Читать книгу The Italian's Baby Bargain: The Italian's Wedding Ultimatum / The Italian's Forced Bride / The Mancini Marriage Bargain - Ким Лоренс, Kate Walker - Страница 15

ALESSANDRO had been ripping off his clothes with flattering speed when she’d run, laughing, into the bathroom. She had called his name and got no response, and then waited, her heart pounding with anticipation. But when after several minutes the door to the shower cubicle remained closed Sam didn’t linger. After shampooing her hair with unnecessary vigour she stepped out.

‘Obviously I’m not as irresistible as I think,’ she told her image in the steamy mirror. ‘Oh, my, do I have a problem.’

Of course there was a problem—and it wasn’t restricted to talking to herself! Casual she could do—casual was fine—but casual wasn’t living for the brief moments they shared. It simply wasn’t healthy when for most of the time she was just going through the motions, waiting for him to call or like tonight, ring her doorbell.

The fact was she wanted more, and more was something Alessandro didn’t want to give. If he knew how she felt Sam suspected he would run a mile. There was a choice, of course. There was always a choice. She could come clean, tell him how she felt and watch him walk away. Or she could accept what she had.

What was called a lose-lose situation.

Wrapping a towel sarong-wise around her still damp body, Sam stalked back into the bedroom. The first thing she saw was Alessandro. He was actually pretty hard to miss, standing in the middle of the room doing his dark, brooding stare thing into the middle distance.

Well, at least he hasn’t fallen asleep, she thought as she walked straight past him and sat herself down at the dressing table. Maintaining a stony silence, she ostentatiously removed his jacket from the back of the chair and dropped it in an untidy heap on the floor. The provocation provoked no reaction. He just stood there, in the same state of semi-undress as he had been when she left.

But something had obviously occurred to put him in such a vile mood, since he had walked into the room looking at her as though she was water and he was a man who’d spent the last ten days walking through a desert.

She lifted a brush and then with a sigh set it down. ‘Are you going to tell me what I’m supposed to have done now…?’

In the mirror their eyes clashed, stormy green with cold, implacable brown.

‘Why do you assume you have done something?’

‘Maybe something to do with the fact you could cut the atmosphere in here with a knife, but mostly because you’ve got your judge, jury and executioner face on,’ she told him sweetly. ‘You know, this makes me really sick,’ she observed. ‘I’ve waited an entire week for you to contact me.’ Which makes me the sort of pathetic idiot I swore I’d never be. ‘And now you are here all you can do is look at me as though I’m…’

‘Dio mio, do not take that tone with me!’ His unbuttoned shirt billowed as he strode across the room, revealing the sleek, toned lines of his bronzed torso. Taking hold of the back of her swivel chair, he stood there, glaring at her in the mirror.

Sam, who didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on, glared right back.

‘If you don’t like it you know what you can do!’ The least a part-time lover could do was be civil when he did deign to put in an appearance. This no-strings, no-explanation thing sounded great in theory, and maybe it worked for some people, but Sam had come to appreciate that she wasn’t one of them.

If I had an ounce of guts I’d tell him it’s over. Only where Alessandro was concerned she had the backbone and moral fibre of an invertebrate. How many times had she seen and silently sneered at friends who were willing to make concession after concession for their boyfriends? I’d never do that, she had thought, from her position of moral superiority. And look at me now!

‘Don’t think I won’t.’

Empty threats…is this what I’ve been reduced to…?

‘Good!’ she snapped, thinking, I might be able to do better than ‘good’ if I had the faintest idea what we were fighting about.

‘I suppose you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for this?’

As he bent across her the scent of his warm body caused Sam’s nostrils to flare. ‘What…?’ she said, picking up the creased piece of paper he had slammed down on the dressing table. Her eyes widened as she recognised Jonny’s cheque, which she had shoved in her bag and forgotten about.

‘What is that?’

‘A cheque.’

A harsh expletive was torn from Alessandro’s throat. ‘I know it’s a cheque,’ he growled. ‘Do not be evasive.’ His dark, angry eyes glared back at her from the mirror.

Sam, who had Jonny’s secret to guard, had every intention of being evasive for as long as she could—although the expression on Alessandro’s face suggested that wouldn’t be very long.

She shrugged. ‘If you know, why ask?’

His lean face was drawn into savage lines of anger as he spun her chair around and, curving his big body towards her, planted a hand on either arm.

Sam’s eyes lifted as his shadow fell across her.

‘A cheque for a large amount of money, made out to you, from my sister’s husband. What is Jonny doing, giving you money?’ he demanded in a low, driven voice.

‘Are you trying to intimidate me…?’ If I had any sense at all, she thought, he’d be succeeding. It was pretty obvious from the scorching anger etched into every glorious line of his incredible face that he was just about combustible!

‘I am trying to extract a straight answer from you,’ he gritted back grimly.

‘What were you doing going through my bag?’

He looked outraged at the suggestion. ‘I wasn’t. The damned thing was sitting there on the bedside table. It fell on the floor, I picked it up and…’ He stopped, the muscles of his brown throat visibly working as he recalled the moment when he had realised what he held in his hand. ‘What is Jonny doing giving you money, Samantha?’

Sam shrugged, his judgemental attitude causing her to respond with more provocation than was probably sensible. But actually she didn’t feel sensible. She felt absolutely fed up that he so obviously didn’t trust her. The injustice of it made her want to scream.

‘I don’t owe you any explanations, Alessandro.’ He had certainly never offered her any, she thought resentfully. ‘You’re my lover, not my keeper, and that,’ she warned him, ‘could change at any moment. And anyway,’ she added, ‘it wasn’t a gift, it was a loan.’

The semantics caused his lips to spasm derisively. ‘You will not take money from another man.’

‘I did n—’ She stopped, her eyes narrowing. ‘Another man? Does that mean you’re offering?’

‘Would that not smack of payment for services rendered?’

There was no pause for thought between the intention and the action. Her arm went back in a curve, released, and her hand made contact with his cheek. Alessandro, a look of stark incredulity on his face, straightened up, breathing hard.

Shaking, Sam too scrambled to her feet, pushing her chair backwards against the dressing table. ‘Look what you made me do!’ she accused, appalled by her own actions.

‘I made you?’

‘Yes, you made me!’ she yelled back. ‘You, with your nasty insinuations and always believing the worst.’

‘Are you going to tell me what that money is for?’

Sam shook her head, her expression blank. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘No problem. I will ask Jonny.’

Panic flared in Sam’s eyes. ‘You can’t do that!’ she protested.

‘You leave me no choice.’

Sam closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘My God, but I hate you!’

His lips curled into a sardonic half-smile. ‘At this moment,’ he confided, ‘I’m not particularly fond of you.’ But he still wanted to unwind that towel and throw her on the bed. He wanted it so badly he could taste it.

Slinging him a look of loathing, Sam walked across to the bed and sat down before her shaking legs gave way. ‘I haven’t cashed the cheque, and if you’d bothered to read the date you’d have noticed that’s it’s almost two months old.’

Alessandro’s dark brows drew together in a straight line. ‘So why haven’t you cashed it?’

‘I couldn’t stop him giving it to me, but I didn’t have to cash it.’

‘Do men often feel driven to give you large amounts of money?’ At that moment he felt driven—very driven. The fact that even at this moment all he could think of was burying himself deep inside her and hearing her say, Yes, Alessandro, in that breathy little voice that killed his much vaunted self-control stone-dead, was some measure of the spell she exerted over him.

Face facts, Alessandro, his inner voice goaded contemptuously. While you’re desperately trying to act as if nothing has changed, the fact is everything has changed. You’re so in control you felt it necessary to sweat for twenty-four hours just to prove that you didn’t have to get off the plane and rush to the side of a woman who hasn’t made any effort to contact you.

Sam, realising that she had no option but to tell him the truth and hope he kept it to himself, sighed and said, ‘Jonny wasn’t giving it to me. He was paying me back.’ She looked at Alessandro, who just stood there, giving the impression he wasn’t even listening. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

Alessandro released a long pent-up breath and looked at her. ‘No…yes.’ A frown formed on his lean face. ‘Paying you back…?’

‘Jonny had some cashflow problems and I lent him a little to tide him over until he sorted himself out.’

One dark brow elevated. ‘A little…?’ he said, picking up the cheque and waving it under her nose. ‘You think that is a little…?’

Sam flushed under his ironic gaze. ‘Well, it was only sitting in my account.’

‘I’m all for making your money work for you, but you didn’t choose the safest form of investment, did you? At least I know now why he hasn’t been to me…’

‘You’re the last person he’d go to.’

Alessandro’s dark lashes lifted from the high angle of his cheekbones. ‘And you are the first, it seems,’ he slotted in drily.

‘Well, at least I don’t make him feel inadequate,’ she retorted. ‘I think you enjoy intimidating people,’ she accused.

Alessandro raised an arm to drag a frustrated hand through his dark hair. The rippling this action set in motion over his lean torso caused her to lose the thread of her argument.

‘He should have gone to his wife, not to another woman,’ Alessandro condemned. ‘And the fact is lending him money is only delaying the inevitable.’

Sam, her colour heightened, wrenched her fascinated gaze from his body and said angrily, ‘I am not another woman.’

‘You are not his woman.’ You’re mine!

‘But I am his friend, and with a brother-in-law like you, boy, does he need one! For God’s sake, Alessandro, why can’t you give the man a chance? So he’s no financial genius…’ She lifted her shoulders in an expressive shrug. ‘So what? He’s doing his best. And no man could love your sister more than he does.’

Alessandro’s eyes dropped to where her heaving bosom was on the point of escaping the confines of the towel. ‘Would you defend me with so much passion?’ he wondered, lifting his gaze to her face .

‘Defend you…?’ she parroted, and laughed. ‘What do you need defending against?’ she wondered. ‘You’re so tough you’re virtually bullet-proof,’ she accused.

The streaks of colour emphasising the strong, carved contours of his cheekbones deepened as he responded in a voice that leaked derisive scorn, ‘I would certainly not beg money from a woman.’

‘He didn’t beg!’ Sam protested. ‘I found out by accident.’

‘Accident…?’

‘Yes, accident.’

‘You mean he was drunk?’

Sam read the contemptuous condemnation in the lean, starkly beautiful contours of his face and her lips tightened. ‘Small wonder Jonny didn’t want to come to you for help.’

‘I imagine he knew that I would not hand him a blank cheque and offer him tea and sympathy.’ He flashed her a cold smile. ‘Or was it hugs and kisses?’

‘He doesn’t want my hugs and kisses.’

Alessandro looked at her mouth, so soft, lush and inviting, and wondered how any man worthy of the name could not want to enjoy them. If Jonny wanted to keep his teeth intact he’d better carry on not wanting, he mused grimly. If he had suspected for one second that Jonny harboured any inappropriate feelings for Samantha he would already have taken action.

‘Presumably if he did you would not be in my bed.’

She looked at his mouth, thought about it on her skin, and thought, I would be in your bed if I had to crawl there! ‘I’m not in your bed.’

Alessandro’s eyes slid from hers as Sam followed the direction of his gaze to the tumbled quilt she had hastily pulled across the bed when she had realised who was ringing the doorbell. The colour flew to her cheeks.

His voice dropped to a sexy rasp. ‘That could easily be fixed.’ He accompanied this with the sort of raw, hungry look that stripped her nerve-endings bare and caused goosebumps to break out like a rash on her overheated skin.

Making contact with the sizzling heat in his sensational eyes, she felt her anger and resistance melting faster than snow in July. Gritting her teeth, she clung to the last shreds of her resentment, reminding herself that this relationship was too one-sided.

‘That’s my bed.’

‘Does it matter whose bed it is?’ Alessandro responded impatiently—because he could think of very little else but her legs wrapped around him as she lay soft and warm beneath him…or maybe on top…?

‘I’ve never been in your bed.’ Sam’s voice went cold as she added bitterly, ‘I’ve never been in your bedroom, or even in your home.’

Alessandro had been scrupulously careful to keep her well away from anyone who knew him. She didn’t even know the location of his London home.

‘Which is fine by me,’ she assured him breezily. ‘I wouldn’t want to meet any of your friends.’ And it was painfully obvious he didn’t want any of them meeting his bit on the side.

Alessandro looked disconcerted by the acrid observation. ‘What are you talking about?’

Meet his friends…? Their casual arrangement, which he was finding increasingly unsatisfactory, meant they spent precious little time together as it was. Having his friends monopolise her time? Sure, he was really going to do that!

‘I’d probably have as little in common with them as I do you.’

The stubborn, tight-lipped contention caused his taut jaw to tighten another notch. ‘You have met Smithie.’

Sam’s expression softened slightly as she thought of Alessandro’s ex-nanny. ‘But she’s not like your other friends.’

He raised an eloquent brow. ‘As you have never met them, how would you know what my friends are like?’

Sam’s eyes narrowed with dislike on his lean face. ‘Not everyone considers me such a social liability.’

‘Social liability…!’ he echoed. ‘Why do you insist on putting words in my mouth?’

‘I don’t!’ she protested mutinously. ‘It’s obviously what you’re thinking.’

A hissing sound of frustration escaped through his clenched teeth. ‘Fine!’ he said, flinging up his hands in a very Latin gesture of irritation. ‘I will arrange a dinner…no, I will arrange a reception, and introduce you to everyone I know. Will you be happy then? Or would you like me to invite a camera crew from one of those magazines that specialise in glossy spreads of such things into my home? We can be pictured lounging beside the pool and gush about how inseparable we are…will that make you happy?’

His biting sarcasm stung. ‘It would make me sick.’

‘Then, you see, we do have something in common after all. I value my privacy, and I thought you felt the same way.’

What he valued was his freedom. ‘Don’t glower at me that way. I’m not Jonny.’

His expression darkened. ‘You know, I am sick of the sound of that name.’ An expression of brooding discontent settled on his lean features as he thought about the younger man. ‘I still don’t understand why, if he needed money, he didn’t come to me?’

‘You are Kat’s brother—the poor, deluded girl thinks you’re perfect…Jonny is afraid he’ll look a wimp by comparison with her marvellous brother.’ Her expression left no doubt that she didn’t share the younger girl’s opinion.

‘Nonsense!’

The way he brushed aside her explanation made Sam’s general crankiness morph into genuine anger. ‘That’s so typical of you. If you don’t want to hear something you just pretend it isn’t so. But ignoring it doesn’t make it any less the truth. The truth is you make Jonny feel incompetent and second best.’

‘He is incompetent, and also boring—I have no wish to talk about him any longer.’ If he didn’t get her into bed some time in the next ten seconds he was going to lose his mind…although it was always possible he had already lost it. A swift mental review of his recent behaviour brought a self-derisive twist to Alessandro’s lips.

Sam flung up her hands. ‘See—you can’t help yourself!’ she exclaimed.

Alessandro remained unmoved by her dramatic hand-waving. ‘I thought you set great store by honesty?’ But then I used to think the same about myself, he thought, considering his recent self-deception.

Damn the man—he always had an answer. ‘So, if he had come to you, what would you have done…?’

‘That depends. But I certainly wouldn’t have thrown good money after bad.’

‘You’d have let him go under?’ she accused, shocked by his unapologetic admission. ‘But that amount of money is absolutely nothing to you!’ she protested, clicking her fingers to underline her point. ‘My God, Alessandro, you’re so callous.’

‘I’d have told him to cut his losses and find something he wants to do. He is clearly doing something he neither enjoys or is suited to. I would have told him to find something he can be passionate about.’

‘You make it sound so easy, but Jonny isn’t like you…’

His jaw clenched. ‘You wish me to emulate your hero…?’

‘There’s no need to be stupid. Jonny is not my hero.’

Something flickered at the back of his dark eyes. There was a short, dense silence before he added huskily, ‘And am I?’

The question threw Sam totally off her stride. ‘Stupid? Or my hero…?’ She angled an uncertain look at his face and discovered nothing from his shuttered expression. Did he want to be her hero? It seemed pretty unlikely.

‘My hero would display a little bit of faith in me—not to mention have some respect for my views,’ she retorted, avoiding a direct answer. ‘But actually I don’t think I need a hero. Actually, I don’t think I need a lover.’

If the moment of shocked silence that followed her announcement had lasted another micro-second longer Sam would have retracted it. Only it didn’t.

‘You wish me to leave?’

Of course it might have been possible to retract her reckless words even then, if he had acted for a moment as if he gave a damn one way or the other. But he just stood there, looking remote in the way only he could, so she dug herself a little deeper and said, ‘Well, there doesn’t seem much point in you staying, does there?’

‘I will not impose on you any longer,’ he said, looking so stiff and starchy she almost expected him to click his heels!

She felt numb with shock and disbelief as he walked out of the door, but still managed to scream a defiant, ‘Good riddance!’ at the top of her lungs, before bursting into noisy, emotional sobs.

She eventually convinced herself that she was better off without him.

It took her twelve hours of intermittent weeping and numerous attempts to trivialise her feelings for Alessandro to arrive at this conclusion, but when she got there she knew it was a plateau—a point from which her life could move on in an infinitely saner and more productive direction. It was, she told herself, good that things had come to a head when they had. It wasn’t as if she had ever thought the relationship had staying power.

After all, she was far too old to believe in fairy tales, and if the last few weeks had taught her anything they had taught her that she didn’t want a life fraught with dramatic ups and downs. It might suit some people, but she liked an ordered, organised existence, and she was looking forward to things getting back to normal.

Of course at that point Sam didn’t realize that normal had vanished for ever. That happened a week later.