leaving tomorrow, but maybe we will dine out again the next time I am here?’
Max wanted her, but he had a growing suspicion that once with Sophie would never be enough. He didn’t believe in love, but he was astute enough to recognise that what he felt for Sophie and how he lost control around her could very easily become dangerous to his peace of mind.
‘Thank you—I would like that,’ she murmured.
Max saw the naked adoration and the hurt in her eyes, and much as he wanted Sophie he knew Alex was right—she wasn’t for him. He had watched her with the guests, the staff and with the children she quite happily looked after whenever she was asked. She was so caring and everyone adored her. Sophie deserved the very best, and he was far too much of a cynic to believe in love and happy ever after—whilst she was too young and too much of a romantic for the kind of affair he enjoyed. The timing wasn’t right. Maybe in a few years, when she had completed her studies, and if she was still single…who knew…?
‘Good night, sweet Sophie.’ Because he couldn’t resist touching her one last time, he lifted a finger and traced the outline of her lips, saw her smile. ‘That’s better. A young girl like you should always be smiling,’ he drawled softly, his dark eyes enigmatic on her beautiful face.
He opened the chalet door, and with a hand at her back urged her inside with a wry twist of his lips. She was temptation on legs, and far too responsive and eager for her own good—not every man had his self-control.
‘And be careful,’ Max warned her as frustration rose up in him. He spun on his heel and left. His decision was made. He would take a flying visit to Russia, to iron out a few problems with the manager of his Russian operation. As he recalled, the company’s receptionist, Nikita, was a very inventive lover. With the arrogant confidence of a wealthy man in his prime, he told himself the world was full of beautiful women more than willing to share his bed. He didn’t need Sophie, and he would dismiss her from his mind.
Sophie watched Max walk away, wishing he would at least look back and give her some sign that he cared. But it was in vain.
Later that night, when Marnie found her curled up on the sofa, red-eyed from weeping and looking miserable, she gave Sophie the benefit of her opinion.
‘What did you expect after one dinner date? An avowal of love? Cheer up, girl. Max Quintano can have any woman he wants and he knows it. You were a pleasant diversion while he was here.’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows? If he returns he might take you out again, and if he does just remember what I told you before: a brief affair is the best any woman can hope for from him.’
Marnie’s words didn’t help, but at least they made Sophie face up to reality. Her first ever crush on a man and it had to be on Max Quintano—a much older, super-rich mining tycoon, and a womaniser by all accounts. Where had her brain been? He was as far out of her reach as the moon. Her mistake had been in mistaking a teenage crush for true love, she told herself flatly, and she had to get over it. At least she hadn’t slept with him….
But somehow that thought gave her no comfort at all.
CHAPTER TWO
Seven years later
ON SATURDAY afternoon Sophie parked her ancient car on the drive and, taking her suitcase from the back she breathed a sigh of relief as she entered her old home. Timothy, her brother, ran down the hall to meet her and, dropping her suitcase, she swept him up in her arms and kissed him.
‘Hello, darling,’ she said as she carried him into the elegant living room to find his mother and their father.
Sophie looked at her stepmother, Margot, and then at her father. Immediately she sensed the tension in the atmosphere and wondered what was wrong.
‘Oh, good you have arrived,’ Margot said.
No, Hello—how are you? Sophie thought dryly, and sat down on the sofa, still holding Tim.
‘I suppose we should be honoured you can spare the time to visit your brother with your jet-setting lifestyle. Where is it this time?’
‘Venice, for a three-day international conference on global resources. But I don’t have to leave until tomorrow night, so I have more than enough time to babysit this little man.’ Sophie hugged Timothy closer on her knee and added, ‘Why don’t you and Dad make a night of it and stay at the hotel until tomorrow? I don’t mind.’ That should put a smile on Margot’s face, she thought.
Two hours later Sophie was sitting in the stainless steel kitchen of the house she had been born in, feeding Tim his favourite tea of fish fingers and mulling over how her life had changed.
Five years ago, when she had graduated from university, Sophie had taken a year off to go backpacking around the world. On her return she had discovered that her father’s new secretary was also his pregnant girlfriend. Marriage had followed, and Meg the housekeeper had departed at Margot’s request—much to Sophie’s disgust. And four months later her adorable young brother had arrived.
Sophie had been besotted with Tim ever since, and if she was honest he was the main reason she tended to go along with whatever Margot wanted. He was why she had agreed to Margot’s last-minute request for a babysitter so they could attend a glamorous charity ball at a top London hotel.
Sophie glanced around the ultra-modern kitchen. The family home in Surrey had been totally renovated by Margot, and she barely recognised the interior any more. But at least, with the help of a small legacy from her mother, Sophie had her own apartment, overlooking the sea in Hove. The commute into London was not something she would like to do every day, but then she didn’t have to. She was a brilliant linguist, and her work as a freelance translator took her all over the world. She had built up an impressive list of corporate and private clients.
She had spent the last eight weeks with a trade delegation, travelling around China, and before that six weeks working in South America. This weekend was the first time she had been home in months. It wasn’t that she disliked Margot—after all, she was only two years older than Sophie—in fact they should have had a lot in common, but unfortunately they didn’t. Margot was a social animal who loved the high life—the best restaurants and the right places to go and see and be seen. But to give her her due Margot, for all her love of society and designer clothes, was a good mother and would not leave Tim with anyone she didn’t know.
Much as she loved her brother, it was with a sense of relief that Sophie left the next afternoon to catch her flight to Venice. She wasn’t imagining it—the atmosphere between her dad and Margot really had been no better when they’d returned at lunchtime than it had when they’d left the evening before. Something was not right in their relationship. But as long as it didn’t affect Tim, she wasn’t going to worry.
She had enough to worry about going to Italy again for the first time in seven years. The very thought brought back a host of unwanted memories of her one and only love affair—and of what a complete and utter idiot she had been. She had fallen for Max Quintano like a ton of bricks, and when he had left the hotel in Sicily where she worked, she had been hurt. But when he had returned a week later she had fallen into his bed without a moment’s hesitation. After he had taken her innocence she had leapt at his proposal of marriage, and had even agreed to keep it a secret until he could meet her father.
For all of two days she had been deliriously happy—that was until she had discovered the kind of open marriage he had in mind….
A cynical smile twisted
