The Brunelli Baby Bargain

The shoes must really have worked!

The shoes in question were at that moment nailed to the floor. She couldn’t move, she was so shocked at not even having her identity queried or the reason for her visit questioned.

‘First left?’ she echoed, inwardly wondering why she was still standing there. The woman wanted her to go through that door, she wasn’t to know Sam didn’t have an appointment so she shouldn’t under any circumstances volunteer the information.

What was holding her back? Those inconvenient scruples, that awful compulsion to tell the truth in moments when a white lie or silence worked much better, or simply gutless fear?

With a hint of impatience the receptionist nodded and waved long red-painted nails in the direction of the door before turning her attention back to the phone.

This is too easy, persisted the voice of suspicion in Sam’s head.

‘Easy is good,’ Sam retorted under her breath. If this was a case of crossed wires it was working to her advantage so she’d be a dope not to go with the flow. She lifted her chin and once again fixed a confident smile on her pale face—she was tapping into previously unexpected acting talents—and walked through the door without knocking.

It was a bit of an anticlimax, as the room she found herself in was not large. The only furniture was a small desk in one corner and some easy chairs set along one wall. A door beside the desk opened and a slim thirty-something man with thinning sandy hair and a harassed manner walked in, then dropped the file of papers he was holding when he saw her.

‘You’re a woman.’

Under normal circumstances Sam would have responded to this accusation, because it was definitely an accusation, with ironic humour. But humour and irony were both beyond her at the moment.

Instead she nodded cautiously and said, ‘Hello, I’m Sam Muir and I’d like—’

‘Sam!’ He slapped a hand to his forehead and groaned. ‘That explains it, of course. And just when I thought that this day couldn’t get any worse.’

Sam, feeling increasingly bewildered, gave another vague nod. ‘I’m here to see Mr Brunelli…?’

As she spoke her mental barrier slipped and a dark image flickered across her retina. The blurry lines solidified into features until she could see each strongly sculpted line and individual angle of Cesare Brunelli’s face.

It seemed amazing now that she had had no precognition of danger the first time she had looked into the face of the tall man who had towered over her.

The impact of his beauty had been like a physical blow drawing the breath from her burning lungs like the heat from a furnace being drawn into a vacuum.

She had been dimly conscious of emotions deep inside her stirring, breaking free of self-imposed restraints, but had felt strangely disconnected from what had been happening to her. Her innate ability to distance herself emotionally and analyse what she was doing and why had deserted her totally. Of course she hadn’t recognised this until it had been too late—the damage had been done!

When she had been with him she hadn’t been able to control her pounding heartbeat, the weakness in her shaking limbs or the burning heat that had washed over her skin.

It wasn’t just the stern symmetry and powerful planes of his bronzed patrician features, or the curve of his mouth, it was no individual feature but the combination that made him so beautiful.

Even now, twelve weeks later, the memory of his face made Sam’s throat ache, but now she could think about her reaction and what had happened later more objectively.

She could not deny he was a good-looking man who possessed an arrogant sexuality she was not totally immune to, but what had happened had been the result of a freak set of circumstances rather than anything more momentous.

He would probably turn out to be quite ordinary, she thought. She’d probably just built him up in her mind into something extraordinary to defend her own behaviour because nothing short of a rampant, irresistible sex god could be responsible for her fall from grace. She was looking for excuses.

Whereas the plain truth was there were no excuses; she’d been reckless and stupid. She’d had a moment of weakness—actually an entire night of weakness, but this was something she chose not to dwell on—and now she had to live with it.

She would probably see him and discover he bore no resemblance to her romanticised image of a brooding, damaged hero in need of comfort that only she could give.

Quickly she shied away from the subject of giving and turned her thoughts instead to the present. Dragging her attention back to the sandy-haired young man, she noticed he was rifling through some papers he now had in his hand.

‘This might be a problem… It looks like your CV has gone walkabout too, my God!’ he exclaimed in disgust. ‘That woman really was a total liability!’ He put aside the papers and glanced up at Sam, adding as an apologetic afterthought, ‘Sorry, it’s not your fault.’

Actually it was.

A fresh wave of disgust and shame washed over Sam.

Who else was there to blame? She’d kissed Cesare first, kissed a total stranger.

The memory of him was indelibly stamped into her consciousness—the way his face had been illuminated by the sudden flash of white lightning outside the window, and the way things had twisted painfully in her chest when she had seen the terrible bleakness that had shone deep in his incredible eyes and the utter frustration stamped on his dark features.

Unable to voice the words of comfort, unable to force any sound besides a choking sigh past the emotional congestion in her throat, she had instead reached out and taken his face between her hands.

The actions had been spontaneous, and, she had realised almost immediately, a mistake. He had stiffened at the touch of her mouth, his own lips remaining unresponsive under the pressure of hers.

Kissing a gorgeous man who didn’t want to be kissed might be something that any number of women her age could laugh off with a shrug, but Sam did not possess that skill.

She hadn’t wanted to laugh; she’d wanted to die from sheer mortification. She had started to lift her head, started to mutter a mortified apology, and would have removed her hands had his own fingers not come up to cover hers and hold them against his face.

Sam’s heart thudded again as she remembered his fingers tangling in hers, the fine muscles along his jaw tensing, his nostrils flaring as he slurred something thick in his own language.

She had felt rather than heard the groan that had seemed to be dragged from deep inside him before being lost in her mouth.

She had started it!

It was absolutely no excuse that he had looked as if he needed kissing.

Of course, if he hadn’t kissed her back and the storm hadn’t knocked out the electricity…there would have been no problem. No problem, no scalding shame and no baby!

She bit down hard on her lip and subdued the images that rose shameful and graphic in her head… It had happened and it was pretty pointless given the consequences in pretending it hadn’t, but nothing could be achieved by endless post-mortems.

Tension drawing the soft lines of her pale face taut, her hand went unconsciously to her stomach. He would not want to know, which suited her fine. She could walk out of the door knowing that she had done the right thing.

‘Is Mr Brunelli actually here?’ she asked. Half of her wanted the answer to be negative.

The man sighed, his glance swivelling significantly towards the door behind him before he nodded and belatedly introduced himself. ‘I’m Tim Andrews. Call me Tim,’ he added with an easy-going smile.

After a hesitation Sam took the hand he extended, her gaze sliding to the door. If she moved quickly she could be through it before this nice man could stop her.

‘You’re shaking,’ the man said suddenly, concern replacing the harassed expression on his face as Sam pulled her hand away.

She thrust her hands in the pockets of her jacket and told herself to relax. What was the worst they could do? To be forcibly ejected by Security would be a new experience. Although her last new experience had not turned out so well, however blissfully perfect it had been at the time.

‘I’ve come a long way to see Mr Brunelli.’ It had actually just been a couple of Tube rides, but she saw no harm in exaggeration given the circumstances. ‘And I’m not leaving until I do. I mean it.’ Sam wished she felt half as resolved as she sounded.

There was a startled pause before Tim said, ‘I believe you.’

I wish I did, she thought.

‘I’ll do what I can but…’ He gave a shrug that told her to be prepared to be disappointed. ‘Would you like to take a seat?’