The Taming of Xander Sterne

by Carole Mortimer

  Xander had never felt so impotent in his life as he did at this moment, knowing by the expression on Samantha’s face that she meant what she said. That she had also made it clear that last night hadn’t meant the same to her as it had to him. That she really did intend leaving him tomorrow.

  And there wasn’t a thing he could do or say to stop her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  One month later.

  ‘WHEN ARE YOU going to stop brooding and go and claim your woman?’

  Xander hadn’t heard his brother open the door as he leant back in his chair staring sightlessly—broodingly—out of the window of his office at the Midas Enterprises building in London.

  He turned now to glare at Darius as his brother leant casually against the doorframe. ‘I’m far too busy to deal with your warped sense of humour today, Darius!’ he snarled aggressively as he straightened in his chair.

  Darius straightened slowly before crossing the room. ‘I can see that.’ A mocking smile curved his lips as he looked down at Xander’s obviously empty desk. ‘I thought you might like to know I’ve just come back from visiting Miranda at the dance studio.’

  Xander tensed. ‘And why should that interest me?’

  Topaz eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘‘Possibly because I saw Sam too while I was there?’

  Xander felt a painful lurch in his chest; he hadn’t spoken privately to Samantha for four and a half weeks. Not since the day they had routed Howard so completely, and afterwards she’d told him she was leaving him the following morning. She’d then packed her bags and done exactly that.

  He had tried to talk her out of it, of course. But Samantha had been stubbornly determined. She had again thanked him very politely for all his help, and reassured him he really was well enough to take care of himself now. That he didn’t need her any more.

  That he didn’t need her any more?

  Xander wasn’t even sure he had drawn in breath without pain since Samantha left him that Sunday morning. He knew that not a moment went by when he didn’t think about her. When he didn’t want to see her, to just be with her again.

  And he had been absolutely correct about his apartment having all the warmth of a morgue, once Samantha and Daisy were no longer living there with him. He now avoided being there as much as possible.

  Xander’s mouth tightened. ‘Samantha has made her lack of interest in seeing me again very obvious, Darius.’ More than obvious.

  ‘Strange, she always asks how you are whenever I see her at Miranda’s studio,’ his brother told him softly.

  Xander stood up abruptly to cross the room and stand in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, his back to the room as he looked out blindly. ‘She’s just being polite, because she’s grateful that I helped rid her of Howard from her life once and for all.’

  Howard had duly kept his appointment at the lawyer’s office, and neither Xander nor Samantha had needed to be present when the other man signed the contract. Howard had also paid Samantha’s belated divorce settlement, and she and Daisy were now renting a two-bedroom apartment overlooking a park. Samantha had still taken up the part-time job at Andy’s dance studio, and the two women had become even firmer friends, according to his sister-in-law.

  Darius joined Xander by the window. ‘Sam doesn’t look well today, Xander.’

  He turned sharply to look at his brother. ‘What do you mean? What’s wrong with her?’ he demanded, frowning darkly.

  ‘How would I know?’ Darius shrugged.

  Xander’s scowl deepened. ‘Maybe because your wife is Samantha’s best friend as well as her employer?’

  Darius eyed him pityingly. ‘And Miranda and I have far better things to do than talk about Sam when we’re alone together.’

  ‘You are so annoying.’ Xander turned abruptly to stride determinedly across his office and collect his coat from the back of his chair before quickly pulling it on.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  He shot his twin an angry glare as he strode over to the door. ‘Out!’ He ignored Darius’s chuckle as he wrenched the door open before striding impatiently out into the hallway towards the lift.

  He wasn’t in the least surprised to find the car, and driver, waiting for him downstairs as he stepped outside the building; Darius might be annoying, but he could read his twin like a book.

  ‘I’ll drive myself, thank you, Paul.’ He managed to smile at the other man as he took the keys from him to get in behind the wheel.

  Xander felt more light-hearted than he had for the past four weeks as he drove through the busy London streets towards Andy’s dance studio. He knew it was because he was going to see Samantha again. Was going to talk to her again.

  Whether or not Samantha would be as pleased to see him was another matter.

  ‘Dare I hope that you’re finally here to see Sam?’ his sister-in-law teased as he entered her dance studio a short time later, obviously having just finished taking her last dance class of the day.

  Xander narrowed his eyes. ‘You and Darius should seriously think about becoming a comedy team.’

  Andy gave a husky laugh. ‘Sam’s in the office. If you’re interested, that is?’

  ‘Oh, I’m interested,’ Xander confirmed determinedly.

  ‘Good luck!’

  Xander had no doubt he was going to need it!

  ‘Samantha?’

  Sam stilled as she heard the husky sound of Xander’s voice in her head.

  A voice she had heard so many times, and in exactly the same husky tone, these past few weeks. When she was here at work. Or at home with Daisy in their new apartment. When she lay alone in her bed at night.

  And each time she heard it Sam felt a twisting pain in her chest. As evidence of the empty hollowness inside her, that she knew only Xander could fill. But never would.

  She closed her lids as her eyes suddenly filled with scalding tears, silently willing them not to fall. Wishing the pain of loving Xander would stop. But knowing it never would.

  ‘Samantha?’

  Sam almost jumped out of her chair, her heart pounded erratically in her chest, as she felt caressing fingers against her cheek, her eyes widening with disbelief as she found herself looking up at Xander.

  He was the suave and sophisticated Xander Sterne today, successful billionaire businessman. A man so unlike the casually dressed Xander she had known and grown to love four weeks ago. Today he wore a dark, sleekly tailored suit and shirt, with a meticulously knotted tie, and his hair was professionally styled rather than the overlong and shaggy look he had favoured a month ago.

  But it was the changes in his face that now caused Sam to frown; his cheeks seemed thinner even than the weekend, the last time he had called and picked Daisy up for the day, with deep grooves beside his mouth and eyes, and his mouth was a grim and uncompromising line.

  Her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed, still not completely sure he was really here or just a figment of her aching imagination. ‘Are you real?’

  He gave a rueful smile. ‘Unfortunately for you, yes, I’m very much real.’

  Sam’s frown deepened. ‘Unfortunately for me?’ She had never been so pleased to see anyone in her life before as she was Xander.

  Just to be alone in the same room with him. To be able to drink him in: how he looked, how he moved, how he smelled.

  ‘That last evening at my apartment you made it pretty clear that you had no interest in seeing me again.’

  ‘I did?’ The whole of that last day in his apartment had become something of a hazy dream to Sam the past few weeks.

  ‘You did,’ Xander confirmed grimly as he stepped away from her before thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets. ‘Are you okay, Samantha?’ He could see what Darius meant now; without Daisy as her protective shield, Samant
ha’s cheeks were pale and hollow, those beautiful amethyst-coloured eyes dark and haunted.

  ‘Has Howard been bothering you again?’

  ‘No, absolutely not,’ she assured him hastily. ‘I’m pretty sure we’ve all seen and heard the last of him. And Daisy loves our new apartment. She so much enjoys going to the park after school.’

  ‘I’m so glad to hear that. But I asked how you were, Samantha,’ he said gruffly.

  Her gaze now avoided meeting his. ‘I love working here at the studio with Andy, and to no longer have any money worries—’

  ‘That isn’t what I was asking, either. Sorry,’ Xander apologised as he realised he had raised his voice. ‘I didn’t mean to shout.’ He grimaced. ‘I just—I’ve missed you, Samantha.’

  ‘You have?’ she gasped softly.

  Xander nodded abruptly. ‘Very much. I— Look, will you have dinner with me this evening?’ A nerve pulsed in his jaw as he waited for her answer.

  Sam stared up at him, not altogether sure she had heard him correctly. Why would Xander invite her out to dinner with him? ‘I really am okay, Xander,’ she assured him ruefully. ‘Malcolm signed the contract, and paid the divorce settlement into my account. I’m happy working here, and nicely settled into the new apartment. Daisy is happy—’

  ‘I don’t give a—!’ Xander broke off, breathing heavily as he ran one agitated hand through the heavy thickness of his blond hair. ‘Well. Yes.’ He grimaced. ‘Of course I care about those things, Samantha. But I’m asking you out to dinner for me, not so that we talk about your new flat, or how much Daisy loves the park or how she’s doing at school.’

  She gave a puzzled shake of her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Obviously not,’ he muttered. ‘Samantha, I’m trying to ask you out on a date, and all you keep doing is talking about everything else. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is? How irritating it is to have you keep telling me how good your life is now, when my own is completely messed up?’

  ‘It is?’

  He nodded abruptly. ‘I can’t eat or sleep. I can’t think.’

  Sam could barely breathe as a faint glimmer of hope began to burn in her chest. A hint of light in the heaviness that had been weighing her down for so many weeks. ‘Why not?’

  He gave a groan. ‘Why do you think?’

  She gave a cautious shake of her head. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Because I’m in love with you, damn it!’ His eyes gleamed darkly. ‘I’m so in love with you that nothing and no else is important to me any more. Not my family. Not my business. Just you. I can’t think of anything else but you. Of how much I miss you. How much I want you and Daisy back in my life. How much I love you.’

  ‘But you let me go,’ Sam breathed softly.

  ‘Because you said you wanted to go!’

  ‘That was because—’ Sam drew in a deep and steadying breath, totally stunned at having Xander tell her he loved her. Xander loved her? ‘I didn’t want to leave, Xander. I just thought— You had been so good to me already, saving me from Malcolm, being so patient and caring with Daisy. I didn’t want you to let me stay because you felt sorry for me, or because you were still trying to protect me. I couldn’t bear that.’ Her voice broke emotionally. ‘If you couldn’t think of me as your equal—’

  ‘I don’t think of you as being my equal, Samantha. I think of you as being so much better than I could ever be—and I adore you for it!’ He began to pace the room. ‘But I didn’t want you to stay with me out of gratitude, either. Just because I had helped you sort out the situation with Howard.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Samantha assured him. ‘Well, of course I’m grateful...’ she smiled ruefully ‘...but that’s certainly not the reason I—that I made love with you the night before that awful confrontation with Malcolm.’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  There was no way that Xander could doubt Samantha’s sincerity. ‘Then why did you?’ He gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you? How empty my apartment is without you in it? How empty my bed is without you in it?’ He breathed raggedly. ‘I’m going quietly insane here, Samantha; so please will you say something?’

  Sam stood up slowly, that glimmer of light bursting into full brilliance inside her as the heavy weight of unhappiness evaporated and left as if it had never been. ‘I didn’t want to leave you, Xander. I thought you just felt sorry for me, and I didn’t want that from you. You had done so much for me already, I thought the least I could do was leave you in peace.’

  ‘Peace? I’ve been in living hell without you!’ he insisted fiercely.

  She reached up to gently touch the side of his face. ‘Xander, the only reason I left that day was because I realised I’d fallen in love with you, and I didn’t want you to feel in the least pressured to—to continue the relationship because you felt sorry for me.’

  ‘What?’

  She smiled shakily. ‘I’m in love with you, Xander. So much that it hurts. You asked how I’ve been? Well, I’ve been just awful. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I think about you all the time. I miss you all the time.’

  ‘Can we both really have been that stupid?’ Xander gazed down at her in wonder.

  Sam gave a tremulous smile. ‘It certainly looks like it.’

  His expression softened as he took her into his arms in a crushing hold. ‘I love you!’ he groaned achingly into her hair. ‘I love you, Samantha. Do you have any idea what it meant to me—how much I value that you believed in me, trusted me, when I didn’t?’

  ‘And look how right I was about that,’ she said huskily. ‘Your protectiveness of those weaker than yourself is a blessing, Xander, and has absolutely nothing to do with men like your father and my ex-husband.’

  Xander’s arms tightened. ‘I’ve felt so empty without you in my life, Samantha.’

  ‘Me too, without you.’ Sam held onto him just as tightly.

  ‘Does that mean you’ll marry me?’

  Sam opened startled eyes. ‘Marry you?’

  Xander’s hands moved up to cradle each side of her face as he looked down with all of his love for her shining in his eyes. ‘You don’t have to marry me immediately if it’s too soon for you. Just tell me that you’ll be my wife one day very soon.’ His hands trembled. ‘I love you so very much, my darling Samantha, and I can’t bear the thought of not being with you for ever now that I know you love me too.’

  It was more, so much more than Sam had ever thought, had ever imagined might happen in her life.

  Xander loved her.

  As she loved him.

  And she couldn’t bear the thought of the two of them not being together for ever either.

  ‘Yes, I’ll marry you, Xander,’ she answered him exultantly.

  ‘You will?’ He looked down at her wonderingly.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next week? Tomorrow?’ She laughed huskily as she saw the urgency in Xander’s expression.

  He grinned. ‘I want you to have a big white wedding. In a church. Surrounded by all our friends and family. Daisy can be your bridesmaid.’

  Sam was sure it wasn’t accidental that Xander was describing a wedding that was the exact opposite of that hurried union to Malcolm in a register office six years ago. Or that Daisy would be a large part of that ceremony.

  Xander was tacitly telling her their marriage, his love for her and Daisy, would be nothing like her previous one.

  As if Sam had ever thought otherwise.

  She hadn’t thought it possible, but she loved Xander more than ever at that moment, and she knew she always would.

  ‘It sounds perfect.’ She beamed up at him.

  ‘You’re perfect,’ he assured her warmly. �
�I promise you we’ll be so happy together, Samantha. We can buy a house, with a garden for Daisy, and—’

  ‘And have more children?’ Sam ventured cautiously. ‘I always wanted a big family,’ she explained shyly.

  ‘Then we’ll have a houseful of children,’ Xander promised her. ‘As long as I have you to love, and you to love me, then I’ll be happy.’

  It was all that Sam could ever have hoped or wished for...and more.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘WHAT ARE WE looking at, Daddy?’ Daisy asked in a loud whisper.

  ‘I’m not too sure,’ Xander muttered, Daisy sitting on his knee as the two of them frowned at the monitor in front of them, his free hand tightly holding onto Samantha’s as she lay on the bed beside them.

  ‘It doesn’t look much like a baby, Daddy,’ Daisy said doubtfully as they watched the movements being projected from inside Samantha’s womb onto the monitor.

  Xander felt his panic rise; it didn’t look like any baby he had ever seen either. Admittedly there was the thud-thud sound of a heartbeat, but even that sounded too rapid, and there were definitely too many legs visible—

  ‘That’s because it’s two babies, darling,’ Samantha murmured indulgently.

  ‘What?’ Xander gasped.

  ‘Two babies,’ she repeated emotionally.

  ‘Two babies,’ Xander echoed faintly, realising that must be the reason the heartbeat sounded too rapid: because it was two heartbeats, not one.

  ‘It would seem that we’re having twins, darling,’ Samantha assured him lovingly.

  He swallowed, his mouth dry. ‘I can’t— We can’t—’

  ‘Of course we can.’ She smiled indulgently. ‘You’re a twin,’ she reminded him calmly.

  ‘Twins.’ Xander put Daisy down to stand up and hug his wife. ‘We’re having twins!’ he cried, tears of happiness shining in his eyes.

  ‘Yes, we are.’ Samantha laughed huskily as she hugged him back.

  He gave a sudden groan as he slowly released her before straightening. ‘You do realise Darius is never going to stop teasing me?’ he explained as Samantha gave him a questioning glance.