More Than Neighbors (17 page)

“What’s that?” Leopold asked, hearing a thundering sound.

“The baby’s heart.”

“Isn’t it beating too fast? Is that normal? Is there some kind of problem?” Full of anxiety, the poor man peppered her with questions.

“It’s always like this. Everything seems fine. Baby’s now five-and-a-half inches and weighs nine ounces,” the midwife replied amiably, trying to soothe him. “Do you want to know the sex, Catalina?”

“Yes, please.” Cat had remained silent until then, observing the black-and-white image on the screen with wonder.

The midwife examined the screen closely for a while before announcing, “You’re going to have a little girl. Congratulations to you both.”

“A girl!” Leo exclaimed, a little hoarse. Unable to contain his emotions, he took one of Catalina’s hands in his. Their eyes met, and Leo saw Catalina’s tears glistening. They could not stop smiling, and a subtle, warm feeling passed between them.

CHAPTER 19

Upon leaving the hospital, Leopold broke the awkward silence that had enveloped them once more. “We must talk things over, Catalina. Shall we go to your house?”

“We’d better not. I share with two other girls, and they might be home now.”

“We’ll go to my place, then.”

“You’re not working today? I’m surprised you don’t have to go to the office on a Wednesday.”

“Some things are more important than work,” he said forthrightly.

“I never thought I’d hear you say that, Leo.”

He gave her a serious look. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

“Maybe . . . ,” she whispered.

When they arrived at his apartment, Leopold offered to make a quick lunch.

“That’d be nice. As usual, I’m starving.” She followed him into the kitchen. “What can I do to help?”

“You don’t need to do anything. Go sit in the living room and I’ll bring everything in.” Her ex-neighbor was already opening and closing drawers and taking things from the fridge.

“Leo, you don’t have to treat me like an invalid. I’m perfectly capable of preparing a salad or whatever else.” Again, Catalina’s cheeks flushed with indignation.

“Being pregnant seems to have made you awfully touchy,” he teased, a mischievous smile on his lips.

“Only because I want to help. You don’t have to—”

Without letting her finish her sentence, Leopold picked her up and, despite Cat’s protests, carried her to the living room and gently deposited her on an armchair. “I hope you have terrible back pain tomorrow from lifting all this weight,” she said, giving him a wicked look, and Leopold burst out laughing. Having Catalina near him always made him feel tremendously alive.

It infuriated her to find him so attractive, so she gazed away from the dazzling smile that made her completely lose her senses, picked up one of the business magazines from the table, and began to read it as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

Before long, Leopold had returned with a hearty lunch. As they ate, Catalina forgot her anger and they chatted animatedly, as if the five months of separation had never happened. As he watched the young woman laugh at one of his comments, Leopold wondered how he’d managed to live without seeing her for so long. Catalina’s beautiful face glowed, and he had to hold himself back from pouncing on her and kissing her, again and again, until she finally surrendered and agreed to be his forever.

When they’d finished eating, Leopold forbade her from helping him clear the dishes, and he took everything to the kitchen. Returning to the living room, he found that Cat had gone out onto the balcony, and he silently followed her, spellbound. Catalina, her gaze lost in the cityscape, was standing with both hands resting on her tummy and a dreamy expression on her face that captivated him.

Unable to contain himself any longer, he approached her from behind and wrapped his arms around her. This time, she did not resist and simply rested her head against his shoulder. Leo kissed her hair and placed a hand on her tummy. To his surprise, he felt a tiny movement under his palm. “Our daughter’s saying hello to you,” Cat murmured with closed eyes.

Leopold fell mute, incapable of expressing the profusion of emotions he felt building in his chest. Eventually, he managed to formulate the question he had wanted to ask for so long. “Why did you do it, Catalina?”

The profound pain in his voice reached the depths of Cat’s soul, and without having to ask what he meant, she answered. “I panicked,” she admitted, with disarming sincerity. “When I woke up beside you, all I could think about was getting away for a while to think. Then I found out I was pregnant, and I guess that sewed it all up.”

“Did you really think I’d be capable of turning my back on you under such circumstances?” he asked, tormented.

“I don’t know what I thought. All I knew was—,” she broke off, anguished.

“What did you know? Tell me, please. I need to understand,” he begged her.

“All I knew was that I didn’t want you to be forced to make a decision against your will,” Catalina finally confessed.

Gently, Leopold turned her around, held her firmly by the shoulders, and fixed his eyes on hers. “Catalina, I love you. I think I loved you the moment I saw you on the balcony wearing nothing but that towel; though I wasn’t aware of it, even then I knew without any doubt that you were someone special. I still remember how much I wanted to punch Paul when I thought you were his lover.”

She stared at him, stunned. “Really, Leo? I was convinced when we first met that I set your nerves on edge.”

“That, too. Somehow, your mere presence threatened to bring down barriers I had worked so hard to build. I was terrified.”

The sincerity in his eyes was clear. Moved by his words, Cat timidly stretched out her hand and stroked his rough cheek. “You, scared of me? I don’t believe it.”

“Well, you should. Meeting you made the foundations on which I’d built my dependable existence tremble. I didn’t understand why, but you made me dissatisfied with the life I led, which seemed to me the height of rudeness on your part.” A smile spread across her face at that. “I needed to see you, to touch you, all the time. When we danced together at the ball, I realized I’d fallen in love with you.”

“Was that why you were acting so weird?” Catalina was beginning to understand a few things.

Leopold nodded without taking his eyes from her tender gaze. “I fought with myself, refusing to believe it. I told myself that all I felt for you was sexual desire, that once I’d slept with you, it would all disappear.”

“So you decided to get me drunk.” Cat frowned and looked at him with feigned resentment.

“I got you drunk, but as you well know, I didn’t have my evil way with you, and it only made me want you more.” Delicately, he brushed a lock of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “That day I saw you naked at the beach, I thought I’d explode.”

“You spied on me when I was changing! Leopold Sinclair, remind me never to trust your boy scout’s word, or your gentleman’s honor, or—” Her brown eyes sparkled, and Leopold found her utterly adorable. Unable to restrain himself, he held her face gently in both hands and touched his lips against hers, cutting her off midsentence.

That same jolt she felt whenever Leopold kissed her made its appearance again, and Cat had to rest her hands against his chest to prop herself up.

“Leopold,” she whispered against his lips several minutes later. “I have a confession.”

Very slowly, Leopold separated his mouth from Catalina’s and stood gazing in wonder at her beautiful flushed face and the velvety brown eyes that could not hide her passion. Her whole being shimmered like a million diamonds, and he was incapable of tearing his eyes away from her. “Come on, spit it out.” The rasping of his voice made Cat shudder with something more like anticipation than fear.

“I . . . I spied on you, too, when you were dressed only in your boxers on the beach.”

Her ex-neighbor tipped his head back and bellowed with laughter. “Catalina Stapleton! I knew you had no shame! Remind me to spank you later for your impudence, but now I’m going to continue with my story.” His hand stroked her smooth cheek, and Cat nuzzled into the long, warm fingers that she’d missed so much the last few months. “I don’t know if you’re aware, Catalina, that I gave up my plans to seduce you a long time ago. I reached the conclusion that I enjoyed your company too much to risk it for the sake of a fleeting sexual encounter. However, I was incapable of admitting, even to myself, that I was terrified. Terrified that once your desire was sated, you’d get bored with me and in the end I’d lose everything. But then, the night I saw you kissing Atkinson, all my plans flew out of the window.”

“Hang on! I didn’t kiss him, he kissed me. Robert just wanted to console me after I caught you with Pamela.” Catalina interrupted him, eager to make her point clear.

“I’ll say it again: I didn’t kiss Pamela. As you well know, I haven’t had eyes for any woman but you for a long time,” he answered, looking at her with stern impatience.

“I don’t know about that,” Cat protested. Still staring into his gray eyes, she asked, “Who was the dark-haired woman you brought to the exhibition? Did I dream her up, too?”

“Are you jealous?” Leopold smiled in a way that irritated her.

“Should I be?” she shot back.

“Lisa is Harry’s wife; Harry, my best friend.” Leopold’s face grew serious again. “Since I met you, Catalina, I haven’t been with another woman. I couldn’t even bring myself to sleep with Alison again.”

“I had no idea,” Cat said sincerely, and feeling deeply moved, she put her arms around Leopold’s neck and sank her fingers into his short hair. Feeling his large frame tremble under her touch, Catalina delighted in her newfound discovery.

“If you keep doing that, I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish explaining,” Leopold warned, slightly breathless.

Cat quickly took her arms away and put her hands on her hips. She raised an eyebrow wickedly and said, completely blasé, “All right, carry on then, neighbor, you’ve piqued my interest.”

“I’m glad I’ve managed to achieve such a feat, Miss Stapleton; remind me to give you two spanks later for your impertinence,” he said, slightly annoyed. “As I was saying, when I saw
Atkinson
kissing
you
—without much resistance from you, I must say . . .” At that, Cat made an indignant sound. “Anyway, I lost it. At that moment, all I could think was that you had to be mine. Everything else was wiped from my mind, and you know what happened next . . .”

“Yup, I know all too well.” The torrid images of their passionate night together returned to Catalina’s mind, as they had a thousand times during their long months apart.

“I don’t know what happened to me that night; I couldn’t stop touching you for even a second . . . I’d never experienced anything like it. Tell me the truth, Catalina. Did I scare you? Did I hurt you?”

Cat could hear in his voice all the pent-up anguish and remorse that he had been feeling for so long, and she knew then, without question, that she had to stop running away. She had to face up to what they had and be completely honest. “No, Leo, you didn’t hurt me. But I was scared.” She ran a hand across her forehead, as if trying to erase her tormented expression, then took his face in her hands and gazed into those eyes she liked so much. “I was so scared when I realized what I felt for you that I ran like a coward.”

Leopold stood very still, his eyes fixed on hers, trying not to let his voice tremble as he finally dared to ask, “And what was it you felt for me?”

“I realized that, for the first time in my life, I’d fallen in love.”

The absolute sincerity in her brown eyes, looking at him with so much love, made Leopold’s throat feel suddenly tight, and he was forced to swallow several times. Slowly, he took Catalina’s chin between his index finger and thumb, and, gently lifting her head toward his, his lips fell on hers like a starving man tucking in to a feast.

Cat’s hands linked around his neck and pulled him closer. Their embrace was long and fiery, and everything but the feeling of his firm lips disappeared. At one point, Leopold bent down and lifted her in his arms as if she were weightless, then carried her to his bedroom. The golden light of the afternoon, sifted by the window screens, flooded into the room. Gently, he placed her on the bed, then lay beside her. Leopold rested his head on his bent arm, and seeing Catalina’s face flushed with excitement and her lips reddened from his eager kisses, he thought once more that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. Then he bent toward her and whispered hoarsely in her ear. “Catalina, I need you . . . I’ve been without you for too long.”

Cat saw the wild desire in his face and knew it reflected exactly what she felt. Her brown eyes, big and warm, looked at him with profound tenderness. “Yes,” was her only reply.

Ever so carefully, Leopold began to unbutton her loose-fitting dress. This time, he was determined not to rush: he didn’t just want to sleep with Catalina; he wanted to show her the depths of his love. When he had undone all the buttons, he pulled the dress over her head, then unfastened her bra and cast it aside, doing the same with the rest of her clothes, before finally pausing to reverently look at her naked body. “You’re so beautiful . . .”

Blushing as she felt his burning gaze, Cat asked, “Even though I’m pregnant?”

“Even more so because you’re pregnant.” He softly stroked her belly before dipping his head and covering her silky-smooth skin with soft kisses.

Catalina’s hands entwined in his short gray hair and lifted his head, pulling him toward her and kissing him full on the mouth. “I want you,” she whispered against his lips.

“You’ve taught me how to live, Catalina,” he answered hoarsely.

Despite the heat generated by Leopold’s burning touch, Cat shivered at his words and squeezed him tight. She unbuttoned his shirt and took it off before doing the same with his pants and the rest of his clothes. Naked, they let themselves get carried away by their ecstasy and caressed each other until, breathless, they reached their limits.

Leopold parted her knees, and with a gentle thrust, he entered her, while Catalina wrapped her legs around his hips in an attempt to press him ever closer. At one point, still inside her, Leopold lifted himself up on his forearms and looked at her face, her eyelids barely masking the rapture of his touch. In a trembling voice, Cat asked him, “Is this some wicked new type of torture?”

He gave her the tenderest smile she’d ever seen, and answered: “No, this is love, because we’re doing it together.”

Catalina hugged him with all her might and pressed her mouth on his as she arched her hips against him. Powerless against her touch, Leopold responded to her passion, unable to contain himself any longer. With gentle, deep movements, he kept going until the two of them, panting, their bodies slippery with sweat, reached a throbbing climax that left them totally spent.

Much later, her head resting on his strong chest, Catalina felt absolute happiness. Leopold held an arm around her waist, pulling her against him as if he could not bear the idea of losing contact with her skin even for a moment. Suddenly, Cat glanced up and let out a surprised exclamation. “Peter’s painting! Leo, it was you!”