The Mistress Purchase (16 page)

Unable to stop herself, Sadie reached out and covered Leon's hand with her own in a gesture of womanly comfort and understanding.

‘You must have felt very angry, and very afraid.' she said gently. When he looked at her she added, ‘You were only a boy, Leon. Fourteen…'

‘Fourteen is only four years off manhood,' Leon told her curtly. ‘What happened then made me the man I am today, Sadie. A man who always puts the security of the business ahead of everything else in my life.'

He paused to look at her before adding gruffly, ‘And then you came along, and suddenly…What was happening between us wasn't in my game plan—and you were a woman I was involved with on a business footing. When I was with you, you blew my ability to rationalise clean out of the water. All I wanted…all I needed was you. Don't you see?' he growled. ‘What was happening between us pushed me off base and made me feel…'

‘Vulnerable?' she suggested softly.

For a moment she thought he wasn't going to reply.

This man,
her
man, she acknowledged with a tiny shiver of fierce pleasure, was quite definitely one tough alpha male.

‘If you want to put it that way,' he agreed, almost grudgingly.

‘And that was why you rejected me?'

Sadie didn't wait for his reply; she could see it in his eyes. The best way to teach someone was by example, she reminded herself. And, that being the case, if she wanted Leon to talk to her about his feelings perhaps she would talk about her own first!

Taking a deep breath, she asked him slowly, ‘Have you any idea what rejection does to a woman, or at least to this woman, when she's given herself in love to the man she thinks shares her feelings? When she's already planning their future together, even imagining having his babies? Only to be told that she's got it wrong, that he doesn't want her; that he doesn't share her feelings?'

‘You were doing that? Imagining having my babies?' His voice was thick with awe, raw with emotion. ‘You were imagining…?'

As he took her in his arms, Leon whispered against her mouth, ‘We've got to find a way to make this work, Sadie. We will find a way!'

Pushing him away, Sadie warned him, ‘I won't change my mind about the Myrrh formula, Leon. Nor about working with synthetics.'

Leon brushed his thumb against Sadie's lips.

‘No words now, Sadie. Not when there is so much I want to communicate to you in so many other ways—with my hands, with my mouth, with my body!' he added sensuously as he felt her lips open to caress the hard pad of his thumb.

Tomorrow he would tell her about his meeting with the chemist, and that he planned to put to his board the proposal that they invest in creating a scent which would combine the best of both natural ingredients and synthetic that could be afforded by women all over the world. But right now he had far, far more important things on his mind than mere business!

As her tongue probed the ridges of flesh on Leon's thumb, Sadie opened her arms to him, moaning with pleasure as he bent his head to her breast and started to feather delirium-inducing caresses against its taut peak.

‘Y
ES
, Raoul. I've told Leon that I'm prepared to sell him my share of Francine,' Sadie confirmed patiently into her mobile.

She was still in Leon's suite at the hotel, having spent the entire night with him, and her body throbbed blissfully with that very special physical ache that comes with sexual fulfilment.

Leon had left half an hour earlier, telling her that he had a meeting to go to but insisting that she was to stay until he returned.

‘We have a great deal to talk about,' he had whispered as he kissed her. ‘And I do not mean the Francine contract!'

Sadie's mouth curled into a happy smile now as she spoke to her cousin.

‘I've also told Leon that I haven't changed my mind about either the Myrrh formula or creating a new synthetic scent for him,' she warned Raoul.

‘Well, he won't be bothered about that,' Raoul interrupted her carelessly. ‘I've heard that he's already in negotiation with Arnaud Lebrun, and he's supposed to be the best chemist in the whole of the perfume industry. If you want my opinion, you've been a fool to turn down the kind of opportunity Leon would have given you and your career, but it was your choice! Lebrun will give Leon what he wants! But at least you've had the sense to agree to sell your share of Francine to Leon,' Raul continued, oblivious to the deathblow he had dealt her.

Numbly, Sadie ended the call. Logically there was no valid reason why she should feel the way she was right now! Leon had every right to hire someone else to do what she had refused to do. But last night he had told her that they would find a way to work things out, and she had believed that he'd meant he was prepared to compromise, just as she was herself.

But she could not have been more wrong.

Once again pain, anger, desolation and a feeling of betrayal filled her. These were now familiar, destructive and unwanted feelings for Sadie. Feelings she had told herself—and believed—in Leon's arms last night that she would never experience again.

And what made it all so much worse was that Leon hadn't even warned her what he was planning to do. In bed last night he had as good as told her he loved her. But how could he when…?

She was on the point of leaving when Leon walked into the suite.

When she made no move to go to him, and then stepped back out of arm's reach when he came to her, he stood still and frowned.

‘What is it? What's wrong?' He asked immediately.

‘Was your appointment today with Arnaud Lebrun?' she challenged him.

‘Yes, it was. But—'

Sadie felt sick with shock and pain.

‘Leon, this just isn't going to work between us!' she told him fiercely.

‘Last night I thought that perhaps…That given what I believed we felt for one another we might be able to reach a compromise with regard to Francine's new scent. But though I know that logically I have no right to feel this way because you have approached Lebrun to create
a new perfume for you. I just wish you had told me—that's all. I had hoped that you were prepared to meet me halfway. I just wish that you cared enough—not just about me, but about my professional opinion, my work ethic—to want to find that compromise, just as I want to find it with you! But now…'

‘Sadie—'

‘No. It's no good. Being involved sexually with you is just not enough for me. And I don't even think that being involved with you emotionally is either. I'm a modern woman, Leon. I want to play a full role in my partner's life. I want my own career too.'

‘Sadie, I went to see Lebrun to ask his advice about the feasibility of creating a new scent that was a combination of natural materials and synthetics, that was all! He's the best in the business and I wanted to see not only if he thought if it could be done but also if it
was
done if it could be done within a budget that would make it affordable to every woman who wanted to wear it. I'd already decided that I was going to strong-arm my board, even put money in myself, if that was what it took to get the thing off the ground. And do you know why I was doing all that, Sadie? Do you know why I've been pacing my bedroom floor at night and staring out of my damn office window instead of concentrating on my business? Do you even care why? Or are you so damned intent on being right that you just can't see beyond that? I did it for you…for my love for you and our future together. It was for
you
, Sadie!'

As she stared at him in silence Sadie felt sure she could hear the tiny sound of something precious breaking.

‘You should have trusted me,' Leon told her angrily, confirming her thoughts. ‘But, no…'

Battling against her tears, Sadie gazed at him.

‘Yes, you're right—I should,' she agreed quietly. ‘But that goes both ways, Leon. We're two people who feel very strongly about certain things inside ourselves. I love you, and—'

‘And I damn well love
you,'
Leon growled, giving her a look that made her ache to run into his arms and demand to be told that nothing else mattered other than that love.

But even love could not shut out reality and the world for ever. Buried problems had a way of growing and erupting, and if she and Leon could not reach a compromise…if they could not trust one another now, when their love was new…

‘I asked Lebrun for his opinion because I wanted to come to you and tell you that I had changed my mind. I wanted to give you that change of mind as a gift of my love, Sadie.'

‘I would rather you had given me your trust and treated me as an equal, not as a child to be given “gifts”,' Sadie told him huskily.

But somehow she had moved, and so had he, and they were once more in each other's arms. From there it was just a few short, passionate moves to the bed, their discarded clothing littering the floor as they took refuge in the thing that bound them most securely together both physically and emotionally.

 

Through the blur of her tears Sadie saw the scratches she had left on Leon's back, scarlet weals of passion, inflicted in an agony of ecstasy he had induced and shared.

‘We can't go on like this,' she whispered in despair. ‘How can we be like this with one another when we don't trust each other? What's happening to us now is killing me, Leon, and I'm afraid that it will kill our love as well.'

‘I know what you're saying,' Leon agreed. ‘We need to start afresh, Sadie. Without any hidden agenda between us. I want you to create a new scent for Francine, but you will have to create it within a certain budget. You need time to think about whether or not you want to do that. And you need time to learn to trust me as well. What do you say to us having three months apart? I know how I feel about you, but you have to trust me, Sadie, and right now I don't believe that you do.'

‘Three months apart sounds a good idea to me,' Sadie told him hollowly.

She was lying! Oh, how she was lying! The very thought of spending three
hours
apart from Leon right now was almost more than she could bear, but her pride would not allow her to say so. Why hadn't he just talked to her, instead of consulting Lebrun? Didn't
he
trust
her
?

Listening to Sadie agree to his plan, Leon clenched his jaw. How could he be such a fool? Right now what he longed to do more than anything else was pick Sadie up and carry her off somewhere he could have her all to himself—and for ever!

S
ADIE'S
hand trembled as she stoppered the small precious bottle and wrapped it carefully in bubble wrap.

Her ticket was booked and there was no way she was going to give in to the nervousness and self-doubt that were making her hands tremble so much.

But what if, when she got to France, Leon reminded her that it was only three weeks since they had last been together and refused to see her? What if he insisted that they stick to their agreement not to see one another for three months? Or what if he had changed his mind altogether and simply no longer wanted her? What if…?

Sadie impatiently dismissed her wayward thoughts. Her flight was booked and her bag packed. Now all she needed to do was to place this precious phial of hope and love and compromise in her bag.

She was waiting in the departure lounge when her mobile rang. Answering it, she way surprised to hear Mary's voice.

‘Sadie, where are you?' Mary demanded.

‘At the airport,' Sadie replied. ‘My flight has just been called, Mary.' She stood up to go and join the queue lining up for boarding.

‘Stop right where you are,' she heard Mary urging. ‘And if you aren't sitting down then I think you ought to be!' she added dramatically, pausing theatrically before continuing, ‘You've got a visitor, Sadie.'

‘A visitor?'

Sadie felt her hand start to tremble and then her whole
body as the small burst of aching disbelief inside her flowered warmly into hope.

Her mouth dry, she begged. ‘Is it…is it Leon, Mary?'

It couldn't be, of course, and she was every kind of fool for even thinking that it might be, but…

‘You'd just better come home,' Mary answered her obliquely. ‘And you'd better get back here fast, because if you don't I might just be tempted to make off with him myself.'

 

It was the longest drive of Sadie's life! Mary hadn't said specifically that it was Leon who was her visitor, but Sadie hoped and prayed with every mile passing that it was. And that he would wait. And that he would listen. And that he would still want her. And…Her heart jerked, the uneven beat sending her pulse-rate scattering live bolts of nervous excitement through her body.

Please let it be Leon.

 

It was dark when she finally arrived home, and at first Sadie didn't see the dusty black Mercedes pulled to one side of her drive.

She was still focusing on it when the door of the house opened and Leon came walking out. How had he got in? Sadie momentarily wondered. Mary, of course! She had a spare key!

‘Le—'

She didn't even get as far as finishing saying his name before she was dragged into his arms and kissed until she could hardly breathe.

‘It
is
you. You
are
here!' she whispered shakily She was too thrilled to bother to hide her joy. ‘Mary wouldn't say, but I hoped, and…Leon. Mmm…' She protested as he started to kiss her again, until somehow she discovered
that they were both inside her house and the door was closed firmly behind them, shutting out the outside world.

‘Let me look at you,' Leon demanded rawly, cupping her face and studying her features. ‘You've lost weight,' he accused her gruffly.

‘A little,' Sadie admitted, still breathless from his kisses. Inside her body the ache of longing which had begun pulsing there long before she had even got as far as the airport, never mind learned that Leon was here in her home, had become a demanding urge of embarrassing intensity. To try to ease it she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and then gasped as she inadvertently bumped into him.

The feel of him against her sent the pulsing ache into hungry overdrive. Helplessly her hand went to his chest, then his waist before moving lower, unable to wait for the feel of the erection she could already see pushing against his jeans.

‘Sadie,' she heard him growl protestingly, but she was beyond listening—had been beyond anything but satisfying her need for him from the moment she had seen him walking towards her.

She felt him tense and then shudder as she touched him, his reaction making her bolder—bold enough, in fact, to hold his gaze with her own as he groaned and covered her hand with his.

Now it was his gaze that was imprisoning her, just as it was her turn to shudder in mute response to the need they were both feeling.

‘What you're doing right now, Sadie, is just about enough to push me over the edge,' Leon warned her huskily, bending his head to brush her lips with his own as he added, ‘So if that isn't what you want…'

Purposefully he lifted his hand from hers, and just as
purposefully Sadie left hers where it was, covering the bulge under his jeans.

He had stopped kissing her and was simply looking at her with those dizzying green eyes. She started to tremble, and then flicked her tongue-tip nervously against her lips. As she did so for some reason her gaze dropped to Leon's crotch.

A raw sound like a cross between a roar and a groan warned her that she had tripped the danger switch, but before she could do anything Leon had grabbed hold of her, picking her up and swinging her into his arms.

‘Which way is the bedroom?' he demanded thickly. ‘And you'd better tell me damned quick, Sadie, otherwise it's going to have to be that kitchen table I can see right through there.'

As Sadie nodded numbly in the direction of the hallway leading to the stairs Leon acknowledged that he no longer gave a single damn about Francine or even Myrrh, and that right now the only thing…the only person that mattered to him was the woman he was holding in his arms. And he fully intended telling her so. There weren't going to be any more misunderstandings, no more misinformation! From now on he was planning to tell her every day of their lives how much he loved her.

How could he ever have risked losing her?

‘You can't carry me all the way upstairs, Leon!' Sadie protested, but she still clung to him, revelling in the close contact she was enjoying.

‘You just watch me!' he told her. ‘On second thoughts, the kitchen table it is. There isn't any way I'm about to let you go! Not now, Sadie, and not ever.'

When he laid her down on her long pine table Sadie managed to find the conscience to remind him, ‘About Francine, Leon…'

‘Francine, nothing,' Leon growled. ‘Right now the only perfume that's on my mind, Sadie, is yours!' he emphasised in a muffled voice, and he buried his face against her throat and started to kiss his way along it, unfastening the buttons on her shirt as he did so.

When she felt him slip his hand inside it and peel back the fabric of her bra to reveal the hard point of her nipple Sadie shuddered in wanton delight.

‘You like this?' Leon demanded, watching her reaction as he rubbed his thumb against the aching crest of flesh.

‘Like it?'

Sadie wondered hazily if Leon could translate the whimpered sound of pleasure she made, but patently he could, because he made a deep satisfied response in his own throat and then bent his lips to her breast, urging her thickly, ‘And this? Do you like this too, Sadie?'

As Sadie's body arched, she frantically pulled open Leon's shirt. Her hands clung to his shoulders, her nails digging helplessly into his flesh, and Sadie could only give an incoherent moan. But Leon didn't need to hear any words. The way she was responding to him told him everything he needed to know.

The instant Leon's free hand stroked between her legs Sadie parted them. Inside her head she was already anticipating what was to come, her mind full of remembered images of intense sensuality.

Leon was tugging her jeans free of her legs, kneeling up on the table, his torso exposed where his shirt had been ripped open, Sadie recognised, her eyes widening as she stared at the torn fabric. Had she done that? And those scratches she could just see on his shoulder…had she inflicted those?

Leon had finished removing her jeans. He bent to remove her thin lace low-rise briefs.

Sadie closed her eyes in wanton pleasure as she felt the heat of his breath against her skin. Leon was sliding his hands beneath the lace. Her breath caught in her throat on a sob of pleasure.

‘What is it, Sadie?' Leon was demanding huskily.

She could feel the heat of his breath on the soft triangle of curls beneath the lace. And then she could feel the light brush of his lips, teasing her, tantalising her with their promise of what she was already aching for…

‘You want this?' he whispered, as his hands tugged away the lace and she was free to spread her legs in a wide vee of liquid female longing, inviting him to part the swollen lips of her sex and taste the sweet juice of her love.

The touch of Leon's tongue against the eager ridge of flesh that was her sensual centre sent Sadie wild. The firm lap of his tongue was taking her to heaven—beyond heaven, she acknowledged, as her body twisted and convulsed and the pleasure built up inside her to the point where she knew she was not going to be able to control it.

Leon's tongue lapped and stroked until Sadie could bear no more. Her whole body clenched, the muscles in her thighs tightening against Leon's hands as he held her.

As the first spasm of her orgasm began Leon raised his head and looked at her, watching her pleasure, making her focus wide-eyed on his gaze as it held her and demanded that she expose herself to him totally and completely.

As the quivers finally eased out of her body Sadie remembered there was something she had to tell him. Something important. Looking at him, she whispered with love-drugged urgency, ‘Leon, the Myrrh formula—'

‘Not now.' He stopped her, shaking his head and low
ering his body to rest alongside her own. Tenderly he cupped her chin and started to kiss her, little gentle kisses that melted her insides.

‘There's something I want to tell you first. I love you, and I need you, and if it means giving up the whole damn conglomerate to have you in my life then that is what I intend to do!'

‘Oh, Leon!' Sadie protested mistily.

The look in his eyes as he bent over her and kissed her made her own prick with tears.

Slowly he released her mouth, his attention distracted by the sudden tightening of the nipple closest to him. Leon rewarded its demand with the lazy brush of his lips and the not so lazy lap of his tongue.

Immediately Sadie curled her toes, a small gasp of shocked pleasure parting her lips. Surely not again? Not so…so…immediately and intensely?

She made another small sound and reached for Leon.

The feel of him inside her filled her with a pleasure which went way beyond anything physical. Just holding him there was surely the most intense emotional experience she had ever had, Sadie acknowledged.

‘More, Leon,' she demanded with female hunger. ‘More…yes…just like that. Just like that…' she moaned as she urged him deeper and deeper within her, wrapping him tightly with the wet warmth of her flesh.

‘Sadie!' Leon warned her, but her body was already eager for his climax, matching it and capturing him as he pulsed thickly inside her.

She was almost asleep when Leon pulled her up and they made their way up to bed. He tucked her into his side and pulled the bedclothes over them. But even in her sleep Sadie was not prepared to let him go.

Curled into his body, she rested one of her hand on
him. Not that she needed to hold him. Before he had fallen asleep Leon had thrown a possessive male leg over Sadie's body, imprisoning her where he intended to keep her. At his side. For ever.

 

When Sadie woke up she was on her own, the side of the bed next to her empty and cold—but nowhere near as cold as her heart.

Frantically she threw back the bedclothes and rushed to the window. The Mercedes was still outside!

Then she heard a sound from downstairs. Quickly she looked for something to put on. The first thing that caught her eye was Leon's discarded shirt. Pulling it on, she paused to breathe in the smell of him.

As she tried to fasten it up she realised that one of the buttons was missing and that one of the buttonholes was torn. Guiltily she remembered how that had happened! She had done it last night, in her eagerness to get to Leon's body!

Padding downstairs, she went into the kitchen, where she could smell coffee brewing. But Leon wasn't there. And then she saw him across the hallway in her sitting room. Holding her grandmother's photograph.

Even though she could have sworn she had not made a sound, he turned and looked at her.

‘Your grandmother?' he asked.

Silently Sadie nodded her head.

Putting the photograph back, Leon came towards her.

‘Where were you going yesterday?' he asked.

Sadie looked at him

‘To find you,' she admitted. And, turning away from him, she went to where she had left her bag the previous evening. Opening it, she removed the bubble-wrapped
packet. ‘And to give you this,' she added, handing the package to him.