by Penny Jordan
‘Why? So you’ll come to the conclusion I’m such a control freak I’m afraid to take any time off from the business in case something goes wrong in my absence?’ It was true. She hadn’t taken a holiday in over three years, for exactly the reason she had so eloquently outlined. Ironic when she ran a travel business.
Raising a dark eyebrow, Javier couldn’t resist a smile. ‘How long, Sabrina?’
‘Three years. The last break I had was in Tunisia three years ago. Satisfied?’
Come and sit on my lap and let me unbutton your shirt and I might start to be… Coming out of nowhere, the thought had him instantly hardening. He pulled off his tie, dropped it on the chair arm and adjusted his position. ‘You should think about it. That is all I am saying. The work will not take place for another two weeks or so, so you have plenty of time to think about what to do with your time off. If you are so eager for contact with work, I could show you how my business works on the internet. Perhaps you would like to learn, hmm?’
Sabrina felt a ridiculous rush of pleasure, quickly followed by a surge of guilt at being so testy with him, then a wave of anger at the thought that maybe he was just trying to placate her after the Christina debacle.
‘It’s always useful to learn something new.’ Her voice sounded grudging even to her own ears. What was it about this man that had her emotions seesawing around so crazily? She’d always thought of herself as quite a reasonable person, a forgiving person. With Javier she was being anything but. Outrageous when he had already given her so much.
Javier sighed and got up from the chair. ‘Talking of work, I have a few things to see to. If you will excuse me I will say goodnight to you, Sabrina. Sleep well.’ He had to put some distance between them in order to think. It wasn’t going to happen while she was so near. Sweet temptation with a scowling face. It didn’t look as if she was going to forgive him any time soon for what she believed to be his serious transgression with Christina. Well, he would just have to wait it out. She couldn’t stay immune to him for ever, could she? Frowning as he reached the door, he didn’t risk a glance over his shoulder at the object of his desire. He’d already had enough provocation for one day.
But Sabrina had no intention of letting the matter lie. Convinced he had slept with his glamorous ex-girlfriend when she’d stayed the night, she had to let him know that, fake marriage or not, she wasn’t going to be made a fool of so easily. Returning to her bedroom, she collected the box of pretty lingerie Javier had bought her and swept into his office with it, slamming it on the desk in front of him so that the gorgeous oyster-coloured silk spilled out onto his lap. His broad shoulders visibly tensing, Javier picked up the flimsy items and put them carefully down on top of the silver box without speaking.
Unable to contain her anger any longer, Sabrina glared at him. ‘And don’t buy me things like this when it’s clearly just a game to you! I tell you what, why don’t you give them to your girlfriend? I’m sure she could find a use for them when you next get together!’
Slowly, Javier got up from his chair. Sabrina saw the warning flinch of muscle throb in his cheek beneath the smooth, tanned skin and her heart missed a beat.
‘They are not Christina’s size,’ he said, his voice deadly even. ‘She is all angles, while you are more…’ those deep black eyes of his swept almost insolently down her figure ‘…more curvaceous. Why are you so angry with me, Sabrina? You are the one who was so certain that this marriage of ours should be—how do you say?—platonic. So why does it bother you that I might have slept with Christina? A man has needs, Sabrina. Is that what scares you so? I can see how that might prove a challenge when you have locked away your feelings for so long. Do you intend to spend the rest of your life pretending not to feel?’ When he reached out to stroke his knuckles down her cheek, Sabrina hugged her arms around her waist to stop herself from shaking. She had known him such a short time yet he already knew her so well. Perhaps that was what scared her the most?
‘We—we had a deal, an agreement.’ The words suddenly didn’t mean a damn thing any more. Floundering in her anxiety, Sabrina sensed all the fight drain out of her. This man had already been through so much. He had lost his sister and his brother-in-law and was now totally responsible for his niece—so much so that he had given up his glamorous lifestyle in Argentina to move to England and adopt her. What he didn’t need was any further grief from Sabrina just because her pride had been hurt. He was a very virile, sexy man. Having been a recent recipient of his lovemaking, she could easily attest to the truth of that. No. She would just have to accept the fact that, as he said, ‘he had certain needs’ and if she wasn’t willing to fulfil them herself, then who could blame him for finding solace elsewhere? Even if it was with his ex-girlfriend?
‘I’m sorry.’ Her head throbbing, she swung round to leave, surprised and shocked when Javier’s hand fastened round her arm to waylay her.
‘I did not make love with Christina the other night. I have no reason to lie to you about that. She is in love with another man back home in Argentina. I found them in bed together and that is when our relationship ended. I have no desire or intention to renew it.’
Her cheeks burning, Sabrina nodded slowly. He was telling her the truth. She knew that now.
‘I’ve made a fool of myself, haven’t I?’ Her blue eyes looked pained.
‘No. It is good things are out in the open. Go and get some rest now. I will see you in the morning.’
When he released her arm and turned away, Sabrina was crushingly disappointed. She wanted…no, needed him to kiss her. Her whole body ached for it—to feel that incredibly soft yet sometimes hard-looking mouth sliding across hers, sharing his heat, his passion, his incredible taste with her, as intimate as a man could be with a woman.
‘Can I—can I take my things?’ Biting her lip, she reached around him to pick up the pretty silk from his desk, the material cool and unbelievably erotic beneath her fingers. Without a word, Javier handed her the box, the ghost of a smile flitting across his lips, gone as quickly as it had appeared. ‘Thanks.’ Not daring to encroach any further on his good will, Sabrina hurriedly exited the room, her own heartbeat pounding heavily in her ears as she rushed down the softly carpeted hall to her bedroom.
‘So what will you do with yourself with three weeks off?’ Taking a generous bite of her authentic Italian pizza with its extra topping of Parmesan, Ellie glanced speculatively at her sister across the table. The popular Italian restaurant was full of lunchtime customers and Ellie had had to book a table so they could eat there. She’d left the children at her mother’s and was enjoying her ‘me time’ enormously, as she told Sabrina.
‘Javier’s going to teach me a bit about his own business.’ Pouring some water from the jug into her glass, she took a brief sip, wishing that her body wouldn’t get so inconveniently hot at just the mention of her husband’s name. Usually all her concerns were to do with work, how things were going, how to improve things, where she was going to get the money to make some much needed changes. Now that all that was taken care of, all she seemed to be able to think about was Javier D’Alessandro. For someone who had never given a personal relationship with a man top priority in her life, that was unsettling indeed. It was going to make it all the harder to leave when the time came—not to mention leaving Angelina…
‘God, you’ve got a one-track mind, sis!’
‘What do you mean?’ Terrified that Ellie might have discovered her guilty secret—that she was more than halfway in love with her husband, a fact that she was only just allowing herself to admit—Sabrina stared at her, wide-eyed.
‘All you ever seem to think about is work! There you are with that gorgeous hunk of man and the only thing you can get excited about is the prospect of working together! I’ll never understand you in a million years, Sabrina, I really won’t. And why aren’t you eating? Your pizza will get cold.’
She couldn’t eat, Sabrina thought miserably. Not when her stomach was so tangled up wi
th thoughts of Javier and Angelina and how empty her life was going to be without them.
‘I keep telling you that our marriage isn’t real. We only did it to help each other out. When are you going to get that through that thick skull of yours?’
‘Don’t give me that “our marriage isn’t real” bunkum. I know desire when I see it and you two could barely keep your eyes off each other the day I visited. I told Phil. Talk about a match to a fire! Come on, Sabrina, be honest—you fancy him, don’t you? If you don’t then I really recommend a medical checkup because your equipment can’t be functioning properly.’
‘Can we change the subject?’ Pushing at the pizza on her plate with her fork, Sabrina was blushing profusely. What she felt for Javier wasn’t just some sordid little ‘it will blow over’ sexual itch. Her feelings for the man went so much deeper than that it wasn’t funny. Right now it was threatening the very fabric of who she’d imagined she was for the past thirty-seven years. Her chosen course in life had been her career—not marriage and children. Now Javier D’Alessandro had her seriously contemplating both and she had no right. He was still young and he deserved to find someone more in keeping with his age and background.
‘You care about him, don’t you?’ Taking a sip of water, Ellie placed her glass carefully back down on the cork mat. ‘Is that what’s going on? Talk to me, Sabrina. I don’t just want to pry into your business. We’re family. I care about you.’
‘Why wouldn’t I care about him and Angelina? I’m not made of stone.’ Shaking her head, Sabrina crumpled her paper napkin into a ball. ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen. It’s not the cleverest thing I’ve ever done.’
‘But human, very human. Why wouldn’t you want love in your life? Isn’t that what we all ultimately want—someone who really cares about us deeply?’
‘But he doesn’t love me.’ Hastening to make that very clear to her sister, Sabrina felt choked just saying the words. ‘He might be attracted to me but that doesn’t mean it’s anything more than physical. And besides, I’m too old for him.’
Ellie looked militant. ‘Who says?’
‘I say! Think about it, Ellie. In a few years’ time he’ll want children. He comes from a very old-fashioned culture where family is sacrosanct. Do you think his parents would be happy if he married a woman who couldn’t bear him children?’
‘All this is supposition. You don’t even know for a fact that you can’t have children. You could pop out at least three or four if you got your skates on!’
Laughing in spite of her anguish, Sabrina reached across the table to cover Ellie’s hand with her own. ‘You are a nut. But at least you make me laugh. I get so wrapped up in the business sometimes I seem to forget how to have fun.’
‘Have that conversation with the gorgeous Javier. I’m sure he could teach you how to have fun.’
‘Hmm.’ Thinking about the beautiful lingerie he had bought her that she had retrieved after her little contretemps the other night, Sabrina didn’t doubt that was true. What had he been thinking when he bought it for her? Her insides glowed at the thought. ‘Dangerous.’
‘Hold that thought.’ Attracting the attention of a passing waitress, Ellie ordered a bottle of house red.
‘You need to learn to loosen up a little, my girl, and this is going to help.’
‘No,’ Sabrina wagged her finger, ‘this is going to make me fall asleep at my desk.’
‘Why worry? Your husband’s there to make sure you get home OK, isn’t he?’
Returning to the living-room with two mugs of black coffee, Javier stopped in the doorway at the sight that met his eyes. Curled up on one end of the huge couch, her head on two satin pillows, Sabrina was fast asleep. At the other end, curled up in a similar fashion, was Angelina—also asleep. His insides suffusing with warmth, he took a long, slow breath and, advancing into the room, placed the coffee on a sideboard. Standing there watching them both, he couldn’t disown the sudden longing in his chest to hold these two females in the circle of his love and protection for ever. The thought almost made him stumble. It was natural he should feel such tenderness towards Angelina; he’d loved her since she was a baby and soon she would be his adopted daughter. But to acknowledge such feelings towards Sabrina—this woman who had appeared out of nowhere, as it were, just when he needed her? This was something else entirely, something he definitely hadn’t planned for. She was a beautiful, vibrant, sensual woman and he desired her with a depth that had surpassed anything he’d ever experienced before, but love? He’d sworn to protect his heart from such a fate. Angelina and his parents had his unconditional love but to fall for a woman and bind her to him with promises to love her for ever was something he’d vowed not to do, not unless he was looking to get his heart badly broken. He only had to remember Dorothea and Michael to know that love could also be cruel. At thirty years old he had had enough tragedy in his life. No. He made up his mind. He was not averse to enjoying a warm physical relationship with the beguiling Sabrina but, as far as anything else was concerned, he would resist. Gazing at her now, her long, luxurious hair spilling onto the vivid cerise of the satin pillow, he knew it was going to take every ounce of will-power to keep his vow.
She awoke to the gentle sounds of a Joni Mitchell record, the room bathed in the intimate glow of lamplight, and as she struggled to sit up she rubbed her hand around her neck to ease the tight cramp in her muscle. Disorientated, Sabrina glanced round the room, seeing the royal-blue velvet drapes drawn against the night, the fire hissing brightly in the grate with its comforting crackle and Javier nursing a glass of some amber-coloured liquid between his hands as he stared into the flames from his armchair.
‘What time is it?’
‘Ten to midnight.’ For a long moment he stared into his glass, then slowly he raised his head to regard Sabrina’s half-reclining form.
‘So late?’ Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she wished her head didn’t feel so groggy. ‘You mean I’ve been asleep here since we came back from work?’
‘Too much wine at lunch, you said.’ A flicker of a smile crossed his handsome face and Sabrina groaned at the admission. Swinging her legs carefully onto the floor, she tried in vain to tidy her dishevelled hair, instead found her clip buried somewhere halfway down her head, rescued it and silently vowed to be a lot tougher in future when it came to her sister’s unwise recommendations.
‘I try to make it a rule never to drink at lunchtimes. It’s fatal. It always makes me fall asleep when I do.’
‘You seemed happy when you came back to the office.’ The memory gave Javier a decidedly warm feeling. He had seen a very different Sabrina after a glass or two of wine. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon smiling and giggling at him and the customers alike and finally Javier and Robbie had had to take charge while Jill had led Sabrina safely into the little back room and made her drink a large mug of black coffee.
‘Yes, well, I promise I won’t make a habit of it. Drinking at lunchtime, I mean.’ Getting to her feet, she briefly lifted her hair off the back of her neck then stepped forward towards the fire. ‘This is nice.’ Crouching down beside the crackling flames about a foot away from where Javier sat, she held out her hands then rubbed them up and down her arms to get her circulation going again because she’d felt chilled when she’d woken.
Her hair was haloed by the light from the fire and Javier studied her exquisite profile and felt heat of a very different kind suffuse his body. Taking a sip of his brandy, enjoying the burn that rippled satisfyingly along his throat to his stomach, he offered the glass to Sabrina. ‘Have some.’
‘What is it?’
‘Brandy. Very good French brandy.’
‘I’d better not.’
She watched mesmerised as Javier slowly dipped his finger into the glass, wetted it and offered it to her instead.
For one crackling, electric moment, Sabrina didn’t know what to do. Her stomach muscles clenched so tight that she almost forgot to breathe. Her eyes huge, she
leant forward a fraction and circled her hand round his wrist. She was aware of his white shirt cuff and the onyx cufflinks outlined with gold, the fine black hairs on the back of his bronze hand, the faint spicy drift of his aftershave as she lowered her mouth to capture his finger between her lips.
She heard the low rasp of his breath as she slowly licked her tongue along his flesh then released him, tasting brandy and Javier, feeling light-headed and so aroused that her nipples were erect to the point of pain against her blouse. Then her fevered brain registered the softly seductive Spanish as he moved off the chair and got down on his knees beside her. His eyes were very dark and completely intense as he cupped her face between his hands.
‘What is it about you that makes you so hard to resist, Sabrina?’ Lowering his mouth, he kissed her gently, experimentally, making her heart zing and her eyelids flutter closed. Curling her hands round his wrists, she eased back to look at him, knowing she could easily ask him the same question, but maybe it was a question she already knew the answer to? He had the kind of ‘sit up and take notice’ good looks that made women glance knowingly at each other when he walked into a room and smile at the fantasy of sharing his bed. His bearing was relaxed, confident, bordering on arrogant. But it wasn’t an empty, shallow kind of confidence—Javier D’Alessandro more than delivered the goods. Not only was he clever and hardworking, but he also had integrity and honour that would put lesser men to shame, as well as being kind to children and women who needed a prayer or two answered. Everything considered, he was a pretty irresistible package all round.
‘We said we weren’t going to do this,’ she whispered softly. One of the logs on the fire cracked and spat and Sabrina held her breath as Javier stroked down her cheek with the pad of his thumb. His eyelashes were very black—almost with a blue sheen—and she could see the tiny lines that fanned out from the corners of his eyes.
‘Rules were meant to be broken, no?’