tears fall. ‘I have nothing more to say to you, Malcolm. And I have to go now,’ she added before he could speak again. ‘I have to drive Mr Sterne to his physio appointment.’
‘Have dinner with me this evening, Sam, and we can discuss this further then.’
Sam repressed a shiver of fear. ‘I’m not going to do this, Malcolm,’ she told him shakily. ‘Not dinner this evening, not any of it.’
He chuckled softly. ‘Give it time, Sam, and you’ll do exactly as I want,’ he drawled confidently. ‘You have until the end of the week,’ he added coldly. ‘After which I’m calling my lawyer.’
Sam wrenched her wrist painfully from his grasp before opening the car door and climbing quickly out onto the pavement, slamming the door closed behind her, before turning on her heel and walking off in the direction of Xander’s apartment.
All the time aware that her wrist ached abominably, her knees were knocking together, and her body was shaking in complete awareness of the fact that Malcolm had just demanded that she become his mistress by threatening Daisy.
A demand, despite her defiance of him, that placed her as the fly to Malcolm’s spider...
* * *
Xander had been aware that there was something seriously wrong with Samantha from the moment she’d returned from walking Daisy to school earlier that morning. Her face was pale, her eyes almost feverish, and she was totally distracted as she went off to change into a red long-sleeved shirt before silently driving him to his physio appointment. The return journey had been made just as quietly.
Xander was thoroughly worried by her uncharacteristic silence by the time they arrived back at his apartment just before one o’clock, and he now sat at the breakfast bar watching her as she moved about the kitchen preparing lunch. ‘Are you still angry with me for what happened on Saturday evening?’ he finally prompted gruffly.
Events that had resulted in him spending two sleepless nights unable to banish thoughts of Samantha, who was lying in her own bed just a short distance down the hallway. He had wondered if she was also awake and thinking of him.
Somehow Xander doubted that very much.
Samantha had been so cool towards him on Sunday, so businesslike in her dealings with him today, even when helping him in and out of the shower this morning. An occasion when he had been unable to hide the arousal her touch incited in him. He might as well have been a block of wood for all the notice Samantha had taken of that!
And that rankled.
This whole indifference thing Samantha now had going towards him rankled!
Okay, so he had read the signs wrong on Saturday evening, had realised almost immediately that he should have offered her comfort, with his arms and words, rather than kissing her. He was also aware he wasn’t feeling his best right now. His leg was still aching badly from all the extra activity on Saturday; the wedding, Daisy throwing herself at him, kissing Samantha. But he had never had a woman react towards him with such indifference as Samantha had been doing these past two days and nights.
Maybe he was losing his touch?
And maybe Samantha would just rather forget those kisses had ever happened?
Wouldn’t that be a dent to his already bruised ego?
‘What?’ She turned to look at him blankly now, almost as if she had forgotten he was there for a moment, colour suffusing her cheeks as his words penetrated her thoughts. ‘Not in the least,’ she dismissed, her head now buried in the refrigerator. ‘I’d forgotten about it.’
Her sudden blush seemed to indicate that it really had been the last thing on her mind.
Oh, she hadn’t forgotten about it yesterday, had been very skittish towards him over breakfast, so much so that Xander had decided it would be better if the two of them avoided each other’s company for the rest of the day, especially in front of Daisy.
But here and now? Yes, Xander could well believe that this Samantha had completely forgotten about the two of them kissing on Saturday night. The question was, what had happened since yesterday—since breakfast this morning, in fact—to cause Samantha to be so distracted that she wasn’t even defending herself? It was very unlike her.
‘Do you want ham or cheese for your sandwich?’ she asked distractedly now.
‘Both,’ Xander answered her just as dismissively. ‘Samantha?’
‘In that case, your lunch is ready,’ she announced briskly.
Xander glanced down at the breakfast bar, his eyes narrowing as he saw that only one place had been laid. ‘Aren’t you eating too?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You only had coffee for breakfast.’
‘Are you spying on me, too?’ She glared at him accusingly. ‘Because if you are, I advise you to stop. Right now!’ She was trembling with anger.
‘Whoa, Samantha.’ Xander reached out with both arms to grasp her about the waist as she would have turned and marched angrily from the room, his leg giving a protesting jolt of pain as he did so. Xander ignored that pain as he instead looked down searchingly into Samantha’s face; her eyes still sparkled with that earlier temper, her cheeks were flushed with anger, her mouth—her mouth...!
Xander was breathing hard as he gazed down at that perfect, tempting bow, the bottom lip fuller than the top. These were the lips that had haunted him day and night these past two days. And right now those delicious lips were as red and plump as ripe berries, no doubt caused by that same flush of anger.
Why was Samantha so angry? It seemed completely out of context to their conversation.
‘What did you mean when you said too?’ Xander asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. ‘Who else has been spying on you, Samantha?’ he prompted.
Sam’s anger left her as quickly as it had arisen as she realised her mistake. Xander was just too intelligent, too astute, not to have noted and questioned her earlier comment. Or to add two and two together and not to come up with the right answer. If not now, then at some later time.
Xander hadn’t recognised Malcolm on Saturday, and a part of Sam didn’t want Xander to know that she had once been married to a man like Malcolm Howard, let alone that he was now threatening her.
She trembled every time she thought of her earlier conversation with Malcolm—which had been often in the past few hours! She knew she couldn’t allow Malcolm to come even close to demanding visiting rights with Daisy.
Which meant what?
That she would have to telephone Malcolm and agree to have dinner with him this evening, at least?
Sam hated the thought of even doing that, let alone agreeing to Malcolm’s other demands.
But she knew Malcolm too well, knew how clever he was at pretence, how charming he could be, and how easily he would be able to fool a judge into believing he was totally contrite regarding his previous attitude towards his daughter, and that he now wanted the chance to become a father to her.
Daisy
