Mediterranean Nights: The Mistress Purchase / The Demetrios Virgin / Marco's Convenient Wife

‘It was called Myrrh,’ his grandmother had told him with a sigh, ‘and it was the most beautiful perfume ever.’

‘Couldn’t you have bought some?’ his younger self had asked her naïvely.

She had smiled sadly and shaken her head, ruffling his hair with a hand gnarled and deformed by years of hard domestic work.

‘Leon, just one small bottle would have cost more than I would have earned in five years,’ she had told him. ‘Perfume like that wasn’t created for women like me!’

As he had seen the look in her eyes Leon had sworn there and then that one day his grandmother would own a bottle of the best and the most expensive perfume in the world, and that he would buy it for her. Only she had died before he had been able to make good that promise. But he had never forgotten that he had made it, and never ceased regretting that he hadn’t been able to keep it. And he had certainly never forgotten why he had made it, which was why he’d felt so antagonistic towards Sadie’s original refusal to create a new perfume that would be inexpensive enough for every woman to wear and enjoy.

But fortunately Sadie had seen sense, and at last the Myrrh scent was going to belong to him! It was too late for his grandmother to enjoy, but at least he would have the satisfaction of knowing that the grandson of the woman who hadn’t been able to afford to buy the smallest bottle of the scent now owned the whole company! And if it was the last thing he did he intended to make sure that every woman who wanted to would be able to afford to wear a Francine perfume!

And so he had deliberately not told his board the reasons for his determination to acquire Francine. There was no way he was going to make himself vulnerable to anyone by admitting that he had been motivated to buy Francine out of sentiment. He would never hand out that kind of information and give others the opportunity to crucify him! As they undoubtedly would. The business world he operated in traded in financial gains, not emotional ones. And it only respected the men who made those financial gains.

Leon had grown up in a tough world, watching his parents struggling to establish the business—and then, just when the business had been on the verge of becoming very profitable, he’d seen them very nearly lose it. The shock and stress of that event had undermined his father’s health and left him permanently weakened physically. Witnessing such traumatic events had given Leon a fierce, youthful resolve to do all he could to protect his family, to make the business so financially stable and secure that he would never again have to see his father’s face grey with defeat and despair, or his mother’s eyes shining with frightened tears.

He might have taken his parents’ business and built it into the successful and profitable empire it was today, he might be a billionaire whose wealth could open any door for him, but deep down inside there was a part of him that still felt the anguish and the anger he had experienced as a fourteen-year-old, witnessing his parents’ fear, just as he still remembered listening to his grandmother describe how her poverty had sometimes humiliated her.

His children would be told all about their great-grandmother, and they would be brought up to respect and revere her memory, to understand that money could not buy spirit or character or love. If Sadie objected to that then she was not the woman he believed her to be…

Leon put down his cutlery with a clatter that made Sadie stare at him in confusion and wonder just what had caused that look of arrested shock she could see in his eyes. But before she could question him, however, he had distracted her by asking if she had as yet tried any of the hotel’s spa facilities.

‘No I haven’t,’ she admitted. ‘Have you?’

‘No,’ Leon acknowledged. ‘There hasn’t really been time.’

Sadie gave a small but very luxurious sigh. It was over an hour since they had finished their meal and come into the bar, where Leon had escorted her over to one of the seductively comfortable squashy sofas before going to order their drinks.

They were the only people left there, apart from the bar staff, and the logs on the fire had burned down to glowing ashes. She couldn’t say just what she and Leon had talked about—the time had flown by on wings of exultation and delight. It was almost as though Leon could actually sense what she was thinking—so much so that every time she had been tempted to forget their pact and talk to him about her excited plans for the future, and the new perfume she hoped to create, he’d somehow stopped her, sidelining their conversation into another direction. And all the time… all the time… every minute, every second, he had been looking at her in such a way that…

‘It looks like we’ve outstayed our welcome,’ Leon told her now, with an amused look at the barman, very purposefully cleaning up. ‘I’ll walk you back to your room,’ he added as Sadie stood up.

Outside it was cool enough for her to be glad she had brought her wrap—and she was even more pleased when without a word Leon took it from her and draped it gently over her shoulders. Was it her imagination or did his fingers really stroke slowly against her bare skin before he stepped back from her?

The path which wound up along the hillside and through the gardens was well illuminated by the strategically placed lighting. The sky was a blue-black dome of velvet, sprinkled with diamond-bright stars, with the thin sliver of a crescent moon.

The path curved and slipped between a small stand of trees into a hidden grove of scented darkness, which took Sadie by surprise, causing her to half stumble on an unseen step.

Immediately Leon reached out to steady her.

‘Thanks.’ Although the ground was in darkness there was enough light from the moon for her to see his features. The intensity of his gaze her made her heart thump frantically. ‘I didn’t realise there was a step there.’ It was disconcerting to know how at odds with the way she was feeling the bland mundanity of her words was.

‘No. I’m surprised the hotel management hasn’t had this area better lit. Surprised, but extremely pleased,’ Leon told her rawly.

‘Pleased?’ Was he actually saying what she thought he was saying? Sadie’s heart was doing more than merely thumping now; it was practically turning excited cartwheels! Instinctively she looked up at Leon, and the hungry look in his eyes caused the whole world to spin dizzily round her. She stood very still.

Slowly Leon lowered his head, his mouth seeking her own. Silently she waited, hardly daring to breathe in case she broke the spell that was binding them together in the magical and intimate darkness.

His lips touched hers, firm, warm, sure and knowledgeable, making her feel…

Making her feel like a woman, Sadie acknowledged giddily. Like a very desirable woman.

Strong male hands drew her closer, one resting in the small of her back, the other lifting to her neck, sliding beneath her hair, supporting her head as the pressure of his kiss tipped it backwards.

Sadie exhaled a disbelieving shaky whisper of breath before eagerly parting her lips to the probing thrust of Leon’s tongue. She could feel the solid trunk of a tree behind her shoulders, and yet had no memory of having stepped backwards. Leon’s hand had left the small of her back and travelled to the rounded curve of her bottom, urging her into his own body.

With a fierce thrill of delight she recognised his arousal, her body reacting to it with a sensual abandon that had her pushing her hips against him, revelling in the immediate and passionate response of his hands and his mouth as he gripped her harder and thrust his tongue deeper into the eager softness of her mouth.

Her own arms were wrapped tightly around him now, her breasts sensitised by the movement of her body against his. In her mind she could already picture his hands covering their nakedness, feel the fierce tug of his mouth against her nipples.

She shuddered violently at her own thoughts. A sharp spike of shock pierced through her, only to be overwhelmed by a fresh wave of aching longing as Leon pressed her even more closely to his body.

He felt excitingly hard and… Instinctively Sadie’s mind shied away from what she was thinking, imagining…

She wasn’t in the habit of assessing a man’s virility in terms of shape and size, and she most certainly wasn’t in the habit of getting excited about them—or him!

What had happened to her normal reserve? Not to mention the moral objections… the sheer common sense she should be heeding?

Leon’s mouth was moving along her jaw and towards her ear, leaving a trail of delicate kisses that filled her with stunning delight. Dizzily Sadie acknowledged that just the whisper of his breath… his lips against her skin… was sending her crazy. Not that he was exactly immune to the reaction he was arousing in her, judging by the way he was gripping her hips and pulling her tightly against his body, Sadie realised with a fierce thrill of female pleasure.

‘The way you’re making me feel I could take you here and now, do you know that?’ Leon groaned against her ear, confirming her thoughts and sending her pulse rocketing out of control whilst the images inside her head became even more explicit and steamy.

Again she wondered—where was her normal, sane and sensible self that should have been objecting sharply and immediately to what he was saying? Why was she moving her body even closer to his instead of pulling herself away?

Sadie didn’t know, and what was more she didn’t care. In fact, if Leon chose to put his threat into action, she didn’t think she would be able to object. Object…? She was aching so badly for him that…

Now it was her turn to moan out loud with delight as his hand moved up her body and cupped her breast. Just the feel of his thumb-tip rubbing sensuously across her tight, aching nipple made her bite on her bottom lip to stop herself from begging him to take off her top and expose her breast to his gaze, his touch and the hot, hard caress of his mouth.

Frantically she tensed her muscles, squeezing her thighs together as she felt the surge of longing rocket through her.

As though he guessed what was happening to her, Leon cupped her hip, his fingers kneading her rhythmically.

She was leaning fully against the tree now, letting it take the weight of her body whilst Leon’s hands sensitively explored every inch of her, making her quiver from head to foot in open longing.

When his hand stroked gently between her legs she groaned huskily and shuddered.

‘Sadie…’ As Leon took her hand and placed it against his own body she almost sobbed with pleasure. Her hands were long and slender, but the hard swollen length of him extended beyond her outstretched fingertips. Sadie closed her eyes, pleasure a dark velvet blanket of sensuality behind her eyelids. She ached as though she had a fever for the feel of him inside her. She’d had no idea there could be desire like this—instant, immediate, hot and hungry, a need that burned everything else into oblivion and drove a person relentlessly until it was sated.

No doubt in Leon’s eyes, she decided helplessly, she was totally unworldly and naïve not to have experienced something like this before. Unlike him!

How many times… how many women…? That thought burned through her in a hot agony of molten jealousy that stiffened her whole body.

‘Sadie?’

Suddenly they both heard voices somewhere lower down the path. Immediately Leon released her and bent to pick up the shawl which had fallen from her shoulders.

Tucking her hand through his arm, he guided her back to the path. She was shaking so much she suspected she would have stumbled if he hadn’t been holding on to her.

Unable to keep her feelings to herself, she burst out emotionally, ‘I don’t believe this is happening.’