Modern Romance December 2019 Books 1-4. Maisey Yates

self-esteem. It was just… Her brow furrowed until she understood herself better. It occurred to her, for the very first time, that she was actually quite shy but that the need to focus on other people throughout her life had blinded her to that truth. And the women around Leo, the women he had actually been with, seemed so ridiculously beautiful that she was intimidated and shrank from the comparisons.

      Enough was enough, Letty decided on the back of that lowering thought, stepping out of the changing room with a sway to her hips and an angle to her chin. And Leo, sprawled in his chair looking bored and clearly not expecting her, sat up with a jerk, stunned by her response to his challenge. And Letty liked that reaction; she liked it very much. She strolled across to the table and lifted her champagne to sip it, gloriously aware that Leo could not take his spectacular dark golden eyes from her.

      ‘So, basic is what turns you on,’ Letty murmured with a rueful sigh.

      ‘Pretty much,’ Leo admitted, his attention welded to that wondrous hourglass shape of hers and the swell of her breasts.

      ‘At least that’s fairly normal,’ Letty conceded, empowered by the reality that Leo, basic or otherwise, was visibly aroused. ‘At one stage early on I did wonder if you were insisting on keeping a mistress because you were into some sort of kink—’

      Leo almost choked on his champagne and hurriedly set down the glass. ‘Kink?’ he stressed, his gorgeous eyes bright with disbelief.

      ‘It was a fair enough assumption when I didn’t know you,’ Letty parried, cool as a cucumber now. ‘Want to see anything else?’

      ‘Surprise me again… You keep on doing that,’ Leo breathed, studying her with intense dark golden eyes. ‘I didn’t think you’d have the nerve to come out.’

      Letty sashayed back to the changing room wearing a grin she wouldn’t have shown him for a million pounds. She emerged again in a black set ornamented with shocking pink lace and Leo lounged back in his chair to enjoy the show.

      ‘You do realise that I’m likely to jump you in the limo after this?’ he murmured thickly.

      ‘Promises…promises,’ Letty countered with a roll of her green sea glass eyes and with more daring than she had known she possessed.

      ‘I can’t wait that long,’ Leo breathed, striding into the changing room in her wake and catching her into his arms before she could guess his intention.

      ‘You can’t…here!’ Letty gasped, thoroughly disconcerted as he backed her up against the wall, pinning her hands to either side of her and caging her in with his lean powerful body. Yet looking up into the smouldering heat of his eyes, she found his dominance outlandishly sexy.

      ‘Nobody will disturb us,’ Leo murmured huskily. ‘I only need a little taste of you.’

      His mouth crashed down on hers and she strained helplessly against him, a flood of hunger released instantly. He hitched one of her legs up and ground against her and her awareness of his arousal mounted a thousandfold and sent fireworks shooting through her pelvis. His tongue tangled with hers and a low moan escaped her, an ache forming between her taut thighs. He released her hands and glided his fingertips lightly down her ribcage, making her shiver convulsively. Her heart was racing so fast she could hardly catch her breath, and then he touched her where she most needed to be touched and she thought she would spontaneously combust from the surge of tingling tormenting sensation at her core.

      Her eyes flicked open on the mirror behind Leo and a belated awareness of where they were engulfed her. She pushed her palms against his chest and looked up at him, hot and flushed and damningly conscious of how much she wanted him.

      ‘Not here,’ she muttered tautly.

      His body screaming for release, Leo snatched in a ragged breath. He should never have left the island, he recognised, because he couldn’t keep his hands off her. That hadn’t happened to him with a woman in more years than he could count, and he didn’t want it to happen with her. Control was important to Leo. Anything excessive in any aspect of his life set up warning markers he heeded. His father loved his stepmother obsessively and it had meant that the older man made some very bad decisions. Not that Leo was afraid that he could be falling in love—no, far from it. He almost smiled at the idea, knowing himself to be too battle-hardened by far to be prone to that weakness. On the other hand, obsessive lust was dangerous as well.

      ‘We’ll get back to Ios,’ Leo agreed. ‘I’ll have the rest of your new wardrobe sent out to the island for you to choose from there.’

      Letty seemed transfixed by the idea and her eyes widened. ‘I’ll get dressed.’

      ‘Yes, that would be sensible,’ Leo murmured as if he had never asked her to model the lingerie for him or, indeed, had followed her into the changing room.

      Letty was restive in the limo that returned them to the airport because Leo had withdrawn from her. Because she had said no? She didn’t think so. She suspected Leo had also succumbed to a moment of temptation and taking account of their surroundings had reined back his desire for her. But she knew he had an apartment in Athens and he didn’t suggest heading there and he didn’t approach her in the limo either.

      Finally, shortly before they reached the airport, she asked him a question that had been playing heavily on her mind. ‘I’ve been wondering…’ she began tautly. ‘When will you be changing the terms in the prenuptial contract I signed?’

      Dark brows pleating, Leo frowned at her in apparent astonishment. ‘Why would I do that?’

      ‘Because everything between us has changed,’ Letty pointed out simply. ‘This is not the detached marriage we originally agreed, and I do not accept your right to be unfaithful now.’

      That assurance fell into a bottomless pit of silence. Leo’s dark gaze was hooded and cool. His jawline clenched hard. ‘We’ll discuss it later, although I should warn you that we have different viewpoints.’

      Letty swallowed hard, not liking the sound of that for she couldn’t imagine what he could think they could have to discuss in the circumstances. He had radically changed the terms of their marriage and she had rights too…didn’t she?

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      LETTY REFUSED TO be intimidated by Leo’s forbidding coolness on the flight back to the island and she was surrounded by the children when they walked into the big house. Popi, as lively as though that nightmare had never happened, wanted to know where they had been, what they had done, what they had bought. Cosmo had a car to show her. Sybella was lugging around a doll almost as big as she was and Theon just held out his arms to her, always eager for a cuddle.

      ‘We’re dining at the beach house,’ Leo decreed, unable to hang onto his reserve with Sybella trying to climb up him as if he were a tree.

      ‘Yes,’ Letty agreed. ‘Later. I’ll see the children to bed first…if that’s all right with you?’

      Leo studied her, a muscle pulling at the edge of his taut jaw. His spectacular bone structure was visible beneath his bronzed skin, his dark golden eyes bright with a glint of impatience. And anger? Well, if he was angry, too bad, Letty reasoned. The prenup stuff had to be dealt with, whether he liked it or not. He jerked his chin in acknowledgement of her plans and swung round, bending to let Sybella slide down from his arms. ‘I’ll catch up with some work.’

      Why did she want to mess around with the prenup? he was asking