‘It’s fine.’ Leila shrugged. ‘What is the good news?’
‘I’ve found you a dressmaker,’ James said. ‘I’ve asked her to come tomorrow afternoon. You shall have new robes...’
‘And slippers?’
‘And slippers,’ James said.
He had found more than a dressmaker. On Monday he was starting Arabic lessons. Whatever James put his mind to he succeeded at, and he had no doubt, after intensive private lessons that, in a few weeks’ time, he would be able to speak with her father and explain the little that Leila wanted—for them not to take their anger with him and Leila out on their child. Not that he told Leila that. His father had been so demanding, so critical, that James never revealed anything till it was achieved.
It was a cool evening but they again chose to walk, and was it for potential cameras that they held hands?
Leila wasn’t sure; she just knew that she liked it.
And she wasn’t sure if the hand that went around her waist when they passed a rowdy group standing on a corner was for her sake, or the sake of the baby.
They walked towards The Chatsfield and just a little way away from it James stopped and turned her around.
‘A kiss for the cameras?’
‘Where are they?’
‘Oh, the press are always sniffing around The Chatsfield. There’s always some scandal going on.’
‘One kiss then,’ Leila agreed.
One blissful kiss that was light and delicious. His lips were warm and they teased, and when he pulled her a little into him, his hand was back on her waist. He hadn’t shaved since the proposal and she liked the roughness of his jaw and remembered how it had felt on her mouth that night.
He stepped in a fraction closer and she wanted his coat around them; she remembered how they had danced. Leila remembered how those lips, how that rough jaw, had felt when he had kissed her some place other than her mouth and her lips parted.
She wanted more passion, she wanted a more intimate taste of him, and she opened her eyes to find his were open too, smiling into hers as he refused her his tongue.
‘Once bitten...’ James said, pulling away, very, very pleased as to how much she had liked it.
Oh, she had.
She was blushing in the elevator as she remembered the kiss he had given her in here. She didn’t know that the tune he was whistling was ‘Memories’; she just knew she was under a different but delicious attack by his mouth.
They headed up to their suite and when Leila came out from taking her make-up off James was in bed.
‘If I go to the sofa I’m staying there for the whole night,’ James warned, and he knew that he’d won because she shrugged and came over to the bed and climbed in.
‘You’ve got a bump,’ James commented, because he had noticed the little swell of her stomach as she came out of the bathroom.
‘I know!’
She picked up her little bottle of oil and rubbed some into her hands and then smelled them.
‘Will you buy our baby such nice presents?’ Leila asked.
‘I already bought it one when I got your ring.’
‘Really?’ Leila said, and then examined the ring that she hadn’t so much as glanced at when he had put it on.
‘It’s actually very beautiful,’ Leila admitted. It was. A platinum band was beaded with little diamonds but it was the huge centre stone that Leila was examining, and she sat up in bed watching it sparkle under the light. ‘Who gifted the stone?’
James smiled at her odd question. ‘Tiffany’s.’
‘I can’t believe that it fits.’
James could.
As he watched her long slender fingers he recalled buying the ring. The jeweller had said it could be sized later. And yet, he had pictured her fingers so many times. Pictured them tracing his body and he had also suckled each one with his lips. He had placed the jeweller’s sizer on the very tip of his little finger and had known beyond doubt that the ring would fit.
Leila turned out the light. James had remembered just a little too much of that night and the kiss downstairs had only confirmed their attraction and so he reached for her.
Leila fought with herself as she lay there on her side with her back to him. His hand was on her stomach and she could feel the heat of his palm as he stroked her newly emerged bump.
He held her most mornings but that was when she went to him.
This was different from that, Leila knew.
She was angry at the want in herself, at the temptation to turn around to his mouth as he started to kiss her shoulder and move his lips up to her neck. She was angry because as his hand stroked her stomach she was willing it to move down.
It obliged.
And still she lay there, fighting herself, for she wanted the roam of his hand and Leila wanted the skill of his mouth. She didn’t want to be in want of him; she didn’t want the power of his touch to enslave her again. She didn’t want the weakness that his touch and words procured, for he was telling her now that he was crazy about her, that he craved her scent, her skin.