The Trophy Husband

CHAPTER THREE

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 unfor-tunate,' 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 AlexRossini 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 mur-mured 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 of MrRossini.'

'Bloody hell,' Pete said only half under his breath as he drew to a halt beside her. Clearing his throat, he said rather loudly, 'I hope there's enough for two. Working so late, I slept in-didn't have time for much this morning.'

Sara was so taken aback that she couldn't even throw Pete a look of gratitude for his efforts to cover up for her. In any case, who was likely to believe that Alex had demanded Pete to leave his wife's side and work overtime last night?

She sank down behind her desk, watched numbly as the food was served. She hadn't eaten since breakfast yesterday, but she might have eaten last night had she not been far more intent on seducing AlexRossini into spending the night with her. Hectic colour fired her creamy skin. Alex hadn't wanted her to return to the office. He would be well aware that such an extravagant gesture would create gossip-the kind of gossip that Sara shrank from. Could he be cruel enough to use that as a weapon against her?

'What did Molly have… a boy or a girl?' she asked, striving valiantly for normality.

'Didn't Alex tell you? He was on the phone a good ten minutes with me yesterday…' Pete flushed. 'Sorry-little girl. We're going to call her Flora.'

'Congratulations.' Sara lifted her knife and fork, her fingers all thumbs.

'Sara… you look like death warmed over,' Pete said, tight-mouthed.

'I'm fine.'

She wondered if she would ever feel fine again. As she forced herself to eat, she drowned in a torrent of brutally unwelcome erotic images. She sat there growing ever more appalled, ever more bewildered by the wanton creature that she had become in AlexRossini's arms. If only it had been unpleasant, sordid, disappointing even… She hated him all the more for the fact that it hadn't been! She did not think that she could ever forgive herself for finding AlexRossini more physically exciting than the man she loved. What did that say about her?

Maybe her aunt had been right about her all along. JaniceDalton had regularly lectured Sara on the dangers of promiscuity. As a quiet, far from precocious teenager, Sara had found those sessions deeply humiliating and she had bitterly resented the knowledge that the older woman feared the hereditary factor. 'I don't want you turning out like your mother did,' her aunt had told her. Had the mother she barely remembered slept around? The concept had been distastefully implied more than once. There had always been a grim irony in JaniceDalton's blind refusal to see how her own daughter lived her life.

'Sara?' Pete was in the doorway.

Sara glanced up from the accounts that she was checking. Her job covered a lot of ground. She had overall responsibility for the day-to-day running of Alex's various homes round the world. She dealt with minor household crises, changes of staff, repair and maintenance bills, indeed all the boring minutiae that Alex didn't have time to deal with but which had to be dealt with if the smooth running of his domestic arrangements was to continue with the faultless efficiency that he took for granted.

'I understand that Alex gave an order that you were| to receive no personal calls yesterday afternoon.'

“Did he?'

Pete grimaced. 'Brian is on his way up in the lift.'

Every scrap of colour ebbed from her cheeks.

'See him in here. I'll take myself off.'. 'But Alex-'

'So Alex doesn't allow personal visitors… but then Alex isn't in yet.'

Sara stood up slowly. Brian appeared on the threshold. He looked as if he'd been up all night-pasty pale, tense, his eyes bloodshot. Pete closed the door on his way out, giving her a ludicrous thumbs-up sign behind Brian's back.

'Sara…' Brian swallowed. 'What do I say to you?'

It was as if a glass wall stood between them, as though a thousand years had passed since yesterday. 'There's nothing to say.' She felt nothing, absolutely nothing at all, only a terrible emptiness. |

'She'd been chasing after me for weeks,' he muttered unevenly. 'I'm not making excuses… but-'

'It gave you a kick because she wasn't interested three years ago.'

He flushed and then nodded with compressed lips. J 'And you just couldn't help yourself.'

His strained brown eyes met hers. "That's where you're wrong. I don't even like Toni. I know what she's like. It was just… you know… a physical thing. Damn it, Sara, how do I say to you that I just wanted to go to bed with her and then forget she existed? But that's how it was!' he told her with sudden fierceness, and she could feel him willing her to believe him. "There was no emotion involved. I know you have to think that's disgusting but it's you that I love, you that I want to marry.

His pleading gaze met hers. A knife twisted inside her, then. 'You have to know that that is impossible now,' she managed shakily.

'Look, let me tell you it all from the beginning-'

'No, I don't want to know! It's upsetting for both of us to drag this out. I couldn't ever forget…you see,' she said chokily, and then she remembered Alex and what she herself had done and spun away, too upset to say anything more.

The door clicked open. Alex lounged there, his densely lashed dark eyes, no shade of gold in their depths, shooting to her with a burning anger that didn't show on his strong dark face but which Sara discovered that she could feel with every fibre of her shrinking body. The atmosphere vibrated and she registered in stricken bewilderment that that one scorching look from Alex had filled her with guilt. Alex was outraged to find her even talking to Brian.

l\ believe you've overstayed your welcome, sinmer,-Alex drawled chillingly. 'Don't come here again.'

Complete bewilderment flashed across Brian's face.

'Alex…' Sara whispered in shock, for in that threatening gaze she recognised the kind of savage, territorial instincts which more properly belonged in the jungle, not in civilised society. She had the frightening suspicion that if Brian said one word out of line Alex would use it as an excuse to throw him down the lift shaft.

'What's going on here?' Brian asked, shaking his blond head. 'I don't understand…'

Alex strolled forward like a prowling panther and slid a fluid arm round Sara's rigid back. 'Sara and I are going for lunch. You're wasting your time,' he delivered very drily.

Brian's jaw dropped. 'Sara?'

Sara didn't know where to put herself. Alex took care of that problem too. He simply swept her out of the office, down the corridor and into the lift. Before the doors slid shut she had a perfect view of Gina's incredulous expression.

'Did you return the ring?' Alex enquired flatly.

Sara finally unglued her tongue from the roof of her shocked mouth. 'How dare you do that to me? How dare you speak to Brian like that?'

'How long was he in there with you?' Alex demanded. 'Evidently long enough to tell you a sob story!'

'It's none of your business how long I was with him.'

'You slept in my arms all last night. If that doesn't make it my business, what does?' he responded with devastating frankness. 'Dio… I'm sure you didn't tell him that.'

A tide of painful heat engulfed every inch of Sara's exposed body. AlexRossini had been put on earth purely to torment her, she thought in anguished disbelief. He steamrollered over every sensibility she possessed.

'I presume you did tell him that he was yesterday' news?'…

His expectant silence sizzled.

'What does it matter to you whether I did or not?' she flung at him wildly.

'I don't share my women. It's an old Italian custom,' Alex returned with sardonic bite.

.Sara stumbled out into the cool of the underground car park. 'I am not one of your women!'

He swung round. 'Then what are you?'

Her eyes clashing with that coolly enquiring dark gaze, Sara went rigid, her breath catching in her throat. 'I'm in love with another man-'

'Who's already history.' Alex studied her with cool intent. 'A man you never even shared a bed with. What kind of love was that?'

"The kind of love I'm sure you couldn't understand!'

'Pure, perfect love,' Alex mocked. 'It had to be perfect for you, Sara…that was the most important part, wasn't it?'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

He pressed her into the waiting limousine. "The white wedding, the virgin sacrifice. It's medieval. What were you going to do if you finally got into the marriage bed and found you didn't like what he did there?' 'Don't be disgusting!' Sara gasped. 'You'd have been a martyr. You'd have gritted your teeth and mentally flipped through a wallpaper book while the poor devil got on with it.' Outrage leapt through her. 'I refuse to listen to this.' 'You were shocked by your own response last night…' 'No!' she gasped, jerking her dark head away, trembling with the force of her own jagged reactions. Emotions were all churning about on the surface-emotions she wasn't used to handling.

'And you weren't the only one shocked,' Alex breathed, his dark drawl fracturing. 'It never occurred to me that you could still be a virgin, and I would never have got into that bed with you had I known that. I'm not in the habit of taking advantage of untutored innocence.'

'I don't want to talk about it' Her strained voice quivered. 'I don't even know what I'm doing here with you.'

'You wanted an escape from Brian,' Alex told her grimly. "That's why you're here.'

Dazedly she closed her eyes. He might as well have reached inside her and read a label. Was she so transparent? Until he'd said it she hadn't even appreciated why she had allowed Alex's arrogant intervention. It had been easier, less painful than prolonging an encounter which could only have gone round in ever more distressing circles. Had Antonia been Brian's dream woman? A dream he had finally set aside? Had he knowingly settled for second best when he'd chosen Sara-someone who shared his interests, his outlook, bis goals, but still a woman as different from Antonia as any woman could be? There had been nothing left to talk about with Brian.

'You don't even blame him, do you?' Alex murmured.

Sara searched herself, learnt that once again Alex could hit the target with disturbing accuracy. Her anger had settled into sad acceptance. 'She's very beautiful, very tempting,' she said gruffly.

'She's a blue-eyed blonde with good teeth and long legs. There's a lot of them out there,' Alex returned dismissively.

Momentarily she was transfixed by such a description of her glamorous cousin. Then she reminded herself that on Alex's international scale of beautiful women Antonia might well strike him as being not that special… only that did not explain-indeed it made all the more impossible to understand-why Alex should think a five-foot-one-inch brunette secretary worthy of such attention as she was receiving!

And then she understood why and was astonished that she had not solved the riddle sooner. Alex got bored so easily with women. Listening to Pete, wryly concealing her awareness of his helpless masculine envy, she had heard time and time again about just how eager women were to attract Alex Rossini's attention. Sara's greatest attraction could only have been her lack of interest.

Her apparent indifference had singled her out from the rest of the female staff. She couldn't think of a single one who didn't go a little fluttery in Alex's presence. Even happily married, older women were aware of Alex's undeniable sexual charge… but Sara had blocked her awareness out, scornfully denying her own instinctively physical response to those spectacular dark good looks of his. Stubborn self-discipline had made it possible for her to close him out…until yesterday, when alcohol and shock had decimated her natural defences.

Alex assisted her out of the car, the warmth of his hand on her arm making her shiver and stiffen. She wanted nothing more to do with him. She had to tell him that. Very possibly he felt grimly responsible for her after what had happened between them. After all, she had turned out to be far less sexually experienced than he had cynically assumed.

The stylish restaurant was disconcertingly empty. Sara blinked as she sank into the chair pulled out for her. A pianist was playing quietly in the corner. Waiters en masse engulfed them in the most expensive variety of silent service.

'Where is everyone?' she asked weakly. 'I wanted privacy for us to talk… and I didn't think you would wish to return to my house.'

He had paid for the privilege of an empty room for her benefit? She swallowed hard. A light first course was swiftly served. Alex lounged back with a glass of wine in one shapely hand and surveyed her with immense calm. 'Eat,' he encouraged her softly.

'Let's get the talking over with,' she suggested brittlely.

A rueful smile curved his wide, sensual mouth.

'Sometimes you are very young, cam.'

'Just not used to this kind of treatment.' 'Very, very young,' Alex said wryly. 'And if you looked in the mirror without superimposing your cousin's standard of attractiveness you would see what I see. Perfect bone structure, eyes with the colour and depth of emeralds, translucent skin, a wonderfully sultry mouth and a figure that would tempt a saint from celibacy… and I am no saint, bellamia.'

Her mouth went dry, soft pink highlighting her cheekbones.

'When I look at you, I see a very lovely woman who walks, talks and behaves as if she's very plain and ordinary. That was what first drew my attention-that complete lack of self-awareness. You made me curious. I thought at first that it was an act, designed to actually attract attention…' As she stiffened he shifted a lithe hand, silencing her. 'Then I watched you look back at me and freeze and I knew that whatever you were you weren't indifferent.' 'If you're trying to say that I actually asked for-'

'If your wedding plans hadn't fallen through I would never have approached you,' Alex asserted softly. 'But no man who desires a woman ignores an opportunity when it comes his way. I didn't plan to take you to bed last night… it was too soon and, in the light of your inexperience, most ill judged, but I had no idea that I would be the first. Don't try to turn what we shared into a tawdry one-night stand. It wasn't, and what is more you know it wasn't.'

Sara dropped her head, forced against her volition to recall his lovemaking, a helpless curl of heat igniting in the pit of her stomach, making her pale and tauten in angry rejection of her body's weakness. 'But that doesn't change how I feel and think. We have different standards. What happened,' she framed tightly, 'shouldn't have happened.'

'But it did and there's no going back.'

'Maybe there wouldn't be if I fancied myself in love with you or something like that.' Her skin warmed, her generous mouth tightening. 'But I don't!'

'Love!' Alex repeated with audible exasperation.

'Obviously not something that comes into your affairs and probably never has done!' She had forced herself to be as honest as she could be. A sexual relationship without any deeper feelings was not for her. She might have leapt out of the frying-pan into the fire last night but she had enough strength of will to admit her own error and still stand her ground.:- Alex vented a curiously chilling laugh, his dark eyes as hard as gemstones as he gazed back at her. 'Oh, I've been in love, Sara… a lot more deeply in love than I suspect you have ever been. I was nineteen. She was ten years older. It lasted two fantastic years and then one morning I woke up and she wasn't there any more. I spent six months trying to find her and at the end of that six months I would still have given every penny I possessed to have her back… Now that is love.'

Sara was shaken by the confession. For a split second she found herself envisaging Alex as the adoring, very vulnerable satellite of an older woman, but her imagination could not hold that image for long. At thirty-four there was nothing of the boy left in Alex. He was an overwhelmingly self-assured adult male. 'Why did she leave?' she heard herself ask, unable to stifle a flare of natural curiosity.

'She convinced herself that she was wrong for me.' Alex shrugged a broad shoulder, his mobile mouth twisting. 'But she also helped me to free myself from any illusions about love. Take a degree of mutual respect and liking and add in sexual attraction and you have a far more secure basis than you'll ever find with love.'

'I don't believe that.'

'Yet you had your illusions smashed only yesterday,' Alex reminded her with velvet-smooth cruelty. 'You took him for granted. You instinctively trusted him not to betray you. You built a whole rack of unreal expectations on the basis of the belief that love conquers all. Now, if you hadn't been in love, you wouldn't have made such sweeping assumptions and you wouldn't have felt so safe that you were blind to the signs that his attention was straying.'

"There may be a certain amount of truth in that but I would still say that for most people the benefits of loving and being loved more than outweigh the risks.'

"The feel-good factor,' Alex slotted in with satire. 'But whether you like it or not we both felt very good last night… and love had nothing whatsoever to do with it.'

Sara reddened furiously, loathing and helplessly resenting the way he kept on backing her into corners and arguing with her. Brian and she had almost never argued. She had seen that as a symbol of the strength of their relationship, a sign that they were wonderfully well matched. No doubt another one of the illusions of love which Alex had so coolly delineated.

'Emotionally cold and detached,' Pete had said. For the first time she really saw that aspect of Alex, and it sent a cold tingle down her spine as she contrasted that cool intellect with the apparent warmth and undeniable physical passion that he had shown her yesterday. No, she wouldn't like to be the fool who fell in love with AlexRossini. The warmth could only have been an il-lusion, aimed to impress and reassure.

'Last night was last night-time out of time if you want to call it that,' Sara breathed. 'But I won't have an affair with you and I won't be your mistress either.'

'Why not?'Alex said lazily. Her control snapped. 'Because we have nothing in common. Because we live in different worlds with different values-'

'But not because you're not interested.'

Silently fuming, Sara settled back into the limousine. 'Will you allow me to work out my notice without harassment of any kind?' 'Breakfast… was harassment?'

She bit her lower lip and tasted blood. 'You know what I mean…"

'Is what people might think so important to you that you would allow it to rule your life?'

'That's not fair!'

Alex reached for her clenched fingers where they rested on the seat. Momentarily she attempted to draw back from the contact and then, for a reason she could not begin to comprehend, her fingers stayed where they were, curled within his larger hand. She trembled; she didn't know what was happening to her. She had a sudden, terrifying urge to throw herself on Alex and sob her heart out. In all her life she had never felt more confused. He drew her relentlessly closer. 'Alex… no…' she whispered pleadingly.

But Alex didn't listen. He twined lean fingers into her fall of hair, tugging her round to face him. Her eyes burned as she met his shimmering gold enquiry and every tiny muscle tensed. Her pulsebeat thumped at the foot of her throat, a terrible excitement rising inside her no matter how hard she fought to suppress it. 'No…' she said again, as much for her own benefit as for his.

But an aching, compulsive wanting held her still. In dazed silence she recognised the shocking strength of promptings entirely new to her experience. Alex lowered his dark head and took her mouth with hungry urgency. Fire in the hold, she thought wildly, madly, feeling the instantaneous charge of her own helpless response. She wanted to grip him, hold him, mesh with every hard, muscular angle of his lean, virile length. The scent of him, the touch of him inflamed her senses with a drowning passion that was utterly self-absorbed. Tiny little sounds escaped her throat. Hot, electrifying pleasure engulfed her with every thrust of his tongue.

Her fingers slid with shameless hunger beneath his silk shirt, skimming luxuriantly over skin as smooth as velvet, feeling the taut contraction of his sleek muscles as he jerked and groaned beneath her exploration. He swept her up and pulled her down on top of him, expert hands gliding up the quivering stretch of her thighs, hitching up her confining skirt and then bringing her down again, sealing her into raw contact with the hard, throbbing length straining against his zip.

Shuddering, Alex released her swollen mouth, eyes of smouldering gold blazing over her rapt face. 'Come home with me… lie in bed with me… forget everything else,' he breathed raggedly.

In that split second the passenger door beside him sprung open with a thick clunk. Sara focused dazedly on his chauffeur's mirror-shiny shoes standing on the pavement and then she leapt off Alex with an agility and speed that a mountain goat would have envied, almost falling out of the limousine in her desperate haste to vacate it. Alex grated out something, called her name, but Sara kept on walking, right on past the clutch of Rossini employees who were still staring open-mouthed and incredulous at what they had witnessed.

'Pete…' she said ten minutes later when she had tracked him down, 'I'm afraid I'm about to leave you in the lurch. I think it's time I went home.'