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

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СКАЧАТЬ that you would prefer to walk barefoot over hot coals than fall in with any suggestion I make…’

      ‘It wasn’t a suggestion, it was a fait accompli!’ she snapped.

      He angled a dark brow. ‘You noticed?’ He congratulated her. ‘Fait accompli rather makes this conversation pointless, wouldn’t you say? Why don’t you give in gracefully? We can even pretend that it was your idea, if you like.’

      Glaring at his smug, patrician profile, Sam lapsed into seething silence as he turned through a pair of big wroughtiron gates. The hotel’s impressive driveway was a mile long, and led through some charming parkland where deer grazed in the fading light.

      When Alessandro opened the passenger door Sam, who was staring at the big sprawling half-timbered building they had pulled up in front of, shook her head. ‘You can’t walk into somewhere like this and demand a room for an hour. They’ll think…’

      Alessandro gave a sardonic smile. ‘They’ll think what…?’ The malicious amusement glittering in his dark eyes made it impossible for her to maintain eye contact. ‘That we could not contain our mutual lust until we got back to London?’

      ‘Don’t be disgusting!’ she choked.

      ‘This display of puritanical outrage might carry more weight with me if you hadn’t tried to rip off my clothes once already today. Perhaps it is me who should be concerned about my reputation?’ he suggested, the gleam in his eyes becoming more pronounced as a fresh wave of mortified colour rushed to her cheeks.

      ‘Reputation!’ Sam yelled, leaping soggily from the car. Feet crunching on the gravel, she advanced, her small fists clenched. ‘I think your reputation is beyond further blackening,’ she sneered. ‘What has it taken…? Ten years…? Still, I’m sure the effort was worthwhile. I think everyone knows by now that you’re a sleazy, womanising loser! And as for ripping off c…clothes…’ A distracted expression slid into her eyes as the memory of her hands sliding under his shirt and over hard, satiny-smooth skin flashed into her head. It was the wrong time to recall how warm and solid and male…She inhaled and shook her head, reminding him angrily, ‘I’m the one missing two buttons.’

      It wasn’t until she saw the direction of his gaze that Sam realised that in pulling open her jacket to reveal the gaping section of her shirt she had also unintentionally revealed a section of smooth, pale midriff. With an indignant squeak she dragged the fabric of her jacket together.

      His smouldering eyes locked onto hers, and the simmering silence that stretched between them tore her already traumatised nerves to shreds.

      ‘Relax—they don’t rent rooms by the hour here. And besides, I keep a suite,’ he revealed casually.

      Relax? After what he had just said! Sam almost laughed. ‘You keep a suite…?’ she echoed incredulously. ‘You live in a hotel?’

      ‘Not live, obviously, but it is useful.’

      Sam, who didn’t see how a hotel off the beaten track in rural Cornwall could possibly be useful to a man who spent his time flitting from one European capital to another, looked sceptical. ‘How often do you actually use it?’

      ‘It varies. Twice…maybe three times…’ He began to look impatient with her interrogation.

      ‘A month…?’ It seemed shockingly extravagant and wasteful to Sam. But then she wasn’t a millionaire—or was that a billionaire…?

      ‘A year,’ he corrected, and her jaw dropped.

      ‘A year!’ She shook her head, unable to disguise her disapproval. ‘That must cost a fortune.’

      ‘You are lecturing me on fiscal imprudence…?’ His expression suggested the idea amused him.

      ‘It’s nothing to me how you choose to spend your money. You can burn it for all I care.’

      ‘If it makes you feel any better, I am joint owner of the hotel…a silent partner.’

      Sam looked at his hand, extended in a silent invitation for her to climb the shallow flight of steps that led to the porticoed entrance where a tall figure had emerged from the building. The woman, her grey hair tied back in a smooth knot at the nape of her neck, was wearing a silk shirt and tweed skirt.

      ‘What are you doing standing there?’ She peered over the top of her half-moon spectacles, subjecting Alessandro to a critical glare. ‘This poor child looks perished.’

      To Sam’s astonishment, far from going into one of his haughty freeze-you-with-a-glance routines, Alessandro smiled—the sort of heart-flipping smile that he probably reserved for the select few he genuinely gave a damn about.

      The possibility that her own heart was utterly susceptible to the warmth of that smile brought a ferocious scowl to Sam’s face.

      She felt a hand in her back, propelling her up the steps, and heard him say, ‘Sorry, Smithie.’

       Smithie?

      Inside the wood-panelled hallway, which didn’t boast the usual reception desk, it was blissfully warm. The moment she stepped in, even before she had had an opportunity to register that the décor was ‘lived-in country house’, Sam was conscious of the warm, comfortable laid-back atmosphere. Despite the fact that her stress levels were off the scale, she felt some of the tension slip from her shoulders.

      While Alessandro warmly embraced the older woman Sam examined her surroundings curiously, conscious as she did so of the loud ticking of a grandfather clock set against the wall and of the distant murmur of conversation interspersed by the occasional laugh somewhere close.

      ‘You look marvellous, Smithie. Like a fine wine, you improve with age.’

      ‘One of the advantages of being an ugly young woman is that your face becomes more acceptably interesting as you get older.’ Pushing Alessandro away with a sharp admonition not to drip on the carpet, she turned her attention to Sam. ‘And who is this you have brought to see me?’

      Sam, still bemused at seeing Alessandro spoken to as though he were a grubby schoolboy, blinked as the interrogative blue eyes swept over her. The woman personified her mental image of a girls’ school headmistress—the sort that probably didn’t exist outside a film-maker’s imagination. She had the smallest and sharpest eyes she had ever seen. But I bet you don’t miss much, Sam thought as she endured the searching scrutiny.

      As Alessandro placed a hand lightly on her shoulder and drew her forward Sam caught sight of the crackling flames of an open fire through the open double doors to the right. ‘This is Miss Samantha Maguire.’

      Very conscious of the fingers on her shoulder, Sam nodded and flashing Alessandro a sideways glance, corrected him. ‘Sam.’

      ‘Well, hello, Sam Maguire. I’m Dorothy Smith—I manage the place.’

      ‘Smithie is the non-sleeping half of the partnership,’ Alessandro explained.

      Considering the amount of energy the older woman exuded, Sam wouldn’t have been surprised to learn she didn’t sleep at all!

      ‘My mother’s family have lived in this house for centuries. СКАЧАТЬ