by Lynne Graham
Sara went white. The pencil she was fiddling with snapped in two.
'You are clearly distressed,' Alex murmured in the same quiet, disturbingly gentle tone which she had never heard him employ before. 'I believe you were called home unexpectedly this morning. What happened there?'
She was appalled to discover that she wanted to tell him, spill out the poison building up inside her, but instead she bit down hard on her tongue.
'Perhaps you would prefer to go home for the rest of the day?' Alex suggested lethally.
'No…' Sara muttered, horror bringing her back to life. Antonia would be waiting for her and she could not yet face that confrontation.
'Why not?' he prompted her.,
'I found my fiance in bed with my cousin.' As soon as she had said it she could not believe that she had said that out loud and to him of all people. A tide of chagrined colour crawled up her slender throat.
But AlexRossini didn't bat a magnificent eyelash and his response was instantaneous. 'A merciful escape.'
'Escape?'Sara queried blankly.
Alex spread beautifully shaped brown hands expressively. 'Think how much more disturbing it would have been had you discovered such a sordid liaison after the vedding.'
"There isn't going to be a wedding now,' Sara said shakily, and whereas telling that same fact to her aunt had seemed like part of a living nightmare it now felt like hard, agonising reality.
'Of course not. No woman would forgive such a betrayal, would she?' Alex drawled softly.
The silence hummed. The tip of her tongue snaked out to moisten her dry lower lip. Forgiveness… understanding.Brian had been asking for both within seconds. He had not stood shoulder to shoulder with Antonia…
'After all,' Alex continued with honeyed persistence. How could you ever trust him again? Or her?'
The darkness sank back down over Sara where for an instant she had seen a wild, hopeful chink of light.
'Were you thinking of giving him another chance?'Alex enquired in a tone of polite astonishment.
Sara flinched. 'No,' she muttered sickly, duly forced to see the impossibility of ever trusting again.
Yet she could not believe that she was actually having such a conversation with AlexRossini, who was not known for his concerned and benevolent interest in his employees' personal problems. Indeed, the Rossini credo was that the best employees left their private life outside the door of Rossini Industries and never, ever allowed that private life to interfere with their work.
'Why are you talking to me like this?' she whispered helplessly.
'Do you have anyone else to confide in?'
Sara tried and failed to swallow. It was almost as if he knew, but how could he possibly know how frighteningly isolated she now was? She could not turn to
Antonia's parents and she had no other relatives, no close friends who were not also Brian's friends or colleagues. 'No, but-'
'Nothing you have told me will go any further,' Alex asserted, his night-dark eyes, sharp and shrewd as knives, trained on her, but those eyes were no longer cutting, no longer cold, no longer grimly amused.
'You're being so…so kind,' Sara said in a wobbly tone as she fought to conceal her disbelief, for this was a side of his character that she had never thought to see, indeed never dreamt existed.
'You have had a traumatic experience and, naturally, I am concerned.'
'Thank you, but I don't need your pity,' Sara bit out painfully.
'The very last thing you inspire is pity,' Alex assured her, unleashing a wry smile of reproof on her. 'You should be celebrating your freedom. Life is far too short for regrets. You've already wasted two years of it on that little salesman. The future has to offer far more entertaining possibilities-'
'How did you know Brian was a salesman?' Sara breathed, the words slurring slightly.
'Isn't he? He looks like one,' Alex informed her smoothly.
Something not quite right tugged at her instincts and then drifted away again, for nothing in her entire world was right any more.
'You live with your cousin, don't you?' Alex probed.
Again she was disconcerted by his knowledge and perhaps it showed, because he added, 'Marco mentioned it to me.'
'Yes.' Sara flushed, reluctantly recalling all the unwanted, gory details which had been forced on her during Antonia's short-lived affair with Alex's brother. That connection had embarrassed Sara.
'Naturally you do not want to return to your home at this moment,' Alex murmured, and casually tossed a set of keys onto her lap. 'You can use the company apartment until you have made other arrangements.'
Even in the state she was in Sara was staggered by such a proposition. The apartment was a penthouse on the floor above, used only by the Rossini family and, very occasionally, their personal friends. 'I couldn't possibly-'
'Where else have you got to go?'
She clutched the keys, meaning to return them but thinking helplessly of the humiliation of dealing with Antonia as she felt now. Her strained eyes unguarded and vulnerable, Sara stared back at him. 'I'm very grateful.'
'A fresh start,' Alex murmured intently. 'I'm having a dinner party tonight. Why don't you come? You shouldn't be on your own.'
A nervous laugh lodged in her aching throat. A party! He thought that she was in the mood for a party? Was he insane or just downright incapable of comprehending the immensity of what had happened to her today?
'I'll be fine,' she returned tremulously, wondering if he needed someone to supervise the caterers. Pete usually attended Alex's dinner parties, checked the seating arrangements, oiled the conversation and ensured that everything went smoothly. AlexRossini paid for that kind of service. AlexRossini was so rich that he could afford to burn money for amusement.
'I'll call you later. I'll send a car to pick you up at seven,' Alex told her as if she hadn't spoken.
Dully she fumbled for an excuse. 'I have nothing-'
'I'll buy you a dress to wear. No problem, cara. Don't even think about something so trivial.'
'But I-'
Strong brown hands reached down and closed over hers, tugging her gently upright. He angled her towards the door as if she were a walking doll. 'Go up to the apartment and lie down for a while; practise thinking optimistic, happy thoughts. Smile…' he urged softly, and a blunt fingertip skimmed below the trembling curve of her full lower lip and withdrew again, the contact feather-light and strangely soothing.
Unwarily, like someone in a dream, Sara looked up at him, connected with shimmering, mesmeric gold eyes and staggered slightly. He balanced her again with ease. An ache unlike anything she had ever experienced made her shiver. 'MrRossini-'
'Alex… Cristo” he exploded, abruptly freeing her.
Sara almost fell over. Numbly she watched him stride over to sweep up the phone that she hadn't even heard ringing. He swung smoothly back to her. 'Go up to the apartment and lie down,' he instructed her again.
Sara backed out slowly and walked back down to her office to collect her bag. Her head was aching. She put a hand up to her hair and undid the tight plait, running her fingers through the loosened tresses. The phone on her desk was ringing. For an instant she hesitated, and then she lifted it.
'Sara?' Pete demanded impatiently. 'Where have you been?'
'I was-'
'Look, I need a favour,' he broke in. 'Alex told me to get Marco's signature on some papers yesterday but I forgot. They're in the top right-hand drawer in my desk. Take a cab over to the studio and get it seen to before Alex asks for them… OK?'
Sara took a deep breath, grimaced and then wearily sighed. 'OK.'
'You're an angel. I bet your replacement won't be half so helpful.'
The reminder that she was actually working out her notice hit Sara hard as she climbed into a taxi. She would be in the dole queue soon, she realised dully. Her successor was already picked, due to take her place in a fortnight's time. Brian hadn't wanted a working wife. And she had no savings. She had p
oured every penny of her salary into renovating and furnishing the Victorian terrace house that Brian had bought. Weekends and evenings, she had scraped walls, plastered, decorated, cut out and sewn and hung curtains. She had put her heart into transforming that house. The knowledge that now she would never live there sank in on her slowly and then blistered her soul like an acid burn.
Real anger began to rise inside her. Three years ago Sara had stood by, watching Brian pursue Antonia without success. But her cousin would take just for the sake of taking, and throughout the years that Sara had lived in the Dalton home she had been taught that lesson over and over again. Anything she had been foolish enough to value had inevitably been taken from her by her cousin… only this time it had not been a toy or a sentimental keepsake, it had been the man she loved. She clambered dizzily out of the cab with a white, frozen face.
She had never been in MarcoRossini's high-tech photographic studio before. The reception area was incredibly busy. It made her feel claustrophobic. She forced her passage through the throng and trekked down the corridor indicated by the laconic redhead on the desk.
Marco was lying back in a chair inside the perimeter of a blinding circle of lights in an empty studio. He looked half-asleep but his mobile dark brows hit his hairline at speed when he saw Sara hovering, and he sprang upright with a mocking smile. 'To what do I owe the honour? Don't tell me you've finally decided to take me up on my offer? Miss December in red boots and a tasteful sprinkling of holly berries…what do you think?'
Sara gritted her teeth as she felt her cheeks burn. She was in no mood to take one of Marco's baiting sessions. Evading his malicious gaze, she murmured flatly as she extended the file, 'These documents require your signature.'
Marco suddenly laughed.
'What's so funny?' Sara heard herself demand almost aggressively, the words slurring slightly.
'Private joke.'
'If it's about me, it's not private!' Sara told him fiercely, standing her ground.
Marco surveyed her with intense amusement. 'There's a price.'
'A price?'
Marco laughed again. 'You tell me something first…haven't you ever once got the hots in my brother's radius?'
Sara looked back at him blankly. 'Excuse me?'
'Alex is a very good-looking guy, beats the women off with sticks. If he wasn't family, I'd hate the smooth bastard! Come on, you can tell me…if it wasn't for true love, you'd have given him a whirl, right? You know that movie where RobertRedford pays a million bucks for one night with DemiMoore-Indecent Proposal"! You too could have made your fortune…'
'I don't understand.' It was a lie. Sara just couldn't believe what Marco was insinuating.
Marco dealt her an incredulous glance. 'Are you saying you didn't even notice? Or are you telling me that Alex didn't once chance his arm?'
'If you are trying to imply that your brother is attracted to me, you're wrong-'
'To the tune of a million bucks? He could drop a million without noticing. No, the sum I heard mentioned was two million,' Marco imparted with undeniable relish. 'I think Alex thought just one was bargain basement.'
Sara's head was swimming again. It was so hot beneath the lights that she couldn't concentrate. 'This is a very distasteful conversation, Marco.'
'So Alex wants to jump your bones… is that some sort of crime? Lust makes the world go round,' he told her impatiently.
AlexRossini wanted to go to bed with her? Her lashes fluttered in bemusement. She couldn't believe it.
Marco shook his head slowly. 'You really didn't know, did you? Love is truly blind. But hey, don't let your heart soften in his direction. Remind yourself that you don't like him and steer clear. Marry your insurance salesman and live happily ever after,' he advised very drily as he flipped through the file and began scrawling his signature.
AlexRossini wanted her? Rubbish, nonsense, Marco's deliberate mistake-doubtless another example of his nasty sense of humour. 'You don't like him'. Had her dislike of AlexRossini been so obvious that even his brother was aware of it? She remembered Alex's astonishing kindness and tolerance and a stark arrow of guilt abruptly pierced her.
No, she had never liked AlexRossini-his arrogance, his impatience, his sardonic tongue, his rich man's self-centred motivation which took no account of anything but his own wishes, his own needs. She had never liked the way he treated women either. As if they were things that he could buy and discard when he got bored… and he got bored so fast that your head would spin. Fast cars, fast women, fast-lane life. Nightclubs, movie premieres, gambling joints, summer in the South of France, winter in the Alps. When the beautiful face and body of his latest lover palled, she got twenty-four regulation red roses and a diamond bracelet. Imaginative in that line he wasn't.
Why should he be? Women were easy around AlexRossini. He didn't need to lie and cheat and deceive. He had no need to make promises that he had no intention of keeping…
Oh, Brian, how could you do this to me?
For the first time Sara met her own anguish head-on, and she swayed slightly, her temples pounding. The heat was suffocating her. Her blouse was sticking to her skin. In a clumsy movement she tugged off her jacket and breathed in deeply. Two million pounds… She wanted to laugh like a hysteric. It was so ridiculous…
'You know getting married costs a lot,' Marco murmured reflectively, watching Sara with fascinated eyes as the jacket slid from her limp fingers to the floor. 'Why don't you reconsider my offer? Nobody need ever know. I wouldn't be planning on publishing the shots. It could be your secret… and mine.'
As Sara attempted to focus on him, there was a sudden commotion out beyond the lights. A raw burst of Italian scorched her eardrums. A fist hit Marco on the shoulder, hard enough to knock him back, and suddenly Alex was there, ranting at his brother and with every blistering sentence punching him on the shoulder again, forcing him into retreat, like a boxer playing with a weal opponent.
White-faced, Marco leapt behind Sara. 'Dio…switch him off before he kills somebody!'
CHAPTER TWO
SARA’S emerald-green eyes were wide with shock and incomprehension.
'I'm ashamed of you!' Alex roared at Marco, his strong features a mask of dark fury. 'For a bet, for a lousy fifty K. She's smashed out of her mind! She doesn't even know what day it is!'
'She's still a hell of a lot safer with me than she is with you!' Marco condemned furiously. 'And why shouldn't I have asked her?'
'Get out of my sight, you little jerk! Think yourself lucky it didn't go one step further-'
'All I did was make her an offer!' Marco shouted back.
'Then why's she got her jacket off?' Alex demanded j with clenched fists.
'She took it off herself! Big deal! She wears more bloody clothes than Scott did in the Antarctic! Can nobody take a joke around here? I'm sorry, Sara,' Marco breathed harshly, turning back to her. 'I didn't know about your engagement, but now the deck is clear I would go for that two million and not a penny less!'
Shoulders unbowed, Marco walked away out beyond lights. “What the hell did you think you were doing coming OVER here in the state you're in?' Alex demanded with ferotious bite.
It was her turn, Sara registered numbly.
'Didn't I tell you to go and lie down? You could have fallen under a bus or something! When I realised you'd gone out again, I couldn't believe it!' Alex gritted, perfect white teeth flashing against sun-bronzed skin.
'I n-needed his signature on some papers.'
'So why did you take your jacket off?' Alex persisted.
'I was hot,' she muttered heavily.
Alex swept down a lean, impatient hand and lifted the article. 'Dio… I should've worked that out for myself. A woman who wears her skirts below the knee and covers up every inch even in the heat of midsummer is highly unlikely to strip off for the camera. You're too much of a prude.'
Sara went suddenly rigid. Anger roared up through her without warning. 'I am not a prude!'
&n
bsp; Alex had fallen very still. 'So you do have a temper,' he murmured in a tone of discovery.
'Just don't put me down,' she warned him unevenly, shaken now by the anger that had mushroomed up inside her and demanded an exit. Alex drew fluidly back several paces and spread graceful brown hands. 'I was worried about you. You see, my creepy little brother laid a bet with me six months ago-'.
'A bet?'Sara echoed with a frown.
'He bet me fifty thousand pounds that he could get you to pose in the nude.'
Sara shuddered, sick mortification flooding her.
'It never occurred to me that there was the slightest possibility you would fulfil that bet. You're not the type. It was a joke, Sara. Marco loves a good joke; sometimes, like today, he's tempted to take it too far.'
Sara studied the floor with burning eyes. She could feel the tears but they were mercifully dammed up. 'A good joke'. Her stomach twisted. A lousy male bet had lain behind Marco's constant baiting. A choked laugh fell from her tremulous mouth. She couldn't meet Alex's gaze. Marco had never had the smallest hope of winning his puerile bet but Alex had still chased after her. Why? Alex was already painfully well aware that she had gone off the rails once today. All along, she registered in anguished embarrassment, he had known that she was drunk.
'I've made an ass of myself,' she whispered with stinging bitterness.
'You haven't made an ass of yourself,' Alex breathed with raw emphasis. 'You've had a rough day. That's all.'
She quivered, a turmoil of emotion sweeping over her. She wanted Brian's arms round her so badly that she thought she would break apart. But Brian would never put his arms round her again. That was finished, dead, destroyed. More pain than she would have believed possible was suddenly coming at her from all sides. Her hands knotted together.
'You really love that bastard,' Alex murmured flatly.
She covered her cold face with spread fingers, as if she could somehow hold in what she was feeling. She fought to get a grip on herself again.
A pair of determined hands drew her forward and balanced her. With enormous effort, she managed to slide her arms obediently into the jacket which Alex extended.