Last night had been a particularly heavy one. Some idiot had hired a flash mob to take over the bar to assist in his wedding proposal. The man had clearly needed every assistance because the poor woman had, to James, looked as if she wanted to run.
Without the onlookers, James was quite sure that she would have said no to him.
Instead James had watched as the man had dropped to his knees and asked her if they could return here next year on their—wait for it, James thought— honeymoon!
‘How romantic,’ a leggy blonde woman beside him had said.
How awful, James had privately thought, though he hadn’t said that. Instead he had bought Longlegs a drink.
And another.
He was like a repeat prescription, James thought as he sat there recovering the next morning.
He resisted opening the American newspaper that had been pre-emptively placed on his table, for usually he requested one.
Just not today.
James really didn’t want to see himself leaving the club with yet another glossy blonde.
What was her name?
Certainly it wasn’t Leila, because when this morning he’d inadvertently called her that, it had earned him a slap to the cheek.
Christ.
He’d tried to ski his way out of it, tried to screw his way out of it, but still every morning he woke hard for Leila.
Every night was an attempt to relive that one.
Not just the sex, although it was a lot about the sex. Still he kept remembering the moment she had walked into the bar.
His ex, who had gone to the press with his stories, had taken months just to get some salacious tidbits out of him. He’d spoken so readily with Leila.
She hadn’t with him though, James remembered.
He’d been used; James knew that much.
He could have been anyone.
Rather than think about it James opened up the paper and took another sip of coffee as he turned to the business section.
Then something caught his eye and he almost spat out his coffee.
There was Leila, dressed in finery, her head and mouth covered, but it was certainly her, for he would never forget those eyes.
And there, looking far less than regal, was a very tacky shot of himself and some blonde making out at the bar.
All this he took in as he sat there, his mind choosing to linger on the images than focus on the headline, but then not even James could ignore what was written.
Princess Leila Al-Ahmar of Surhaadi was three months pregnant and, according to extremely reliable sources, the father was none other than James Chatsfield.
He looked at the caption beneath the image of himself and a woman.
James Chatsfield celebrating the happy news!
It never even entered his head that he might not be the father.
Oh, she’d used him that night, all right.