Kate Walker - The Italian's Baby Bargain

Sam felt the humiliating colour in her cheeks deepen.

Of course it wouldn’t occur to him that she might have the odd principle or two. ‘I’ve told you—Jonny and I are just good friends.’

A quiver of irritation crossed his olive-skinned face and he gritted something soft and angry in his native tongue.

‘Well, let’s just say your mouth says one thing…’ He paused, a slightly distracted expression drifting across his face as his glance zeroed in on the soft full curves of her lips. ‘And,’ he continued, anger hardening his voice, ‘those big, hungry eyes say another thing entirely. Have you been waiting for him to notice that you’re a woman?’ He released a low, scornful laugh as his eyes raked her stricken face. ‘Of course it is entirely possible you wouldn’t like it if he had,’ he mused, half to himself.

‘I wouldn’t know—he never has!’ Sam was pushed into yelling.

A moment later she connected with his eyes and wanted to curl up and die from sheer humiliation. But pride, and the scorn in his eyes, made her stick out her chin and pronounce in a low, but clear voice, ‘But I’m not the type to give up at the first hurdle.’

His dark brows twitched into a disapproving straight line above his masterful nose. ‘Are you totally without conscience?’

The irony made her laugh. ‘Gosh!’ she sighed, holding up her hands in mock surrender. ‘You’ve seen right through me. I’m your original scarlet woman. Your sons are not safe while I’m around.’ Her lips twisted into a derisive grimace. ‘For goodness’ sake, you silly man, I don’t represent a danger to anyone.’

He stiffened, and from where she stood she could distinctly hear the sound of his startled inhalation. Sam studied his face and thought, I’m guessing that nobody has ever called him a silly man before. More’s the pity. If they had he might have learnt not to take himself so desperately seriously.

His dark eyes narrowed to slits, but the startled annoyance glittering in the dark depths was mingled with reluctant admiration as he registered the mockery shining in her eyes. ‘You are a very aggravating female.’

She glared back up at him, torn between exhilaration and exasperation and wishing that he’d yelled—not used that purring tone which made more places than the soles of her feet tingle. ‘And you,’ she declared, dumping diplomacy in favour of bluntness, ‘are much more likely to be the cause of the break-up of your sister’s marriage than I am!’

His lips curled. ‘Me…?’ He dismissed her words with a shrug of his magnificent shoulders. ‘You think you can shift the blame that easily?’ A suspicious expression slid into his deep-set eyes. ‘You are talking as though a break-up is inevitable…?’

When Sam turned her head away, her lips tight, Alessandro placed a finger under her chin and drew her face round to him. His narrowed eyes scanned her angry face.

‘What do you know…?’ he demanded, his voice dropping in volume in direct proportion to the degree of threat in his tone.

‘Like I’d tell you if I did know anything,’ she retorted, pulling her chin free.

Her breath coming in short, angry gasps that made her chest rise and fall in tune with her rapid respirations, Sam planted her hands on her hips and angled an angry glare up at him, her eyes flashing green fire.

‘Oh, you will tell me…’

At that moment Sam was willing to do just about anything to wipe that confident smirk off his impossibly good-looking face. ‘Brought your thumbscrews with you, did you?’

Before he could confirm or deny this a giggling couple carrying glasses of wine came around the corner. They saw Alessandro and Sam and stopped dead.

‘Oops—pretend we’re not here!’ said the girl, grabbing her partner’s hand and winking at Sam before she dragged him away.

‘Oh, God!’ groaned Sam, burying her face in her hands. ‘Just what I need.’ Pam Sullivan was the sort of gossip who could make the most innocent incident sound salacious.

‘You’re right—we need some privacy.’

Sam’s head came up, her expression horrorstruck. She needed privacy with Alessandro Di Livio the same way she needed cellulite!

‘That place over there—what is it?’ He nodded towards a section of tiled roof just visible beyond a large shrubbery.

‘It’s the gazebo, I think.’ The original intention had been for a band to be situated there, so that the guests could listen while they sat or strolled around the lovely grounds. Then the weather had intervened and things had been hastily transferred indoors.

‘It will suit our purposes,’ he announced.

God, if Pam had heard that it would have made her year. ‘Look,’ Sam said, deciding it was time to inject a little reality into the conversation, ‘the only place I’m going is back indoors. I’m freezing cold, and this conversation—such as it is—is over.’

She froze and looked at the hand on her arm. A strong, shapely hand, with long, tapering fingers. Having it touching her without any sort of warning switched her brain into mush mode.

‘Yes, you are cold,’ he agreed, sliding one brown finger under the neck of her blouse. It slid slowly across the bony prominence of her collarbone before moving back to the hollow at the base of her throat. The blue-veined pulse there was throbbing so hard that he couldn’t fail to feel it.

Had her brain not already been mush, she might have noticed that his fingers lingered there a lot longer than was strictly necessary—not that it mattered. The damage was done in the first micro-second of contact.

It had an electric effect—almost literally! It was, Sam mused, as she tried to focus her hazy thoughts, like being plugged into the mains. It took the space of a heartbeat for the shock to travel all the way to her curling toes.

‘I don’t want your jacket.’ Actually, there were other things she wanted less—things like the surge of lustful longing that was making her ache in every cell of her body. But a lifetime of focusing on good things enabled her to look on the bright side: now that he was no longer touching her, her paralysed vocal cords had started working.

Acting as if she hadn’t spoken— no change there —he carried on shrugging off the beautifully tailored pale grey jacket he wore. Draping it over her shoulders, he placed a hand in the small of her back and propelled her in the direction of the gazebo.

‘You don’t take no for an answer, do you?’ His jacket retained the warmth of his body and held the faint, elusive fragrance that was exclusively him—a mingling of the masculine fragrance he favoured, soap, and warm male.

Standing there in his silk shirt, he appeared not to notice the cold—even though the fabric was fine enough for her almost to see through. She could definitely see the strategic drift of dark body hair on his chest, and the suggestion of muscle definition on his taut washboard belly.

Ashamed of what amounted to a fascination with his body, Sam—painfully aware that her cheeks were burning—turned her head to one side. Well, as far as she was concerned he could freeze to death—and good riddance!

‘This is ridiculous,’ she muttered under her breath, thinking, He’s not a man, he’s a darned force of nature. Despite the fact that saying no to him had as much impact as saying no to a hurricane, she was uneasily aware that she ought to have at least tried. The casual observer might have been forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that she actually wanted to prolong their time together.

A comment Emma had made not long after she’d met the man she was eventually to marry popped into Sam’s head. ‘You know, Sam, I have more fun fighting with Paul than having sex with any other man. Makes me wonder what the sex will be like…Actually, I started wondering that about five seconds after I met him.’