The Italian's Baby Bargain. Kate Walker

to tighten another notch. ‘You have met Smithie.’

      Sam’s expression softened slightly as she thought of Alessandro’s ex-nanny. ‘But she’s not like your other friends.’

      He raised an eloquent brow. ‘As you have never met them, how would you know what my friends are like?’

      Sam’s eyes narrowed with dislike on his lean face. ‘Not everyone considers me such a social liability.’

      ‘Social liability…!’ he echoed. ‘Why do you insist on putting words in my mouth?’

      ‘I don’t!’ she protested mutinously. ‘It’s obviously what you’re thinking.’

      A hissing sound of frustration escaped through his clenched teeth. ‘Fine!’ he said, flinging up his hands in a very Latin gesture of irritation. ‘I will arrange a dinner…no, I will arrange a reception, and introduce you to everyone I know. Will you be happy then? Or would you like me to invite a camera crew from one of those magazines that specialise in glossy spreads of such things into my home? We can be pictured lounging beside the pool and gush about how inseparable we are…will that make you happy?’

      His biting sarcasm stung. ‘It would make me sick.’

      ‘Then, you see, we do have something in common after all. I value my privacy, and I thought you felt the same way.’

      What he valued was his freedom. ‘Don’t glower at me that way. I’m not Jonny.’

      His expression darkened. ‘You know, I am sick of the sound of that name.’ An expression of brooding discontent settled on his lean features as he thought about the younger man. ‘I still don’t understand why, if he needed money, he didn’t come to me?’

      ‘You are Kat’s brother—the poor, deluded girl thinks you’re perfect…Jonny is afraid he’ll look a wimp by comparison with her marvellous brother.’ Her expression left no doubt that she didn’t share the younger girl’s opinion.

      ‘Nonsense!’

      The way he brushed aside her explanation made Sam’s general crankiness morph into genuine anger. ‘That’s so typical of you. If you don’t want to hear something you just pretend it isn’t so. But ignoring it doesn’t make it any less the truth. The truth is you make Jonny feel incompetent and second best.’

      ‘He is incompetent, and also boring—I have no wish to talk about him any longer.’ If he didn’t get her into bed some time in the next ten seconds he was going to lose his mind…although it was always possible he had already lost it. A swift mental review of his recent behaviour brought a self-derisive twist to Alessandro’s lips.

      Sam flung up her hands. ‘See—you can’t help yourself!’ she exclaimed.

      Alessandro remained unmoved by her dramatic hand-waving. ‘I thought you set great store by honesty?’ But then I used to think the same about myself, he thought, considering his recent self-deception.

      Damn the man—he always had an answer. ‘So, if he had come to you, what would you have done…?’

      ‘That depends. But I certainly wouldn’t have thrown good money after bad.’

      ‘You’d have let him go under?’ she accused, shocked by his unapologetic admission. ‘But that amount of money is absolutely nothing to you!’ she protested, clicking her fingers to underline her point. ‘My God, Alessandro, you’re so callous.’

      ‘I’d have told him to cut his losses and find something he wants to do. He is clearly doing something he neither enjoys or is suited to. I would have told him to find something he can be passionate about.’

      ‘You make it sound so easy, but Jonny isn’t like you…’

      His jaw clenched. ‘You wish me to emulate your hero…?’

      ‘There’s no need to be stupid. Jonny is not my hero.’

      Something flickered at the back of his dark eyes. There was a short, dense silence before he added huskily, ‘And am I?’

      The question threw Sam totally off her stride. ‘Stupid? Or my hero…?’ She angled an uncertain look at his face and discovered nothing from his shuttered expression. Did he want to be her hero? It seemed pretty unlikely.

      ‘My hero would display a little bit of faith in me—not to mention have some respect for my views,’ she retorted, avoiding a direct answer. ‘But actually I don’t think I need a hero. Actually, I don’t think I need a lover.’

      If the moment of shocked silence that followed her announcement had lasted another micro-second longer Sam would have retracted it. Only it didn’t.

      ‘You wish me to leave?’

      Of course it might have been possible to retract her reckless words even then, if he had acted for a moment as if he gave a damn one way or the other. But he just stood there, looking remote in the way only he could, so she dug herself a little deeper and said, ‘Well, there doesn’t seem much point in you staying, does there?’

      ‘I will not impose on you any longer,’ he said, looking so stiff and starchy she almost expected him to click his heels!

      She felt numb with shock and disbelief as he walked out of the door, but still managed to scream a defiant, ‘Good riddance!’ at the top of her lungs, before bursting into noisy, emotional sobs.

      She eventually convinced herself that she was better off without him.

      It took her twelve hours of intermittent weeping and numerous attempts to trivialise her feelings for Alessandro to arrive at this conclusion, but when she got there she knew it was a plateau—a point from which her life could move on in an infinitely saner and more productive direction. It was, she told herself, good that things had come to a head when they had. It wasn’t as if she had ever thought the relationship had staying power.

      After all, she was far too old to believe in fairy tales, and if the last few weeks had taught her anything they had taught her that she didn’t want a life fraught with dramatic ups and downs. It might suit some people, but she liked an ordered, organised existence, and she was looking forward to things getting back to normal.

      Of course at that point Sam didn’t realize that normal had vanished for ever. That happened a week later.