regarded her through narrowed lids, that gleam of sexual admiration still glittering in his eyes as he slowly released her. ‘How about I ditch my date for the evening and the two of us take a room here for the night instead?’
Sam drew in a harsh breath even as she gave another shiver of revulsion, wanting nothing more at that moment than to slap the man she had once been married to. ‘Goodbye, Malcolm,’ she said coldly instead, having just dared a glance across the reception area and seen that Xander was getting awkwardly to his feet, his tiredness making that more laborious than it might otherwise have been, while the darkness of his gaze was fixed steadily on where she and Malcolm stood in obviously heated conversation.
The last thing Sam wanted was for Xander to come over here and realise that she was talking to her ex-husband. An ex-husband he might possibly know too.
Bad enough that Sam and Malcolm had met again at all, but she knew Xander well enough to know he was the sort of man who would demand answers from her regarding the man who had spoken to her. That he would want details of the acquaintance. All of them.
They were details Sam didn’t want to give him.
Mainly because she was too ashamed. Of how much, and for how long she had tried to make her marriage to Malcolm work, and the sacrifices she had made trying to achieve that.
Looking at Malcolm now, she was able to see beyond that surface charm and handsomeness that had once dazzled her into believing she was in love with him, as much as he claimed to be in love with her, and could now clearly recognise Malcolm’s coldness, as well as his cruelty.
‘Malcolm?’ His date for the evening had obviously tired of waiting as she looked over at him in puzzled enquiry.
Malcolm turned to smile charmingly at the other woman. ‘I’ll be right there, Sonya.’ His eyes hardened as he turned back to Sam. ‘This conversation isn’t over,’ he warned her softly.
‘Oh, it’s most definitely over,’ Sam assured him.
He smiled tauntingly. ‘No, Sam, it really isn’t. I’m sure I’m going to find you so much more fun now that you’re all grown up.’
Sam’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘We’re divorced.’
‘So?’ he taunted. ‘Never heard the phrase one more for the road?’
Surely that applied to a drink, and not—not—
‘We have a deal,’ she reminded shakily. ‘Daisy and I will stay out of your life and you will stay out of ours.’
Malcolm gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘And I’m willing to continue doing just that. For a price.’
‘I already paid your price.’
‘And now I’m going to collect the interest.’ His eyes had narrowed darkly. ‘Give my daughter a hug for me when you see her,’ he added softly. Threateningly.
‘You—’
‘Enjoy the rest of your evening, Sam,’ Malcolm taunted before turning on his heel to join his date for the evening, his hand beneath the other woman’s elbow as the two of them then proceeded, as Sam had suspected that they might, towards the ballroom where Andy and Darius’s wedding reception was being held.
Oh, why hadn’t she left sooner? Why had she come here at all?
‘Everything okay, Samantha?’
Sam was shaking so badly, her knees knocking so much, she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to remain standing for much longer, let alone be capable of finding a suitable answer to Xander’s puzzled query.
Was everything okay?
It couldn’t have been less so.
Not only had Sam seen Malcolm again when she had been least expecting it, tonight or any other night, but he had definitely threatened her, and used a tacit threat against Daisy as leverage to cash in on it.
And the intelligent and astute Xander had been a witness to that meeting. Even if he could have no idea about the content of their conversation.
As for Daisy?
Sam looked down anxiously at her young daughter. She’d walked over with Xander, her hand still resting trustingly in his. Had Daisy recognised Malcolm as her father?
There was nothing in Daisy’s face to indicate that she had. Her expression was one of tiredness rather than any sign of recognition for the man Sam had been talking to; Daisy’s eyelids were drooping and her cheeks were slightly pale.
And really, why should Daisy recognise Malcolm? Her daughter hadn’t even seen Malcolm since she was two years old, and only rarely before then.
‘Who was that man, Samantha?’
She swallowed before answering. ‘Just someone who obviously mistook me for someone else.’ She shrugged dismissively.
Xander frowned. ‘The conversation seemed rather protracted just for you to tell him he’d made a mistake in identity?’
Her mouth firmed stubbornly. ‘Nevertheless, that’s what I was doing. We might as well all go down in the lift to the car park together now that the two of you are right here?’ she prompted lightly as the lift doors opened and she stepped inside to look at him enquiringly.
Xander had absolutely no doubt that Samantha was lying to him.
The intensity of the conversation he had witnessed, the expressions on Samantha’s face as she spoke to the other man, certainly hadn’t looked as if she was politely assuring a stranger that he had mistaken her for someone else. The opposite, in fact. Samantha had initially looked distressed, and then her expression had become coldly impenetrable, followed by one of fear. Xander had also recognised an almost proprietary gleam of ownership in the other man’s eyes at one stage of that intense conversation.
Because the man felt proprietary in regard to Samantha? Perhaps because he was an ex-lover?
It was certainly a more plausible explanation for the heated encounter than the one Samantha had just given him.
That flare of temper Xander had felt—and so feared feeling again—when he first saw the guy manhandling Samantha had now settled into a deep-down coldness.
He still wanted to strangle the man, for daring to put his hand on Samantha, but it was in a cold and measured way, rather than down to a heated lack of control.
Whether or not that control would last was anyone’s guess!
‘Fine,’ he agreed tersely to Samantha’s suggestion as he and Daisy stepped into the lift beside her, deciding to let the conversation go. For now.
But he had every intention of making Samantha tell him the truth about the man who had accosted her.
And sooner rather than later.
* * *
‘Daisy okay?’ Xander enquired as Samantha hovered in the doorway of the sitting room after bathing her daughter and
