"What are you doing here?" Her eyes were drawn to the stains down the front of his once white shirt.
"I would have been here sooner had another hysterical woman not waylaid me. Though this one did not throw wine in my face."
"Hysterical woman... ?"
"Katerina. I was just about to get in my car when she arrived.
It took me the best part of an hour to get her to calm down enough to tell me what was wrong. When she did, I drove her home."
"What was wrong?"
"She's pregnant."
"Pregnant!"
"And it would seem that she's afraid to tell her husband."
"What?" ejaculated Sam. "Jonny hasn't told her! He's such an idiot."
As this heartfelt comment was music to Alessandro's ears, he felt he could be generous. "Having displayed no small degree of idiocy myself recently, I do not feel in a position to throw stones. However, you will be pleased to hear that he has now told her of his money problems-and of your role in helping him out of them."
Sam struggled to take on board this glut of information. "What's going to happen?"
"My sister has announced her intention of taking over the running of the stores. Jonny is apparently happy to diversify and use his contacts. Katerina has told him he will leave the finances to her, and utilise his talents crafting individually designed surfboards. Excuse my ignorance, the technicalities passed over my head, but apparently people are prepared to pay a great deal of money for such things."
"Then they're all right?"
"I think you could say that my first and only foray into marriage guidance has been a success," he agreed. "Would that gaining access to my own home had gone as smoothly."
"Did you forget your key?" Sam studied his face, which was wet and getting wetter with each passing second. He had to be totally furious - but oddly it wasn't fury that was coming across in his facial expression or his body language. But that fury was as far as she got when it came to interpreting the rigidity in his manner.
"No, but when I opened the door Carlo looked as though he would have liked very much to close it in my face."
Sam gave a confused blink. "Carlo? Why would he want to do that?" she asked, genuinely mystified.
One side of Alessandro's mobile mouth lifted. "It would appear he feels protective towards you, cara... "
"Me?"
"And not just him. The members of staff who I have encountered so far have all looked at me as though I am some unpleasant sub-species. Still," he mused, reaching across and taking her chin in his hand, "I suppose I must get used to being treated like the villain in a Victorian melodrama."
Sam, whose barely functioning brain had gone into shock when his thumb had slid down the curve of her cheek, was only capable of echoing faintly. "Victorian melodrama... ?" Why isn't he shouting? Why isn't he yelling? Why isn't he telling me that marrying me is the worst thing he has ever done?
"Yes. I think it was the crying baby clutched to your breast that captured the imagination of the nation." He looked around. "No baby?"
"Paul picked her up."
Sam looked at him blankly as he cupped the back of her head in his hand and said, "You're getting very wet," as he sank his long fingers into her wet hair.
"I don't understand," she said, grabbing a handful of his shirt to steady herself as her knees started to fold. She was shaking from head to toe.
"There were television cameras there." he reminded her gently.
"Oh, my God." As she half closed her eyes she wondered why this should come as such a shock-after all, it had been the television coverage that had prompted her mad get your hands off my man crusade.
Unable to contemplate the sheer awfulness of having the most humiliating moment of her life being recorded for posterity, Sam let her head fall forward against his chest. She could feel the warmth of his skin through the dampness of his shirt. She just wanted to close her eyes and lean into his warmth, have his arms close around her and stay that way for ever.
It was several seconds before she could force herself to step back. She swallowed and whispered hoarsely, "They won't actually show it?"
"From the way my loyal staff have been looking at me, I'd say they already have."
She gave a groan, amber flecks swirling in her green-blue eyes as they flew, wide and stricken, to his face. "Couldn't you sue them or something... ?"
The total lack of concern he was showing at having his reputation torn to shreds on national television was extremely disconcerting.
His lips curved into a sardonic smile. "For telling the truth?"
"The people who write stuff about you wouldn't know the truth if they fell over it!" she exclaimed, unable to hide her indignation at what he had suffered at the hands of the press.
In the act of dragging a hand through his hair, Alessandro stopped. Eye contact was hard to maintain, but he levelled his interrogative stare directly at her wary face. After a moment his hand fell away and comprehension filtered into his dark gaze. "So Marisa has been talking?"
Her lips tightened. "Well, you weren't going to, were you?"
"That was not possible."
"Oh, I know you'd given your word and all that stuff. And I'm sure it's great having honour and so forth. But forgive me for not patting you on the back. I was the one left thinking..." She caught the strange way he was looking at her and stopped, began to study her hands.
"What were you thinking?"
Her head jerked up. "Well, what would you think if you turned on the TV and saw me next to some gorgeous bloke I had a well-documented history with? Then saw him gaze at me as though looking at me made him hear heavenly music? I know this requires some imagination."
This bitter addition caused Alessandro, whose expression had been growing increasingly austere as she described this imaginary scenario, to smile. "Leaving aside the fact that before you entered the room Margaret Danes was the most beautiful woman in the room-"
Sam's eyes widened in protest as she recognised the name of a revered actress who had recently been made a dame. "Margaret Danes is seventy!" she protested.
"She was a beautiful woman at twenty and she is today. True beauty is not dimmed by the ravages of time. It has to do with an inner glow."
Midway through his dissertation on beauty, Sam stopped listening. "Until I walked into the room?" She thought of the way she had marched in, screaming baby under one arm, maniacal gleam in her eyes, and started shaking her head. She didn't stop until he took hold of her chin between his finger and thumb and tilted her face up to him.
"You are a beautiful woman."
She opened her mouth, but before she could deny this claim she connected with his deep, fabulously dark eyes and lost the power of speech totally. She thought about the incredibly glamorous females who had been present at the glitzy event and looked down at her own jeans. She released a choked laugh. He had to be joking!
"And you are my wife," he finished simply.
The breath snagged in Sam's throat as she lifted her head. Her head started to spin as she registered the incredible tenderness in his face.
"But, leaving aside those factors, you have no history with any man but me. And since you wear my ring on your finger." Sam trembled a little, but didn't resist as he took her small hand in his. As he stroked his finger against first the plain gold band and then the square-cut emerald in its antique setting she held her breath and tensed expectantly.
The silence stretched, tearing her shredded nerves to breaking point and beyond. The tension was almost unendurable as she waited for him to continue. When he did she jumped and gave a tiny startled cry.
"You never will have history with any other man but me."
His eyes lifted and melded to hers, and the possessive glow in them sent a corresponding surge of heat through her own body. He released her hand and ran a finger along the soft curve of her cheek until it rested on the small indentation in her chin.
"Don't worry-your future is taken care of, cara,
I can tolerate a man hearing heavenly music when he looks at you, but if he showed any inclination to do more than gaze at you I would... " His slight smile widened into a wolfish grin. "Discourage him," he finished silkily.
"You would?"
He nodded.
Sam, who had started to dare to think that maybe this situation could be saved, took a deep breath and slanted a wary look at him through her lashes. "I don't blame you for being as mad as hell with me." Except he wasn't "If you'd told me this morning that you were going to that darned thing..."
"I was about to tell you this morning, when you announced that you didn't feel married," he recalled bitterly.
"Did I say that? "she gasped.
He nodded. "It is not what a man enjoys to hear when he is leaving his wife for the day. Then you had to throw up...that tends to cut short a conversation."
"I can see that," she admitted with a rueful grimace. "I suppose you expect me to explain why I... ?"
"Made a national laughing-stock of me?" he inserted. "No, I don't expect that."
Her eyes flew to his. They were a deep green. "You don't?"
He shook his head. "I already know why you did it."
She stared up at him.
"You came to fight for your man." He took her face between both his hands. "You love me."
Sam's heart stopped. She opened her mouth and tried to laugh, but nothing but a strangled squeak emerged. The rampant hunger in his eyes made her head spin. "Marisa is actually very nice," she heard herself say stupidly. "We should invite her to dinner some time."
"Why are we talking about Marisa?" he growled.
"Well, she would have made you a perfect wife."
"Marisa is beautiful and talented. She probably is perfect," he admitted. "But for one thing."
"What thing?"
A slow smile that made Sam's heart thud spread across his face. "She isn't you, tesoro raw," he said simply. "She isn't you, and I have discovered," he explained against her trembling lips, "that nothing else will do for me. Say it!"
"Say what?"
"Tell me I'm right - tell me you stormed the ceremony because you were willing to fight for me." His voice dropped a husky octave as he went on in the same driven tone, "Tell me that you love me and can't bear the idea of living without me. Tell me that your life without me is empty."
"All those things." she gulped.
She felt the deep sigh that shuddered through his lean body. And then, as he angled her face up to his, she recognised the gleam of male triumph in his spectacular eyes. Her eyes closed as he gathered her to him and kissed her - tenderly at first, and then with a growing hunger and lack of control. When he dragged his mouth from hers with a groan he was breathing hard.
"You want me, Alessandro?" she said, wary still of the happiness that was flooding her body.
"I think I loved you from the first moment I saw you."
"First moment!" she exclaimed, recalling the way he had looked at her on every occasion they had met. "I don't think so."
"It's true. I couldn't take my eyes off you. The way you moved, your face, your laugh." His eyes left hers for a second as he swallowed. "And then." His eyes darkened as they met hers. "Then, Samantha, I saw you look at Trelevan. And I knew that you loved him. I told myself that it was my duty to watch you, to make sure you did not do anything to hurt Katerina." His lips sketched a derisive smile. "I carried on telling myself that when I rearranged my schedule time and time again, in order to accept every invitation that came my way if I knew there was a chance you would be there. I couldn't admit that I just wanted to see your face. And the more often I saw it," he admitted, framing her face in his hands, "the more I needed to.
"It wasn't until I got you into my bed that I recognised my self-deception for what it was. And then to realise that you had not given yourself to another man... It made me feel-" His voice thickened as he broke off and kissed her parted lips hungrily. "For the first time in my life I contemplated a meaningful relationship that was more than fleeting gratification. Imagine, then, my feelings when you declared that you only wanted me as a sex toy. "
"I didn't say that!" she protested, absolutely stunned by his revelations.
"As good as," he insisted.
"I was trying to be what you wanted. I sort of half convinced myself that was what I wanted too - but then it got so hard. I had to throw your number away to stop myself ringing you."
The confession made him laugh. Then, as the laughter died from his face, their eyes connected and his love was there for her to see. She shed the doubts and fears of the past weeks as though they had never been.
"The only time it ever mattered to me what a woman thought of my scars was with you, and you're the only woman who has kissed them, cara."
Her lips quivered. "I hate the idea of you hurting and me not being there."
"You have healed me. I used to have flashbacks of the accident, but since the first time we made love there has been nothing."
"Flashbacks!" She looked horrified. "Did you go to therapy?"
"I didn't need therapy," he scorned. "I needed you."
He bent his head to kiss her, and as much as Sam wanted to let him she knew there was something left to clear up. "There's something I have to say, Alessandro. About Jonny. What I felt for him - it wasn't...real." Lifting her eyes to his, she pressed a hand to her heart. "What I feel for you - it's in here. It's real. I didn't know what love was until you taught me. You are my perfect lover, Alessandro, but I think you could be a perfect husband too, and a better than perfect father."
He covered her hand with his. "That is quite a title," he said, his voice suspiciously husky. "But," he promised, "I will try to live up to it every day of my life."
Tears of joy stood out in her eyes as Sam's throat closed over with emotion. "I thought you married me because of the baby." she admitted.
"I was knocked sideways to hear about the baby." he admitted quietly. "And I am looking forward to being a father. But when I arrived at your flat that day I had this ring in my pocket." He lifted her hand and touched the emerald that shone on her finger.
Sam's eyes widened. "You were going to propose?" she whispered.
He nodded. "And if I had got in my proposal before I learnt about the baby I think perhaps we would both have been saved some heartache... But that," he said, "is the past. We have the future to look forward to. Don't look now, but here comes Carlo with an umbrella, looking most disapproving. When we are alone he will scold me for letting you get wet. We should go indoors."
Sam, her eyes shining with love, looked up at her tall, handsome husband and smiled. "I'd go anywhere with you," she told him, meaning it literally.
"When you look at me like that all I want to do is make love to you."
"What's stopping you... ?"
"Good point," he said, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her, laughing, past a very startled-looking butler.
The Italian's Wedding Ultimatum Page 17