‘You sent me flowers?’ Leila frowned.
‘You didn’t get them?’ James checked, furious at the florist and about to declare that heads would roll when Leila spoke.
‘The floral displays that were delivered to my room were all from you?’
‘Hello!’ James said. ‘Did you not read the cards?’
‘What cards?’ Leila said.
‘The card that came with the flowers? Didn’t you read them? Did you even notice them?’
‘The flowers at the palace get changed every day. I thought it was that. I told them off for not taking the old ones out.’ She was still frowning. ‘Why would you send me flowers?’
‘To thank you for that night, to ask you to dinner, to ask you to please just pick up the phone...’
‘I rang the number three and complained when the floral displays stopped arriving,’ Leila said, and was surprised by the sound of his laughter.
Not just surprised that he was laughing, but surprised at how much she had missed it and how that very sound made her lips want to smile.
She did not let them though; instead they pursed because she was so very hurt by him.
‘When the flowers clearly weren’t working I went to France.’ James explained a little of what had been happening to him. ‘I went there in an attempt to get you out of my head. It didn’t work. I came back a couple of weeks ago and, sad bastard that I am, was heading to The Harrington hoping to see you when I ran into your brother—after that I decided to head back to France till the dust had settled and only then...’ He didn’t elaborate.
He didn’t need to.
It was a regrettable fact for both what had occurred from that point on.
‘Why don’t you try speaking with your brother?’
‘I miss my brother,’ Leila said. ‘But I am cross with him.’
‘What about your parents?’ James pushed. ‘Surely the fact we are getting married must help.’
‘I doubt it. I just hope that, though they won’t forgive me, they don’t hate my baby,’ Leila said. ‘I want them to love my child and not take it out on him or her.’
Which, to James, seemed a rather reasonable request.
They carried on eating and when her eyes lingered again on the present, James moved it towards her.
‘Are you going to open it?’ James asked, for he was as impatient as she was.
‘What is it?’
‘A present.’
‘For?’ Leila checked, for she was used to her mother and to Jasmine getting presents. She had been gifted stones from other palaces although she did not dare get her hopes up that this might be a present for her.
‘You.’
She had never had a personal present before. Especially not one that was wrapped in pretty paper and had a bow that took forever to open.
‘Come on, Leila,’ James said, but not with the snarky impatience he had used the day she had taken forever to dress.