The Trophy Husband

CHAPTER FOUR

'HEAVEN knows, Brian's entitled to an explanation. “You've behaved disgracefully!' JaniceDalton railed in angry condemnation. "The whole village is talking…and how do you think the Shorters feel about all this? They treated you like a daughter!'

'I'm sorry,' Sara whispered shakily.'

'You lied to me. You told me that you and Brian had decided that you couldn't get married; you didn't have the decency to tell me or him that there was another man involved!'

Say nothing, don't argue and the sooner it will blow over. But after three solid days of recriminations following the publication of that wretched photo of her with Alex that belief was beginning to wear more than a little thin. It had not occurred to Sara when she'd decided to leave London and come home that she might find herself cast as the guilty partner. Brian was playing the martyr, the innocent… letting her take all the flak.

'Give it a rest, Ma.' Antonia appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing her sunniest and most generous smile. 'At least the wedding invitations weren't in the post.'

'I'll bring the washing in.' Sara headed for the back door with alacrity. When she hit the fresh air, she drank in deeply.

'Blood will out, it seems…' Her aunt's strained voice carried out through the window. 'But nobody could have been more careful than I was raising Sara…'

Sara moved out of earshot and began to take the washing off the line. It was a beautiful May day and she couldn't even appreciate it. She felt like a rat in a trap. The nightmare just seemed to go on and on. Antonia had driven down from London only an hour ago, perfectly groomed, blonde mane fresh from the hairdresser's, not a frazzled nerve in sight. Her cousin simply took it for granted that Sara would not dare to reveal the fact that she had found her in bed with Brian.

But then two wrongs did not make a right. Brian and Antonia's betrayal did not justify her own behaviour with AlexRossini. But she wasn't trying to excuse herself any more. One misjudged night would not bring her world to an end. What tormented her was the bitter knowledge that Alex's intrusion on the scene had turned what would have been a simple broken engagement into a positive disaster. Her aunt and uncle were outraged by the belief that she had deceived Brian and then dumped him in apparent pursuit of a rich tycoon. That the aforementioned rich tycoon had then seemingly abandoned her was her aunt's sole consolation. JaniceDalton liked to see bad behaviour rewarded by just desserts.

Alex… She tensed, a ground swell of uneasy confusion engulfing her. Sometimes running away was the only way to protect yourself. She did not regret walking out of Rossini Industries that same day. It had been the only possible solution. She had made an absolute ass of herself and that had hit her pride hard, but nobody had ever died from reaping a salutary lesson in common sense.

She couldn't handle AlexRossini. She couldn't handle a passion that smashed every safe boundary that she had ever observed. Alex had viewed her as an entertaining challenge. Alex had made her a target, amused by the unfamiliar cut and thrust of actually having to try and talk a woman into continuing to share his bed. But ultimately Alex had simply played the one winning card he did have… her undeniable desire for him.

It still appalled Sara that one rogue male could wreak that much havoc. Everything she'd thought she knew about herself had been ripped apart and put together again in a new arrangement that felt entirely alien…and all within the space of twenty-four hours. Little wonder that she had been guilty of such serious misjudgement; little wonder that she had been in turmoil, at the mercy of a seething sexual attraction which had betrayed her when she'd been desperate enough to seek any form of comfort.

'I knew you wouldn't tell tales…'

Sara spun from the low wall that separated the rambling garden from the fields. Antonia was standing a few feet away.

'Only because I didn't see that it would achieve anything but more distress all round.' Sara tilted her chin.

Antonia uttered a sharp little laugh. 'Brian won't even speak to me. He still thinks I made that phone call.'

'Of course you did,' Sara said drily, not having wasted one ounce of mental energy on that minor point.

'I didn't!' her cousin launched back at her furiously. 'I didn't make that call! Someone who knew about Brian and me obviously decided it would be fun to drop us in it! Maybe someone he works with, someone who saw us out together… I don't know… but it wasn't me!'

Sara didn't care who had made that call to the office. But she was grimly amused by her cousin's vociferous self-defence. Guilty of sleeping with Brian and guilty of complete absence of remorse, but not guilty of making that phone call.

'So tell me the true story about AlexRossini,' Antonia demanded.

'Why?'

'I could do with a laugh to lighten my day,' Antonia derided. 'Ma has to be out of her mind to imagine that Alex would look at you twice, never mind take you home for the night! AlexRossini wouldn't even give me the time of day the one time I met him. Why do you think I settled for Marco? I bet the most intimate thing you ever did for AlexRossini was take dictation over breakfast!'

Sara turned back to the wall and braced her hands on the worn stone. She thought of all the years that she had wasted trying to make a friend of Antonia, wondered now why she had bothered when she had been beaten from the outset. Antonia had never forgiven her for depriving her of her cherished only-child status in her family home. Even though her cousin had effortlessly continued to bask in the limelight constantly shone on her by her besotted parents, Sara had remained a bitterly resented intruder.

When Sara had begun dating Brian, the pairing had been popular with both families. Brian's mother loathed Antonia, had been seriously worried when her son had shown an interest in her, and had been seriously relieved when, after a decent interval, he'd switched his interest to Sara instead. As for her uncle and aunt… they liked Brian but would have been very disappointed had their beautiful daughter settled for him. They expected Antonia to marry into wealth and status.

That Sara should get married first had rather astonished the Daltons. But her aunt had thoroughly enjoyed all the fuss of the wedding arrangements and over the past year Sara had grown closer to her than ever before. It hurt now to see that stronger bond broken and at such a cost to everyone concerned. Only Antonia, self-centred as ever, stood clear of the fallout. But then Antonia never took responsibility for anything she did.

'Why did you do it?' Sara asked now, not really expecting a response.

'Brian doesn't love you, he loves me… he just hasn't, got the guts to admit it!' Antonia snapped, suddenly on the defensive.

Sara slowly turned, a frown of surprise etched between her brows.

'His mother hates me. She thinks I'm a tart. Brian does too… Why do you think he went for you? He wants me but he doesn't want me, so he played safe!'

Recognising the bitter resentment in Antonia's eyes, Sara was shaken. Ironically it had not occurred to her that her cousin might actually care about Brian. She had assumed that the entire episode had been yet another demonstration of Antonia's helpless need to smash anything which she herself valued. An act of spite and superiority.

'But there's only one thing I want to talk about,' Antonia continued angrily. 'Brian's acting like an idiot, chasing after you, refusing to have anything to do with me…but that's only because he's feeling guilty. Let him off the hook. Tell him you understand and that you accept that your engagement is over. I don't want him to feel trapped with me.'

'Trapped?' Sara echoed, not following.

Antonia looked unconvincingly coy and then shrugged a slim shoulder with quite unhidden self-satisfaction. 'I think I may be pregnant…'

'I think I may be pregnant…' It was like a body-blow to Sara. She went white. In an instant she learnt that her pain was not yet at an end. She had faced up squarely to their betrayal… but still the concept of Antonia pregnant with Brian's child could only make her feel sick. She had expected to have Brian's child.

'And I'm not telling him until he's stopped this stupid guilt trip about you!'

'I might as well have told tales…' Sara mumbled.

'No!' Antonia told her sharply. "There's no reason for anyone to know when I got caught. You take yourself off back to London. I will be seen consoling Brian and then we'll go abroad and get hitched on a beach somewhere without any fuss. Everyone will think we were madly impulsive but I doubt if they'll suspect it was a shotgun do!'

'You have it all worked out.' No humiliation for Antonia.

'Brian was mine,' her cousin said with flat emphasis. 'And I can't say sorry when I don't feel sorry. Just you make sure you tell him I didn't make that phone call.'

A hysterical laugh clogged Sara's throat. Antonia didn't only expect her to take the heat for her, she also expected her to intercede on her behalf with Brian. So her cousin wasn't as sure of Brian as she wanted to be. But then why else would she be pregnant? That, given Antonia's experience, was unlikely to be an accident. Dear Lord, for how long had they been meeting behind her back?

In the kitchen JaniceDalton was fussing frantically over a tea-tray. 'Brian and his parents have come over!' she said, tight-mouthed. 'What are your uncle and I supposed to say to them?'

Sara almost laughed but she was afraid that if she did she wouldn't be able to stop. Brian here?And with his parents in tow? She bad already heard all about how shocked and furious the Shorters were. Everyone was jumping on the same bandwagon. In the Dark Ages she'd have been dragged out to the village common and burnt as a witch for the sin of having offended so many people. Be careful of what you wish for in case you get it… Last week she had passionately hated her dull, 'nice girl' image; this week she would have given ten years of her life to have her reputation back, to be able to walk down the village street again without nudges, turned backs and coldly disapproving stares. Notoriety wasn't fun, not in a small, close-knit community where so many people reserved the right to stand in moral judgement.

The doorbell shrilled. Halfway down the polished hall she was intercepted by Brian as he emerged from the lounge. 'Sara… I had to see you. We have to sort this out.'

'Tell them the truth!' she gasped, incredulous at his persistence and attempting to drag her arm free of his hold.

'Why did you tell your aunt we were finished? Why the blazes did you have to get caught in that stupid photo with AlexRossini?' Brian demanded resentfully. 'Don't you realise what an idiot that's made me look? I know there's nothing going on between you and Rossini…there couldn't be…but it's made things even more complicated.'

The doorbell went again as if someone had a finger welded to the button. The piercing noise ground along her already jagged nerve-endings like a knife being sharpened.

'Let go of me,' Sara pleaded in despair, her voice shaking.

'I love you and I still want to marry you… If we don't talk, how are we going to work this out?'

Sara couldn't bear to listen to him. It was as if Brian was living in some fantasy world of his own. She tore herself free of his grasp with such force that she almost crashed against the front door. She hauled it open, her strained face a mask of desperation.

It was Alex. The shock of it rocked her back on her heels. But she experienced a flood of relief so powerful that it left her dizzy. She swayed, her head swimming. Strong arms reached out and caught her before her knees could buckle beneath her.

'What the hell has been going on here?' Alex demanded chillingly.

'Alex…' Sara whispered as she leant up against him, entirely supported by his superior strength and so grateful for his presence that she felt weak. 'Get me out of here… please!'

'Take your hands off her!' Brian raked at him after an astounded pause.

Alex ignored him. Swinging on his heel, he walked Sara out to a black Bugatti sports car, calmly slotted her into the passenger seat and murmured softly, 'I'll be back in a minute, cara.'

Sara snatched in an unsteady breath. Who do you think Alex is-some white knight riding gallantly to your rescue? a little voice asked drily. She shut the voice off. All she knew was that she had never been so glad to see anyone. At that moment it was more than enough.

She watched Alex emerge from the house again, couldn't even summon up the curiosity to wonder why he had gone back in. His black hair was ruffled by the breeze but so perfectly cut that it fell straight back into place. Dark eyes mirrored the sunlight-flashing gold against the hard symmetry of his masculine features. He looked quite extravagantly gorgeous in a pearl-grey suit that was very Italian in style. The overall effect was one of quite breathtaking elegance and sophistication. Who was she? she found herself wondering helplessly. Who was the woman who had walked away when Alex had laid his heart at her feet?

He swung in beside her. 'You have some preference about where you would like to go?'

'Anywhere…'

He laughed spontaneously. 'Dio, I timed my arrival well. I also have plans of my own…'

That was scarcely a revelation. Alex would always know exactly where he was going and what he was doing.; Unlike Brian…Brian, who she had once fondly believed to be strong, decisive and forthright, she reflected painfully. Right now Brian seemed lost in a turmoil of his own making, and he had been loyal to neither her nor Antonia. Had Brian come to her that day in her office and told her that he loved her cousin, she would have respected him more and understood him better.

'You've lost weight,' Alex remarked casually. * 'Scarlet women do.'

'You get much thinner and you'll slide through a grating. There wasn't a lot of you to begin with.'

Was she getting too thin? She glanced down anxiously at the slender curves filling out her pink cotton T-shirt and jeans, and for some reason also recalled that she had no makeup on. Her cheeks flushed. For goodness' sake! It wasn't as if she was out on a hot date! 'Why did you come down?' she asked.

'I missed you?'

'Try again.'

'I was a little worried about the effect of all the publicity?'

"The little-office-girl-makes-good bit… or the Alex-Rossini-goes-down-market bit?'

'If being with you is slumming, there's not an office girl in the City safe.' Alex casually tossed a newspaper onto her lap. 'Have you seen the latest?'

Sara stiffened. 'I thought I'd had my fifteen minutes of fame.'

With a sinking heart, she read the gossip column. TasminLaslo was reportedly furious to learn that she had been replaced by a woman she described as 'an impertinent little typist', and the actress had gone on to share the news that the same typist had called her employer 'a slick, womanising swine'.

'I said it,' Sara whispered sickly. 'I said it that day when she phoned… that she was well rid of you.'

'Honesty got the better of you?'

'You have every right to be angry with me,' Sara conceded tautly.

'It was a fair assessment of my character to date. I don't give a damn, but if I know Tasmin she'll find a way to make this story run and run.'

Yet even in receipt of that daunting assurance Sara could feel a sense of calm stealing over her for the first time in days. It was the most incredible relief to escape the hothouse pressure and angry tensions of the Dalton household.

'Antonia's pregnant.' It leapt straight out of her subconscious onto her tongue.

Alex burst out laughing. Sara dealt him a stunned look.

'Sorry, cara. That was not very kind of me… but it does cross one's mind that, whatever else she is, she's a remarkably determined young woman.'

'Brian doesn't know yet. Of course, when he does… he'll leave me alone.'

'Is that what you want?'

'Yes… absolutely,' Sara returned, fiercely defensive on that point.

'I suspect the heat is already off you,' Alex delivered smoothly. 'When I went back into the house, I told them.'

Her seat belt pulled tight as Sara's back jerked blade-straight. 'Told them what?'

'I only wanted to make myself known to your family. Under fire, you surely did not expect me to pose: alongside you as a martyred miscreant?'

Sara's jaw dropped as she gazed back at him wide-eyed. 'What did you tell them?'

'I merely pointed out that our relationship only began after you discovered that your fianc6 and your cousin had been seeing each other behind your back. I was far kinder to them than they were to you,' Alex imparted, quite untouched by her consternation. 'I did not refer to the fact that you found them between the sheets. I find it quite impossible to comprehend why you should have felt the need to protect them in the face of the kind of treatment you have obviously been receiving.':: 'It'll devastate my aunt and uncle-'

'Let them be devastated. She is their daughter and you are not her keeper.'

'You had no right to tell them!' Sara gasped.

'In the light of what I overheard before I entered the room, I enjoyed telling them. Your cousin staged a most unconvincing faint. Your ex put on a fetching impression of a trout on a hook. And then, as I was withdrawing to leave them all to it, the rather large blonde woman in the pearls made a decidedly offensive remark about your cousin's morals… something which rankled so severely that your cousin literally couldn't take it lying down.' Alex's accented drawl trembled with betraying amusement. 'She came up out of her faint like a vampire rising from the tomb and began screeching at the top pf her voice!'

'Quite priceless entertainment, I gather?' But Sara's own voice had developed an involuntary wobble; She was genuinely shocked by Alex's sublime indifference to the feelings of everyone concerned but the picture that he had drawn was so vivid, so innately rich with black comedy that she couldn't help the ripple of amusement which briefly gripped her.

'You see, bellamia… you can laugh and smile again,' Alex murmured with satisfaction.

'Even when I hate myself for it? Even when I have no right to feel superior to Brian and Antonia?' she muttered feverishly. 'The same day… I slept with you.'

'But you would never have done that had you still considered yourself morally bound to him. You're too loyal. Nor can I believe that you would have practised such deceit as they did.'

'You could talk me right out of my conscience,' Sara whispered.

'It might be an improvement if you stopped behaving like a schoolgirl fresh out of a convent. Nobody's perfect,' Alex reminded her, taking some of the sting out of that initial statement.

'I owe Antonia's parents a great deal. If they hadn't given me a home when I was five, I would have gone into care. They took me in and brought me up just as if I was their own child.'

'Liar. I saw a dozen photos of her decorating the room, none whatsoever of you. They are comfortably off yet you left school at sixteen and made your own way in life.

''My choice. You couldn't have expected them to do more. My aunt didn't even particularly want to take me on. I'm illegitimate,' Sara pointed out stiffly. 'Not so uncommon these days.' 'My father was a Greek waiter.'

'Rich, warm Mediterranean blood… do I apologise for mine?' Alex elevated an ebony brow with decided hauteur.

Sara was betrayed into a rueful laugh. 'I wasn't apologising-'

'You were. How did your parents meet?'

'My mother was on holiday. She was only out there a week. She was twenty-one,' Sara told him. 'Nobody wanted her to keep me but she did. So they told her she could manage on her own… It's fair enough that they weren't exactly over the moon when I landed back on, their doorstep. My grandparents were too old to take me!on. Antonia was only a year older. My aunt and uncle stepped in. They didn't have to.'

Alex made no comment. Sara rested her head back, the tension draining out of her, her limbs slowly sinking into relaxation. 'As usual I'm not asking where we're going.'

'You don't really care.'

Her skin reddened. 'No…I'm just grateful for a break.'

'I don't want gratitude, cara.'

An odd chill ran down her spine. As she watched the countryside flying by she never forgot for one moment that she was sitting beside AlexRossini. Her awareness of him was so intense that she couldn't hide from it. The frozen front that she had once contrived to put up in his presence was now quite impossible to maintain.

'We're almost there.' Alex swung off the road and drove down a long, tree-lined lane past a Gothic gatehouse.

'Where is "there"?' She tested a smile, found it was not so difficult as she had imagined it would be.

'Ladymead Hall. It's on the market and I have an

appointment to view it.'

'You want a house in the country?'

'A base within easy reach of London.'Alex brought the powerful car to an abrupt halt before it hit a string of potholes. There was already a Mercedes parked ahead of them.

Sara gazed out at the mellowed brick frontage of the Elizabethan manor house. Interest flickered and then slowly flamed. She climbed out. Sunlight glinted off the mullioned windows, several of which were boarded up. The ancient building had the same sad air of neglect as the overgrown grounds.

'Do you want me to wait in the car?' Sara asked abruptly across the bonnet.

'Of course not.'Alex strolled forward to greet the suavely suited estate agent, but Sara changed course and walked over to the entrance, not wishing to intrude.

'We'll explore alone.' Rejoining her, Alex planted a glossy brochure carelessly in her hand. 'You can give me the feminine viewpoint.'

The interior was better preserved than the exterior had suggested. The great hall had a massive stone fireplace and a wonderful flagstone floor. From room to room Sara wandered silently by Alex's side, her rapt face taking in the intact linenfold panelling, the elaborate if filthy plasterwork on the ceilings. The kitchen still rejoiced in massive built-in dressers. She pictured an Aga…a green one…in the fireplace. No, not there-that old black range ought to be cleaned up and preserved, she decided. The Aga would have to go at the other end.

A mouse ran over her foot; she didn't notice it. She roamed industriously through the maze of little dirty rooms which ran off the kitchen, mentally labelling them-logs, laundry, cloakroom, boiler room, junk- and frowned in intense concentration when she ran out of labels. She climbed the lavishly carved oak staircase, her fingers lingering here and there on the elaborate exuberance of the Jacobean ornamentation. Not a single word passed her lips.

Finally, at the head of the long gallery, sunlight beaming in from the windows in diamond patterns, dust motes dancing in the air, Sara uttered a dreamy sigh of enchantment and then endeavored to be rationally judgmental for Alex's benefit. 'It's a very large house.'

'Do you think so? I thought it was rather modest,' Alex admitted softly.

Sara gazed out of a tall window and another smile curved her generous mouth. 'There's a topiary garden down there. I wonder if it could be saved? I suppose there once would have been a herb garden too.'

'An enormous amount of renovation would be required.'

Sara's head spun round, dismayed green eyes flying to him. 'You surely wouldn't let that put you off?'

'I have to confess that I would prefer to buy after someone else had done the dirty work.'

She thought of his immaculate Georgian house in London, the cool, contemporary decor of the few rooms that she had glimpsed, and nodded in rueful understanding.

'But I can see this as a family house… as a home,' Alex said, his accent feathering almost seductively over the syllables.

'Yes,' she sighed, thinking, Definitely not down Alex's street.

'Marry me and make it that…"

Her lashes flew up on stunned emerald eyes, her breath tripping in her throat. She stared back at him in a daze of disbelief.

'I want a wife, and…eventually…children.'Alex selected the last word with the same utterly complete calm. 'I also want you. We both appear to want the same things at this stage in our lives. Why should we not seek them together?'

The tip of her tongue stole out to moisten her full lower lip. Her mind was a total blank, and then she met Alex's dark golden gaze and the electrifying effect scorched along every nerve-ending, igniting a sudden surge of colour in her cheeks. She trembled, shattered by the immediacy of a response over which she had absolutely no control.

He took a prowling step closer. 'We already have the passion without which no marriage of convenience could hope to prosper. You want me, bellamia… do not be ashamed to admit that.'

'I can't believe that you want to get married-'

'I'm thirty-four, Sara…and I openly confess to having enjoyed my freedom for many years. However, women ate not the only ones who get the urge to settle down with one partner.'

'I know but-'

'A practical marriage and a civilised relationship-that is what I am offering you. Where there is no strong emotion there will be no pain either,' Alex pointed out, his night-dark eyes skimming over her troubled face. 'In short, I will not hurt you, Sara.'

Alex didn't want a wife who was madly in love with him. He didn't want to become the focus of emotions that he had no intention of returning. That made a cold kind of sense to her. Women in love could be very demanding creatures. A woman in love with a man who did not love her might easily become jealous, possessive and insecure if the inequality within the relationship began to threaten her self-respect.

'Why me…for heavens' sake?'Sara murmured not quite steadily. 'You hardly know me.'

'I beg to differ. You have worked for me for a year. I know you to be cool under pressure, efficient, something of a perfectionist and an excellent organiser. You y are more likely to be early for an appointment than late. You are respected and liked by your subordinates but regarded as rather reserved because you never participate in the office gossip.'

Sara was blushing fierily. 'I do hope you'll put all that in a reference for when I go job-hunting again. I sound like a model employee.'

'You were, but you were never ambitious in the career stakes.'

Sara turned away, her lower limbs feeling as if they were stuffed with cotton wool. 'No,' she conceded wryly.

'Which also suits my purposes. I travel a great deal. A wife with a demanding career of her own would have little time to spare for home and family in my absence.'

'Home and family'? Damn him, damn him, damn him for the calculating, coolly assured character assessor that he was! Alex knew what she had so lately lost, could only be aware of the strength of the lure that he was casting out to her when she was facing a wretchedly uncertain future, bereft of everything that she had expected to be hers.

'And, if you will forgive me for making the point, I believe I have also seen you at your worst.'

Her narrow back went rigid. 'Falling-down drunk and desperate?'

'You were still strong, still worthy of my respect… you threw no tantrums, wallowed in no self-pity and indulged in no vindictive outbursts. You behaved with remarkable self-restraint. I admired that.'

He had to be a lethal poker player. Sara had an insane image of herself going down on her knees and kissing his feet in gratitude for such assurances. But Alex had treated her with respect, consideration and understanding, without any overtones of superiority or pity. All those things Alex had given her and she had taken, not even truly valuing what she was receiving at the time.

Yet Brian, whom she had loved and trusted and believed in, had almost destroyed her. Brian… still talking about reconciliation with the arrogant and distasteful

conviction that no matter what he had done she would ultimately forgive him. Brian, coolly disparaging her worth with his incredulity that a male of Alex's wealth and importance could find her deserving of interest. She had never seen that conceit and egotism in Brian until now. There was a savage irony in making a comparison between two such radically different men, one whom she had adoringly placed on a pedestal and endowed with every conceivable virtue, the other whom she had disliked and misjudged and distrusted. She was ashamed of that now-ashamed that her gauche unease in Alex's disturbingly physical presence had led her into such unjustifiable prejudice.

'Alex… I can't deny that you're tempting me… but I don't think that I'm in a state of mind right now to be dealing with such a major decision,' Sara returned unsteadily, her jewel-like eyes unguarded and anxious.

'No doubt you feel that you don't know me well enough.'

'I know you well enough, Alex,' Sara said a little shyly, reflecting that while she had been at her worst Alex had been at his best. 'And the one thing this mess with Brian has taught me is that even though I've known him almost all my life I didn't really know him at all when the chips were down. I didn't suspect that he was still attracted to Antonia and I didn't once notice anything odd in his behaviour, but then, as you said, love makes you take people for granted, gives you a false, rosy picture and too many high-flown ideas. Was it like that for you- I mean with…?'

'Elissa?Naturally. At that age I was a great romantic. But the pain fades… I can assure you of that,' he replied very drily.

Elissa-lovely name, she thought abstractedly as she gazed at Alex's chiselled golden profile. He was so very, very good-looking that even at a time like this, when it was so important that she should not be distracted, she was.

'You're a very rich man,' Sara pointed out in some embarrassment. 'There must be loads of women… you know… who would be much more suitable than me…" Alex dealt her a cynically amused smile. 'But you are very special, cara. My embarrassment of riches did not tempt you an inch away from your moral standards last week. I liked that too. I would not like to be marriedj solely on the basis of what I can deliver materially.'

It crossed her mind that Alex believed he had her so well taped that she would provide him with no unwelcome surprises. Perhaps all that she had despised in herself a mere week ago was ironically Alex's standard of what his wife should be. An old-fashioned home-' maker with traditional values, highly unlikely to take off with the chauffeur one day, or announce that pregnancy might ruin her figure, or make spoilt-rich-girl demands! on a male who was very much accustomed to having everything go his way.

'I don't know what to say…'

'You say yes.' Alex stretched out his hands and she reached for them, helplessly revelling in the warmth of physical contact.. 'It would be crazy.'

'If you think that, my talents as a negotiator must be failing.'

Alex was a brilliant negotiator, pulling off the kind of stunning deals which made his competitors howl in anguish. But to negotiate a marriage proposal seemed so…so cold. Hurriedly she squashed the suspicion. There was nothing cold about the male arms relentlessly tugging her closer, nothing cold about utilising intelligence and cool, calm forethought in so important a field as choosing a life partner, she told herself.

'I can't think straight…'

He laughed softly, dark eyes flashing gold with innate male satisfaction. He knew why she was in such a con-dition, knew that he could draw her, unresisting andj quivering, into contact with every hard, muscular line of his length and extract a response that she had not yet learned to control.

With a shapely hand he stroked a silky strand of black hair back from her brow. Her heartbeat was racing like crazy, her breasts lifting within a light cotton bra which suddenly felt unbearably restrictive. 'I also like the fact that I excite you…' Alex purred.

A flush of horribly self-conscious heat marked out her slanted cheekbones as he glanced down at the thrusting evidence of her stiffened nipples poking through the cotton jersey. 'Don't be shy,' he reproved her, leaning her back against the wall, sliding his hands below the T-shirt to skim caressingly up over the smooth skin of her taut ribcage.

Sara stopped breathing, held still by the smoulder of his golden eyes. With breathtaking cool, he flipped the bra out of his path. Her breasts sprang full and heavy into his shaping hands. Sensation fired a bitter-sweet ache between her thighs. She trembled. His thumbs grazed the achingly sensitive buds and she moaned and jerked, looking down at her wantonly bare flesh in mingled disbelief and excitement.

His dark head lowered. He ran the tip of his tongue along her full lower lip and then, with innately erotic precision, intruded sexily into the moist interior already invitingly opened to him. A stifled moan was torn from her, her hands rising of their own volition and clutching at his shoulders to prevent her sliding down the wall in an inelegant heap of shuddering responsiveness.

'If you don't become my wife, I'll make you my mistress,' Alex warned softly. 'I am not going to go away, not about to politely withdraw in gentlemanly defeat.' He straightened, expertly replaced her disarranged clothing. Sara was shaking but not so controlled by the dissastisfied ache of her shamefully willing body that she was deaf to the message he wanted her to receive. Angry humiliation leapt up in place of passion. She stepped back and flung him a look of warning. 'If you ever do that tome again, Alex, I'll slap your face-hard! I am not some brainless little toy you can play with and I'm not a wind-up doll either. I will not be controlled

or manipulated by you!'

'But you will marry me.'

The conviction with which he made that assurance threw Sara even further off balance.

'I… I need to think about it,' she muttered unevenly.

'Back in that madhouse? How could you think there? I want an answer now,' Alex declared. 'Yes or no will suffice… for this round.'

She wrenched her eyes from him, struggled to risq above the quite startling temptation to tell him to take his proposal and jump off a cliff. Her brain told her that she was too emotionally charged up right now to make a level-headed decision but every other natural prompting urged blind, immediate acceptance.

Alex was offering her everything that she had ever wanted on terms that she could fulfil, and on one level there was a part of her, which she tried and failed to overcome, that was helplessly, deeply influenced by the knowledge that Alex wanted her and valued her. That awareness was balm to her salvaged ego and Alex was offering her an unbelievably welcome escape from a situation that was threatening to become quite intolerable.

'Yes.' The instant she said it she almost retracted it again, but then she thought of how it would feel to stand on the sidelines while Antonia married Brian. She would be an object of pity, the spectre at the feast, the onlooker who embarrassed everyone. In one small family there was no room for the rejected bride and her replacement. Why put herself through such humiliation? Nobody could possibly feel sorry for AlexRossini's chosen wife… could they?