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‘Have you any idea how much I earned this year?’
‘I couldn’t care less and I don’t want the tip,’ Molly told him curtly, stuffing the note back into his hand and pulling free the instant his grip loosened. How dared he speak to her as if she were a hooker for hire and try to bribe her into doing his bidding? She walked away quickly to the accompaniment of a chorus of male laughter. Brian was watching her uneasily from the doorway and she went straight over to him to warn him that he needed to keep an eye on the rowdy group before they got completely out of hand.
‘I won’t stand for being touched or spoken to like that. I’m entitled to make a complaint when someone does that to me,’ Molly pointed out angrily.
Dismay at that threat sent the manager’s brows flying up below his hair. ‘Those blokes are only fooling around and trying to flirt with you. You’re a pretty girl and there aren’t many here. They’ve had too much to drink. I’m sure nothing offensive was intended.’
‘I disagree. They didn’t care and I found their abuse deeply offensive,’ Molly countered and stalked back to the bar, furious that her complaint was not being taken seriously. She was well aware that the manager was keen to avoid any unpleasantness that might endanger the chance of new business from any of the well-heeled guests present. But for the first time ever, Molly resented her lowly station in life which evidently made Brian feel that her complaint was of less importance than the comfort of the arrogant ignorant oiks who had insulted her.
Leandro drew in a slow deep breath of restraint. He had witnessed the whole scene and had almost intervened on her behalf with the drunks. He thought her boss should have protected her from such harassment. So her name was Molly—he had overheard the men. Wasn’t that a diminutive for Mary? And if it was, why the hell should it matter to him? he asked himself in exasperation. He didn’t like the feeling that he was off balance. Accompanied by his hostess, Krystal, Leandro allowed himself to be introduced to some of the other guests.
Lysander Metaxis was present without his wife whom, he readily explained, was close to giving birth to their third child. If he was looking for congratulations he didn’t get them. When children entered the conversation, Leandro had nothing to say and even less interest. But he did wonder if it was fair of him to suspect that the macho Greek tycoon was boasting about his virility.
There was nothing to distract Leandro from watching Molly as she approached the drunks who were signalling her for more libation. Tension was etched in her tight heart-shaped features and her reluctance to respond was clear. The heavily built blond man snaked out an arm to entrap her again and ran a coarse hand down over her shapely derrière, pausing to squeeze it. As an angry objection erupted from Molly Leandro was already striding forward.
‘Take your hands off her!’ Leandro commanded.
The drunk freed Molly and pushed her aside to take a swing at the Spaniard. Shaken that Leandro had come to her rescue, Molly was all too well aware of the greater danger of him being beaten up by the three drunks he had dared to confront. She sped forward to interpose herself between the men and forced her assailant to deflect his punch in an attempt to avoid hitting her. Leandro still took a blow across one temple that sent him crashing to the floor. The back of his head banged off the tiled floor and for an instant there was blackness and he knew nothing. Time seemed to move seamlessly on, however, for when his eyes opened again he was staring up into instantly recognisable vibrant green as the waitress crouched over him, her anxiety obvious. She was close enough for the lemony scent of her curling hair and creamy skin to flare his nostrils and awaken a powerful sexual response.
When Molly collided with Leandro’s honey dark gaze, it was as if the whole world ground to a halt and sent her spinning off into the unknown. Heat uncoiled in a lazy entangling loop in her pelvis and cut off her ability to breathe. Her body came alive in embarrassing places and throbbed as if a switch somewhere inside her had been flipped on.
The drunks cleared off and vanished into the gathering crowd when they realised how many people were watching the scene. Krystal Forfar waved away Molly with an angry gesture. ‘I think you’ve caused enough trouble! Mr Carrera Marquez? Shall I call a doctor?’
Molly sprang upright and watched Leandro stagger slightly as he straightened while coolly denying the idea that he might require medical attention.
‘I think you should go to hospital,’ Molly volunteered unasked. ‘You blacked out for a moment and you could have concussion.’
‘Thank you, but I have sustained no injury,’ Leandro drawled with arrogant assurance, smoothing down his rumpled jacket. ‘I think I would like some fresh air, though. It’s a little stuffy in here.’
‘What the heck happened?’ Brian demanded, hustling her away for a private chat.
Molly explained while Vanessa hovered.
‘The Spanish guy is a real hero—just imagine the likes of him bothering to interfere because a drunk pinches your bum!’ Vanessa exclaimed. ‘It’s not what you expect, is it?’
His behaviour had astonished Molly as well, but it had also impressed her, because the only other man she knew who would have intervened to stop a woman being harassed in that way was Jez. Molly took a plate over to the buffet and picked out a choice selection of the food and placed it on the tray with a drink. She carried it out through the French windows onto the balcony where Leandro Carrera Marquez had gone. Lean bold profile taut, he was leaning on the parapet and looking out over the bright lights of the city.
‘I wanted to thank you for telling that guy to lay off me. It was very brave,’ Molly murmured in a rush as she set the tray down on the table behind him. ‘I’m sorry you got thumped like that.’
‘If you hadn’t got in the way I would have hit him back,’ Leandro traded, turning to look at her. He was still marvelling at the surge of rage that had gripped him when he’d seen the drunk touching her body. The sight of another man getting familiar with her had been deeply offensive to him.
‘There were three of them and only one of you.’ Molly stretched up on tiptoe to brush her fingertips very gently over the darkening bruise forming on his olive skin. ‘You could have got really badly hurt and I feel guilty enough. I’ve brought you some food. Please eat something.’
The swell of her firm pointed breasts rubbed against his chest and her proximity gave him another opportunity to smell the already recognisable citrus-fresh scent of her hair. Raw sexual desire fired inside Leandro again with the force of a blowtorch. He studied the full soft curves of her generous pink mouth and burned to taste her. ‘I’m not hungry for anything but you,’ Leandro breathed thickly.
CHAPTER TWO
WHILE Molly looked up at him with vivid and curious green eyes, Leandro ditched all effort to resist temptation. He reached out and closed his arms round her to pull her into place against his lean powerful body.
Molly leant into him, her encouragement instinctive but new and strange enough to startle her. Long brown fingers meshed into her tumbling curls to tip up her face. She stretched up again and let her hands slide shyly through the silky depths of his springy hair. Her need to touch him was overpowering every inhibition. His wide, sensual mouth claimed hers with explosive passion.
Molly had never been kissed like that before, had never known such heat and urgency and excitement, and it was like being plunged into the eye of a storm. She felt dizzy and out of control. His tongue plunged between her lips and withdrew and quivering, scorching hunger pierced her like the blade of a knife. Elemental need leapt through her and screamed demands she was ill equipped to deal with. She trembled in sexual shock from the rush of sensation, her soft mouth still clinging to his as the peaks of her breasts tightened into taut, tingling buds. While her senses reeled from the touch and the taste of him her fingers closed into the edges of his jacket to hold onto him and keep herself steady.
A car alarm shrilled out somewhere in the street below and Leandro tensed and jerked his dark head up, his thoughts diving into a free fall of shock as he recognised that he was acting on impulse and without his usual intelligent restraint. Yet, letting go of her slight figure which seemed to fit so very neatly to his more solid masculine frame was one of the hardest things he had ever had to make himself do for he was painfully aroused.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, and it was a mental challenge for him even to come up with the right phrase in English.
Molly was in a daze as well and quite unable to muster rational thought. ‘Why? Sorry?’ she queried as his lean hands closed over her narrow shoulders and set her very deliberately back from him.
Molly blinked, watching him curve a hand round the balcony’s ornate ironwork balustrade until his knuckles showed white with tension below his brown skin. He had beautifully shaped hands with long, elegant fingers. The steady beat of music and the pound of feet on the dance floor travelled out from the wedding party inside the house. Her attention roved up to his strong jaw line, straight classic nose and stunning profile. She wasn’t surprised that she couldn’t take her eyes off him: he had the sleek, dark, sinful beauty of a fallen angel. But what had she been playing at? Letting one of the guests kiss her when she was supposed to be working? Was she crazy? Her job was all that stood between her and unemployment. She had been there once and didn’t want to undergo that humiliation and stress again.
‘It shouldn’t have happened and normally it wouldn’t have,’ Leandro breathed, finally opting to acknowledge the strange restless mood that had afflicted him for the past week.
Molly recalled the fact that he had virtually pushed her away and a shamed flush swept across her face as high as her hairline. No, that embrace shouldn’t have happened and it said nothing in her favour that he had been the first of them to register that truth and act on it. Where had her wits been? But she still felt hot and shivery and awesomely aware of him. The lure of the excitement he had generated was potent and her body was cooling into a state of taut disappointment. The hot colour in her cheeks refused to disperse.
‘I’m not quite myself. Perhaps I’ve had too much to drink. What other explanation could there be for my behaviour?’ Leandro demanded with chilling cool, noting the way her complexion had coloured and wondering what age she was, for at that moment she looked very young to him. ‘Dios mio! You are the waitress.’
In receipt of that blunt rejection of who and what she was, Molly turned very pale. She was a person, an individual, another human being before she was a waitress, she thought painfully. ‘I should have realised that you’d be an out-and-out snob. Don’t worry. You don’t need to make excuses. I’m not naïve enough to think a kiss meant there was a relationship in the offing and you’re not my type anyway!’
In a series of brisk, no-nonsense movements, Molly cleared the tray on the table and headed back indoors.
‘You’re gorgeous, querida,’ Leandro heard himself murmur huskily. ‘I didn’t need any other excuse.’
Her colour fluctuated at that unexpected compliment as she walked away. Gorgeous? Since when had she been gorgeous? She had been called pretty once or twice when she was all done up, but there was no truth whatsoever in the label he had just given her. She was five feet one inch and she had a mane of black curls that was often impossible to control. Her skin was good and she considered herself lucky in that she could pretty much eat what she liked without gaining weight. Those were her only advantages in her own estimation.
‘Were you outside with Mr Carrera Marquez?’ the bride’s mother demanded angrily, planting herself combatively in Molly’s path. ‘Why did you go out there to bother him?’
‘I wasn’t bothering him. I needed to thank him for intervening with those men on my behalf and I took him some food.’ Molly lifted her chin at a defiant angle.
The tall blonde woman stared down at her with angry superiority. ‘I’ve already told your manager that I won’t have you working in my home again. You’ve got the wrong attitude,’ she censured curtly. ‘You had no business making a personal approach to one of our guests and spoiling my daughter’s wedding.’
That unjust rebuke made Molly’s eyes prickle with angry tears and she had to bite back a sharp retaliation. She had done nothing wrong. She had been insulted verbally and physically, but nobody was about to say sorry to a mere waitress. She went back into the kitchen where Brian suggested she start helping the chef to clean up. She worked steadily and fast. The evening wore on until the chatter of the guests slowly died down along with the music and people left to go home.
‘Do another check out there for glasses,’ Brian instructed.
Molly took out a tray and the first person she saw was the Spanish banker, leaning up against a wall at an elegant angle and talking into his mobile phone. He was ordering a taxi. She refused even to look in his direction as she hurried through to the next room to pick up a collection of abandoned glasses. The whole time she was within view, Leandro watched her small figure like a hawk.
She had said he wasn’t her type but he was convinced that that had been pure bravado. Yet she was definitely not the sort of woman he had gone for in the past. Tall, elegant blondes like Aloise had always been Leandro’s style. But Molly got to him on a much more basic plane. The sensual sway of her curvaceous hips would have attracted any red-blooded male’s attention, Leandro told himself grimly. The wild mop of black curls anchored on top of her small head, the huge green eyes and the gloriously full inviting mouth were drop-dead sexy attributes before he even glanced below her chin. Just looking at her, he got hot and hard. Remembering the soft allure of her mouth opening for him and the eagerness of her response did nothing to improve his condition. He needed a cold shower. He needed a woman, he acknowledged, his wide mouth compressing into a line, for he was furious that he could have so little control over his own body.
The rooms were almost empty by the time Molly had finished helping to load the catering van. Putting on her coat, she walked back round to the front of the house on her way to where she had parked her car. It was a surprise to find the Spanish banker standing out on the pavement. It was a freezing cold wintry night and he had no coat on over his suit. Wind was whistling down the street and he looked chilled to the marrow.
‘Didn’t your taxi come yet?’ she asked before she could think better of taking notice of him.
‘Apparently they’re very busy tonight. I don’t think I have ever been so cold in my life. How do you bear this climate?’ Leandro enquired between gritted white teeth.
‘Choice didn’t come into it.’ Molly thought what a miserable evening he had had and sympathy softened her stiff stance and expression. ‘Look, I would offer you a lift home but I don’t want to give you the wrong idea—’
‘How would I get the wrong idea?’ Leandro cut in, knowing it was going to be a very long time, if ever, before he went out again without his chauffeur and limousine to transport him around. It had not occurred to him until it was too late that he could not possibly drive himself home when he had had several drinks.
Molly tilted her chin, luminous green eyes proffering a challenge. ‘I’m not stalking you or in any way expressing a personal interest in you,’ she spelt out with scrupulous care.
Leandro studied her with sudden intense amusement because what was in his mind was the exact opposite—he was thinking that if he just let her walk away he would never see her again. Never. There was just one problem: Leandro was discovering that he was not prepared to accept that eventuality. ‘I know you’re not stalking me. I’ll take a lift,’ he murmured softly.
‘I’ll get my car.’ Having crossed the road, Molly went round the corner and unlocked and climbed into her ancient Mini. She was already asking herself what had come over her, why she hadn’t just walked on past and left him to freeze. She hadn’t even asked where he lived and suspected that it would most probably be well out of her way.
The appearance of the vibrant pink car initially took Leandro aback. It was as quirky and full of personality as he suspected its owner was. He attempted to get in, realised that he had to shift the seat back to accommodate his long legs and did so before folding his lean, powerful length into the tight space. ‘You like pink,’ he remarked.
‘It’s an easy colour to spot in a car park. Where do you live?’
His address was as exclusive and expensive as she believed he was, but it was comparatively close to the part of town they were in. ‘How did you get to the exhibition tonight?’ she prompted.
‘By car, but I’ve drunk too much to drive,’ Leandro stated.
‘Is that why you said you weren’t yourself earlier?’ Molly queried, shooting him a curious look as she stopped at a set of traffic lights. He turned his handsome dark head to look at her and she marvelled at the hot gold colour his dark brooding eyes acquired in stronger light.
‘No. Today was the anniversary of my wife’s death a year ago. I’ve been unsettled all week,’ Leandro imparted, and immediately wondered why he was admitting something so personal to her, since it was not at all like him.
For a split second, Molly froze, and then her natural warmth and sympathy took charge of her response. She reached across and squeezed his hand. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said sincerely. ‘Was she ill?’
Startled by that affectionate gesture of support, Leandro had stiffened. ‘No, she crashed her car. My fault. We had an…exchange of words before she went out,’ he said tautly.
An exchange of words? Did he mean they’d had a row? ‘Of course it wasn’t your fault,’ Molly told him with firm conviction. ‘You shouldn’t be blaming yourself. Unless you were physically behind the wheel, it was a tragic accident and it’s not healthy to think of it any other way.’
Her outspoken candour and practicality were a refreshing change when compared to the majority of people, who carefully avoided making any reference to the thorny subject of Aloise’s sudden death. Perhaps it was true that it was easier to talk to strangers, Leandro mused reflectively, for he was unable to recall any other occasion when he had spontaneously abandoned his reserve to confide in anyone else.
He was a widower, Molly thought ruefully. She didn’t know how she felt about that, only that it was an unexpected fact. ‘You feel guilty about kissing me as well, don’t you?’ she guessed.
His classic bronzed profile went rigid at that reminder. She had hit a bullseye. Suddenly her candour was unwelcome and gauche in the extreme. ‘I don’t think we need to discuss that,’ he drawled in a tone of finality.
Molly changed gear and her knuckles accidentally skimmed a length of lean muscular thigh as she did so. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘There isn’t much space in this car.’
The atmosphere was tense.
‘How long have you worked as a waitress?’ Leandro asked, gracefully negotiating a passage through the awkward silence that had fallen.
‘I started out as a part-timer when I was at art college. My earnings helped to keep my student loans under control,’ Molly told him. ‘I’m a potter when I can afford to be, but waitressing is what it takes to pay my bills.’
Silence fell again. She parked near the strikingly modern apartment building he pointed out. He thanked her and tried to get out but the door wouldn’t open. The faulty handle, which she had thought was fixed, was acting up again. With a muffled apology, Molly got out and hurried round the bonnet to open the passenger door from the outside.
Leandro climbed out and straightened, relieved to be escaping the cramped restrictions of the car interior. Molly, he noticed, barely reached the middle of his chest. There was something intensely feminine about her slight build and diminutive stature. He had a sudden explosively sexual image of lifting her up against him and only with the greatest difficulty did he manage to shut it out. Even so, his body reacted with instant enthusiasm. He wanted to pull her into his arms, seal her lush body to his and make love to her. He was stunned by the amount of restraint it took to keep his hands off her and furious that he couldn’t keep his libido under better control.
With a swift goodbye, Molly hurried back round the car and jumped in. She watched him stride across the road and enter the well-lit foyer of the block. She got a last glimpse of his lean, darkly handsome face as he exchanged a greeting with the porter on the desk before turning away and moving out of view. She felt horribly let down, shockingly disappointed that he was gone.
Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she was clasping her seat belt, when she noticed something lying on the floor. Undoing the belt she bent down and stretched out a hand to scoop up the item. It was a man’s wallet and it could only belong to the man who had just vacated her car. With an impatient groan, she undid her belt and climbed out again.
The porter had no problem in identifying whom she was talking about and he offered to deliver the wallet. But Molly preferred to return the item in person. The porter tried to phone Leandro’s apartment but when there was no answer he advised Molly to go on up to the top floor in the lift. While it whirred upwards, she asked herself what she was playing at. Here she was literally chasing after him. Perhaps she should have let the porter return the wallet. Had she secretly wanted an excuse to see Leandro again? Her face was burning with colour at that suspicion when the lift doors whirred back with an electronic clunk. She stepped out into a snazzy semi-circular hall. The Spaniard was standing in front of the only door going through his pockets. He wheeled round at the sound of the lift. His winged ebony brows lifted in surprise at the sight of her.
‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ Molly held out the wallet. ‘I found it lying on the floor of my car.’
‘Exactly what I’m looking for.’ He flipped open the wallet to extract a card and opened the door straightaway. ‘Thank you…no, don’t leave.’ He strode back to her to prevent her from walking back into the lift. ‘Join me for a drink.’
‘No, I can’t. That’s not why I came up here,’ Molly protested, her discomfiture unhidden.
‘But it should have been, querida.’ Intent dark golden eyes glittered down into hers. ‘Why are we both trying to walk away from this?’
And Molly didn’t need to ask him what ‘this’ encompassed because she already knew. From the minute she saw him her every thought had contained him and even then it had required effort not to just stand still and stare at him while she memorised every tiny facet of his appearance for future recall and enjoyment. The thought that she might never see him again upset her even though she didn’t know him. She was as drawn to him as an iron filing to a magnet and her brain had nothing to do with the terrifyingly powerful hold of that attraction.
‘Because it’s crazy!’ Molly exclaimed jerkily, backing away a step as if she was trying to steel herself back into departure mode again.
Leandro closed a lean hand round her narrow-boned wrist and urged her into his apartment. ‘I don’t want to stand out here talking. Our every move is being recorded by security cameras,’ he explained.
He flipped on lights to reveal a large hall with a marble floor and a fashionable glass table bearing a bronze sculpture. It looked like a picture out of a glossy interior design magazine and it unnerved her. ‘Look at the way you live!’ Molly shifted an uneasy hand in a demonstrative gesture. ‘You’re a banker. I’m a waitress. We might as well be aliens from different planets.’
‘Maybe that novelty is part of the attraction and why not?’ Leandro fielded, moving slowly forward to close both hands round her fragile wrists to maintain a physical connection with her. ‘I don’t want you to leave…’
The pads of his thumbs rubbed gently at the delicate blue-veined skin of her inner wrist. She looked up at him and knew it to be a fatal act, for when she met those stunning dark eyes she could hardly think straight, never mind breathe. Although she didn’t want to leave, she almost never took risks of any kind. Life had taught her that the costs of being anything other than sensible and cautious were likely to be high and painful.
‘Feeling like this terrifies me,’ she confessed in a whisper.
‘You make me feel more alive than I have felt in more years than I care to recall, querida.’ His brooding gaze was welded to her while he momentarily fought to comprehend the intensity of his desire for her. ‘That’s not scary, that’s cause for celebration.’
It shook her that he was describing exactly what she was feeling as well. Somehow it seemed to make her reaction to him more acceptable and she shut out the misgivings striving to be heard in the back of her mind. Even as she looked back at him sensual energy was leaping and dancing through her small, taut frame, tightening the tender peaks of her breasts into taut buds and spilling heat between her thighs in a storm of powerful physical responses that turned her bones to water and her brain to mush. With a stifled imprecation, Leandro bent down and drove her pink lips apart in a demanding kiss.
Molly gasped. His urgency was exactly what her trembling, eager body craved. She felt him peel off her coat. She was locked to the muscular strength of his lithe powerful physique, her breasts crushed against his hard chest, her lips parting in welcome to the erotic plunge of his tongue in her mouth.
In receipt of her response, Leandro shuddered, sinking his hands to her hips in the fitted skirt and hauling her bodily up against him. She locked her hands round his neck and kissed him back with breathless fervour.
‘Do you want a drink?’ he asked her.
‘Not if it means you’ll stop kissing me,’ Molly told him, small fingers delving into his luxuriant black hair to hold him to her. She had the same sense of wonder she experienced when she created a new design on her potter’s wheel, that same heady glorious conviction that what she was doing was eerily exactly right.
‘I can’t stop,’ Leandro groaned, trailing his lips down her slender neck in a series of darting, rousing kisses that made her squirm and whimper as he discovered newly erogenous zones of skin. Her unconcealed enthusiasm only added to his pleasure in her. His tongue flicked the sensitive roof of her mouth and she shivered violently. ‘Stay with me tonight,’ he urged.
At first surprise and dismay gripped her and then her agile brain pulled free of sensual lockdown for long enough to reason that invitation out. They weren’t teenagers kissing on a doorstep. She might be a good deal less experienced than many a teenager, but she was a grown woman and he was very definitely an adult male. What happened next was entirely her decision. She thought about letting go of him, saying goodnight, probably never seeing him again. Her skin chilled and her insides turned hollow and cold at that threat. Her arms tightened round him. She wanted to lock him up and keep the key to his captivity safely attached to a chain round her throat. She had never felt that way before about a man and she wasn’t at all sure she liked it.
‘But I’m a waitress,’ she reminded him shakily.
‘It doesn’t matter. It truly doesn’t matter, mi muñeca,’ Leandro asserted in a driven undertone. ‘What matters is who you are when you’re with me.’
She looked up and was ensnared by a smile that made her heart pound and rocked her world like an earthquake. Suddenly being sensible and careful had zero attraction. He made her want to be daring and the sort of female who inspired men to acts of madness. ‘I’ll stay—’
His arms tightened round her and the hungry ravishment of his mouth on hers left her in no doubt of his reaction to her agreement. She felt the rigid heat of his erection against her and she trembled, both intimidated and excited by the effect she had on him. He was so much a man, so male in comparison to the youths she was accustomed to. He carried her out of the hall into a room lit by moonlight. He sank down on the wide bed and lowered her to her feet between his spread thighs.
‘Now you’re at my level it will be much easier to kiss you,’ he pointed out thickly, reaching up to unclip her hair and using his hands to brush the lush mane of blue-black curls back from her brow and guide the tumbling mass down over her slight shoulders. ‘You have the most beautiful hair.’
‘Far too much of it and it’s horribly curly,’ she told him helplessly.
‘Not for me, querida.’ Leandro ran slow possessive hands over her, his thumbs brushing the protuberant nipples that were visible through her thin cotton blouse, his palms smoothing over the full curve of her hips below her tiny waist. ‘You also have the most wonderful shape.’
