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He didn’t dohurtfrom women when it came to his personal life. He never had. He had never welcomed the sensation of being penned in or the irritating feeling that he should be justifying himself in any way. As far as Leandro was concerned, there was a thin line between questioning his motives and nagging him into toeing a line he had never had any intention of toeing.
The claustrophobia of Celia’s jealousy, because jealousy was surely what he had glimpsed, fleeting but all too apparent, was not welcome.
He didn’t expect or court jealousy in women. He didn’t like it because...of what it said. Celia was jealous because she cared. The thought of that was ice in his veins. With the force of muscle memory ingrained for more years than he cared to remember, Leandro’s aversion to the swirl of that forbidden emotion rammed into him with the force of a sledgehammer. He wasn’t built to return emotion, to return love. It just wasn’t in his DNA and the need to repel was as instinctive as drawing breath.
She was walking alongside him, head held high, explaining that having a shower had woken her up and she’d decided to come down and perhaps have her drink in the cafe rather than wait for him to bring it up to her. Her voice was light enough as she repeated the mantra about not wanting to be treated like a china doll just because she was expecting.
But she wasn’t looking at him and he wanted her to.
‘I expect,’ he cut through the chatter just as the lift doors opened to their floor, ‘that you’re going to ask me who I was talking to...’ He could feel himself shutting down inside, sealing himself off because that was just what he was programmed to do. What was wrong with that? What was wrong with self-protection? He’d built his life around it.
Celia looked at him for the first time since he had joined her where she’d been frozen to the spot in the cafe. She had to school her features into a mask of smooth, casual indifference. She was hurting inside so much that it felt as though a knife were twisting inside her, but this was what she had signed up to and she would find a way of dealing with it.
‘No,’ she said tonelessly. ‘I wasn’t. You’re not a prisoner, Leandro, and, as you’ve said too many times to count, this is a marriage of convenience. We both know why we’re doing what we’re doing but I suppose it does bring me back to what I was trying to say to you earlier...’
‘Which is what?’
‘What happens when the lust dies? Do you start looking elsewhere?’ She paused and then said, sotto voce, ‘Or do I? We never quite addressed that, Leandro, and yes, it might be good to live in the moment and cross bridges when we get to them but maybe we’re being naïve. Maybe we need to deal with what happens...’
