The Italian's Baby Bargain: The Italian's Wedding Ultimatum / The Italian's Forced Bride / The Mancini Marriage Bargain. Kate Walker
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noticed it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I prefer babies when you can hand them back at the end of the day.’ Not true, but it sounded like a suitable response. She could hardly go with the other option, which was to say If I can’t have your babies I don’t want any!
‘You think that now, but all women start talking babies.’
Sam received a jolt as his meaning sank in. Jonny a father…It would happen one day, so get used to it. ‘Are congratulations in order?’
Jonny didn’t respond to her question. Following the direction of his distracted gaze, Sam saw his eyes had come to rest on Kat.
Feeling like an intruder, Sam quickly averted her gaze, trying and failing to imagine a man looking at her with the kind of suppressed longing she had read in Jonny’s face. She caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the enormous gilt-framed mirror that covered the wall to her right and thought, Sure—that’s really going to happen. It was a fact of life that freckles, red hair and a body that was never going to be curvy did not inspire dumbstruck lust and longing.
‘Congratulations?’ Jonny dragged his attention back to Sam.
‘I thought you and Kat might be starting a family.’
Her innocuous remark caused Jonny’s good-looking features to freeze. ‘I’m not ready to start a family.’
Meaning Kat was…? Sam speculated, puzzling over his expression. ‘I thought you loved children…’
Not that she could for a second imagine Jonny as a handson father. Though he had many good points, Jonny did have some pretty old-fashioned ideas.
‘This isn’t a good time.’
‘Is there ever a good time?’
Dark colour flooded Jonny’s face as he bent closer. ‘For God’s sake, Sam,’ he hissed. ‘Do I have to spell it out? You of all people should realise that I can’t afford to be thinking of babies. And I can’t tell Kat…’ He swallowed, drew a deep breath and shook his head. The strained smile he gave her was ruefully apologetic. ‘Sorry, Sam. I shouldn’t take it out on you.’ Absently he patted her shoulder. ‘Could I have a word, Sam?’
He looked so apologetic that she immediately forgave his outburst. ‘Isn’t that what we are doing?’
Jonny cleared his throat and nodded towards the closed French doors. ‘In private.’
You can have anything you want.
Her colour slightly heightened by her traitorous thought, Sam nodded placidly and reminded herself for the tenth time that afternoon that she was a strong, independent woman who didn’t need a man—and, anyway, she wasn’t the sort of person who would settle for second best.
In the alcove, where he had retreated to watch them, Alessandro Di Livio tightened his long fingers around the stem of his untouched glass of champagne as he observed his brother-in-law’s head move closer to the glossy copper one of the seated woman.
They were so close they looked like lovers about to embrace. He couldn’t give the man his sister had chosen a backbone, but he could make damned sure that he didn’t cheat and break his besotted little sister’s heart!
God knew what either woman saw in him. Maybe it was the surfing thing? He presumed, from the cabinet of trophies ostentatiously on show in his sister’s apartment, that the younger man had been more successful riding the waves than he was at business. Perhaps the younger man could have coped with one store, he conceded, but his rapid and reckless expansion over the past eighteen months had been nothing short of suicidal. The only thing that surprised Alessandro, who had been set to bail him out for the past year, was that he was still financially afloat.
His sensually sculpted lips formed a twisted, cynical smile as the Maguire woman lifted her hand in a fluttery gesture to her slender, pale throat. The action was as revealing as he had come to expect of her, but he couldn’t quite decide if she was as transparent as she appeared, or if it was all part of some sort of act.
Alessandro’s nostrils flared. If Jonny Trelevan didn’t know she was his for the asking the younger man was an even bigger fool than he’d taken him for. His eyes slid towards his sister, who had been talking too loudly and brightly all afternoon, and found she too was watching the couple. As he watched she turned her head, and he was sure he caught the glitter of tears in her eyes.
Whatever was wrong with his sister’s marriage, he would have laid odds that the red-headed little witch was responsible. What was her game? Alessandro wondered as he angled his dark head a little to one side and studied the slim figure.
If asked to classify her look he would have called it sexy, yet demure. Not to his taste, but he knew a lot of men went for the perennial virgin look. She was the sort of female who simultaneously aroused predatory and protective instincts in the opposite sex.
No wonder men got confused around her. They didn’t know whether to kiss her or protect her from a light breeze! He, on the other hand, knew what he wanted to do—namely shake her and tell her to display a little more discretion when she looked at Trelevan with those big hungry eyes!
Of course her dress sense was nothing short of a total disaster, but colour co-ordination wasn’t going to be high on your average male’s list of priorities when he heard her laugh—that low, husky, wicked chuckle.
It was the sort of laugh a man imagined hearing behind a closed bedroom door. Or is that just me…?
He had known from the beginning, of course, that she was in love with Jonny Trelevan—though astonishingly, as far as he could tell, he was the only person who did! Her friends and relations seemed uniformly oblivious to the intense misery behind the brave smile. He had suspected at that time that if you had taken away that smile and the screaming tension in every fibre of her slender body she would probably have collapsed.
He was neither a relation or a friend, but an objective observer, so her unrequited love was none of his concern so long as she represented no danger to his sister’s happiness.
He had decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.
For starters, Trelevan had seemed to view her as one of the boys, and the only time he got physical was when he punched her playfully on the arm.
As for the girl herself…His eyes narrowed as once again they fell on Samantha Maguire, face buried in the hair of the baby on her lap, so that all he could see was the top of her copper head. If he had thought she represented a threat to his sister’s happiness he would have taken whatever action he deemed necessary. But two years ago he had decided that she did not possess the tempestuous nature that was meant to accompany her vibrant colouring.
She would look, but not touch. And there was no law against looking. He had done some of that himself. On every occasion since, when their paths had crossed, he had kept a watchful eye on her.
Of course he’d been glad that Katerina did not have the added complication of a jealous would-be lover in the background, trying to sabotage her marriage, but he’d felt a stab of contempt when he considered the Maguire girl’s passive acceptance of the hand fate had dealt her. It was lincomprehensiblle to him, but maybe, he mused, it had something to do with British stoicism—something which Alessandro with his more volatile Latin temperament had never been able to get a handle on. But then he never had understood people taking pride in being a good loser.
Now, though, he wasn’t so sure about his earlier assessment. Had he been mistaken in her? Had Samantha Maguire been playing the long game and waiting for her chance? Alessandro was not the sort of man who left things to chance, and this was a possibility he had to consider.
Jonny Trelevan wasn’t the husband he would have chosen for his sister—he was too weak and ineffectual to Alessandro’s mind—but Alessandro had accepted that his wishes were not the ones that counted. The younger man was the husband Kat wanted, and as her brother he would do anything in his power to give Katerina, deprived of the parental love and support