‘Do you misbehave, James?’ Leila asked, and he smiled at her curious question.
‘That’s a very nice way of putting it, but yes, I guess I do tend to misbehave.’ She looked down to where his hand caressed hers and she was the bravest she had ever been—he made her so.
‘Misbehave with me,’ Leila whispered, terrified he might say no.
‘God, yes.’
He released her hand although she wished he would not. She was not starved from his contact for long though, for he picked up a napkin and dipped it in some water. Leila frowned as his wrapped finger came towards her face, but she did not flinch and she did not move back.
‘What are you doing?’ Leila asked.
‘Getting rid of the unnecessary,’ James said. He usually preferred made-up women—he liked the mask, he liked the stranger—but he did not want that from Leila. He wanted her stripped, he wanted her naked, and that started now.
She liked the gentle pressure of his finger on her lips. She liked the way his eyes narrowed as he concentrated on removing the lipstick from her mouth.
And concentrate he did.
‘Now, you’re perfect,’ James said. ‘Almost.’
‘Almost?’
He went in his pocket and pulled out what Leila thought was another lipstick. ‘What sort of man carries lipstick?’ Leila asked, and he simply smiled as he got to work on her very full mouth.
‘It’s lip balm,’ James corrected. ‘If you ski as much as I do, you tend to carry it.’
She liked the waxy feel of it as he applied it. She ran her tongue over her lips and there was a slight taste of vanilla, but still she could not imagine her father or Zayn carrying such a thing.
For all her naivety Leila had not been completely shielded from men. She thought of Zayn’s friends of yesteryear. Cocky playboys who used women, yet she did not feel used tonight. There was something else to James—something that made her smile, made her feel warm, made her feel very beautiful indeed, and that was something she had never felt before.
‘You are like no one I have ever known,’ Leila said.
‘Snap.’
‘Snap?’ Leila checked, because even though her English was excellent she didn’t know what that word meant.
‘It means that I feel the same about you,’ James said, and then he checked himself, because he didn’t get involved in any one woman. He was saying things to Leila that he didn’t usually say and he didn’t want to give her mixed messages.
Tomorrow he would be gone.
‘For now,’ he amended.
‘For now?’
‘I’m very, very bad at relationships,’ James said. ‘I tend not to do them.’
‘Tend?’ Leila checked, for she did not understand that word also, but James took it that she wanted him to elaborate.
‘I’ve had one serious relationship and she chose to go to the press and share every last thing that I’d told her in confidence as well as a lot of salacious details. What about you?’ James asked. ‘Have you ever been seriously involved with anyone?’
‘Never,’ Leila said.
She told the truth; James just never thought that she might mean literally.
More drinks were on the table, but it was not the liquor that made her giddy and laugh. It was this man who asked questions, who gave of himself, who laughed deeply and who simply could not release her hands save to feed her her drink.
‘Do you want dinner?’ James asked, but she shook her head for there was a different sort of hunger in Leila tonight and she told him that.
‘I want to know about you.’
He revealed too much perhaps, but the gold of her eyes mesmerised and, even as he warned himself not to disclose it, James found himself telling Leila, warning her even, that he was a cad, a playboy, a rake. How he lived life his way, and it seemed to be working for he had the Midas touch when it came to the stock markets. How he partied at night, how he threw himself off mountains, how nothing and no one could tame him and how he chose not to impress. ‘I tried behaving and I gave it up at the age of eighteen,’ James said, and revealed how he had strived for perfection, but that nothing he had ever done had been good enough for his father.
He did not get sympathy from Leila.
‘At least you were noticed,’ Leila said. ‘I was ignored.’
‘How could anyone ignore you?’ James asked. ‘I don’t believe it could be possible to ignore you.’
‘It’s true,’ Leila said. ‘My mother...’ She hesitated. That her mother had never loved her would surely make her unlovable to him. That she had never, ever been wanted was her deepest, darkest shame and so she bent history a little. ‘Since Jasmine, my sister, died, my mother has not been able to look at me,’ Leila said. ‘And I have grown tired of waiting and so now I do as I wish. I live as I want to.’