‘Oh, and there I was thinking you were ringing to congratulate me,’ came James’s sarcastic response.
‘Have you seen the papers?’ Spencer sneered. ‘There’s nothing in them deserving of congratulations.’
‘I know.’ James let out a breath—it really was an appalling mess.
‘It gets better,’ Spencer continued with his rant. ‘Rumour has it that your little princess’s credit card has been stopped by her family. Probably in attempt to force her to come home.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘I’ve got my spies at The Harrington,’ Spencer said. ‘I haven’t got to the best bit yet. Isabelle, out of the goodness of her heart, or rather to completely discredit us, is going to let your pregnant princess stay there for nothing. It’s the least she can do apparently.’ Spencer let out an angry breath. ‘Sort it, James.’
‘I intend to.’
‘God knows how. You know how much this means to me. You know I’m doing everything I can to show Gene I can run the place.’
‘Right now,’ James said, ‘I couldn’t give a damn about The Chatsfield.’
‘You never have. You only care about yourself, James, I get that. Know this much though—I am not letting the Chatsfield reputation slide just because you can’t keep it in your pants. Sort it,’ Spencer said again, and rung off.
James took a helicopter to the airport and then had an hour to kill before his flight back to New York.
He rang The Harrington but again they refused to put him through.
She couldn’t hide from him forever.
Oh, yes, she could, a small inner voice said—she was a royal princess from a foreign land.
Eight hours’ flying time did nothing to improve James’s temper. New York was wet and grey and the cold sheets of rain meant that his driver could only move the car slowly through the heavy traffic.
Thanks to the time difference, the day that brought him to her was lasting forever.
He told his driver to take his luggage to his home and then to come and wait here for him. He strode through the foyer of The Harrington and James punched the elevator. He didn’t care if they’d changed her room; he’d knock on every door if he had to.
‘Sir, only guests staying here can use the elevators...’ A very worried concierge who’d been warned to be on the lookout for James Chatsfield was racing towards him.
‘Tough!’ James said as the elevator doors closed.
It was the same one they had made out in, James knew that, though he did his level best not to think about that night now.
They must have alerted Leila that he was on his way up because as he strode down the corridor her door opened and there she stood.
He’d built her up to be some kind of shrew, some Desdemona, yet she stood dressed in a white hotel robe and such was her beauty he knew there and then why he hadn’t been able to get over her.
She was thinner than he remembered and there were dark smudges under her eyes, but they did not meet his. Those once-pretty lips were pursed but she prised them open to give her orders.
‘I will come down and speak with you in the dining room,’ Leila said. ‘You will wait for me there.’
‘You don’t give me orders, Leila,’ James said.
‘I’m not even dressed...’
‘You’ve got far more on now than you did that night,’ James said, and he pushed past the door and into her suite. ‘Remember that night, Leila, the night you set out to get pregnant...?’
‘I did not,’ Leila said. ‘I was on the pill.’
‘Please...’ He looked at her, remembered her very deliberately removing the condom, and then he tried not to remember that.
Leila stood with her heart hammering in her chest as James took a seat in a leather chair.
‘We’re going to talk.’
‘I need to get dressed.’
He stood, lifted the chair and moved it to the bedroom doors, which he left open. He turned the chair around, so he faced outwards. ‘Get dressed then, but I’ll hear if you open a window,’ James said. ‘And, once dressed, you and I are going to have a very long talk.’
The phone rang and Leila looked at it, but James, who knew hotels better than most, told her who it would be.
‘That will be reception checking to see if you’re okay and if you want me removed from your suite.’
‘I want you removed,’ Leila said.
‘Well, you’d better tell them to send the police then, because the only way they’ll take me out is cuffed. Like it or not we are going to talk, Leila. It might as well be now.’
She answered the phone and looked at the back of his head. Leila could see the tense set of his shoulders, yet she didn’t really fear him as such.