Secret Heirs: Baby Bargain. Эбби Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ to Stanley, the really great guy who had driven her back to her flat and seen her up to her front door the previous week, in true gentleman style.

      And then there were just the two of them, staring at one another, until she was knocked for six by his slow, curling smile.

      * * *

      He’d done the right thing.

      Sergio knew that the very second the door was pulled open and he saw her again. No red dress this time. No dress at all. Baggy jogging bottoms and a grey jumper and fluffy bright pink bedroom slippers.

      The sex kitten was nowhere in evidence. In her place was a small, cute, freckle-faced, vanilla-haired girl who was gaping at him as though he had materialised out of nowhere.

      And she was even sexier than he remembered.

      ‘Are you going to ask me in?’ He lounged against the door frame and continued to look at her.

      ‘How did you find me? No, I know. Stanley knows where I live. I’m surprised he remembered the route.’

      ‘He’s talented when it comes to remembering places.’

      ‘And maybe you’d like to tell me what the heck you’re doing here?’

      For a few seconds Sergio was completely thrown by that question. Automatic entry had been his expectation. Explanations to follow—not that he had really anticipated many of those. He had shown up, hadn’t he? This was the first time he had ever done anything like this before, and it hadn’t crossed his mind that she wouldn’t be delighted with the gesture.

      ‘Come again?’

      ‘The last time I saw you, you told me that I was either a gold-digger or a simpleton and you weren’t interested in having anything to do with me.’

      ‘I don’t believe I used the word simpleton.’

      ‘As good as,’ Susie retorted, her body as stiff as a plank of wood. She might have daydreamed about this, but now that he was here she couldn’t just shove aside the fact that he had turned her away. ‘I’m not your type...remember...?’

      ‘I’ve come bearing flowers,’ Sergio said incredulously, raking his fingers through his hair and wondering how such a generous gesture could garner a cross-examination.

      ‘That still doesn’t excuse what you said to me.’

      But she yearned to fling open the door and let him in. Her whole body throbbed, remembering the way his lips had felt against hers, wanting more...much more.

      ‘We can talk about this inside. Let me in. Please, Susie?’

      Susie hesitated and then grudgingly stepped aside so that he could enter. As soon as he entered he seemed to fill the entire place. She busied herself gathering the flowers. She had two vases, into which she crammed as many as she could, and then she rested the remainder by the window to be sorted out later.

      For the moment...

      She retreated to the sofa and sat down, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

      ‘I admit I questioned your motives,’ Sergio said heavily. He perched uncomfortably on the far end of the sofa. ‘Can you blame me?’

      ‘And what’s made you change your mind.’

      Sergio wasn’t sure he actually had changed his mind, but he figured that complete honesty in this instance would be a mistake. The main thing was that she had managed to get to him in a way other women hadn’t, for reasons he couldn’t define, and if indeed she did turn out to be a gold-digger then she wouldn’t get very far—especially as he knew what to look out for.

      ‘I turned you away because...’ He stood up and restlessly prowled through the room, subliminally clocking the fact that in between the dusty furnishings and tired decor there were one or two items of spectacular worth.

      What did that say? What would she say if he pointed them out to her? How was it that she couldn’t afford somewhere better to live when hanging on the wall was a tiny but extremely valuable abstract painting by an up-and-coming artist? And nestled amongst the bric-a-brac on the mantelpiece was what appeared to be an original Tiffany lamp?

      His jaw tightened. Even recognising those anomalies, he still found that he was driven to stay put.

      ‘Because...’ he resumed his seat on the sagging sofa ‘...if you’re a gold-digger then nothing’s going to come of your efforts, and if you’re just hopelessly naive then I was doing you a favour, because you’ll end up getting hurt by me.’

      Susie frowned. ‘What makes you say that?’

      ‘I don’t do long-term relationships.’

      ‘And what makes you think that I do? No, I take that back... What makes you think that I would cast you in the role of someone I want to have a long-term relationship with?’

      ‘Women have a habit of becoming over-involved...’

      ‘You’re...an attractive man,’ she said carefully, ‘but there’s no chance that I would ever become “over-involved” with someone like you...’

       ‘Someone like me?’

      ‘I’m a creative person...’

      She thought of her parents’ response to the creative types she had introduced to them in the past. Perhaps some of her friends had been a little too creative.

      ‘It’s not as though I would necessarily want to get involved with someone exactly like me...but I would want to get involved with someone funny, thoughtful, considerate, kind, sensitive... A guy like that would never accuse me of being a gold-digger, and he would never tell me that I’m so naive that I can’t take care of myself—and he would definitely never be so downright arrogant as to assume that I would fall head over heels in love with him, given half a chance! I mean...who do you think you are, anyway...?’

      Sergio was frankly lost for words. He wondered whether he should mention that there wasn’t another woman on the planet who would react to his appearance at her front door, carrying half a shop’s worth of expensive roses, by digging her heels in and giving him a furious lecture on all his failings.

      ‘I came here because I felt there was unfinished business between us,’ was all he could find to say.

      Susie raised her eyebrows.

      ‘Didn’t you?’ he asked softly. ‘Feel like there was unfinished business between us?’

      She hesitated.

      Was that what she had been feeling?

      Torn between wanting to assert her independence and show him that he couldn’t just turn up at her door with a bunch of flowers and expect her to swoon and just give in to whatever it was that had taken her over like a virus, she was stuck for words.

      ‘Well?’ Sergio inserted smoothly, firing on all cylinders and interpreting her hesitation СКАЧАТЬ