He could feel her building, just as he had on the dance floor. For now, he knew her sexually better than Leila knew herself, but not for long, James knew.
Even as she tried to tell him not yet, James made her a liar because she was lifting her head and arching her back, pressing her hands to his chest as she came to his body’s command.
Her scream was the first she had knowingly given; it felt like she was on the top of a mountain, dragging in the thin air and spinning as James took her to a place that only he ever could.
She had been searching for freedom, Leila realised. But not the decadent kind. Instead she had been seeking the freedom that the love of another gave and she had found it now in James.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A NIGHT WITHOUT TEARS.
Her first one.
James watched the smile spread on Leila’s face as she woke and looked out of the huge window to the spectacular view of Central Park. She could see the lake where she often walked, the beautiful trees and the lush grass where they had lain last night.
‘Wait till you see it in fall,’ James said. ‘It never gets old.’
‘What is it like in winter?’
‘Spectacular,’ James said. ‘Especially when it snows overnight and you weren’t expecting it.’
She thought of tasting snow on her tongue in the taxi rank and knew that somehow she had been on her way to here.
‘Do you have dinner parties with your family here?’ Leila asked.
‘No,’ James said. ‘They came over once when I first bought it and my father said that had I spoken to him, he could have got a better price in another building and a better view too.’
‘There is no better view,’ Leila said.
‘I said the same to him.’
‘Do you wish you were closer to them?’ Leila asked, and James thought for a little while before he answered her.
‘I used to when I was growing up but I finally worked out it wasn’t worth wasting my time. I didn’t run away quite as dramatically as you. In fact, I haven’t even left town, but really, apart from the odd get-together I’m done with them. We’re runaways,’ James said.
‘I like being on the run. We’ll never move?’
‘Never, though we’ll have to baby-proof it,’ James said, and then rolled his eyes, because he never, ever thought he’d be saying that about his home. ‘Do you want a tour?’
Together they explored his home. There were views of the park from every window, there were bedrooms and bathrooms and just all things James—such as a bedroom with the cupboard filled with skis and things.
‘This is your room,’ James said, and showed her the kitchen.
‘Ha, ha,’ Leila said, because she got his sarcasm now. ‘You will go very, very hungry if you wait for me to cook, and you don’t want to hear about when I tried to do dishes.’ She did make concessions though. ‘Show me how this works.’
James pressed a button on the kettle. ‘But there has to be water in it.’
They were so happy that even boiling a kettle was a celebration, but when he showed her another room, Leila thought she might cry. It was empty apart from a shelf that had a silver teddy on, the one he had bought when he had got her engagement ring.
It was another happiest day of her life; every day with him turned into that.
All her clothes and belongings were brought over from The Chatsfield, and James had staff put them away, right down to the last pair of shoes.
She was in, she was home, and the best part for James was, that night there were, again, no tears.
They overslept, of course.
James’s phone bleeped a text and he found out from a rather irate Manu that he was half an hour late for their meeting.
‘I have to go,’ James said.
‘Where?’
‘I’ve got meetings at The Chatsfield over the next couple of days,’ James lightly explained. ‘I’ll call Muriel and tell her to come in tomorrow so you can get your bearings today.’
‘Who’s Muriel?’
‘She takes care of the place,’ James said. ‘She just comes in once a week while I’m away, but now I’m back she’ll come in daily, just for an hour or two. Well, not at the weekends.’
‘No cook?’
‘I told you, you can ring the restaurants downstairs.’
‘Just one person for a couple of hours a day?’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘No.’ Leila smiled. ‘It’s wonderful.’
As he showered he thought about them and as he put on his suit he told her some of what he’d been thinking. After sixteen years of being ignored, James doubted his stilted Arabic could solve that in any conversation with her parents, but her brother kept trying to contact her and maybe there, there was something that he could do. ‘What about your brother?’ James asked when he came out. ‘Why don’t you make contact with him? He does seem to be trying to speak with you.’