The Venetian One-Night Baby. Melanie Milburne
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lesson. A lesson he was determined he would never have to learn again. He wasn’t cut out for long-term relationships. He didn’t have what it took to handle commitment and all its responsibilities.
He knew marriage worked for some people—his parents and Sabrina’s had solid relationships that had been tried and tested and triumphed over tragedy, especially his parents. The loss of his baby brother Daniel at the age of four months had devastated them, of course.
Max had been seven years old and while his parents had done all they could to shield him from the tragedy, he still carried his share of guilt. In spite of the coroner’s verdict of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Max could never get it out of his mind that he had been the last person to see his baby brother alive. There wasn’t a day that went by when he didn’t think of his brother, of all the years Daniel had missed out on. The milestones he would never meet.
Max walked out of his hotel and followed the Grand Canal, almost oblivious to the crowds of tourists that flocked to Venice at this time of year. Whenever he thought of Daniel, a tiny worm of guilt burrowed its way into his mind. Was there something he could have done to save his brother? Why hadn’t he noticed something? Why hadn’t he checked him more thoroughly? The lingering guilt he felt about Daniel was something he was almost used to now. He was almost used to feeling the lurch of dread in his gut whenever he saw a small baby. Almost.
Max stepped out of the way of a laughing couple that were walking arm in arm, carrying the colourful Venetian masks they’d bought from one of the many vendors along the canal. Why hadn’t he thought to book a room at another hotel for Sabrina? It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it. He’d made plenty of money as a world-acclaimed architect, and he knew things were a little tight with her financially as she was still building up her wedding-dress design business and stubbornly refusing any help from her doctor parents, who had made it no secret that they would have preferred her to study medicine like them and Sabrina’s two older brothers.
Had he wanted her in his room? Had he instinctively seized at the chance to have her to himself so he could kiss her again?
Maybe do more than kiss her?
Max pulled away from the thought like he was stepping back from a too-hot fire. But that’s exactly what Sabrina was—hot. Too hot. She made him hot and bothered and horny as hell. The way she picked fights with him just to get under his skin never failed to get his blood pumping. Her cornflower-blue eyes would flash and sparkle, and her soft and supple mouth would fling cutting retorts his way, and it would make him feel alive in a way he hadn’t in years.
Alive and energised.
But no. No. No. No. No.
He must not think about Sabrina like that. He had to keep his distance. He had to. She wasn’t the sex without strings type. She wasn’t a fling girl; she was a fairytale girl. And she was his parents’ idea of his ideal match—his soul mate or something. Nothing against his parents, but they were wrong. Dead wrong. Sabrina was spontaneous and creative and disorganised. He was logical, responsible and organised to the point of pedantic. How could anyone think they were an ideal couple? It was crazy. He only had to spend a few minutes with her and she drove him nuts.
How was he going to get through a whole weekend with her?
SABRINA WAS A little late getting to the cocktail party, which was being held in a private room at the hotel. Only the designers and models and their agents and select members of the press were invited. She entered the party room with her stomach in a squirming nest of nibbling and nipping nerves. Everyone looked glamorous and sophisticated. She was wearing a velvet dress she’d made herself the same shade of blue as her eyes and had scooped her hair up into a bun and paid extra attention to her makeup—hence why she was late to the party.
A waiter came past with a tray of drinks and Sabrina took a glass of champagne and took a generous sip to settle her nerves. She wasn’t good at networking...well, not unless she was showing off in front of Max. She always worried she might say the wrong thing or make a social faux pas that would make everyone snigger at her.
Large gatherings reminded her of the school formal the day after she’d slept with her boyfriend for the first time. The rumourmongers had been at work, fuelled by the soul-destroying text messages her boyfriend had sent to all his mates. Sabrina had heard each cruelly taunting comment, seen every mocking look cast in her direction from people she had thought were her friends.
She had stood behind a column in the venue to try and escape the shameful whispers and had heard her boyfriend tell a couple of his mates what a frigid lay she had been. The overwhelming sense of shame had been crippling. Crucifying.
Sabrina sipped some more champagne and fixed a smile on her face. She had to keep her head and not time-travel. She wasn’t eighteen any more. She was twenty-eight and ran her own business, for pity’s sake. She. Could. Do. This.
‘You’re Sabrina Midhurst, aren’t you?’ a female member of the press said, smiling. ‘I recognised you from the expo programme photo. You did a friend’s wedding dress. It was stunning.’
‘Yes, that’s me,’ Sabrina said, smiling back. ‘And I’m glad you liked your friend’s dress.’
‘I’d like to do a feature article on you.’ The woman handed Sabrina a card with her name and contact details on it. ‘I’m Naomi Nettleton, I’m a freelancer but I’ve done articles for some big-name fashion magazines. There’s a lot of interest in your work. Would you be interested in giving me an interview? Maybe we could grab a few minutes after this?’
Sabrina could barely believe her ears. An interview in a glossy magazine? That sort of exposure was gold dust. Her Love Is in the Care boutique in London was small and she’d always dreamed of expanding. She and her best friend Holly Frost, who was a wedding florist, hoped to set up their shops side by side in Bloomsbury in order to boost each other’s trade. At the moment, they were blocks away from each other but Sabrina knew it would be a brilliant business move if they could pull it off.
She wanted to prove to her doctor parents the creative path she’d chosen to follow wasn’t just a whim but a viable business venture. She came from a long line of medicos. Her parents, her grandparents and both her brothers were all in the medical profession. But she had never wanted that for herself. She would much rather have a tape measure around her neck than a stethoscope.
She had been drawing wedding gowns since she was five years old. All through her childhood she had made dresses out of scraps of fabric. She had dressed every doll and teddy bear or soft toy she’d possessed in wedding finery. All through her teens she had collected scrapbooks with hundreds of sketches and cuttings from magazines. She’d had to withstand considerable family pressure in order to pursue her dream and success was her way of proving she had made the right choice.
Sabrina arranged to meet the journalist in the bar downstairs after the party. She continued to circulate, speaking with the models who had been chosen to wear her designs and also with the fashion parade manager who had personally invited her to the event after her daughter had bought one of Sabrina’s designs.
She took another glass of champagne off a passing waiter.
Who said word of mouth didn’t still work?
* * *
Max came back to the hotel after the dinner with his client had gone on much later than he’d originally planned. He hadn’t intended having more than a drink with Loretta Barossi but had ended up lingering over a meal with her because he hadn’t wanted to come back to his room before Sabrina was safely tucked up and, hopefully, asleep in bed. Unfortunately, he’d somehow given the thirty-six-year-old recently divorced woman the impression he’d been enjoying her company far more than he had, and then had to find a way to politely reject her broadly hinted invitation to spend the night with her. But that was another line he never crossed—mixing business with pleasure.
He