By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс
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tell him that wouldn’t add to the lie tally. ‘He’s just turned eighteen months.’
Culshaw grinned at the child and Sam gave a wary smile in return before burying his head back in his mother’s shoulder, which made the older man laugh and reach out a hand to ruffle his hair. ‘Good-looking boy. I thought you two were playing things a bit close to the chest last night. When were you going to tell us?’
Eve felt the ground lurch once more beneath her feet. Eric thought Sam was theirs? But, then, of course he would. They were supposed to have been a couple for more than two years and Sam’s father was of Italian descent. It would be easy to mistake Sam’s dark eyes and hair for Leo’s. Why would they question it?
But she couldn’t let them keep thinking it. Weren’t there enough lies between them already?
‘Actually,’ she started, ‘Sam—’
Her efforts earned her a blazing look from Leo. ‘Eve doesn’t like to give too much away,’ he said, smiling at Eric, glancing back in her direction with a look of cold, hard challenge.
Suddenly Maureen was there too, looking pale and strained, her mood lifting when she saw Sam, clucking over him like he was a grandchild rather than the child of someone she’d only just met.
‘You didn’t tell us you had such an adorable little boy,’ she admonished, already engaging Sam in a game of peek-a-boo before holding out her hands to take him.
‘Some people wouldn’t approve,’ Eve offered stiffly, ignoring Leo’s warning glare as she handed Sam over, then adding because of it, ‘I mean, given the fact we’re not married and all.’
‘Nonsense,’ Eric said, pinching Sam’s cheek. ‘There’s no need to rush things, not these days.’
Leo smiled, his eyes glinting triumphantly as Maureen settled into a chair and jogged Sam up and down on her knees, making him chuckle.
‘So,’ said Eric, following his wife’s lead and pulling up a chair, and soon demanding equal time with Sam, ‘I assume Sam explains the “family reasons” you weren’t going to be able to join us on the island?’
Eve dropped into a chair, feeling like she was being sucked deeper and deeper into a web of deceit. Leo must have warned them she might not be coming and used one of the excuses she’d suggested.
‘That was my fault, Eric,’ he said coolly. ‘I figured that a toddler was hardly conducive to contract deliberations.’
‘He can be very disruptive,’ she added. ‘Especially when he’s out of his routine. You wouldn’t believe what a handful he can be.’
‘What, this little champion?’ Bouncing the laughing toddler on his knee with such delight until it was impossible to work out who was laughing the most, Eric or Sam, as the toddler got the horsy ride of his life. ‘You must come,’ he said, slowing down to take a breather.
‘More,’ demanded Sam, bouncing up and down. ‘More!’
Culshaw laughed and obliged, though at a much gentler pace. ‘You will come, won’t you? After all, it’s hardly fair to keep you two apart when you barely get to see each other as it is. You will love it, I promise. Tropical island paradise. Your own bungalow right on the beach. We’ll organise a cot for Sam and a babysitter to give you a real break. I imagine you don’t get too many of those, working for Leo and looking after this little chap. How does that sound?’
Eve tried to smile, not sure she’d succeeded when the ground beneath her felt so unsteady. ‘It does sound lovely.’ And it did. A few days on a tropical island paradise with nothing more to do than swim or read or sip drinks with tiny umbrellas. The bungalow probably even had hot running water. Except she’d be sharing that bungalow with him. ‘It’s just that—’
‘Oh, please,’ Maureen added, putting her hand on Eve’s arm. ‘Last night was the best time I’ve had for ages. I know it’s asking a terrible lot of everyone and disrupting everyone’s schedules, but right now it would mean so very much to me.’
‘Of course they’ll come,’ she heard Leo say, ‘won’t you, Eve?’
And finally the unsteady ground she’d felt shifting under her feet the last few days opened up and swallowed her whole.
A smiling flight attendant greeted them, cooing over Sam, as Eve carried him on her hip into the jet. Eve just nodded in return, weariness combining with a simmering resentment. As far as she was concerned, this was no pleasure trip and she certainly wasn’t happy about how she’d been manipulated into coming.
And then she stepped into the plane and found even more reason to resent the man behind her. It looked more like a luxury lounge room than any plane interior she’d ever seen before, the cabin filled not with the usual rows and rows of narrow seats and plastic fittings and overhead lockers but a few scattered wide leather armchairs with timber cabinet work trimmed with bronze. Beyond the lounge area a door led to what must be more rooms and Eve caught a glimpse of a dining table with half a dozen chairs in a recessed alcove.
So much wealth. So much to impress. Leo Zamos seemed to have everything.
Everything but a heart.
Maybe that’s how you got to be a billionaire, she mused as another attendant showed her to a pair of seats where someone had already fitted her child restraint to buckle Sam in more securely. She helped settle the pair in and to stow their things, chattering pleasantly all the time while Eve stewed as she stashed books and toys close by and missed every word.
It all made sense. No wonder Leo Zamos was the success he was. Being ruthless in business, ruthless in the bedroom, taking what you wanted when you wanted—a heart would surely get in your way if you had one.
And while Eve simmered, Sam, on the other hand, was having the time of his tiny life, relishing the adventure and the attention, his dark eyes filled with glee as he pumped his arms up and down and made a sound like a war cry.
‘I think someone approves,’ Leo said from the seat alongside when the attendants had gone to fetch pre-flight drinks.
‘His name is Sam,’ she hissed, her resentment bubbling over at how she’d been trapped into this weekend away, a weekend of continued pretence with people who didn’t deserve to be lied to. The only bright spots she could see were that the Culshaws and the Alvarezes were travelling together on the Culshaws’ jet, and that they would all have private quarters, which meant she didn’t have to pretend being madly in love with Leo twenty-four seven. She couldn’t have stood the strain of it all if she had. As it was, she didn’t know now how she was going to keep up the charade.
The attendant brought their drinks, advised there were two minutes until departure and discreetly disappeared.
What a mess. Eve poured a box of juice into a two-handled cup and passed it to a waiting Sam, along with a picture book to occupy him for a few minutes. How was she expected to act like Leo’s loving fiancée now? It had been so much easier last night when there had been so much sexual tension and simmering heat sparking between them. Now the tension and the heat had more to do with anger.
All to do with anger, she corrected herself with a sigh. She was over him, even if he did have a velvet voice and the body of a god.
Across the aisle, the subject of her dark thoughts raised his drink. ‘You sound like you have a problem.’
‘Funny you should mention that.’
‘You could have said no.’
‘I did say no, remember? And then you turned around and said yes, of course we would come!’
He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, and if they’d been on any normal kind of plane, Eve could have given in to the desire to smack him. ‘What can I say? Maureen likes you. It means the world to her that you can go.’
‘You don’t care about Maureen,’ she said, keeping her voice low so she didn’t alarm Sam.