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.'
