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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      If she had glimpsed even a shadow of that younger man Sam thought her attitude to him might have softened, but she hadn’t, and when a few moments later she’d knocked a hymn book to the floor and alerted him to her presence she had looked away quickly.

      ‘I saw a programme about the accident last night,’ she said now.

      Jonny nodded. ‘Yeah, Alessandro phoned Kat and told her not to watch it. He said it was sensationalist rubbish and would only upset her.’

      ‘And did she watch it?’

      ‘After he’d told her not to?’ Jonny laughed at the notion of Kat not following her brother’s suggestion.

      ‘Well, he may be a control freak, but in this instance,’ Sam admitted, ‘he was right. It would have upset her. It was a bit graphic.’ A chilly shiver traced a path down her spine as she recalled the bleak devastation in the eyes of the man they had called lucky.

      ‘I suppose he’s afraid it will resurrect the story.’

      ‘How old was Kat at the time?’ Jonny’s wife had only been nineteen when they’d married, after a whirlwind romance.

      ‘She was eleven. She would have been with them on the trip, but she spiked a fever at the last minute…turned out she had mumps.’

      ‘Lucky mumps,’ Sam said thinking about the moment that morning in church, when her eyes had brushed Alessandro’s. Her smooth brow furrowed. Jonny’s wrong. He doesn’t like me. Her chin came up to a belligerent angle.

       Which suits me fine!

      Her grim expression lightened as Laurie’s fingers closed over the beaten silver pendant she wore around her neck and she tried to draw it to her rosebud mouth. Sam, grateful to be distracted from her thoughts, disentangled the tenacious chubby fingers and shook her head.

      ‘No, Laurie, it wouldn’t taste good,’ she reproached.

      Jonny’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. ‘Feeling broody, Sam?’

      The question sounded teasing and light, but something in his voice made Sam lift her head and study his face. ‘Broody—me…?’ Jonny smiled, but she noticed it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I prefer babies when you can hand them back at the end of the day.’ Not true, but it sounded like a suitable response. She could hardly go with the other option, which was to say If I can’t have your babies I don’t want any!

      ‘You think that now, but all women start talking babies.’

      Sam received a jolt as his meaning sank in. Jonny a father…It would happen one day, so get used to it. ‘Are congratulations in order?’

      Jonny didn’t respond to her question. Following the direction of his distracted gaze, Sam saw his eyes had come to rest on Kat.

      Feeling like an intruder, Sam quickly averted her gaze, trying and failing to imagine a man looking at her with the kind of suppressed longing she had read in Jonny’s face. She caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the enormous gilt-framed mirror that covered the wall to her right and thought, Sure—that’s really going to happen. It was a fact of life that freckles, red hair and a body that was never going to be curvy did not inspire dumbstruck lust and longing.

      ‘Congratulations?’ Jonny dragged his attention back to Sam.

      ‘I thought you and Kat might be starting a family.’

      Her innocuous remark caused Jonny’s good-looking features to freeze. ‘I’m not ready to start a family.’

      Meaning Kat was…? Sam speculated, puzzling over his expression. ‘I thought you loved children…’

      Not that she could for a second imagine Jonny as a handson father. Though he had many good points, Jonny did have some pretty old-fashioned ideas.

      ‘This isn’t a good time.’

      ‘Is there ever a good time?’

      Dark colour flooded Jonny’s face as he bent closer. ‘For God’s sake, Sam,’ he hissed. ‘Do I have to spell it out? You of all people should realise that I can’t afford to be thinking of babies. And I can’t tell Kat…’ He swallowed, drew a deep breath and shook his head. The strained smile he gave her was ruefully apologetic. ‘Sorry, Sam. I shouldn’t take it out on you.’ Absently he patted her shoulder. ‘Could I have a word, Sam?’

      He looked so apologetic that she immediately forgave his outburst. ‘Isn’t that what we are doing?’

      Jonny cleared his throat and nodded towards the closed French doors. ‘In private.’

       You can have anything you want.

      Her colour slightly heightened by her traitorous thought, Sam nodded placidly and reminded herself for the tenth time that afternoon that she was a strong, independent woman who didn’t need a man—and, anyway, she wasn’t the sort of person who would settle for second best.

      In the alcove, where he had retreated to watch them, Alessandro Di Livio tightened his long fingers around the stem of his untouched glass of champagne as he observed his brother-in-law’s head move closer to the glossy copper one of the seated woman.

      They were so close they looked like lovers about to embrace. He couldn’t give the man his sister had chosen a backbone, but he could make damned sure that he didn’t cheat and break his besotted little sister’s heart!

      God knew what either woman saw in him. Maybe it was the surfing thing? He presumed, from the cabinet of trophies ostentatiously on show in his sister’s apartment, that the younger man had been more successful riding the waves than he was at business. Perhaps the younger man could have coped with one store, he conceded, but his rapid and reckless expansion over the past eighteen months had been nothing short of suicidal. The only thing that surprised Alessandro, who had been set to bail him out for the past year, was that he was still financially afloat.

      His sensually sculpted lips formed a twisted, cynical smile as the Maguire woman lifted her hand in a fluttery gesture to her slender, pale throat. The action was as revealing as he had come to expect of her, but he couldn’t quite decide if she was as transparent as she appeared, or if it was all part of some sort of act.

      Alessandro’s nostrils flared. If Jonny Trelevan didn’t know she was his for the asking the younger man was an even bigger fool than he’d taken him for. His eyes slid towards his sister, who had been talking too loudly and brightly all afternoon, and found she too was watching the couple. As he watched she turned her head, and he was sure he caught the glitter of tears in her eyes.

      Whatever was wrong with his sister’s marriage, he would have laid odds that the red-headed little witch was responsible. What was her game? Alessandro wondered as he angled his dark head a little to one side and studied the slim figure.

      If asked to classify her look he would have called it sexy, yet demure. Not to his taste, but he knew a lot of men went for the perennial virgin look. She was the sort of female who simultaneously aroused predatory and protective instincts in the opposite sex.

      No wonder men got confused around her. They didn’t СКАЧАТЬ