want it—hell, I’ll even fly it there myself and put the damned thing up! Which is why—’ his voice dropped conspiratorially ‘—I need you there. You’re so easy on the eye—’
‘Andrew!’ Alessandra’s voice became distinctly chilly. She liked compliments on the way she looked from one man only, and that man was Cameron. ‘Give me a break!’
He laughed. ‘I’m kidding, honey, you know that! I want you there because you possess the most creative mind I’ve ever encountered together with a frighteningly cool logic which leaves most of us mere mortals open-mouthed with admiration. Is that better?’ He paused. ‘Come on, Alessandra—isn’t this what we’ve worked together towards for all this time? Isn’t this the kind of dream we thought would never come true? It’s the chance of a lifetime—surely you can see that?’
Alessandra stared at the receiver which she held in her slim pale hand. On the third finger of her left hand, next to her wedding band and completely dominating it, sat the enormous square-cut emerald which blazed in all its green, glorious fire. Cameron had given her the ring when she’d agreed to marry him.
They’d been in bed at the time. She remembered how his features had been carefully composed into a rather enigmatic look of satisfaction after he’d got his own way, and she’d told him rather gravely that, yes, she would marry him.
He’d waited until after they’d made love before producing the ring, pulling it casually from the pocket of his discarded trousers, like a magician producing a rabbit out of a hat.
Her breath had caught in her mouth as he’d placed the magnificent emerald on her finger and, in spite of her insistence that she cared for none of the trappings which came with matrimony, her eyes had widened like saucers. ‘Oh, but Cameron—it’s...exquisite,’ she’d breathed. ‘How did you know it would fit?’
He’d given that smile then. That lazy, sexy smile which had first captivated her, though she’d tried her damnedest not to let it. It still made her heart pound like a runaway train.
‘I just knew.’ And there had been a glint of sexual promise in his eyes as he’d spoken more softly. ‘Just wait until I start buying you lingerie. That will fit you perfectly too. You see, my delectable Alessandra, I know every inch, every centimetre of your delicious body...it’s emblazoned on my mind,’ he’d finished on a sultry murmur as he’d traced a slow, provocative finger from throat to navel.
Alessandra had been so in love with him, so sexually excited by that look in his eyes, that she hadn’t dared touch him back, afraid to kiss him just at that moment because she was so emotionally overcome that she’d feared she would frighten him away! So instead she’d searched around for the kind of response he would expect from her, forcing her habitually serene smile to curve her lips into an almost Madonnalike expression.
‘When did you buy it?’ she queried, as casually as if she were asking him the time.
‘Is that all you can say?’ he replied, with a kind of stunned disbelief which became a sardonic laugh.
‘What would you like me to say?’ she asked evenly.
‘I suppose you do realise,’ he told her in a deliberately mocking tone, ‘that women have been trying to get me to marry them for years? And that a lot of those women would have been overwhelmed to get my ring on their finger?’
It was a very arrogant thing to say, and possibly the only man who could have got away with saying it was Cameron Calder. He was teasing her, yes—but Alessandra was wise enough to know that he had spoken the truth. She was also mature enough to recognise that it was her air of insouciance which attracted him to her. ‘And they would have fallen at your feet in gratitude, would they?’ she queried solemnly. ‘If they had been the recipient of this magnificent ring?’
Cameron gave her a look of bemused admiration as she mocked him back. ‘God, you’re so damned cool,’ he murmured appreciatively. ‘So damned unflappable. I’ve never met a woman like you in my life.’
She learnt another lesson then. Because that avid declaration made Alessandra relieved that she hadn’t given in to her desire to tell him that in a few short weeks he had become her entire world. Because that wasn’t the Alessandra Walker that the world, and Cameron, knew. And that was who he’d fallen in love with—the cool, serene, unflappable woman who could mock him back for his arrogance. He’d had enough of the other kind—the kind that couldn’t keep their hands off him, whose eyes told him he was their lord and master.
She looked up at him from beneath her thick black lashes and this time there was laughter in her eyes. ‘So when did you buy the ring?’ she queried again.
‘When I decided to marry you, of course.’ Cameron smiled.
Alessandra frowned. ‘You mean—when you decided to ask me?’ she corrected.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘When I decided to marry you,’ he emphasised.
Some strange emotion quivered in the air. Her heart began to pound. ‘And when was that?’ she asked, suddenly breathless again.
He smiled, but it wasn’t a particularly warm smile. More wary than warm, and definitely bordering on the reluctant. He regarded her steadily. ‘The first time I met you,’ he said.
‘And you were that sure?’ asked Alessandra slowly. ‘So sure of me? So sure I’d say yes?’
‘Darling, do you want me to lie to you?’
She shook her head, her thick brown hair damp from the exertion of their lovemaking so that it hung in limp tendrils to her shoulders. ‘No, Cameron,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want you to lie to me.’
‘Then yes,’ he murmured. ‘I was that sure of you.’
‘Alessandra!’ Andrew’s voice cut into her reverie. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes, Andrew,’ she said thoughtfully, still gazing at the emerald on her finger. ‘I’m still here.’
‘So are you coming tonight or not?’
Alessandra hesitated, but suddenly it wasn’t a difficult decision to make at all. She glanced at the pale gold watch on her wrist. It had just gone six. Cameron would be on a flight somewhere over the Atlantic right now—he’d been in New York for a week on business. His plane was due in at nine, and then he would take a hire-car from the airport, so he wouldn’t be home until after ten. She had offered to drive to meet him, but he had been adamant that she wasn’t there to act as his chauffeur. And he was one of those men you couldn’t argue with, not once he’d made his mind up!
‘Yes, Andrew, I’ll come for a drink with you tonight,’ she said decisively. She hardly imagined that Cameron had been sitting alone in his hotel room every night for the past week, pining for her! He had friends and business acquaintances in the States he’d doubtless been having dinner with—so what was the difference?
‘And what about Superman?’ sniped Andrew childishly, rather unnervingly voicing her own thoughts. He and Cameron had never exactly hit it off, and neither man had made a secret of it. Alessandra, stuck in the middle, had kept her own counsel.
‘Won’t he object to his darling wife fraternising with men after work?’ added Andrew slyly. ‘You usually break the land-speed record getting home to him.’
Alessandra
