‘I made you?’
‘Yes, you made me!’ she yelled back. ‘You, with your nasty insinuations and always believing the worst.’
‘Are you going to tell me what that money is for?’
Sam shook her head, her expression blank. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘No problem. I will ask Jonny.’
Panic flared in Sam’s eyes. ‘You can’t do that!’ she protested.
‘You leave me no choice.’
Sam closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘My God, but I hate you!’
His lips curled into a sardonic half-smile. ‘At this moment,’ he confided, ‘I’m not particularly fond of you.’ But he still wanted to unwind that towel and throw her on the bed. He wanted it so badly he could taste it.
Slinging him a look of loathing, Sam walked across to the bed and sat down before her shaking legs gave way. ‘I haven’t cashed the cheque, and if you’d bothered to read the date you’d have noticed that’s it’s almost two months old.’
Alessandro’s dark brows drew together in a straight line. ‘So why haven’t you cashed it?’
‘I couldn’t stop him giving it to me, but I didn’t have to cash it.’
‘Do men often feel driven to give you large amounts of money?’ At that moment he felt driven—very driven. The fact that even at this moment all he could think of was burying himself deep inside her and hearing her say, Yes, Alessandro, in that breathy little voice that killed his much vaunted self-control stone-dead, was some measure of the spell she exerted over him.
Face facts, Alessandro, his inner voice goaded contemptuously. While you’re desperately trying to act as if nothing has changed, the fact is everything has changed. You’re so in control you felt it necessary to sweat for twenty-four hours just to prove that you didn’t have to get off the plane and rush to the side of a woman who hasn’t made any effort to contact you.
Sam, realising that she had no option but to tell him the truth and hope he kept it to himself, sighed and said, ‘Jonny wasn’t giving it to me. He was paying me back.’ She looked at Alessandro, who just stood there, giving the impression he wasn’t even listening. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
Alessandro released a long pent-up breath and looked at her. ‘No…yes.’ A frown formed on his lean face. ‘Paying you back…?’
‘Jonny had some cashflow problems and I lent him a little to tide him over until he sorted himself out.’
One dark brow elevated. ‘A little…?’ he said, picking up the cheque and waving it under her nose. ‘You think that is a little…?’
Sam flushed under his ironic gaze. ‘Well, it was only sitting in my account.’
‘I’m all for making your money work for you, but you didn’t choose the safest form of investment, did you? At least I know now why he hasn’t been to me…’
‘You’re the last person he’d go to.’
Alessandro’s dark lashes lifted from the high angle of his cheekbones. ‘And you are the first, it seems,’ he slotted in drily.
‘Well, at least I don’t make him feel inadequate,’ she retorted. ‘I think you enjoy intimidating people,’ she accused.
Alessandro raised an arm to drag a frustrated hand through his dark hair. The rippling this action set in motion over his lean torso caused her to lose the thread of her argument.
‘He should have gone to his wife, not to another woman,’ Alessandro condemned. ‘And the fact is lending him money is only delaying the inevitable.’
Sam, her colour heightened, wrenched her fascinated gaze from his body and said angrily, ‘I am not another woman.’
‘You are not his woman.’ You’re mine!
‘But I am his friend, and with a brother-in-law like you, boy, does he need one! For God’s sake, Alessandro, why can’t you give the man a chance? So he’s no financial genius…’ She lifted her shoulders in an expressive shrug. ‘So what? He’s doing his best. And no man could love your sister more than he does.’
Alessandro’s eyes dropped to where her heaving bosom was on the point of escaping the confines of the towel. ‘Would you defend me with so much passion?’ he wondered, lifting his gaze to her face .
‘Defend you…?’ she parroted, and laughed. ‘What do you need defending against?’ she wondered. ‘You’re so tough you’re virtually bullet-proof,’ she accused.
The streaks of colour emphasising the strong, carved contours of his cheekbones deepened as he responded in a voice that leaked derisive scorn, ‘I would certainly not beg money from a woman.’
‘He didn’t beg!’ Sam protested. ‘I found out by accident.’
‘Accident…?’
‘Yes, accident.’
‘You mean he was drunk?’
Sam read the contemptuous condemnation in the lean, starkly beautiful contours of his face and her lips tightened. ‘Small wonder Jonny didn’t want to come to you for help.’
‘I imagine he knew that I would not hand him a blank cheque and offer him tea and sympathy.’ He flashed her a cold smile. ‘Or was it hugs and kisses?’
‘He doesn’t want my hugs and kisses.’
Alessandro looked at her mouth, so soft, lush and inviting, and wondered how any man worthy of the name could not want to enjoy them. If Jonny wanted to keep his teeth intact he’d better carry on not wanting, he mused grimly. If he had suspected for one second that Jonny harboured any inappropriate feelings for Samantha he would already have taken action.
‘Presumably if he did you would not be in my bed.’
She looked at his mouth, thought about it on her skin, and thought, I would be in your bed if I had to crawl there! ‘I’m not in your bed.’
Alessandro’s eyes slid from hers as Sam followed the direction of his gaze to the tumbled quilt she had hastily pulled across the bed when she had realised who was ringing the doorbell. The colour flew to her cheeks.
His voice dropped to a sexy rasp. ‘That could easily be fixed.’ He accompanied this with the sort of raw, hungry look that stripped her nerve-endings bare and caused goosebumps to break out like a rash on her overheated skin.
Making contact with the sizzling heat in his sensational eyes, she felt her anger and resistance melting faster than snow in July. Gritting her teeth, she clung to the last shreds of her resentment, reminding herself that this relationship was too one-sided.
‘That’s my bed.’
‘Does it matter whose bed it is?’ Alessandro responded impatiently—because he could think of very little else but her legs wrapped around him as she lay soft and warm beneath him…or maybe on top…?
‘I’ve never been in your bed.’ Sam’s voice went cold as she added bitterly, ‘I’ve never been in your bedroom, or even in your home.’
Alessandro had been scrupulously careful to keep her well away from anyone who knew him. She didn’t even know the location of his London home.
‘Which is fine by me,’ she assured him breezily. ‘I wouldn’t want to meet any of your friends.’ And it was painfully obvious he didn’t want any of them meeting his bit on the side.
Alessandro looked disconcerted by the