I don’t want this!’ Sara gasped, suddenly finding that freedom to speak her own thoughts. She jerked her head away from him. ‘I don’t want to have an affair with you. Last night was madness—’
‘Sweet insanity that worked like a dream…Don’t deny what you’re feeling right now.’
‘I feel nothing…nothing!’ she swore violently, and, snatching up her case again with an energy born of desperation, she started down the stairs.
‘Sara, you cannot possibly go back into the office after this.’
He caught up with her in the hall. A firm hand closed round hers and tugged her back and round to face him again.
‘You think I’m going to be your mistress, you think wrong!’ Sara threw at him rawly.
‘What did I tell you to be sure to remember today? That this was not how I wanted it to be between us,’ Alex reminded her with controlled anger. ‘But you wouldn’t settle for anything less and now you blame me for it. That’s very female but bloody unfair.’
Her shocked eyes fell from his. ‘I’m not blaming you. I just want to forget this happened, that’s all.’
‘But I will not play that game…and take your hair out of that excruciatingly ugly old-maid style!’ Alex suddenly gritted, and hauled her even closer, banding one strong arm round her narrow back as his free hand roved free to the thick coil of hair and released it from its confinement. ‘You’re a beautiful young woman; rejoice in that beauty…don’t stifle it!’
‘Let go of me!’ Sara told him shrilly.
‘All I want to do is take you back to bed,’ Alex confided in an undertone of angrily suppressed passion as he brought her up against him, a lean hand splaying to the feminine swell of her hips with a lover’s intimacy.
Appalled cat-green eyes collided with his gaze and the atmosphere sizzled. She blinked bemusedly, feeling the piercingly sweet heat reawaken low in the pit of her stomach, the sudden ache of her nipples as her breasts stirred beneath her bra. Her soft mouth trembled. Alex smiled lazily down at her, shifted with fluid emphasis against her and she felt the force of his arousal with shock. Her lower limbs turned to cotton wool. Her ability to breathe and think for herself diminished with terrifying rapidity. ‘Stop it…’ she whispered breathlessly.
‘One kiss, bella mia, and I’ll let you go into work,’ he bargained mockingly.
‘No!’ she spat as her heartbeat pounded like a trapped bird in a cage.
‘Stubborn…’ Alex breathed thickly, amused. ‘You want that kiss as much as I do.’
‘I’m sorry…I didn’t realise…I used the rear entrance,’ another voice intervened.
Alex’s hand dropped instantly. Sara sprang back from him, eyes wide with horror when she saw Pete Hunniford standing several feet away, his mobile features momentarily transfixed with incredulity and then swiftly rearranged into total impassivity.
SARA stood there like a graven image as Pete handed a file to Alex.
‘Sara needs a lift back to the office.’ Alex quirked a sardonic black brow as he glanced reflectively at her. ‘Unless you’ve changed your mind, cara?’
‘No.’ She wrenched open the heavy front door for herself, and frankly couldn’t get out of the huge house quickly enough.
Alex dropped an arm round her and walked her out onto the top step, seemingly indifferent to a degree of icy, repulsing rigidity which would have frozen off the continuing advances of any normal male. ‘Lunch at one…Sara?’
Sara was staring in consternation at the man who had darted out from his position by the railings and focused a camera on them both. Click! Grinning, he then ran across the street and jumped into a car. ‘How unfortunate,’ Alex said, and he didn’t even attempt to sound convincing.
The thick atmosphere between Sara and Pete on the drive back to the office would have defied the sharpest knife.
‘Right,’ Pete began grimly. ‘Now the first thing you do is lie like a trooper to dear Brian. You worked late, had to stay over…you say I was there too. You do not confess; do you understand that, Sara? Believe me, Brian does not want the whole truth and nothing but the truth in this instance. That story covers you on all fronts. The paparazzi are always watching Alex. So there’ll be a photo of you emerging from his house at ten in the morning in tomorrow’s papers…What does that prove? Nothing.’
Paper-pale, Sara parted her lips, unsurprised by his cynical advice but deeply embarrassed by his frankness. ‘Pete, I—’
‘I can’t believe it…You!’ he muttered, shaking his smoothly styled head. ‘I thought you were bombproof around Alex. I feel responsible. I only gave you the job because you were engaged. Only the day before yesterday you were handing Alex a cup of coffee as though he was the carrier of some dread social disease, and this morning…?’
‘Please, let’s not talk about it,’ Sara mumbled. She thought of yesterday’s sunny awakening, her blinkered innocence of what the day would bring. And then this morning’s devastating dawn.
‘Obviously Alex finally made a move on you. Well, heaven knows, I’ve been waiting for it to happen. I’ve worked around Alex a long time. Believe it or not, I like Alex…but if he looked at my sister the way he’s always looked at you I’d lock her up and throw away the key…because Alex is very bad news with women. He’s emotionally cold and detached. I’ve seen him in action too many times not to know that—’
‘Pete…’ Had everyone but her been aware of Alex’s interest in her?
‘Your two predecessors fell head over heels for him and made a blasted nuisance of themselves! I thought you had more sense.’
Sense? When and where had sense figured in yesterday’s turmoil? She felt cheap and stupid and desperately ashamed of herself. Was that prudish? But she couldn’t discard the values of a lifetime overnight. She had invited…no, far worse, virtually pleaded for Alex’s sexual attentions. She had thrown herself at his head. Her stomach cramped with nausea.
How could she have done that? Why had she done it? Had she sunk so low in self-esteem that she had been grateful to Alex Rossini for finding her desirable? Had she needed the proof that she could still attract a man after seeing Brian in Antonia’s arms? Or on some level had she sought revenge for that agonising betrayal? If that had been her motivation, she was now discovering that revenge was a two-edged sword that could turn back on you and inflict piercing pain and regret.
When she and Pete arrived at the office Gina, the svelte receptionist, gave her a curious, veiled look as she murmured a greeting. Two executive secretaries were out in the corridor having a close conversation, but fell silent as she walked past. Their greetings were very muted indeed. Sara didn’t have to wait long to find out why.
‘Miss Lacey?’ A uniformed waiter whipped the covers from a selection of food on a heated trolley. ‘Breakfast, compliments
