Princess's Secret Baby(18)
He understood why a little better now.
No wonder she had needed to escape, James thought, for Zayn spoke of possession and dishonouring not just Leila but the royal family and his people.
‘That’s a very heavy burden to place on one woman’s body,’ James responded to Zayn’s furious rant, and got a hand around his throat as a reward for his words, but it didn’t stop him speaking. ‘I was not aware that the integrity of the nation rested upon your sister’s maidenhead.’
‘You have no place to comment on integrity,’ Zayn said, and James felt the grip tighten around his throat. ‘You are a man in possession of none.’
Zayn was wrong. James had had integrity around Leila—he simply could not discard her. After he had left her that morning he’d barely made it till nine before he’d caved and sent flowers, asking her to call him.
He’d sent more flowers the next day and the next and yet Leila still hadn’t responded to him. He’d caved again and called The Harrington, but that they were so discreet combined with the fact he didn’t even know her surname had meant that they would neither confirm nor deny that she was staying there.
He found himself at her door once but had attempted to let go of the madness and turned around.
In the end James had taken himself off to France for a spot of skiing, determined to screw his way out of it, but all roads led to Leila in the erection stakes. He’d danced, he’d kissed, he’d been his flirtatious, outrageous best, but nothing with another produced even a stirring. Rather than destroy his formidable reputation with a no-show in that department he’d returned each night to his luxurious cabin alone.
And thought of Leila. How they had sat and talked for hours, how easily it had been to open up to the other.
How, for a while there, as they had drank shots and celebrated being the two black sheep, they had felt the same.
He looked at her brother and James was angry for her.
‘At least I don’t treat women like they are my property.’
‘Perhaps not, Chatsfield, but the fact remains that you have badly handled what belongs to me. My family, anyone beneath my protection, belongs to me. You are fortunate we are not in my country, for there, I would not hesitate to remove the member that committed the offence.’
Offence?
There had been nothing remotely offensive about that night. It had stayed with James for weeks now. An offence might have occurred if the seduction hadn’t been so mutual. James could very well have pointed out that Leila had been a very willing participant in the supposed downfall of her country, but he chose not to make this salacious comment.
Instead he shrugged Zayn off in one easy motion and told him a few other home truths—that Zayn was positively biblical. When Zayn warned him never to repeat what had happened, nor to let it out in the press, James merely laughed in his face and told him that he didn’t need the publicity. That here in New York the Chatsfields were royalty.
Fighting down some back alley was an experience James did not need and so he walked away from it.
Winded from the fight, he would not let Zayn see that and only when he got onto the street did he take a moment to get his breath.
His hands went to his pocket, checking for his wallet and keys, but instead they closed around a tube of lip balm and his mind went straight back to Leila.