Page 31 of The Secret Sanchez Heir
Leandro wasn’t sure where his membership card was, but in any event it didn’t matter because he was known here. He also carried that air of unassailable power and opulence that encouraged people to bow, scrape and open doors before they even realised what doors they were opening.
It had been well over a year since he had been there, but he was familiar with the layout. Like other private clubs, this was a dark, intimate place, with a very cleverly thought out décor that encouraged intimacy, relaxation and therefore a great deal of expensive drinking and eating. The bar snacks were unusually good and the food, which was served in separate rooms, had won Michelin stars. To one side, the actual bar was a curving oak semi-circle that brought to mind old-fashioned movies involving the mafia. The dance floor was a raised podium with low lighting and sufficient space to house a live band, which was often the case, although not tonight. Sofas and comfortable chairs were interspersed between low wooden tables.
As always, the place was heaving. Jean Claude, a Frenchman of impeccable good manners and frightening efficiency, ran the show with a hand of steel. Drinks were never spilled, bar snacks were always delivered with aplomb, food was never served cold.
Leandro had been prepared to cut short the preliminaries and flatly ask him where Abigail’s party could be found, but he didn’t have to because, eyes narrowed, he saw for himself where his quarry was.
He clenched his jaw and remained standing where he was, towards the back of the dark room, a towering, vaguely menacing presence that was attracting all sorts of sidelong looks from the people edging past him.
No wonder Abigail hadn’t waxed lyrical about the leaving party, he thought through gritted teeth. She had managed very successfully to keep her excitement under wraps.
She’d barely had time for him for the past couple of weeks. Indeed, they had moved seamlessly from passionate lovers to nodding acquaintances—but what a fool he would have been to have thought that she might have been missing...well, missing him.
It appeared not.
It seemed that she had been ticking off the days until she could let her hair down and revert to the single life she had clearly never intended to leave behind.
So much for that sweet, sexy smile and those big doe eyes when she had told him that she wouldn’t marry him, but would live with him and see how things went. She’d failed to mention that the slightest hiccup and she’d be off in a puff of smoke.
Every muscle tensed, he watched through narrowed eyes as she danced with some guy who looked as though he would have jumped all over her given half a chance. Her eyes were half-closed and her movements were as rhythmic as a professional dancer’s. Around her, everyone else faded in comparison. It was as if she exuded an unbearably bright glow which was, quite literally, unmatchable.
The over-eager man curved his hand around her waist to gather her closer and Leandro didn’t wait to see how she would react.
Galvanised into furious action, he strode through the crowds, the tables and the waitresses holding huge, circular trays above their heads. By the time he hit the dance floor, fury was coursing through every vein in his body. He made no effort to think straight or to analyse why he was behaving the way he was.
‘Mind if I cut in?’ He barely glanced at the younger man who stepped back with an expression of alarm. Every scrap of his attention was reserved for the woman who had now snapped to attention and was frowning at him in a way that suggested perhaps one glass of champagne too many.
‘How much have you had to drink?’ he demanded.
Abigail blinked and laboriously tried to work out an answer to that, while trying to process the unexpected appearance of Leandro in the middle of the dance floor. He’d appeared out of nowhere—and he wasn’t dancing.
The music had changed from upbeat to a ballad and she tugged the lapels of his white shirt and shimmied closer to him. ‘Can I interest you in a dance?’
Aware that the eyes of the world were beadily swivelling in their direction, Leandro curved his big body against hers, shifting and settling her against him so that he could murmur into her ear, ‘I’m dancing. Now, how much have you had to drink? No, scratch that. Who the hell was that guy you were dancing with? If I hadn’t arrived in time, you would have had to peel him off you...or was that what you wanted? Have I interrupted a romance in the making?’
He tightened his grip on her and pulled her a little closer. Her breasts were pushing against him. When he thought of that guy and pictured him getting into a clinch like this with her, Leandro saw red, and he had to bite down the urge to find the man and thrash the living daylights out of him.
It would never happen, of course. Leandro abhorred that sort of extreme reaction. And yet...his fingers itched...
‘I haven’t had much to drink.’ Abigail knew that her inhibitions were lowered. She had come to have a good time and had knocked back three glasses of champagne in quick succession in her quest not to be a party pooper.
The champagne had gone to her head, and had done wonderful things to loosen her up and relieve her of some of the terrible stress and sadness that had been plaguing her every day since she and Leandro had begun pulling away from one another.
Right now, it was also allowing her really to enjoy the firmness of his body against hers and the husky, urgent whisper in her ear and that tone of...possessiveness was frankly thrilling.
She cosied up to him and he didn’t pull away.
‘Shane,’ she murmured, curving her hands behind his neck and linking her fingers together.
‘Shane?’ The woman was sex on legs and Leandro’s blood ran more hot the closer she pressed herself against him. He fought to remember that this was the same demanding woman who had laid into him simply because he had failed to answer a question which should never have been asked in the first place. He didn’t do nagging, even though she was in a different category from anyone else who’d ever tried. However, his body was not making the necessary connections, and he knew if he wasn’t careful soon he’d be as hard as steel and painfully in need of relief.
‘Don Andrew’s son.’ Abigail was proud of her ability to think clearly even though she knew that the drink had gone to her head. ‘Don Andrew,’ she enunciated with precision and clarity, ‘is a regular customer of ours. Shane is his son by his first marriage. He came in with his girlfriend a couple of months ago to buy a diamond bracelet for her.’
‘And where’s the lucky girl now?’ Leandro bit out. ‘Hiding behind a pillar? Waiting for him to get back to her just as soon as he’s done making a pass at you?’
Abigail pulled back and stared at him in apparent fascination. ‘Are you jealous?’
Leandro flushed darkly. ‘I don’t do jealousy,’ he denied, voice cool and clipped. ‘Never have, never will. You’ve had too much to drink. I’m taking you home.’
