The Trophy Husband

CHAPTER SEVEN

HER cheeks as pink as wild roses, her heartbeat thundering at the foot of her throat, Sara crossed the floor of the echoing salon. The sheer grandeur of the vast reception room overpowered her.

'I thought we would dine out this evening,' Alex drawled. 'Would you like a drink before we leave?'

Sara shook her head in a quick, nervous motion, glossy streamers of ebony hair falling forward as she stole a glance down at the little black dress which had seemed the last word in sophistication when she'd bought it a week earlier. Now, set against the splendour of her surroundings, with Alex in a superb white dinner jacket, she had the suspicion that if she added an apron she would be easily mistaken for a waitress. She hovered, waiting for him to say something about the cheque, which she had immediately returned by the same method he had employed to deliver it.

Alex drained his crystal glass and set it down. 'Shall we go, then?'

Her teeth gritted. Was it for this response that she had spent an entire afternoon agonising upstairs? She had been so angry that she hadn't trusted herself to go near him, had deemed it wiser to take stock and cool down. 'That cheque…' she began stiltedly.

'I've opened an account for you instead. An honest exchange, you said.' Alex sent her a cool dark glance. 'Now that we understand each other I see no need for the commercial element to be discussed again.'

Sara drew in a deep breath, her heart lurching behind her breastbone. 'Alex… do you want a divorce?'

In the act of moving towards the door, Alex stopped dead and swung abruptly back to her.

'Because if that is what all this is about, why don't you just say so?' Sara continued, green eyes flashing like jewels against her pallor. 'I mean, let's not beat around the bush here, Alex. I have already received the message that I am a big disappointment and that nothing I have done over the last month has met with your approval-'

'I don't want a divorce.' His strong face was clenched hard, his dark gaze diamond-bright.

'Well, right now I just want to swim back to the airport,' Sara confided with an uneven little laugh, her stomach churning with nausea. 'I see "MISTAKE" looming in letters ten feet tall over that ceremony yesterday. I'm so very sorry for falling for the house you dangled like bait for my benefit… but I did not agree to marry you because you were rich! And until you wrote that cheque it didn't seriously occur to me that you could even think I could be that greedy. But if this is what you call marrying well I'm afraid you can blasted well keep it, Alex!'

As her voice fractured, betraying her distress, she spun away and began walking fast towards the door. But Alex moved faster, tugging her back to him with lean, determined hands. Closing his arms round her from behind, he expelled his breath in a pent-up hiss. 'I owe you an apology,' he grated roughly.

Sara was rigid. She squeezed her stinging eyes shut and trembled. So much pain-more pain than she had ever experienced, and that in itself was frightening. How did she say to him that she did have feelings for him but that she didn't know where they had begun or indeed even what they were but that the concept of losing him filled her with panic? And she couldn't even say that she liked him because, right now, she didn't like Alex at all. The cruelty of that cheque when he must surely have known that she was talking nonsense in her distress earlier-well, that kind of cruelty was utterly foreign to Sara's nature. It scared her to feel in any way dependent on a male who could behave like that.

'It was my pride,' Alex confessed in a savage undertone as he bent his head down over hers. 'No woman has ever treated me with such indifference.'

'It wasn't indifference. You weren't there. It was all like a dream… coming up to the wedding,' she explained jerkily. 'We didn't feel real but the house did. And you were so distant on the phone…I felt awkward. I didn't know what you expected from me-' 'Too much.'

Her soft mouth wobbled and then compressed. 'I wanted you to be there. Too bad if you don't want to hear that-'

'Dio… it's exactly what I want to hear.' 'Is it?' she gulped.

'Even workaholics like to be missed now and again.' An uncertain shiver of amusement rippled through Sara as Alex spun her round to face him again.

He gazed down at her, and a long forefinger followed the silvery path of a tear stain on her cheek before taking a detour to the tremulous softness of her lower lip. There he lingered to trace that sensitive fullness. Her breath got snarled up in her throat, her slender body tautening in involuntary response to the sizzling sexual energy emanating from him. 'If I'd known, I'd have flown you out,' he remarked reflectively. 'You wouldn't have seen much of me by day but at least we would have had the nights.'

Maybe all men had a one-track mind, Sara found herself thinking, with a regret that was not for sharing. It would have been more of a compliment if Alex had contrived to think of something other than the sexual benefits of her company. But then perhaps she was also guilty of expecting too much too soon. A marriage of convenience had to start somewhere, she reminded herself squarely.

'I wasn't using you,' Sara whispered feverishly, struggling to put her thoughts in order but finding it impossible. All she could really feel was enormous relief that the cold gulf that he had imposed between them had been bridged. 'You were there and I… needed you.'

His dark face tautened. 'And I need you now, cara.' Alex delivered the words with another meaning entirely as he dropped one hand down to the swell of her hips and arranged her into more intimate contact with his powerful thighs. A clenching sensation low in the pit of her stomach made her jerk as she felt the hard thrust of his manhood. Her knees suddenly had all the consistency of jelly and her hands flew up to grip his shoulders. 'A month is a very long time for me.'

And dinner was now a long way off, she sensed, her cheeks burning fierily. With a husky laugh of satisfaction, Alex raked shimmering golden eyes of desire over her and suddenly swept her off her feet and up into his arms. 'You still blush like a virgin,' he teased, starting towards the door.

She felt hot all over when he put her down again in the bedroom and slid down the zip on her dress. This is all right, she told herself urgently; this is normal, natural, healthy behaviour. We're married. It's OK to want him so much that you're ashamed of yourself. It is not OK to start imagining you're just a sex object again. Narrow-minded prudes are boring.

The dress pooled round her feet. She resisted an instinctive urge to cover herself. Alex's gaze locked with hers. His sensual mouth slashed into a knowing smile.

She broke breathlessly into speech. 'Alex, I-'

But, reaching for her, he bent his dark, well-shaped head and silenced her with the heat of his hungry mouth. And the ground shifted below her feet. He kissed her and there was nothing but him and the hot, swirling darkness behind her lowered eyelids. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him back with all the helpless urgency of her own need, her heartbeat a wild thunder in her ears, the blood in her veins pulsing at supersonic speed. She was dizzy when he lifted his head again, her passion-glazed eyes clinging to his.

He undid the catch on her lacy white bra and she stopped breathing altogether as he curved a hand round the pointed swell of one bared breast and brushed his thumb across its pouting pink nipple. A whimper of sound escaped low in her throat as an electric jolt of pleasure shot through her, the distended peaks of her breasts achingly sensitive to his awakening touch. He backed her down onto the bed, stood over her while he undressed. Smouldering golden eyes raked over her and be smiled with satisfaction.

'You always wanted me,' he said. I Her mind locked back into gear. 'No…'

But the accusation lingered and sent her memory flying back through countless uneasy encounters when she had dipped her eyes, turned her head and closed her mind even to an admission of what she was doing. She had blocked Alex out over and over again-so often that it had become a habit never, ever to relax around him, always to feel strained, threatened…

'You had iron self-discipline… and you were stubborn. You knew the attraction was there between us but you wouldn't admit it. It drove me crazy,' Alex told her, peeling off his shirt without once removing his intent gaze from her bemused face. 'I was afraid to make a move in case you walked out. You kept a wall between us, you never came close… you never touched me, not even accidentally.'

Involuntarily she recalled innumerable instances of her own pronounced caution in his radius. Remembering scared her. It was scary to accept that all along her body had been conscious of this powerful attraction but that her mind had resisted even acknowledging it until that day when he had walked into her office and she had told herself that she was not susceptible. That had been her first conscious admission of what Alex could make her feel. 'I didn't know,' she muttered

'You do now.' Alex folded himself lithely down on the bed beside her and tugged her into his arms, and the thinking stopped there as if he had pushed a button. Her nostrils flared with the scent of him and she trembled as his long, lean muscularity connected with her. She met his eyes and burned in the defenceless heat of anticipation, her breasts rising and falling with the quickening of her breathing, excitement stirring so fast again that it took her by storm.

He lowered his head and let the tip of his tongue graze a rose-pink bud, skimming a hand up over the tautness of her quivering ribcage, discovering the thunder of her racing heartbeat as her whole body leapt in response to that tiny caress.

'Alex…' she gasped.

'Feeling like this is special, bellamia,' he muttered raggedly. 'Dio… you are so beautiful.'

With unsteady fingers she caressed his cheekbone, wanting, wanting him so much that it was like a pain inside her as her thighs tightened on the ache in her loins. His eyes narrowed with smoky desire and then he curved his hands round her pale breasts, touching, inciting her pouting nipples before he dropped his mouth there and tugged at the tormented peaks with an erotic precision that engulfed her in a scorching surge of sensation. Her fingernails dug into the hard muscles of his back and then pushed through his hair as her body rose up to his of its own volition, tiny little gasps of sensual pleasure tearing free from deep in her throat.

His fingers stroked the smooth skin of her inner thigh, mounting higher by torturous degrees that made her clutch at him in involuntary protest, drag him up again, find his mouth again for herself and exult in the hungry thrust of his tongue. He skimmed a finger over the satin mound of her bikini pants so that she twisted and moaned under his mouth in a sweet agony of desperate need. And then the frustrating barrier was gone and he was expertly exploring the honeyed dampness beneath, sending her swerving violently out of control, every muscle screaming with tension as her heartbeat hammered.

Now…'Alex groaned when she was on the brink of an intolerable excitement.

Her gaze collided blindly with his and then he pulled her up to receive him and drove into her hard and fast and her head fell back and she cried out with the hot, torturous pleasure of that penetration, her body yielding to the forceful possession of his. He moved again with sinuous eroticism and the pleasure increased to such unbearable limits that she lost herself entirely. With every tormenting stroke he took her higher and her nails raked down his smooth back as her spine arched and the sunburst heat in her loins suddenly expanded, every muscle clenching in response as she went flying over the edge into a release that convulsed her in violent waves.

In the aftermath she clung to him, recalling the won-drously intimate feel of him shuddering with that same satisfaction in the circle of her arms. A glorious sense of well-being enclosed her. She was at peace, perfectly at peace, until she became aware of the intense happiness which was fostering that quiet contentment. It was that unquestionable feeling of joy which shook Sara the most.

Alex rolled over, carrying her with him, and her arms instinctively tightened round his hot, damp, sleekly muscled length because… because she didn't want to let him go. Concealed by the wild tumble of her hair as she rested her cheek against his shoulder, her eyes flew wide at that alarming awareness. She also recognised within herself a surge of raw feminine possessiveness and that made her shiver in shock.

'Cold?'Alex tugged the sheet up carefully over her shifted again beneath her, like a cat stretching in sunlight. She knew that he was smiling. 'Much better without the brandy,' he murmured huskily.

Sara tensed. 'I wasn't drunk.'

'But you weren't quite sober either,' Alex interposed with rueful emphasis. 'I promised you that you could trust me that night. I wasn't lying when I said that, bellamia. But I overestimated the limits of my self-control. I didn't really care why you wanted me. It was enough that you did.'

One crazy night, Sara thought, and it had changed her life. 'Why all the flowers?' she whispered curiously.

'Guilt,' he said succinctly.

'Guilt?' She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked up at him with a frown.

His expressive mouth twisted. 'I wasn't expecting it to be your first time, cara. For a woman that is a significant event and you weren't a teenager any more, you were twenty-three, which suggested that abstention had been a deliberate policy. I didn't think you were likely to feel as reckless in the morning as you had the night before.'

'You were right.' Her creamy skin turned pink and if she hadn't still been too shy to discuss their intimacy of that night she might have told him that he had made it a very significant event. Even in her angry turmoil of regret, she had known that Alex had made their love-making feel special. But then why not?she reflected ruefully. Alex was a very experienced lover. At a tender nineteen, an age when she had still been at the stage of fumbling kisses on doorsteps, Alex had been living in no doubt very exciting sin with an older woman. Who had seduced whom? she wondered, and then suppressed the thought, scolding herself for such tasteless, inappropriate curiosity.

Alex absorbed the distant look in her green eyes. His dark scrutiny glittering, he lifted her away from him and tumbled her carelessly down onto a cool patch in the spacious bed as he slid out of it. 'I'm hungry, cara. There's still plenty of time to make dinner.'

His abrupt withdrawal sharply disconcerted Sara. She watched him stroll into the bathroom, stared in consternation at the scratches marring the smooth, bronzed perfection of his back and dropped her head again, the warmth of that curious joy inside her ebbing fast. She began to wonder fearfully if the only time she would feel secure and important to Alex was when he was in bed with her, satisfying his desire.

But why should she need more security? Hadn't she agreed to what Alex had termed 'a practical marriage'? She couldn't expect to move the goalposts now, mustn't start to look for the kind of affectionate extras that only came naturally with love. This was a male who gave flowers out of guilt. The beribboned baskets had not been the attempted romantic gesture that she had dimly and foolishly imagined them to be. Romance was out of the question too. Sex was in, sentiment was out.

He had been very honest about that. Alex valued that quality of emotional detachment in a relationship. And very possibly that was why he had married a woman in love with another man. Had it ever crossed his mind that that same woman might have fallen right back out of love again without even knowing it? Had it ever occurred to him that a woman who had been hurt and humiliated and then pursued by a fantastically handsome, sexy and strong male might find the image of her disappointing first love wholly obscured by his own?

For that, Sara registered dazedly, was what had happened. Brian's presence at their wedding had filled her with only a great deal of self-conscious embarrassment. She had felt no bitterness, no jealousy of Antonia and no regret. It had been Alex who'd consumed her thoughts. It had been Alex who'd taught her the meaning of desire, Alex who'd overshadowed Brian to such an extent that within the space of a day her former fiancé had inspired her with nothing but a need to run the other way.

But no, she wasn't foolish enough to start imagining that she was falling in love with Alex now. She was bound to feel some sort of attachment to him, she reasoned fiercely. After all, they were married; they were lovers. She understood perfectly what was happening inside her mind. A kind of natural bonding to Alex was taking place… only there had been nothing remotely bonding about the manner in which he had literally dumped her off him just now!

Her teeth clenched as she thrust her wildly tousled hair out of her flashing eyes. Her trophy husband indeed' Her perfect hero! He satisfied one appetite and immediately thought of the next. No, he needn't worry too much about inciting her to feelings of forbidden love and devotion!

'First love?'

Sara's nose wrinkled. 'You'll laugh…'

'I won't.'

'OK…1 was fifteen. It was a crush, all that moony love-from-afar stuff,' Sara muttered dismissively. 'I saw him every day for weeks when I was walking home from school. He was part of the road gang who built the bypass. You said you wouldn't laugh!' In hot-cheeked reproach, Sara threw a grape at Alex, which he caught one-handed and crushed slowly between even white teeth while he endeavoured to silence his mirth. 'He was very fanciable when he took his shirt off.'

Alex tilted his tousled dark head back, a vibrant smile curing his sensual mouth. 'Beefcake appeal, bellamia? I'm surprised at you.'

'Are you really?' Widening dancing green eyes, Sara treated him to a slow, sweeping survey that started at his broad, bronzed shoulders, slid down over his magnificent torso to his narrow waist and finally ended at the muscular, darkly haired thigh half-exposed by the tangled bedsheets.

'Funny, I would say that in that department I haven't changed one bit.'

Alex reached out, knotted a punitive lean hand into her torrent of hair and drew her down to him. 'Vixen,' he reproved her softly, brushing his mouth provocatively across the swollen fullness of hers, and her heart skipped an entire beat, a familiar tide of immediate hunger washing over her, leaving her weak.

It didn't matter how often Alex made love to her. She had found that out over the past two weeks. Alex could awaken that wanting at will. She had stopped trying to fight it. The blood sang in her veins with a wanton anticipation that could still make her blush. As she curved into the hard heat of him, she felt the thrusting readiness of his arousal against her and the ache between her thighs intensified shamelessly. He kissed her breathless, then pinned her willing body under him with an earthy groan of satisfaction and sent her out of her mind with pleasure all over again.

'It's getting late!' Alex sprang out of bed, ruthlessly hauled the sheet from her warm, drowsy flesh. 'We're going out,' he reminded her mockingly.

Minutes later she stood under the shower trying to wake up again, envying Alex his electrifying energy. She looked dazedly back on days which had flown by in a whirl of constant activity. Alex seemed to need to busily fill every waking moment they shared. But why had she ever worried that she had made a mistake when she'd married him? she asked herself now.

Alex had the power to make her feel incredibly special. Alex had plunged her into a luxurious life of complete indulgence, and nobody had ever indulged Sara's wants and wishes before. Being spoilt, she had discovered, took a lot of getting used to but it had certainly done wonders for her shaky self-esteem. She had reeled dizzily through day after wonderful day of Alex's exclusive attention.

First he had taken her shopping. Now she had a wardrobe stuffed with gorgeous designer clothes, most of them outfits that she wouldn't have dared even to look at had not Alex insisted, and for the first time Sara found herself taking a real pride in her appearance. 'Such a shame that Sara's so plain,' she had heard her grandmother complain once after fondly admiring her other grandchild's blue-eyed blonde prettiness. Sara had never felt beautiful in her life until Alex had said that she was, and, secure in the conviction that in his eyes she was not unattractive, she was beginning to see herself in a very different light.

He took so much interest in her, in every tiny thing about her. He had had to dig through all the layers of her conviction that she was a deeply boring person to get her to open out without apology or embarrassment. But he had persisted and he had listened. Was he always like this with her sex-a stunningly charismatic male who was highly attuned to the female psyche, who knew exactly what it took to make a woman feel not only desirable but also fascinating? Or was this current in-tensity more typical of Alex at the start of a new affair…before the boredom set in? She hurriedly squashed that pessimistic thought flat.

'Wear the gold dress,' Alex suggested.

'Won't it be a bit… flashy?'

'I like flashy on you. And you owe me,' Alex drawled

teasingly.

'For what?'

'For destroying my appreciation of beauty with a year of ugly navy and brown suits.'

She laughed, caught the reflection of her own smile in a mirror as she dressed. There were stars in her eyes and she had a crazy, irrepressible feeling of happiness that was becoming more and more familiar with every day that passed. Quickly she looked away again. But there was no avoiding what was going on inside her heart Her head had nothing at all to do with it. Intelligence couldn't stop her pulses jumping every time Alex came within ten feet of her.

And if she was falling head over heels in love with her own husband it was not her fault, it was his. When a man made a woman feel this wonderful, what did he expect to earn in response? Cold, polite detachment? No doubt Alex wanted to make up for the rocky start of their marriage but, even so, he really did seem to care about her. He had to have cared to have asked her to marry him so quickly. He had to have wanted her an awful lot. It disconcerted Sara to realise that the manipulation that she had been so shocked by on their wedding day had now become something she hugged to herself as proof of the depth of Alex's desire for her.

'You look incredibly sexy…'

She turned. Cut on the bias, the fluid, simple lines of the gold shoestring-strapped dress accentuated the slender perfection of her figure. The gorgeous fabric shimmered seductively with her every movement.

'But rather bare…' Alex turned her back to the mirror and brushed her hair out of his path. He slid a slender diamond necklace round her throat, his cool, deft fingers brushing the nape of her neck as he fastened it. 'I bought earrings as well,' he murmured huskily. 'But they won't do. Your ears aren't pierced. Not very observant of me.'

Her fingertips shyly brushed the glittering jewels and her eyes suddenly stung. 'It's gorgeous, Alex… Thank you.'

'It's been an incredible two weeks, bellamia. I believe the pleasure has all been mine.' Alex let his lips feather briefly, caressingly across one bare shoulder and then he drew lithely back and enveloped her in a soft velvet evening jacket.

Grasping his hand, Sara stepped uncertainly onto the motor-launch, not quite accustomed as yet to the wholly frivolous height of her strappy sandals. They dined out almost every evening but the enchantment of Venice by night could not fade. The splendid facades of the palazzo along the Grand Canal were floodlit, and against the rich indigo backdrop of the night sky and the dark, reflective water the sight was a magical one.

As the launch moved off, illuminated by the dazzling lights that framed the RialtoBridge, Sara watched Alex with compulsive intensity. Sometimes she wanted so badly to get inside that sleek dark head and root around for answers that made sense. Why me? she wanted to ask suddenly. What was so special about me? She was an ordinary girl from an ordinary background and Alex was an immensely wealthy male with a blue-blooded pedigree that could be traced back centuries. He could have married any woman, yet he had chosen to marry her.

Was it utter madness or shocking vanity for her to wonder if Alex could be just a little in love with her? Maybe it was the shock of being treated with such incredible consideration and generosity which was encouraging her to cherish so wild a hope. No womaniser ever got successful by being less than charming, she reminded herself doggedly. He knows women inside out. Turning your head is probably just an ego-trip for him. Six months from now maybe he'll be treating you like a piece of furniture, any thrill you ever had for him staled by familiarity…so enjoy the Rolls-Royce treatment while it lasts.

'What's the matter with you?' Alex enquired as he handed her out of the launch onto solid ground again.

Sara tensed. 'Nothing.'

'You're very quiet.' Alex slanted a grim dark scrutiny over her taut profile. 'I suppose it was too much to hope that you would forget…'

'Forget what?' Sara queried, dismayed by the speed with which Alex's mood could change.

'Don't play games, cara. This is, after all, the day when you expected to drift blissfully up the aisle into Shorter's waiting arms!'

Sara was shocked by the unwelcome reminder. She turned pale, thinking that Alex only had to mention Brian and it was like having a freezer door slammed in her face. It was little wonder that she went out of her way to ensure that she never accidentally referred to the man who had been a big part of her life for almost two years.

'No, I did not think you were unaware of the fact,' Alex said very drily. 'You've put on quite an act today but it's beginning to wear thin.'

'Is it?' Sara gazed up at him, anxious green eyes clinging to the starkly handsome lines of his dark features, a distinctly strained smile curving her tense mouth. 'Alex, I'd actually forgotten that this was the day.'

His brilliant eyes hardened. He said something in Italian-something derisively suggestive of disbelief. 'I had”

'I know that certain look on your face.' Alexthrust open the door of the exclusive restaurant.

'No, you don't,' Sara protested, suddenly angry at being unfairly accused.

The conversation came to a frustrating halt as the maltre d' surged forward with alacrity. He was showing them to their table when a silver-haired older man thrust his chair noisily back nearby and rose with an exclamation. 'Alex?' The rest was in volatile Italian.

'Sara…' Alex drew her smoothly forward. 'TonyBargani, a family friend.'

'You must join us.' Tony snapped his fingers imperiously to call up more chairs and settled her down firmly in his own seat. 'Alex knows everyone. My wife, Claudia.' He patted the shoulder of the stunning silver-blonde beside Sara with distinct pride of possession. 'GuyChilton and his wife, Denise…'

GuyChilton was already up, enthusiastically shaking hands. Tony was calling for drinks. His wife, who must have been a good twenty years his junior, was too busy competing for Alex's attention to take account of Sara.

The American woman, Denise, sighed with a wry smile. 'I believe this is your honeymoon, Sara. You should have avoided us. The men will be talking business for the rest of the evening.'

Claudia dropped down into her seat again and sent Sara a flickering glance of amusement. 'I'm quite sure Sara knows the score, Denise. She used to work for Alex, and with Alex business always come first and last. I remember my time with him well.'

'You used to work for Alex?' Sara smiled.

Claudia widened her eyes and uttered a sharp little laugh. 'Darling, do I really look as though I ever worked nine to five in some menial little office job? How frightfully uncomplimentary!'

Faint colour stained Sara's cheeks as the upper-class English accent cut through her. 'I'm sorry. I misunderstood.'

'Hardly surprising.'Claudia turned hostile blue eyes on her. 'I expect you're feeling rather out of your depth in this milieu.'

With difficulty, Sara kept her apologetic smile in place. 'I'm learning all the time.'

Tony toasted them with champagne, his natural warmth in strong contrast to his wife's air of dismissive boredom. 'I'm surprised the two of you aren't on the yacht,' he commented.

'Sara gets seasick,' Alex returned casually.

Her dark head shot up, surprise etched in her eyes. 'Who told you that?'

'Your aunt.' Across the table, rich dark eyes locked with hers, amusement shimmering in their depths. 'At the reception. The news necessitated a decidedly last-minute change of destination-'

'You mean you didn't know?' Tony's portly frame shook with mirth.

Sara hadn't known either. And if she could have got hold of her aunt at that instant she would have strangled her! One sickly day trip to France while she had still been at school was scarcely sufficient evidence on which to base such an assumption.

'How very inconvenient.'Claudia oozed sympathy. 'Will you be selling Sea Spring now?'

'Certainly not for my benefit. My aunt tends to exaggerate,' Sara interposed ruefully.

'Venice has to be the most romantic city in the world,' DeniseChilton commented warmly. 'I can't think of anywhere more wonderful to spend your honeymoon.'

'But then you didn't grow up here…Alex did,' Tony's wife slotted in sweetly.

A near-overpowering desire to empty her glass over Claudia's head assailed Sara as the first course was delivered.

The meal progressed. Alex smoothly engaged Tony in conversation. Sara's cheeks stopped burning. Their hostess was one of Alex's exes, Sara gathered grimly, dumped with the roses and the diamonds and still simmering over the blow to her ego. She would have to develop a thicker skin for such encounters.

'You know, the resemblance is really quite remarkable,' Claudia murmured very quietly over the coffee-cups when Denise had disappeared off to the cloakroom.

Sara lifted her head. 'Sorry?'

'Alex's father and Tony are old friends. We dined with them in London last week. Apparently Sandro was staggered the first time he saw you,' Claudia continued very softly.

'I'm afraid I don't follow…'

'You're the living image of Alex's one and only true love.' Claudia's eyes were bright with spiteful amusement. 'Sandro got a shock when he saw you coming down the aisle. For a moment he thought you were Elissa. Silly, of course…she'd be twenty years older than you now… but don't they say that everyone has a double somewhere?'

A creeping veil of coldness was slowly enclosing Sara. Her brain was in a fog. She could not seem to absorb what Claudia was telling her.

'I never actually met her,' Claudia confided. 'But when Tony and I got home I dug out some old family photo albums to satisfy my curiosity.'

'Family albums?'Sara questioned with a frown.

'Elissa was married to Tony's cousin at the time she took off with Alex… didn't you know that?'

Sara's tongue snaked out to moisten her dry lower lip. 'His cousin?' she said weakly, shooting an involuntary glance at the three men on the other side of the table, who were enjoying an animated, friendly conversation. Elissa had been married when Alex met her?

'You do have a lot to learn. Everyone blamed her, even Tony. Alex was only a boy and she was one devastating lady. Very petite, hourglass figure, long black hair just like you.Alex never did get over her. She turned him into a cold bastard. But then you're something special, aren't you?' Claudia touched her glass against the rim of Sara's in a mocking toast. 'Only with you can Alex relive his fantasy…and he doesn't even need to switch off the light!'