Page 18 of Bride of Betrayal
Leo put an arm across his body as if to hold himself. Angelica instinctively moved closer and put a hand on his back. He looked at her and she saw a bleakness in his gaze for a moment that shocked her. But then it was gone. He seemed to straighten up. He took his arm down. ‘I’m OK now.’
Angelica was sure he wasn’t but she could read the determination in his demeanor. ‘We don’t have to stay, you know that. It’s just a social event.’
He shook his head. ‘No, we’re staying.’
We.Angelica tried not to let that impact her, a sense that they were in this together, when it was anything but, but she couldn’t shake it.
Leo took her hand and they skirted around the edges of the room, before she felt him literally steel himself and they moved back into the crowd. She looked at him as he conversed with a steady stream of people who came to talk to him and marvelled that unless she’d seen what had just happened—a near panic attack—he looked as vital and powerful as ever. As if it hadn’t happened.
It humbled her a little. She’d endured a sort of torturous prison with Aldo but she’d managed to minimise their time together as much as possible, leaving her relatively free. Leo had been sequestered in an actual prison, where she shuddered now to think of what had happened to him to give him that reaction to being in a crowd.
Soon they were ushered into a large banquet room where an eye-wateringly long table was laid out with sparkling crockery and crystal glasses. Silver and gold cutlery. Angelica couldn’t risk eating much with her outfit but in any case the food wasn’t exactly meant to be eaten. It looked more like an art display. Luckily she was used to this and had eaten something earlier. She glanced at Leo, who showed no signs of his earlier stress and who was tucking into the food with enthusiasm, reminding her that he had a healthy appetite. Her cheeks got hot. Foreverything.
‘You’re not meant to really eat the food,’ she said.
He wiped his mouth with a napkin and looked at her. ‘It’s delicious, you should try it.’
‘I ate earlier at the shoot.’ She waved her hand at herself. ‘I can’t really afford to dribble food down my front.’
That was a mistake. It gave licence to Leo to drop his gaze to her chest and the acreage of bare skin on display. He took his time moving his gaze back up and drawled, ‘I don’t think it would be all that bad.’
Instantly an image from their past came into her head. Leo spooning little blobs of ice cream onto her breasts. Specifically her nipples. She could still feel the delicious shock of the cold, followed by the even more delicious sensation of his hot mouth. Her cheeks flamed. She glared at him. He just smiled and when the person on the other side of him sought his attention, he turned away.
A couple of hours later, the dinner over and people mingling in the main ballroom again, Angelica was heartily sorry she’d ever thought of provoking Leo with her choice of clothes. People were tripping over themselves, tongues out, eyes glued to her breasts. She had to keep resisting the urge to pull the dress down over her thighs, knowing there was no give in the fabric.
She’d been in the bathroom earlier and had overheard two women tittering about her, saying, ‘She’s obviously in herexposure era.’
The other woman had sighed then and replied, ‘Well, if I had a body like that, I’d come naked.’
They’d left and Angelica had sat on the lid of the toilet for another ten minutes, hoist by her own petard and feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Especially when she thought of the fact that how she was dressed was contributing to the people crowding around them and freaking Leo out. She wanted him to see her as a liability. She didn’t want to cause him stress.
You still care about him,whispered a voice. She told herself it was natural to still have feelings for someone, even if they’d rejected you. Even if they hated you for what they believed you had done to them.
Angelica was standing a little to the side near the entrance. A man had stopped Leo on their way out. He broke away now and came towards her, apologising. So different from Aldo, whose default had been total lack of consideration of anything but him.
A chill breeze made Angelica shiver lightly and Leo spotted it. He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. His warmth seeped into her skin and bones, along with his scent, and Angelica had to fight not to close her eyes.
‘Thank you.’
‘You couldn’t even bring a coat. You had to go for maximum effect.’ He sounded so disapproving. And yet once again he was proving that he couldn’t not be considerate.
‘I forgot to think about a coat and it’s been unseasonably mild,’ Angelica said defensively. Until today. There was definitely a bite of winter in the air.
Leo’s car pulled up and he leant forward to open the back door. Angelica got in, instinctively burrowing deeper into Leo’s jacket, pulling it around her.
The journey back to the apartment was quick and uneventful. But Angelica couldn’t relax. Seeing Leo so affected by being in the crowd had melted something inside her. A wall of defence. Dangerous.
Back at the apartment, Leo was still a little shaken by how quickly the sense of claustrophobia had come over him earlier and not even Angelica in her red lace excuse for a dress could have distracted him out of it. For someone who had seen some of the worst things and then experienced the foster system, Leo had always considered himself robust, but he had to admit that prison had got to him on levels he hadn’t really fully acknowledged.
The lack of privacy and space. The constant danger. The sheer…hopelessness of it all. The anger and frustration. The impotency. It was all churning inside him as he opened the apartment door and let Angelica walk through.
Her scent tantalised him. She’d tantalised him all evening, once he’d got over his momentary lapse. He’d found that having her near had definitely calmed something inside him, even if her choice of outfit had ensured that they’d been the center of attention all evening.
He was certainly back on the map. That was for sure. He watched her now as she gracefully lifted one foot behind her to slip off a shoe and then the other, lowering her height by several inches. His jacket was far too big on her. It made her look somewhat younger and fragile. It came down lower on her thighs than the dress did. He should have made her wear it all evening.
The glimpses of her curves underneath sent Leo’s blood roaring through his veins.
She looked at him and her eyes had never looked so green. Bright and vibrant. But in spite of that he noticed the slight shadows underneath. Hinting that perhaps this provocative game of hers was not as straightforward as she made it seem.
