The Italian's Baby Bargain: The Italian's Wedding Ultimatum / The Italian's Forced Bride / The Mancini Marriage Bargain

His finger stopped stroking, but stayed where it was.

‘Settled…?’

‘Uh-huh,’ she confirmed sleepily. Passion expended an awful lot of energy. ‘My mum is always saying there’s no point waiting for Mr Perfect because he doesn’t exist…you should settle…’

‘But he does exist, doesn’t he?’

Bewildered by the edgy note that had entered his deep voice, Sam turned her head on the pillow, and in the shadows found his taut expression inexplicably hostile. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean Jonny was your Mr Perfect, and as he was unavailable you settled for me. It is not flattering for a man to realise the woman in his arms was thinking of another man while he made love to her. Madre di Dio, do you think I will tolerate being someone you settle for?’

‘Thinking about someone else…?’ she parroted, as though the words had no meaning. Which, of course, they didn’t. With her body and mind drenched down to cellular level with awareness of Alessandro, Sam was having understandable trouble getting her head around this idea.

She met his suspicious, angry eyes and experienced a blinding flash of comprehension and anger.

‘For goodness’ sake, I couldn’t even remember my own name—couldn’t figure out where you ended and I started. Think about someone else?’ she ejaculated with a bitter laugh. ‘You’re the last man in the world I’d have thought needed his ego massaging. Surely someone has mentioned before now the fact that you’re really very, very good at this?’

‘Dio!’ he breathed as, overcome by embarrassment, she buried her face in his chest. ‘I really never know what you’re going to say next.’

She slid her hands over the soft whirls of dark hair on his chest and ran a finger across his masculine nipple. ‘Neither do I.’

The husky admission drew a short laugh from Alessandro, who placed a hand underneath her bottom and scooped her towards him.

‘When my mum was saying all that stuff about Mr Perfect I was still thinking in terms of a life partner. Now I realise I’m not actually suited to marriage.’

‘You’re not…?’

She shook her head emphatically. The last thing Alessandro wanted was a clingy, needy woman. ‘No—definitely not. I’m too selfish. I like my life the way it is…’ Her eyelashes swept downwards as she added huskily, ‘With certain additions.’

He rolled over until he was looking down into her face and her body was pinioned by his long, lean length. ‘A lover being one of those certain additions…?’

Not just any lover. Her perfect lover.

She nodded. ‘Nobody needs to know—I mean, it’s not as if we would be dating, or a couple or anything. We’d just be…’ She felt the heat run up under her skin as, trying to sound nonchalant, she finished, ‘This.’

‘You want this to be a secret affair?’

He looked shocked—or was that relieved? ‘Not secret, exactly, but…’

‘You don’t want to broadcast it?’

‘It’ll be a lot simpler that way,’ she observed, saying what she thought he wanted to hear. If giving him space was the only way to keep him, she could do it, she told herself.

There was a long pause before he said, ‘I’m all for a simple life.’

‘I thought you would be.’

Chapter Ten

ALESSANDRO had been ripping off his clothes with flattering speed when she’d run, laughing, into the bathroom. She had called his name and got no response, and then waited, her heart pounding with anticipation. But when after several minutes the door to the shower cubicle remained closed Sam didn’t linger. After shampooing her hair with unnecessary vigour she stepped out.

‘Obviously I’m not as irresistible as I think,’ she told her image in the steamy mirror. ‘Oh, my, do I have a problem.’

Of course there was a problem—and it wasn’t restricted to talking to herself! Casual she could do—casual was fine—but casual wasn’t living for the brief moments they shared. It simply wasn’t healthy when for most of the time she was just going through the motions, waiting for him to call or like tonight, ring her doorbell.

The fact was she wanted more, and more was something Alessandro didn’t want to give. If he knew how she felt Sam suspected he would run a mile. There was a choice, of course. There was always a choice. She could come clean, tell him how she felt and watch him walk away. Or she could accept what she had.

What was called a lose-lose situation.

Wrapping a towel sarong-wise around her still damp body, Sam stalked back into the bedroom. The first thing she saw was Alessandro. He was actually pretty hard to miss, standing in the middle of the room doing his dark, brooding stare thing into the middle distance.

Well, at least he hasn’t fallen asleep, she thought as she walked straight past him and sat herself down at the dressing table. Maintaining a stony silence, she ostentatiously removed his jacket from the back of the chair and dropped it in an untidy heap on the floor. The provocation provoked no reaction. He just stood there, in the same state of semi-undress as he had been when she left.

But something had obviously occurred to put him in such a vile mood, since he had walked into the room looking at her as though she was water and he was a man who’d spent the last ten days walking through a desert.

She lifted a brush and then with a sigh set it down. ‘Are you going to tell me what I’m supposed to have done now…?’

In the mirror their eyes clashed, stormy green with cold, implacable brown.

‘Why do you assume you have done something?’

‘Maybe something to do with the fact you could cut the atmosphere in here with a knife, but mostly because you’ve got your judge, jury and executioner face on,’ she told him sweetly. ‘You know, this makes me really sick,’ she observed. ‘I’ve waited an entire week for you to contact me.’ Which makes me the sort of pathetic idiot I swore I’d never be. ‘And now you are here all you can do is look at me as though I’m…’

‘Dio mio, do not take that tone with me!’ His unbuttoned shirt billowed as he strode across the room, revealing the sleek, toned lines of his bronzed torso. Taking hold of the back of her swivel chair, he stood there, glaring at her in the mirror.

Sam, who didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on, glared right back.

‘If you don’t like it you know what you can do!’ The least a part-time lover could do was be civil when he did deign to put in an appearance. This no-strings, no-explanation thing sounded great in theory, and maybe it worked for some people, but Sam had come to appreciate that she wasn’t one of them.

If I had an ounce of guts I’d tell him it’s over. Only where Alessandro was concerned she had the backbone and moral fibre of an invertebrate. How many times had she seen and silently sneered at friends who were willing to make concession after concession for their boyfriends? I’d never do that, she had thought, from her position of moral superiority. And look at me now!

‘Don’t think I won’t.’

Empty threats…is this what I’ve been reduced to…?

‘Good!’ she snapped, thinking, I might be able to do better than ‘good’ if I had the faintest idea what we were fighting about.

‘I suppose you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for this?’

As he bent across her the scent of his warm body caused Sam’s nostrils to flare. ‘What…?’ she said, picking up the creased piece of paper he had slammed down on the dressing table. Her eyes widened as she recognised Jonny’s cheque, which she had shoved in her bag and forgotten about.

‘What is that?’

‘A cheque.’

A harsh expletive was torn from Alessandro’s throat. ‘I know it’s a cheque,’ he growled. ‘Do not be evasive.’ His dark, angry eyes glared back at her from the mirror.

Sam, who had Jonny’s secret to guard, had every intention of being evasive for as long as she could—although the expression on Alessandro’s face suggested that wouldn’t be very long.