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‘You thought she was too young to get married?’
‘Do you think at nineteen you should be deciding to commit yourself to one person?’ he demanded scathingly. ‘What were you doing at nineteen?’
She responded unthinkingly to the curious question. ‘I was training to be a teacher.’
‘And would your parents have been happy if you’d turned up at home married to some beach bum?’
‘Jonny was not a beach bum—he was a champion surfer.’
‘I stand corrected,’ he inserted drily. ‘Married to an exchampion surfer.’
‘My parents would have flipped,’ she admitted. ‘But it happened, so you just have to live with it. You know, I think Kat is pretty resourceful—and quite capable of sorting out her own life. It might be easier for her to do that if you weren’t always there, hovering in the background like a bad smell.’ Actually, he smelt pretty wonderful—but she felt the occasion called for a little poetic licence. ‘Don’t you think,’ she asked him gently, ‘that it’s time you let go? Doesn’t Kat deserve the chance to make her own mistakes?’
An expression of blank astonishment spread across Alessandro’s face. ‘You think you are qualified to offer me advice?’
‘Not qualified, maybe,’ she conceded, flushing at his sneering tone. ‘But you asked. I know you have a close relationship with your sister—’
‘You know nothing about it.’
‘I used to wish I wasn’t an only child, but meeting you has made me realise what a lucky escape I’ve had. Let me spell it out. The fact is you are no longer the person she’s meant to turn to for support. Couldn’t you settle for being emergency back-up rather than the main man? Have you any idea,’ she wondered out loud, ‘how intimidating you must be to a younger man?’
‘Intimidating…?’ he echoed, looking bewildered by her contention.
‘What man could compete with the marvellous Alessandro Di Livio?’ she asked, rolling her eyes.
His mobile lips thinned with displeasure. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Looking thoughtful despite his terse tone, he added, ‘It isn’t a competition.’
‘Not to you maybe…’ she inserted drily.
‘I have never interfered in my sister’s marriage.’
Sam stared at him, wondering how on earth he could say that with a straight face. ‘Oh, pardon me. I must have imagined the past…’ she glanced at her watch, her eyes widening ‘…half an hour.’
‘It has felt like longer,’ he gritted.
Under the capacious folds of his jacket, Sam folded her arms across her chest. ‘You’re being nasty because you know I’m right. You really shouldn’t grind your teeth like that.’
She stood and listened in silent admiration as he loosed a flood of very angry-sounding Italian. If tone was anything to go by he seemed to have an extensive knowledge of expletives in his native tongue.
‘If you’re in love with Trelevan surely it would be in your best interests to see his marriage fail?’
The angry colour in Sam’s cheeks deepened. ‘Caring for someone obviously doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me. When you care for someone you want them to be happy.’
‘Care…?’ His lips twisted derisively as he spat the word. ‘I am not talking about caring. I am talking about passion…lust…’
And I so wish you wouldn’t! ‘I think you’re talking about sleazy sex.’
‘And you? What are you talking about? Holding hands?’ he suggested, reaching out and capturing one of hers. ‘Picking out matching china and deciding on the new garden furniture?’
Angrily Sam tore her hand from his, praying that his no doubt well-developed predatory instincts had not told him what the contact had done to her. ‘You’re obsessed with sex!’ And it’s catching.
The claim made him laugh. ‘Well, at least I don’t have a problem with it.’
The taunt made her cheeks burn. ‘I don’t have a problem with sex—just you!’
‘It makes you blush just to say the word…’ he discovered, sounding astonished. ‘I don’t believe you have ever wanted someone so much that you would do anything to have them.’ He angled a speculative look at her flushed face. ‘When was it you decided he was the love of your life?’
‘I’m not going to discuss Jonny with you.’
He gave a grimace of distaste. ‘Give me honest lust rather than mawkish sentimentality any day.’ His expressive upper lip curled. ‘Look at me—I’ve got a broken heart, but what a little trouper I am…’ He gave a snort of disgust and shook his head. ‘Heaven preserve me from women who fancy themselves as martyrs.’
Scenting a certain inconsistency in his criticism, she held up her hands. ‘Hang on—I thought I was some sort of calculating, husband-stealing—’
‘Frankly,’ he said, dragging his hand through his dark hair in an exasperated manner, ‘I’m not quite sure what you are.’
The way he was looking at her made Sam’s throat grow dry. She pressed a hand to her throat, where her heart was trying to climb out of her chest.
‘You have been generous with your advice…so let me give you some in exchange.’
She folded her arms across her chest and looked bored. ‘This should be good…’
‘Stop weaving your sexual fantasies around somebody else’s husband and go out and get yourself a lover.’
This recommendation drew an inarticulate gurgle from Sam’s throat. ‘Jonny does not feature in my sexual fantasies!’
His eyes stayed hard and hostile while he bared his teeth in a wolfish leer. ‘Then he definitely isn’t the man for you.’
‘I do not have sexual fantasies!’ she choked.
‘Then you really are as repressed as you look.’
Sam regarded him with loathing and prayed that one day he would tell a woman he loved her and she would laugh in his face. That such a woman existed was somewhat doubtful, but if there was any justice at all one day he would crash and burn—and she would be there to see it!
‘Then you don’t have to worry, do you? I’m too repressed to seduce your sister’s husband. And, just for the record, I do not fancy myself a martyr,’ she added, in a voice that shook with the strength of her outraged feelings. ‘And I doubt if you’re capable of anything deeper than lust—with anyone other than yourself, that is.’
The only response she got to her biting condemnation was a quirk of one dark brow. ‘Are you surprised he has never noticed you are a woman when you dress like—? On every occasion I have seen you, you dress to hide your femininity, not celebrate it.’
‘You mean flaunt?’ Sam suggested, and gave a scornful laugh. Actually, she didn’t find being thought dowdy and unattractive by a man who had to be about the most attractive creature on the planet nearly so amusing as she made out. ‘I don’t enjoy being leered at.’
One ebony brow lifted as he affected amazement. ‘I’m amazed you have any experience of leering.’
Ashamed of the weakness which brought the hot sting of tears to her eyes, Sam gritted her teeth and glared up at him. ‘Not all men are as shallow as you!’
‘I think you’ll find they are, cara.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t want the sort of man I have to tart myself up for and pretend to be something I’m not.’
‘I think the idea is that the man should make you feel sexy and attractive. Hasn’t any man done that for you?’
Sam pressed her hands to her ears and shook her head in a childish gesture of denial. ‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll…I’ll…!’
Her frustrated threat ignited a look of astonishment in his heavy-lidded eyes, and then, as he appeared ready to reward her audacity with a killer retort, he saw the telltale glitter in her eyes. ‘You’re crying…?’
Sam bit her lip and shook her head. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ she accused.
Without warning he reached across and took the hand she held clenched against her chest, raising it towards his mouth. ‘I have no desire to see you weep. But that red-headed temper…it will get you into trouble if you don’t learn to tame it.’
Fighting clear of the paralysis which held her a pliant spectator, Sam snatched her hand from his grasp and backed away. Her eyes trained unblinkingly on his face, she carried on backing up until the backs of her legs made contact with a wooden chair. She let out a small shriek and stumbled, and would have fallen if a strong arm hadn’t snaked around her waist.
‘You should be more careful,’ he cautioned.
A shaky laugh squeezed its way past the emotional congestion in her aching throat. ‘That sounds like excellent advice,’ she said, fixing her eyes on a point mid-way up his chest.
His dark, autocratic features were hard and remote as he posed his question. ‘You love him…?’
Very aware of the arm still encircling her waist, she cleared her throat. ‘I’m not about to discuss my feelings with you.’ So what have you been doing for the past half an hour?
‘What I don’t understand is why you stood back and let her take him?’
Sam felt something inside her snap. Her head came up. Lether…? He made it sound as though she’d had some sort of option.
‘What would you have had me do?’ she demanded, stabbing a finger within a whisper of his broad chest.
‘Do…?’ he said, watching the accusing finger with an expression of fascination.
‘Well, you seem to be the expert.’ She angled her head, directing her resentful glare into his lean face and stepping backwards. The fact that she wanted to protest when his hand fell away only made her angrier.
‘How would you go about making someone notice you?’ She recognised the total stupidity of her question the moment the words had left her lips.
As if anyone was not going to notice him!
Let’s face it, the man was a total hunk—with more rampant maleness in his little finger than most men had in their entire bodies. He was the perfect male specimen—from the top of his sleek, glossy head to his highly polished shoes. Her resentful glare slid from his bronzed, beautifully sculpted features and skidded over his lean, lithe frame. Some men might wear a suit to disguise a few unwanted inches around the middle, but not him. Even sheathed in perfect tailoring there was no disguising that Alessandro’s body was in perfect condition.
‘I thought such things came naturally to a woman,’ he offered suggestively.
Sam sucked in a furious breath through her clenched teeth. ‘There’s nothing natural,’ she sneered, ‘about push-up bras.’ Glaring at him, she clamped her hands over her not terribly impressive breasts. ‘Or, for that matter, comfortable—and besides, this has nothing whatever to do with underwear.’
‘You were the one who introduced the subject,’ he pointed out mildly.
‘What would you have suggested? That I flaunt a bit of leg?’ she asked, extending one slender appendage in his direction. A snort of disgust escaped her lips as she shook her hair back from her hot face. ‘Take up pole-dancing?’ she challenged.
His dark eyes travelled up the slender curve of her calf. ‘An interesting thought,’ he murmured, swallowing. ‘But it probably wouldn’t have done you any good if there was no chemistry to begin with.’
‘For your information, I wouldn’t demean myself just to get a man,’ she declared hotly. Then aware that his eyes were fixed on her hands and what they covered, she dropped them and added, ‘I suppose that’s the sort of thing you like? Women who make fools of themselves to get your attention?’
His dark brows lifted to a quizzical angle. ‘You consider it demeaning to seduce a man?’
‘Seduce…?’ she echoed, as an image of herself astride the prone figure of a man, running her fingers down his lean, hard torso flashed through her mind. The image itself was deeply disconcerting. The fact that the man in question was Alessandro was utterly shocking.
‘It is what a women who is worthy of the name would do to get the man she loves,’ he contended calmly. ‘It is certainly a more healthy option than clinging to a juvenile infatuation.’
‘I’m not infatuated with anyone,’ she choked, thinking that if she could curse anyone with unrequited love it would be this man.
Continuing to scan her upturned features, his only response to her protest was a smile that made her want to hit him.
‘You spend too many evenings alone with your romantic dreams. Sex isn’t about soft focus and sweet music,’ he derided scornfully. ‘Sex is visceral. It’s about smells and texture…’ Without warning he reached out and ran a long brown finger down the inner aspect of her wrist. Sam gasped as the light contact sent an electric shock through her body.
When she finally got her paralysed vocal cords to respond, her voice seemed to be coming from a long way away. ‘Thank you for the lesson…’ She had no doubt at all that he was a master of the subject.
His mesmerising eyes locked onto hers and Sam felt her knees shake.
‘It’s about sweat.’ His low, throaty purr had an almost narcotic quality, and Sam, aware of the danger it presented, was seduced by it anyway.
She might not like the man, she might loathe what he was and what he stood for, but she wasn’t crazy enough to imagine she had been granted some sort of immunity to the raw sexuality he exuded.
Painfully conscious of her wildly quivering stomach muscles, and aware that she was quite literally panting—which could give the wrong impression—Sam fought to control her breathing, perfectly aware that there was nothing mutual about the chemical reaction she was suffering. How could there be? Compared to the sexy, in-control women he dated, she must seem like a sexless reject…an oddity.
Sam sniffed and lifted her chin to an aggressive angle. At that moment if she had been granted any wish she would have blown it without a second thought for that special X factor that made some women totally irresistible to the opposite sex—or at least one of the opposite sex.
Well, let’s face it, Sam, the only place you’re going to be able to say no when he begs you to be with him is in your dreams.
‘If I want sweat I’ll go to a gym,’ she retorted, just managing to sound derisive even though her knees were shaking.
The longer this confrontation went on the stronger the feeling became that she was a voyeur rather than a participant in the scene. She shivered and released a scared gasp as his half-closed eyes moved over her slender body.
‘What you need is some reality,’ he concluded.
His thickened accent nailed her to the spot. Was there anything short of a Lotto win that was less real than discussing sweaty sex with Alessandro Di Livio? ‘Reality…?’ A shaky laugh emerged from her lips, sounding reckless when in reality she had never felt less reckless in her life.
‘What I don’t need,’ she panted hoarsely, ‘is advice from you!’
‘What you need is some…’ his heavy-lidded eyes touched her mouth and his own lips quirked ‘…substance.’
‘Next you’ll be telling me that what I need is you…’ Her scornful laugh faded as he took her face between his big hands, and she thought, Did I invite this…?
As he looked at her wide, soft pink mouth, a sound that was close to a growl vibrated in his throat. Sam felt the vibration and opened her own mouth to say something frosty and ascerbically cutting, which would awaken him to the fact that he wasn’t dealing with one of his simpering push-overs, but encountered his glittering eyes. All her life her cutting one-liners had saved her from uncomfortable situations, yet now, of all times, her ability to deliver a slick comeback had failed her!
The last time she had seen that much barely restrained heat had been in a disaster movie about a volcano. She became aware of the fact that she was no longer cold—no longer cold to the point where she was burning up.
‘If you kiss me I’ll sleep with Jonny,’ she hissed.
Chapter Five
OF COURSE she realised too late that this wasn’t the sort of man who responded well to threats—even empty ones. Only he didn’t know it was empty, because he clearly considered her a trollop when he wasn’t thinking she was frigid. His entire attitude towards her was decidedly schizophrenic.
Alessandro cupped the back of her head in one hand and drew her face up to his. This was one of those moments that definitely required a verbal bucket of cold water to stop a bad situation getting worse.
A moment where Sam knew she had to send him a very strong, unambiguous message.
