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

She shrugged. ‘If you know, why ask?’

His lean face was drawn into savage lines of anger as he spun her chair around and, curving his big body towards her, planted a hand on either arm.

Sam’s eyes lifted as his shadow fell across her.

‘A cheque for a large amount of money, made out to you, from my sister’s husband. What is Jonny doing, giving you money?’ he demanded in a low, driven voice.

‘Are you trying to intimidate me…?’ If I had any sense at all, she thought, he’d be succeeding. It was pretty obvious from the scorching anger etched into every glorious line of his incredible face that he was just about combustible!

‘I am trying to extract a straight answer from you,’ he gritted back grimly.

‘What were you doing going through my bag?’

He looked outraged at the suggestion. ‘I wasn’t. The damned thing was sitting there on the bedside table. It fell on the floor, I picked it up and…’ He stopped, the muscles of his brown throat visibly working as he recalled the moment when he had realised what he held in his hand. ‘What is Jonny doing giving you money, Samantha?’

Sam shrugged, his judgemental attitude causing her to respond with more provocation than was probably sensible. But actually she didn’t feel sensible. She felt absolutely fed up that he so obviously didn’t trust her. The injustice of it made her want to scream.

‘I don’t owe you any explanations, Alessandro.’ He had certainly never offered her any, she thought resentfully. ‘You’re my lover, not my keeper, and that,’ she warned him, ‘could change at any moment. And anyway,’ she added, ‘it wasn’t a gift, it was a loan.’

The semantics caused his lips to spasm derisively. ‘You will not take money from another man.’

‘I did n—’ She stopped, her eyes narrowing. ‘Another man? Does that mean you’re offering?’

‘Would that not smack of payment for services rendered?’

There was no pause for thought between the intention and the action. Her arm went back in a curve, released, and her hand made contact with his cheek. Alessandro, a look of stark incredulity on his face, straightened up, breathing hard.

Shaking, Sam too scrambled to her feet, pushing her chair backwards against the dressing table. ‘Look what you made me do!’ she accused, appalled by her own actions.

‘I made you?’

‘Yes, you made me!’ she yelled back. ‘You, with your nasty insinuations and always believing the worst.’

‘Are you going to tell me what that money is for?’

Sam shook her head, her expression blank. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘No problem. I will ask Jonny.’

Panic flared in Sam’s eyes. ‘You can’t do that!’ she protested.

‘You leave me no choice.’

Sam closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘My God, but I hate you!’

His lips curled into a sardonic half-smile. ‘At this moment,’ he confided, ‘I’m not particularly fond of you.’ But he still wanted to unwind that towel and throw her on the bed. He wanted it so badly he could taste it.

Slinging him a look of loathing, Sam walked across to the bed and sat down before her shaking legs gave way. ‘I haven’t cashed the cheque, and if you’d bothered to read the date you’d have noticed that’s it’s almost two months old.’

Alessandro’s dark brows drew together in a straight line. ‘So why haven’t you cashed it?’

‘I couldn’t stop him giving it to me, but I didn’t have to cash it.’

‘Do men often feel driven to give you large amounts of money?’ At that moment he felt driven—very driven. The fact that even at this moment all he could think of was burying himself deep inside her and hearing her say, Yes, Alessandro, in that breathy little voice that killed his much vaunted self-control stone-dead, was some measure of the spell she exerted over him.

Face facts, Alessandro, his inner voice goaded contemptuously. While you’re desperately trying to act as if nothing has changed, the fact is everything has changed. You’re so in control you felt it necessary to sweat for twenty-four hours just to prove that you didn’t have to get off the plane and rush to the side of a woman who hasn’t made any effort to contact you.

Sam, realising that she had no option but to tell him the truth and hope he kept it to himself, sighed and said, ‘Jonny wasn’t giving it to me. He was paying me back.’ She looked at Alessandro, who just stood there, giving the impression he wasn’t even listening. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

Alessandro released a long pent-up breath and looked at her. ‘No…yes.’ A frown formed on his lean face. ‘Paying you back…?’

‘Jonny had some cashflow problems and I lent him a little to tide him over until he sorted himself out.’

One dark brow elevated. ‘A little…?’ he said, picking up the cheque and waving it under her nose. ‘You think that is a little…?’

Sam flushed under his ironic gaze. ‘Well, it was only sitting in my account.’

‘I’m all for making your money work for you, but you didn’t choose the safest form of investment, did you? At least I know now why he hasn’t been to me…’

‘You’re the last person he’d go to.’

Alessandro’s dark lashes lifted from the high angle of his cheekbones. ‘And you are the first, it seems,’ he slotted in drily.

‘Well, at least I don’t make him feel inadequate,’ she retorted. ‘I think you enjoy intimidating people,’ she accused.

Alessandro raised an arm to drag a frustrated hand through his dark hair. The rippling this action set in motion over his lean torso caused her to lose the thread of her argument.

‘He should have gone to his wife, not to another woman,’ Alessandro condemned. ‘And the fact is lending him money is only delaying the inevitable.’

Sam, her colour heightened, wrenched her fascinated gaze from his body and said angrily, ‘I am not another woman.’

‘You are not his woman.’ You’re mine!

‘But I am his friend, and with a brother-in-law like you, boy, does he need one! For God’s sake, Alessandro, why can’t you give the man a chance? So he’s no financial genius…’ She lifted her shoulders in an expressive shrug. ‘So what? He’s doing his best. And no man could love your sister more than he does.’

Alessandro’s eyes dropped to where her heaving bosom was on the point of escaping the confines of the towel. ‘Would you defend me with so much passion?’ he wondered, lifting his gaze to her face .

‘Defend you…?’ she parroted, and laughed. ‘What do you need defending against?’ she wondered. ‘You’re so tough you’re virtually bullet-proof,’ she accused.

The streaks of colour emphasising the strong, carved contours of his cheekbones deepened as he responded in a voice that leaked derisive scorn, ‘I would certainly not beg money from a woman.’

‘He didn’t beg!’ Sam protested. ‘I found out by accident.’

‘Accident…?’

‘Yes, accident.’

‘You mean he was drunk?’