove slowly around the front of the magnificent house and down the long drive, and at the gates he stopped and put on some background music.

Leah knew it was to be a difficult journey.

He drove quickly and in silence, the miles being eaten up. She began to feel more and more upset; she just didn't know how to handle the situation. He disturbed her: so attentive one moment and then so difficult whenever she questioned anything. She had to face the fact that this relationship probably wasn't going anywhere. It was all just about sex. She would have to try and end it before it became even
more
difficult. Leah felt the beginning of a tear begin to trickle down her cheek and rubbed it away, but another quickly followed.

"Are you crying?" James asked.

"No," she said, wiping her face.

"Right."

Several miles later they entered a small market town. The traffic lights were on red and they waited in silence. James reached across and held her knee, stroking her gently.

"Sorry," he said.

Leah nodded in the darkness. She didn't trust herself to speak.

James

The weekend got off to a rather bad start. I'd pulled a few strings and managed to get a table at an exclusive Michelin-starred restaurant on the way to Norfolk. I wanted to surprise Leah; a real treat. I dressed carefully, in a jacket and linen shirt, with a tie ready in my pocket. But when I picked her up, well, she came out of the house in jeans, which were too tight, a baggy sweatshirt, which was too big, and trainers. Trainers!

As I helped her into the Defender, I knew I would have to change plans. She would be aware that she wasn't dressed for the up-market restaurant, and I didn't want to make her feel out of place, but even so, I was annoyed.

I stopped at a garage and got some petrol, and while I was inside I rang the restaurant and cancelled. I then called Mrs Forbes, the housekeeper at Thorley, and told her we would be arriving around eight and would eat there. I asked her to get something from the freezer and put it into the Aga, and lay the table for two in the kitchen, plus a bottle of red.

She hesitated. She knew I was bringing someone, and said that Elizabeth only drinks white wine. I told her I’d said red. She then asked about rooms. I said it was a different guest and made it clear my guest would be sharing my room.

By this time, I was fuming. She makes things so difficult. I pay her wages and I own the house. I can bring home whoever the hell I want, when I want and don't expect to be questioned.

When I got back to the car, Leah was happily waiting. She looked as excited as a kid on a school trip, so I switched on some music and made an excuse about the traffic while I calmed down.

I started to wish that I could get someone, perhaps Lucy, to take Leah shopping for clothes. Unlimited funds, spend money and find things that flatter her, and lacy underwear, too, instead of hiding that beautiful body under unsuitable, cheap clothes. When I thought about that, I nearly missed the exit on a roundabout and cut up a taxi.

After a rather frosty encounter with Mrs Forbes, the weekend went well. Leah seemed genuinely interested in the house. She spent ages looking around, asking all about the history. We walked a long way on Sunday all the way to the pub in the village, which is several miles, and she didn't moan once.

She enjoyed the meal and I realised that I had ordered for both of us, instead of asking her, but she didn't mention it. She's lively, and easy company, most of the time.

Once again, the sex was fantastic. This time less hurried.

We talked a bit about our different families, but we both knew what we were mainly there for, and the attraction is still as strong. It was great to have time to take things slowly, enjoy each moment and fall asleep together. Then, in the woods, it got a bit rougher. I felt like a sex-obsessed teenager again, and she went for it.

My fantasy about the old oak tree and Evie Shore has been smashed forever.

Earlier, when I mentioned teaching her to swim properly, she got all stroppy. She's very insecure about things like that. Just as we were packing, it all went wrong. She asked about Elizabeth, about the future.

I don't even know myself and I wasn't ready to talk, so I cut her off. She cried in the car and I told her I was sorry.

I'm taking a team from the firm to the Far East for a few weeks, we have lots of investments there. It’ll give me a break from London and I'll have to concentrate on business.

At some point I might have a proper think where I'm going with my life. My own perfect solution would be to have Elizabeth in the country raising our children and Leah in London as my mistress. Ha. Dream on.

Anyway, this needs to be sorted ...

September had arrived, the weather was still warm during the day, but the Autumn nights were becoming chilly. The weekend was forecast to be the last of the sunny weather, and on the Sunday afternoon, Leah took her book, sunglasses, and a ready-made salad to the park. Children played on the slides and roundabouts, and there were wooden benches where the mothers and family members sat chatting.

She moved further away from the family groups, onto a quiet grassy slope, surrounded by a thicket of trees. Emma and Simon were going to see a film at the arts centre and had asked her to go, too, but she’d declined.

She needed to be alone: to think, to go over in her mind that last weekend with James and try to come to her own decision about the future.

She’d heard nothing from him since.

It was incredible what had happened in the space of a year. Last Winter, she was happily sharing the small house in Clapham with Emma and Lucy, and all they ever worried about was the increase in the rent. Just seven months later, and everything had changed.

Now Lucy was married and would be going to Canada at the end of the month, Simon had moved in with Emma, and Leah had a share in a promising  business.

She had also fallen in love with James Willoughby.

She just had to face it. Her crazy, mixed feelings had turned to love, and it was impossible. The last time she had been with him in Norfolk, they’d shared childhood memories. He’d shown her his country home, and it seemed that they were developing some sort of relationship.

The overwhelming physical attraction had been there, and was even more compelling. But even so, he was unwilling to discuss Elizabeth, had sharply cut her off when she mentioned the future, and she’d cried in the car on the way home.

She had to get a grip. She was not the sort of woman who usually cried over men. In other ways, her confidence in herself had grown with her involvement in the shop, and she enjoyed the work and was still eager to expand the business.

She knew, however, that she still had doubts about her own attractiveness. She couldn't keep going round in circles. She would have to come to a decision.

James was, she now knew, definitely out of her league; his background, his wealth, the way he ran his life. She was not going to snivel and sob her way into his affections. It seemed that he only wanted her for sex, and, if she was honest with herself, she was just as obsessed as him.

But even so, it
had
to end. She was not going to let that happen again. She put on her sunglasses, got out her book – a dark Swedish thriller – and tried to concentrate, to distance herself from the park and her own thoughts of James.  

§

The afternoon sun was beginning to sink, people were packing up their picnics and rounding up unwilling children. It was time to leave the Sunday afternoon park and go home. The weekend was nearly over.

Leah closed her book. She turned to pull her rucksack towards her and became aware of a couple some way away, in the shadows, just under the leafy, overhanging branch of a tree.

The woman had her back towards Leah. She was tall and slender with dark hair. She was wearing dark cotton trousers and a white, silky top, loose, with a low back. The man was angled away from Leah, but in spite of herself, and with an uneasy feeling of being intrusive, she was fascinated when they began to kiss passionately.

The scene reminded her of James and herself, pushed against the oak tree in the woods: the same intensity, oblivious to their surroundings.

The man's hand began to stroke the woman's bare shoulder as his other hand pulled her top up, slipping inside, against her bare skin. Leah had a sense of flashback, a strange, fleeting image. She
knew
that dark possessive hand from somewhere ... Surely she had seen it stroking Lucy's golden skin at the barbecue.

With a creeping sense of unease, Leah held her book up partly hiding her face. The couple were several yards away across the grass and were completely absorbed in each other. The woman put her arms up around his neck and pulled him towards her, as he stroked and fondled her skin beneath the silky top. They were the same height, with the same dark hair and olive skin, entwined together.

It was Elizabeth and Sam. 

Leah turned away in shock, her heart hammering in her chest. She quickly grabbed the rucksack and stuffed her book into the top. Carefully, beneath her dark glasses, she glanced across at the couple, but Sam had his hand tightly around Elizabeth's wrist and was pulling her away, towards the thicket of trees.

Leah gathered her things and walked quickly in the opposite direction, towards the park gates and the quiet street.

With her mind in a whirl, she walked on, hardly realising where she was going, towards the little house in Clapham.

Sam and Elizabeth, together, either just after or just about to make love, and it was obviously not the first time. Her own thoughts about James disintegrated as she absorbed the shock of her discovery.

When she reached home, she poured herself a large glass of white wine, cool from the fridge, and took it to her room.

She held the glass with clammy, shaking hands and sipped slowly, whilst she considered what to do.

It was a couple of hours later, after thinking through the situation from every possible angle, that she finally realised she could do nothing.

She wouldn't even tell Emma, she couldn't tell Lucy, and definitely not James or Elizabeth. 

Sam then – if she saw him on her own she just might have a go at him. He was at the centre of everything.

§

Later in the week, Lucy called around in the evening, full of excitement, her usual dazzling self. Leah tried to control her feelings, to banish that picture imprinted on her mind of Sam and Elizabeth disappearing into the trees.

"Can you keep Friday night of next week free?" Lucy asked cheerfully.

"Why?" Emma asked, as she made them all a coffee.

"We're having a farewell party. You must come. Nothing fancy, just drinks and nibbles at the Golden Lion pub near the hospital. There's a function room at the back. It'll be just a group from the hospital, my friends from the salon. You'll know most of them from the wedding."

"Great," Emma answered, "and what about James and Elizabeth?"

"Oh, James is still abroad and replied has another arrangement," Lucy answered.

"Lucy," Leah hesitated. "You
are
sure about going to Canada, aren’t you? It doesn't seem very long since the wedding and you'll be off to a strange country. It all seems to be happening so quickly."

Emma and Lucy looked at her in surprise.

"Of course I'm sure!" Lucy exclaimed. "I knew from the beginning that Sam had the job to go to in Montreal."  

"But you won't know anybody over there," Leah persisted.

"We'll have each other," Lucy stated, and Leah just had to let the subject drop.

Lucy seemed so happy, so sure of Sam; how could she say any more?

§

For the next week, Leah concentrated on working in the flower shop and preparing her first financial report for James. She didn't want him to have to remind her again that the figures were due, and she was determined to make a success of the arrangement. She was pleased to see that sales were up and that the shop was doing quite well. She started to think about special arrangements for a Halloween window dressing and also to plan for Christmas themes. It helped to keep her mind occupied, away from her worries about Lucy and Sam, as the farewell party approached.