‘May I look?’
‘It isn’t finished yet—I’m about two-thirds done, but help yourself.’ She pushed her chair back to give him access to her laptop. She didn’t push back far enough, catching that gorgeous oaky scent that made her mouth water.
She closed her eyes in a futile attempt to curb the longing sweeping through her at his proximity.
In three weeks he hadn’t once attempted to seduce her, not even with his eyes, as he had done so many times before they’d made their vows.
One night had been enough for him to bore of her sexually. Okay; two nights. But they’d been months apart.
If only she could get her body to believe it was bored of him too.
Time would curb it, she told herself. Eventually his lack of interest would creep through her like a pollutant and she would be able to stop tossing and turning throughout the night, wishing he would come to her.
After three weeks of no physical attention she accepted that wasn’t going to happen.
It had done nothing to cure her longing.
‘This is incredible,’ Christian said, clicking his way through the pages she’d created. ‘The glossy magazines would pay you a fortune to get hold of your memory stick.’
‘I’m sure they would,’ she agreed drily.
Silently she congratulated herself on another coherent conversation with him.
It would have been easy to slip into self-pity after his rejection.
She would not do that. She would not infect her baby with negativity.
In fairness, he hadn’t lied to her. On the contrary, their marriage was shaping up to be exactly how they’d devised when they’d first agreed to it.
She only wished she’d known how heartsick it would make her.
Pushing her chair farther back, she got to her feet. ‘Are we still going out tonight?’ She refused to make assumptions. He might have only popped home for a fleeting visit between appointments.
Christian worked ridiculous hours. Even in Milan, where they’d stayed so she could work, he’d holed himself up in the spare room of her apartment, which he’d turned into a bedroom-cum-office, working until the early hours and joining her for an evening meal before disappearing again.
‘Yes. We don’t need to leave until eight. There’s plenty of time.’
They were going to a party at the British Embassy, their first official function as man and wife.
She looked at her watch. ‘I suppose two hours is adequate time to get ready for a night out.’
‘You suppose?’ he echoed with a droll tone.
Christian put his cufflinks on then slipped into his tuxedo jacket and straightened his black bowtie. He would do.
He headed downstairs and poured himself a small shot of bourbon.
It had been a hard few weeks and now he was looking forward to an evening out. Yes, it would be a networking evening, but with Alessandra by his side it would be bearable.
It was strange to think of himself merely enjoying a woman’s company for company’s sake but with Alessandra he did. Until their impromptu date, all his dealings with women had been for two reasons: business, at which he refused to blur the lines between personal and professional; and pleasure, the women he dated with the sole intention of bedding them. He’d enjoyed the time spent with them but it had been a means to an end, the end being in bed naked.
Alessandra was the first woman he’d gone on a date with whom he’d had no intention of bedding. He’d found her wildly attractive but she’d been so off-limits he’d curbed that side of his thought process with her. After a few glasses of champagne had loosened them both up, he’d found himself wildly fascinated by her, the mind beneath the beautiful face, not just the body beneath the dress she’d worn.
For the first time, he looked back on his behaviour before he’d met Alessandra with a sense of shame.
How many women had he bedded in his thirty-two years?
He couldn’t even hazard a guess.
He’d hopped from bed to bed without a second thought.
For the first time, he considered he’d been running, not hopping. Running as fast as he could.
Alessandra was the only woman whose bed he’d run from without immediately hopping into another.
From their first night together until she’d approached him at Rocco and Olivia’s wedding, there had been no one else. There still hadn’t been.
He hadn’t promised fidelity to her. So long as he was discreet, he could bed whomever he chose.
The problem, as he was learning, was that just because he could act like a kid in a sweetshop, his taste at that moment was for only one particular sweet. That sweet went by the name of Alessandra.
He didn’t believe he’d ever worked as hard as he had these past three weeks. He’d always been a hard, diligent worker but since his university days he’d always ensured there was time for fun.
The only fun he wanted now came in a slender package with a mane of glossy chestnut hair. There were times, especially late at night, when he heard movement from her room, when he would fight to remind himself why he couldn’t allow their relationship to be anything but platonic.
In his eyes, she was a princess.
He was a gutter rat.
He wasn’t good enough for her.
He would only bring her misery.
Better to keep things platonic for both their sakes and for the sake of their unborn baby.
It was harder than he’d ever imagined.
He straightened as Alessandra descended the stairs, the jewellery she wore around her wrist clanging against the railing she lightly gripped.
She never failed to take his breath away.
Tonight she wore a floor-length turquoise silk gown with only one long sleeve, gold and diamond beading around the neck line that slashed under her bare arm. The material layered like descending waves down to her feet, displaying her slender curves but hiding the slight burgeoning of her waistline. Tonight her neck was bare, the only complementary jewellery a chunky Egyptian bracelet and a pair of gold teardrop earrings. Her hair had been swept up into an elegant knot, her eyes dramatically darkened, her lips conversely painted a nude colour.
The Egyptian bracelet only accentuated the idea of an Egyptian queen having sprung to life.
An ache formed in his chest, a much different ache to the one coursing through his loins.
That bare, golden arm and shoulder were her only real bits of bodily flesh on display but the effect on him was as dramatic as if she’d walked down the stairs naked.
His mind filled with visions of peeling the dress from her…
He swallowed the imagery away and stepped forward to her, being greeted with a cloud of her sultry perfume in return.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘Grazie. You look good yourself.’
Alessandra had always found men wearing dinner jackets attractive—there