Kim had danced with her husband, Colin.
Sam had noted that Xander remained at the top table talking to one of the other two bridesmaids.
As a friend of the bride rather than a relative, Sam and Daisy had been seated at a table towards the back of the huge ballroom, but close enough to be able to watch and enjoy all of the wedding party. She had even been asked to dance by a couple of the single male guests. Invitations she had refused, using the excuse of not wanting to leave Daisy sitting on her own.
Yes, it had been a beautiful wedding, but it had made for a long day, and at nine o’clock in the evening it really was time for her to take her sleepy daughter back to Xander’s apartment.
Sam had thought she had said her goodbyes to Andy and Darius without anyone noticing, before slipping quietly out of the ballroom. Obviously she had been wrong.
She straightened. ‘Darius assured me it would be no problem for you to take a taxi home later.’
‘Did he?’ Xander enquired mildly.
‘Yes.’ Sam frowned at that mildness. ‘Please don’t let me keep you any longer from enjoying the rest of the wedding reception. I think the bridesmaid might be missing you,’ she dismissed teasingly.
In all honesty Xander was more than a little tired of the company of the bridesmaid, a young woman who seemed bound and determined on achieving the tradition of one of the bridesmaids going to bed with the best man the night of the wedding. A tradition Xander would normally have been only too happy to satisfy! But not tonight. And the excuse that his broken leg was still healing didn’t seem to have deterred the woman in the slightest from succeeding in her mission!
Oh, she was attractive enough with her blonde hair, limpid blue eyes and curvaceous figure, and usually Xander wouldn’t have hesitated in taking her up on the obviously blatant offer.
But instead of responding to that overt flirtation, he had found himself constantly seeking out a head of fiery red curls, both during the wedding ceremony at the church, and later during the reception.
Samantha was wearing a figure-hugging red gown that should have clashed with those red curls, but somehow only deepened the colour of her hair to a vibrant copper, adding a creamy glow to her cheeks and the tops of her breasts visible above the scooped neckline of the gown.
Something Xander had noted several other men admiring during the wedding reception, a couple of them having approached her table and asked her to dance. Invitations she had refused with a smiling shake of her head.
Refusals that had caused Xander to smile in satisfaction.
And warning him that he was taking altogether too close an interest in the woman temporarily employed to drive and take care of him, and currently staying at his apartment.
A warning he had taken absolutely no notice of, when he saw Samantha quietly making her excuses to Miranda and Darius, before slipping from the ballroom with the obvious intention of leaving.
‘You aren’t,’ he clipped abruptly in answer to her comment regarding the persistent bridesmaid. ‘I’ve actually had enough for one day too, so if you wouldn’t mind waiting a few minutes, while I make my own goodbyes, I’m ready to come home with you and Daisy now.’
Sam felt a little uncomfortable hearing Xander describe his apartment as home for all of them. Because they all knew, as far as she and Daisy were concerned, it was only a very temporary accommodation.
Looking at Xander a little more closely, though, she could see that he did indeed look a little pale under his tan, and there were also dark bruises of tiredness and strain beneath his eyes. He was leaning rather heavily on the walking stick he had insisted was going to be his only walking aid at his brother’s wedding.
Was it so surprising, when Xander had barely been out of his apartment for weeks, but had now spent the whole day and part of the evening socialising with his brother and Andy’s wedding guests, that he was now feeling the effects of such a busy day?
‘Of course.’ Sam nodded. ‘We’ll wait out here for you.’
‘Thanks.’ He gave a rueful grimace as he turned awkwardly and limped back to the ballroom, leaning heavily on the walking stick as he did so.
‘Xander looks tired too, Mummy,’ Daisy observed softly.
‘Mr Sterne, darling,’ Sam corrected distractedly, more than a little concerned for him herself.
Daisy frowned. ‘He told me this morning that I should call him Xander.’
Sam looked down at her daughter in surprise. ‘He did?’
‘Yes.’ Daisy gave a gap-toothed smile; she looked adorable in the amethyst-coloured knee-length party gown that had been bought especially for the occasion. Sam had happily missed out on lunches to see her daughter looking so happy.
She regarded her daughter quizzically. ‘You like him, don’t you?’
Daisy nodded. ‘He’s nice.’
After spending the last twenty-four hours with him, that was even less the word Sam would have used to describe Xander Sterne than it had been when Daisy had asked about him yesterday afternoon!
He was impossible. Infuriating. Arrogant. Most certainly outrageous on occasion; Sam still hadn’t forgotten that intimate conversation the previous evening regarding whether or not she had any tattoos, and where she might have them if she did. A tattoo that the scooped neckline of her gown barely managed to cover...
But nice? Xander was much too immediately male to be described with such an insipid word.
And yet Daisy, who was so often shy in the company of men, seemed totally relaxed in Xander’s company.
Obviously Daisy saw something in him that Sam didn’t.
Or, more likely, not...
Being only five, Daisy wouldn’t be aware of Xander’s immediacy, of how disturbingly male he was. Or recognise that the man possessed a lethal and sensual magnetism. And the naked body of a Norse god—
‘Ready?’
And the stealth of a predator!
Sam had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t even been aware of Xander’s return, despite the sound the rubber end of his walking stick must surely have made on the marble floor.
She straightened her shoulders determinedly. ‘Ready.’ She nodded briskly. ‘If you and Daisy would like to sit here and wait, I’ll go down in the lift to the car park and bring your car round to the front of the building?’ She looked down questioningly at Daisy.
‘Good idea.’ Xander nodded. ‘We’ll be okay here together, won’t we, Daisy?’ He hadn’t missed Samantha’s deference to her young daughter over the suggested arrangements.
Did Samantha somehow sense that inner rage Xander was at such pains to try and keep under his control?
He and Darius had found plenty of time to chat this morning, once Samantha had dropped him off at his brother’s apartment. Darius had once again been at pains to reassure Xander
