Passion Becomes You. Michelle Reid

Jemma, simply because most people liked their homes cleaned and vacated before three o’clock in the afternoon. She ran her own business from the flat with the help of a veritable army of part-timers who worked in teams, and not one of them wore a turban on her head or dared have a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. They wore uniforms which rivalled the smartest airline ones, and they travelled around in neat little vans with neat little smiles and a brisk friendly manner. They were all paid well, but then Trina’s charges were high. You get what you pay for, was her motto, and London, especially up-market London, had accepted and acknowledged that long ago. Trina had a waiting-list of potential clients almost as long as her list of real ones. She’d wanted to expand at one time, but the current recession had put paid to that idea—that and her super-sharp accountant-cum-boyfriend Frew. Trina was a tall, slim, easygoing redhead, with green eyes, a sharp tongue and a nasty sense of humour.

      Jemma opened her eyes long enough to scrutinise Trina’s deadpan face, then closed them again and shook her head. ‘Not tonight, thank you,’ she refused the offer. ‘I don’t think I’m up to one of your nice surprises.’

      ‘Shame,’ Trina pouted. ‘Because this one is rather a cut above the ordinary. Still...’ Jemma sensed her friend’s shrug as she turned to leave the sitting-room-cum-office again ‘...I suppose it will keep.’

      Jemma sighed, remained exactly where she was and how she was for the space of thirty delicious seconds, then sighed again and hauled herself out of the chair. ‘All right!’ she called after Trina. ‘You win! I can’t stand not knowing. What’s the nice—? My God!’ she choked. ‘Where did those come from?’

      She had walked out of the sitting-room and down the hall to the kitchen while she was talking; now she just stood, rooted to the spot in the kitchen doorway, staring at the largest basket of out-of-season fruit and flowers she had ever seen.

      ‘Looking at them,’ Trina said sardonically, ‘from all over the world, I’d say.’

      It filled their small kitchen table. The basket, an exquisitely woven affair of rich golden cane with a tall rounded handle, simply spilled over with flowers. Pretty, star-shaped lilies, sensually scented pure white jasmine, blood-red hibiscus heads that were almost too heavy for their stems. Pink, purple and the palest lilac sprays of bougainvillaea clustered everywhere, and at the base were oranges with the dark green leaves still attached to their short stems. Peaches as big as grapefruits. Grapes, green and black, in huge, succulent bunches. And figs, fresh, plump, juicy figs that made the mouth water just to look at them.

      There was a card. Trina plucked it from the centre and mockingly passed it over to Jemma. ‘For you, ma’am,’ she drawled, watching her face as she took the card then dragged her rounded eyes down to focus on it. ‘Methinks you have a passionate admirer. The writing on the envelope is sexy, too,’ she pointed out. ‘All sharp strokes and dramatic curves. I wonder who it can be?’

      Jemma wasn’t listening. She was trembling instead, staring at the envelope and frightened to open it. She knew who it was from; there was a little voice inside her head repeating his name over and over again. How he had found out her address she had no idea, but that cynical part in her she hadn’t known existed until today was telling her that for a man like him it wouldn’t be that hard.

      What had Josh said about him? From one of the richest families in the world, was what he had said. Powerful. A man not to mess around with.

      And Cassie? What had she said about him? Sexy. Loyal. Invincible. Even his own father could not dictate to him.

      And what have you learned about him yourself, Jemma? she asked herself shakily. Beautiful, she replied. Dangerous. Fair-minded but cocksure and arrogant with it. Determined, if this basket was a sign of determination to get his own way. Honest, if his proposition was serious. Deadly, if her own tangled feelings were anything to go by. He had succeeded in tying her in sensual knots within seconds of setting eyes on him.

      She sucked in a shaky breath, her fingers trembling as she slowly broke the seal on the envelope and took out the gold-embossed card inside.

      The words blurred then slowly cleared before her wary eyes.

      Today was no way to meet someone who is destined to become the most important person in my life. It was a day of bad smells and acid tastes. So I send you these. Fruits to sweeten your mouth and the flowers of my homeland to freshen the air around you. Keep the flowers warm and moist or they will wither and die before I can see you again. Eat the fruit, enjoy the sensual tastes of my native land and think of me.

      Leon.

      The air left her lungs on a tremulous sigh as she looked back at the basket filling the table, only to find its beauty superimposed by his darkly attractive and smoulderingly sensual face.

      God in heaven. She pulled out a chair and sat down, the hand holding the card going up to cover her eyes.

      ‘Bad news, then—not good?’ Trina prompted, curious at Jemma’s reaction.

      She held out the card for her friend to take. ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,’ she murmured, and left Trina to make of that what she may.

      ‘Who is this Leon?’ she asked after smothering several muffled chokes as she read the blatantly evocative words. ‘I’ve never heard you mention a Leon before.’

      ‘That’s because I hadn’t met him before today,’ Jemma explained, and sat back in the chair, grateful to find his face had disappeared from the basket. ‘He is one Leon Stephanades. A—business colleague of Josh’s.’

      ‘Wow,’ Trina gasped, and sank down in the other chair.

      ‘You’ve already heard of him, I see,’ Jemma mocked.

      Trina nodded. ‘But Jemma,’ she exclaimed, searching her friend’s face worriedly, ‘he’s way out of our league, love!’

      ‘I know it.’ A funny expression crossed Jemma’s face; she didn’t even recognise it herself, except that it felt as if it came somewhere close to desolation. ‘But try telling my senses that, will you?’ She grimaced self-deridingly. ‘I made an utter fool of myself today, Tri,’ she confessed. ‘He walked into Josh’s office and I felt the earth move beneath me! I couldn’t stop staring at him!’ Her expression was pained. ‘I couldn’t think! I couldn’t breathe! I couldn’t even focus! There were birds flying around in my head and puffy white clouds floating across my vision! He smiled and my heart did somersaults! And—God,’ she choked, covering her face with her hands, ‘he would have had to be blind not to know what was happening to me!’

      ‘Well,’ Trina murmured slowly, looking down at the card still in her hand, ‘he must have experienced something similar to respond with this.’

      ‘Did he?’ Her expression was cynical to say the least. ‘What he saw, Tri, was a peach ripe for the plucking!’ She picked a peach from the basket and brandished it bitterly in front of her. ‘And does a man like that turn an easy meal down? Does he hell!’ she answered herself scathingly. ‘And he’s all man, Tri,’ she added helplessly. ‘Big, tough and lean. So damned attractive he knocks your eyes out, and so disgustingly sure of himself that he quite coolly propositioned me!’ The contempt was back, but aimed at Leon instead of herself this time.

      ‘How?’ Trina’s eyes were round like saucers and eager with interest.

      ‘How does a man like that proposition a potential lover?’ Jemma snapped. ‘He laid down the ground rules. If you want to play in my league then this is how it’s done—and so on. I wanted to slap his arrogant face, but all I did do was let him kiss me!’ Self-disgust rattled in her throat. ‘By the time he let me up for air again, I was so dizzy I couldn’t think, never mind hit out!’

      ‘So?’ Trina prompted. ‘How did it get to the point that he sends you something like this?’ she wanted to know. ‘And I don’t mean the basket—I mean this card. It reads like a fait accompli to me—except the talk about smells and acid, of course,’ she frowned, not able to work that bit out. ‘He expects to see