Annie West - Imprisoned by a Vow

It made her uneasy.

His gaze dipped to her mouth and her lips tingled as if she’d eaten chilli.

‘Joss! I said I can stand.’ Suddenly it was imperative he release her. She’d felt light-headed before but this was different. Something she didn’t want to explore. Something to do with him .

Smoothly he put her down, watching her intently.

Fortunately the strength had returned to her legs. She was herself again, able to walk, spine straight and legs steady, to the lounge chair the stewardess indicated.

Sitting straight despite its encompassing luxury, Leila turned to the hovering stewardess.

‘I’d like some water, please. And do you have anything for travel sickness?’

‘Of course, madam.’ The woman bustled away.

If Leila tried hard enough she might convince herself it was motion sickness she’d experienced out there after her first trip in a vehicle in ages. Or the effects of heat.

She watched Joss sit on the other side of the cabin. His gaze didn’t leave her as she took the medication and a healthy slug of water.

His scrutiny made her uneasy. It wasn’t like Gamil’s, which had always made her flesh crawl. But Joss’s steady regard seemed to strip her bare. Surely he couldn’t see the tumble of elation and anxiety she strove to hide? Concealing what she felt had been a matter of survival under Gamil’s cruel regime and she’d become adept.

Deliberately she put her head back and closed her eyes, reassured by the hum of the engines starting.

When finally she felt the plane take off she opened them to see Joss, head bent over a stack of papers, his pen slashing an annotation across the page.

Relief welled up inside her. He’d forgotten her, his curiosity had been temporary. Once they reached London he’d forget her entirely.

She turned to see Bakhara drop away and exhilaration filled her. Her new life had just begun.

‘I SEE YOU’VE made yourself at home.’

Joss sauntered into the kitchen. The sight of his wife setting a kettle to boil made the huge, functional room seem domestic, almost cosy.

It was the last place he’d expected to find her. Given the number of servants in her old home he’d imagined her reclining in bed and summoning staff to wait on her.

Leila swung round, eyes wide, and he felt the impact of her clear gaze like a touch. Intriguing. Yesterday he’d put the sensation down to curiosity and a tinge of concern when she’d all but fainted at his feet.

‘You surprised me,’ she said in a husky voice that purred through his belly. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’

Joss shrugged. ‘I’ve been known to make my own coffee occasionally.’ Hell, he’d spent enough time batching in rough-and-ready outback accommodation to know his way around a kitchen. He could feed a whole shift of hungry miners if need be. Plain, hearty fare that stuck to the ribs, not the sort of fancy delicacies a society princess like Leila ate. She was like his mother had been—used to being waited on.

‘I meant I didn’t expect to see you in the apartment.’ As his brows rose she added, ‘Not at this time of day. It’s only early afternoon.’

‘And tycoons never take time off?’ He watched her gaze skitter away across the gleaming floor before returning to his.

The connection ignited a tiny spark of sensation.

Joss ignored it. He was good at ignoring unimportant things. Things that didn’t figure in his plans.

‘I understand you’re a self-made man. You can’t have got where you are without working long hours.’

So, she’d been interested enough to find out that much.

‘You’re right.’ He strolled across the room, peeled off his jacket and dropped it on a stool near the enormous island bench. ‘My working hours are long.’

There was an understatement! He didn’t bother explaining that he enjoyed the cut and thrust of expanding his empire. That he revelled in the challenges of business despite the highly efficient teams he employed.

Business was an end in itself, giving total satisfaction. His commercial success gave him a purpose nothing else could. There was always a new goal, inevitably harder, more satisfying than the last. Hence his move into new territories with this Bakhari deal and his recent mining acquisition in Africa.

‘I’ll be working tonight, video conferencing with Australia, and I leave tomorrow to deal with a crisis.’ The rest of his London meetings would have to wait. An oil-rig accident took priority. ‘In the meantime it’s time for us to talk.’

‘Good idea.’ Leila nodded but her shoulders looked stiff.

Why was she tense? Because of him? Or was she ill again? He frowned.

Last night, arriving in Britain, she’d barely stirred when they landed, knocked out apparently by the medication she’d taken. He’d had to carry her to the car and again from the basement car park to the apartment.

He’d left it to his efficient housekeeper to get her to bed. Then he’d put in a couple of hours in his private gym and study before retiring in the early hours.

Yet instead of sleeping instantly as he’d trained himself to do, Joss had lain awake pondering the enigma that was his wife.

There’d been no mistaking her fragility as he’d held her in his arms. She’d weighed next to nothing when he’d scooped her up and onto his jet. He’d felt the bony jut of her hip and the outline of her ribs.

That had stirred long-buried memories. Of Joanna at fifteen—all skin and bone, turning in on herself rather than facing the selfish demands of their parents. Parents who’d never given a damn about either of their children, except as weapons in their vindictive, ongoing battle against each other.

Holding Leila, feeling the tremors running through her, evidence of the weakness she strove to hide, Joss had been hit by a surge of protectiveness he hadn’t known since he was ten, wanting to save the big sister who had wasted away before his eyes.

But Leila wasn’t Joanna. Leila wasn’t some wounded teenager. She was a grown woman, well enough to sell herself for an easy life of wealth.

It was no concern of his if she’d overdone the pre-wedding dieting. Yet he found himself checking. ‘You’re better today?’

‘Much better, thank you. The wedding preparations must have tired me more than I knew.’

The kettle boiled and clicked off. ‘Would you like something? I’m making chamomile tea.’ She favoured him with one of those small, polite smiles. The perfect hostess.

‘Sounds appalling. I’ll stick with coffee.’ He strode to the door, ready to call his housekeeper, only to find her scurrying towards him.

‘What can I get you, Mr Carmody?’

‘Coffee and a sandwich. My wife will have chamomile tea and…?’ He raised an interrogative brow.

‘Nothing else, thanks. I’m not hungry.’

Joss surveyed the demure beige silk dress hanging loose on her. She’d lost weight since they first met. Then she’d been slim but rounded in all the right places. Now even the line of her jaw was stark, too pronounced.

His eyes narrowed. It wasn’t just the weight loss that disturbed him. She looked…drab. He was no fashion expert but even he could see that shade leached the colour from her face. The dress was completely wrong, suited to an older woman rather than a young and pretty one.

At least her legs were as delectable as he recalled.

At their first meeting he’d been distracted, enjoying the counterpoint of her sexy legs and lush mouth with her composed, almost prim demeanour. Plus there’d been those tiny flashes of spirit that had reassured him she had the capacity to hold her own as the society hostess he required.

She was a fascinating combination of intellect, beauty and cool calm. Or she would be to a man who allowed himself to be fascinated.

Joss wasn’t in that category. He had no intention of disrupting a sound business arrangement with anything like an intimate relationship.

He strictly separated his business and private lives. Though physical intimacy probably rated in the business side of his life: sex for mutual pleasure plus the expensive gifts and five-star luxury he provided to whatever woman he chose to warm his bed.

‘Mr Carmody?’

Joss found his housekeeper surveying him curiously.

‘I leave it to you, Mrs Draycott. Just bring a selection that will tempt my wife’s appetite.’

Leila’s stare sharpened. That look provoked a tiny sizzle of pleasure in his gut, like anticipation at the beginning of a new venture.

‘Of course, sir.’

‘We’ll be in the small sitting room.’

Leila held his gaze unblinkingly. Then without a word she crossed the room, her head regally high, her walk slow, drawing attention to the undulation of her hips.

But Joss kept his gaze on her face, trying to read what lay behind her calm countenance. For there was something . The frisson of energy that charged down his spine when his gaze locked with hers proved it.

He could almost hear the words she wasn’t saying.

Almost, but infuriatingly not quite.

He followed her, stopping abruptly as she halted in the doorway.

Her scent invaded his nostrils, not the heavy attar of roses from the wedding, but something light and fresh, barely discernible as he tilted his head towards her neat chignon.

This close he felt it again as he had on the runway yesterday: tension crackling in the air as if she generated some unseen power that magnetised his skin.

What was it about Leila that drew him?

‘Which is the small sitting room? You have several.’

‘To the right,’ he said. ‘Third door along.’

Following, Joss allowed his gaze free rein, cataloguing each dip and sway as she moved. His wife didn’t flaunt herself with an exaggerated strut. Yet with each slow step the slide of silk over her backside and flaring around her legs screamed ‘woman’ in a way that had all his attention.

Was his wife sending him an invitation?

The possibility intrigued him. Yet remembering her cool look in the kitchen it didn’t seem likely.

Besides, this was a marriage of convenience. She’d be an excellent society hostess and her connections would be invaluable. For her part Leila would acquire prestige, an even more luxurious lifestyle and unprecedented spending power.

A win-win deal. Only a fool would mess with that for the sake of sex. It would complicate everything.

With a wife he couldn’t cancel all calls or silence protestations of devotion with an expensive farewell gift. Nor did he intend to face a moody spouse, smarting over some apparent slight, when they hosted an important dinner.

Sex with his wife might raise her expectations of a family one day; though he’d made it clear children weren’t on his agenda.

His flesh chilled. No, this arrangement would remain simple. Impersonal.

Yet Joss’s gaze didn’t shift from Leila as she entered the sitting room and took a seat, the picture of feminine grace. He had the unsettling suspicion he’d got more than he’d bargained for in this marriage of mutual convenience.

Leila chose a deep chair. The soft leather cocooned her and the frisson of disquiet she’d felt since Joss had arrived eased a fraction. She didn’t feel ready to deal with him when there was so much else on her mind.

Waking disorientated in an apartment that was all minimalist luxury she’d felt a wave of relief, finding herself alone. No one else had shared the huge bed, and the wardrobe was devoid of Joss’s clothes. Yet she’d barely had time to register thankfulness that he’d kept his word and his distance.