Secret Heirs And A Forever Family

It amazed her that one random meeting with a perfect stranger had managed to throw her whole life out of kilter.

She daydreamed. She changed reality so that she had ended up spending the night with him. She wondered what it might have been like. She projected herself into a future that they would never have and fantasised about having a relationship with him—a proper relationship.

Then she remembered what he had said about the women he dated, what he had told her about the sort of women he was drawn to. Women like her sister, Alex. Clever, high-powered women, who knew what they wanted out of life the very second they emerged from the womb.

Another feeble ring from the doorbell and she padded across to the front door. Ten seconds was all it took. Her flat was so small that she could practically flick on the television in the poky sitting room while frying an egg in the kitchen.

She thought of Sergio’s apartment. So vast…so modern…a stunning space where everything worked and did what it was supposed to do. The lights didn’t flicker ominously, the fridge didn’t stage protests against being too well stocked, the sofas didn’t sag in the middle…and the bed… She could only think that his bed would be ten times the size of hers and wouldn’t creak every time he moved.

Susie knew that she had to snap out of her torpor because it wouldn’t get her anywhere. Her mother had telephoned the very day after her dinner with Sergio and had peppered her with questions about the new restaurant. She had been irritated when Susie had responded in monosyllables and made a great effort to try and change the conversation, having put Louise Sadler straight and told her that there had been no nice man sharing the meal with her.

Then her mother had launched into a speech about Clarissa’s wedding—about how delighted everyone was that she was getting married, that it wouldn’t be long before a grandchild was on the way for her mother…Louise Sadler’s sister.

Susie’s mother had a long-running, just below the surface competitive edge with her aunt, Kate. Two years separated them, and rumour had it that the Thornton sisters had been competing from the second her mother—the younger of the two—had uttered her first words.

Louise had married first, but Kate had had a child first. Louise had had a job with more status, but Kate’s had earned her more money.

And now Kate’s daughter Clarissa was hopping up the aisle—the first in the family to do so.

Susie shuddered to think of her mother’s reaction if Clarissa got pregnant and had a baby nine months after the wedding ring had been put on her finger.

It was bad enough that Alex was so involved in her fabulously important job as a neurosurgeon that there was no sign of any boyfriend on the horizon. At least in the case of her sister Louise had the ‘fabulous job’ to fall back on—about which she never stopped boasting.

But Susie…

No fabulous job and no boyfriend either. In fact not even any friends who were boys who could give her mother anything to brag about.

Was it any wonder that she had toyed with the idea of finding Mr Perfect via the internet? Was it any wonder that she had fallen for all those cosy pictures of loving couples and actually believed that rubbish about perfect endings?

Fighting down another wave of self-pity, she pulled open the door—to a barrage of flowers. Bunches and bunches and bunches of roses—so many roses that it had taken two people to cart them up to her flat, although she couldn’t see who they were because they were shielded by the flowers.

‘Sorry, you’ve got the wrong place.’

She moved to shut the door. Somewhere in the building some lucky girl was being bombarded with flowers, and she didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that the lucky girl wasn’t her.

‘I would have gone more easy on the quantity if I had known that your flat was so small…’

Susie’s mouth fell open. Her heart started beating so hard that she felt giddy. The palms of her hands began to perspire. Her whole body began to perspire.

She watched as Sergio emerged from the garden centre on her doorstep.

He was as sexy as she remembered. As tall, as dark, as striking. Dark jeans clung to his lean hips and he was wearing a striped rugby jumper and loafers. It was cold outside, and she wondered how he could find a trench coat adequate cover. It was hooked over his shoulder with one finger.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘That will be all, Stanley.’ He addressed the man next to him without taking his eyes from Susie’s face.

‘Why are you here?’ she repeated in a dazed voice, barely aware of so many flowers being put inside her flat that she probably wouldn’t be able to turn a full circle when she shut the door.

But through the daze pleasure was zinging through her—because this was one of her fantasies…the one that involved him seeking her out.

Excitement gripped her, twisting her insides and turning her legs to jelly. He was giving orders to Stanley, the really great guy who had driven her back to her flat and seen her up to her front door the previous week, in true gentleman style.

And then there were just the two of them, staring at one another, until she was knocked for six by his slow, curling smile.

He’d done the right thing.

Sergio knew that the very second the door was pulled open and he saw her again. No red dress this time. No dress at all. Baggy jogging bottoms and a grey jumper and fluffy bright pink bedroom slippers.

The sex kitten was nowhere in evidence. In her place was a small, cute, freckle-faced, vanilla-haired girl who was gaping at him as though he had materialised out of nowhere.

And she was even sexier than he remembered.

‘Are you going to ask me in?’ He lounged against the door frame and continued to look at her.

‘How did you find me? No, I know. Stanley knows where I live. I’m surprised he remembered the route.’

‘He’s talented when it comes to remembering places.’

‘And maybe you’d like to tell me what the heck you’re doing here?’

For a few seconds Sergio was completely thrown by that question. Automatic entry had been his expectation. Explanations to follow—not that he had really anticipated many of those. He had shown up, hadn’t he? This was the first time he had ever done anything like this before, and it hadn’t crossed his mind that she wouldn’t be delighted with the gesture.

‘Come again?’

‘The last time I saw you, you told me that I was either a gold-digger or a simpleton and you weren’t interested in having anything to do with me.’

‘I don’t believe I used the word simpleton.’

‘As good as,’ Susie retorted, her body as stiff as a plank of wood. She might have daydreamed about this, but now that he was here she couldn’t just shove aside the fact that he had turned her away. ‘I’m not your type…remember…?’

‘I’ve come bearing flowers,’ Sergio said incredulously, raking his fingers through his hair and wondering how such a generous gesture could garner a cross-examination.

‘That still doesn’t excuse what you said to me.’

But she yearned to fling open the door and let him in. Her whole body throbbed, remembering the way his lips had felt against hers, wanting more…much more.

‘We can talk about this inside. Let me in. Please, Susie?’

Susie hesitated and then grudgingly stepped aside so that he could enter. As soon as he entered he seemed to fill the entire place. She busied herself gathering the flowers. She had two vases, into which she crammed as many as she could, and then she rested the remainder by the window to be sorted out later.

For the moment…

She retreated to the sofa and sat down, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

‘I admit I questioned your motives,’ Sergio said heavily. He perched uncomfortably on the far end of the sofa. ‘Can you blame me?’

‘And what’s made you change your mind.’

Sergio wasn’t sure he actually had changed his mind, but he figured that complete honesty in this instance would be a mistake. The main thing was that she had managed to get to him in a way other women hadn’t, for reasons he couldn’t define, and if indeed she did turn out to be a gold-digger then she wouldn’t get very far—especially as he knew what to look out for.

‘I turned you away because…’ He stood up and restlessly prowled through the room, subliminally clocking the fact that in between the dusty furnishings and tired decor there were one or two items of spectacular worth.

What did that say? What would she say if he pointed them out to her? How was it that she couldn’t afford somewhere better to live when hanging on the wall was a tiny but extremely valuable abstract painting by an up-and-coming artist? And nestled amongst the bric-a-brac on the mantelpiece was what appeared to be an original Tiffany lamp?

His jaw tightened. Even recognising those anomalies, he still found that he was driven to stay put.

‘Because…’ he resumed his seat on the sagging sofa ‘…if you’re a gold-digger then nothing’s going to come of your efforts, and if you’re just hopelessly naive then I was doing you a favour, because you’ll end up getting hurt by me.’

Susie frowned. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘I don’t do long-term relationships.’

‘And what makes you think that I do? No, I take that back… What makes you think that I would cast you in the role of someone I want to have a long-term relationship with?’

‘Women have a habit of becoming over-involved…’

‘You’re…an attractive man,’ she said carefully, ‘but there’s no chance that I would ever become “over-involved” with someone like you…’

‘Someone like me?’

‘I’m a creative person…’

She thought of her parents’ response to the creative types she had introduced to them in the past. Perhaps some of her friends had been a little too creative.

‘It’s not as though I would necessarily want to get involved with someone exactly like me…but I would want to get involved with someone funny, thoughtful, considerate, kind, sensitive… A guy like that would never accuse me of being a gold-digger, and he would never tell me that I’m so naive that I can’t take care of myself—and he would definitely never be so downright arrogant as to assume that I would fall head over heels in love with him, given half a chance! I mean…who do you think you are, anyway…?’

Sergio was frankly lost for words. He wondered whether he should mention that there wasn’t another woman on the planet who would react to his appearance at her front door, carrying half a shop’s worth of expensive roses, by digging her heels in and giving him a furious lecture on all his failings.

‘I came here because I felt there was unfinished business between us,’ was all he could find to say.

Susie raised her eyebrows.

‘Didn’t you?’ he asked softly. ‘Feel like there was unfinished business between us?’

She hesitated.

Was that what she had been feeling?

Torn between wanting to assert her independence and show him that he couldn’t just turn up at her door with a bunch of flowers and expect her to swoon and just give in to whatever it was that had taken her over like a virus, she was stuck for words.

‘Well?’ Sergio inserted smoothly, firing on all cylinders and interpreting her hesitation correctly for what it was. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you…’

He didn’t make a move towards her, but he seemed able to sense every little thought running through her head with his finely tuned antennae. She had an expressive face. So much of him was tempted to give her the benefit of the doubt, to believe that she was as straightforward as she claimed to be, and yet…

Her appearance at the restaurant, the startling red dress, the ease with which she had accompanied him back to his place despite protesting that she wasn’t that sort of girl…those random hugely expensive trinkets dotted around her flat…

‘I’m not your type…’ She looked at him narrowly, licked her lips. He was…formidable—lounging back there on her sofa in all his dark, dangerous, sexy glory.

‘I’m willing to break the mould…’

But she didn’t go in for short-lived affairs—never had. She might have broken up with her last boyfriend but it had been a relationship born from optimism that it would stay the course. Quite different from indulging in something that didn’t stand a chance…

To even think about…anything at all with the man now looking at her with those midnight-blue eyes would be downright reckless.

‘You told me that I wasn’t your type either,’ he reminded her in the same soft, speculative voice that felt like a caress. ‘Maybe it’s just a case of opposites attracting…’

He’d never had to work so hard with any woman before, and he wondered whether it was the irresistible lure of a challenge.

‘You’re not my type.’

‘So why the hesitation? We can both go into this with our eyes wide open and enjoy one another or I can walk out through that door—and I promise you that there won’t be a next time as far as I am concerned. This is the most I’ve ever had to do when it comes to chasing a woman. I’ve exhausted my interest in active pursuit.’

‘You make it sound so…so cold…so businesslike…’

‘I could wrap it up in pretty paper if you’d prefer,’ Sergio said drily. ‘But would that change anything? We’re attracted to one another. I can feel it between us like something alive… And if you come a bit closer and touch me you’ll certainly feel just how attracted to you I am and just how much I want to make love to you right now…’

Her heart skipped a beat. She remained where she was. He was right. There was a spark of electricity between them that crackled and there was no point denying that. And so what if he was…practical about whatever this was…? So what if he was blunt when it came to doing something about it?

The romantic in her might want to hear all the flowery stuff that came at the start of a relationship—but that flowery stuff didn’t amount to very much most of the time, did it? He was giving her his own unvarnished view of what they had.

Mutual, physical attraction—take it or leave it.

‘Are you so…so cold and detached with other women?’ she asked. Or was he like this only with her because he’d known from the get-go that she wasn’t the sort of woman who would ever be able to hold his interest for very long?

‘You talk a lot…’

But he grinned and a little more of her melted. He had the most amazing grin. It altered the harsh contours of his beautiful face and made him seem suddenly, wildly accessible and even more mind-blowingly sexy. Did he have a turn-on switch for that smile? Was he even aware of how powerful it was?

She blushed, chin resting on her knees, her brown eyes unwavering.

‘Okay!’ Sergio flung his arms wide in a gesture that was a mixture of frustration and amused resignation. ‘So I’m realistic in my approach to relationships? I never make promises I’m in danger of not keeping. I don’t encourage slumber parties. At this stage in my life I’m not interested in playing for keeps…’

‘And you’re always on the lookout for anyone who wants to get too close just because you’re rich…?’

‘That’s right.’ His expression cooled.

‘Because you’ve had a bad experience?’ Susie mused.

‘You could say that,’ he drawled, relaxing. ‘And now is the question-and-answer session over?’

Susie didn’t answer. She was staring into space. He’d been hurt—badly hurt—by someone he’d trusted who had turned out to be after his money. She wondered what this mysterious woman looked like, had been like… It didn’t matter in the big picture, because she wasn’t going to get involved with him, but she was curious nevertheless.

Had he been madly in love with her?

Her stomach gave a little flip, because she couldn’t imagine him being madly in love with anyone. Even after only her brief contact with him he struck her as a man in total control of every aspect of his life.

What woman had had the power to bring this big, powerful man to his knees? She must have been quite something. Hence his learning curve…

‘Stop trying to work me out.’

‘Huh?’ Susie blinked and focused on him.

‘You’re trying to piece me together,’ Sergio said wryly. ‘Don’t. We can enjoy one another without too much in-depth analysis. Come and sit closer to me. It’s driving me crazy, seeing you and not being able to touch.’

Susie stood up, flexed her muscles, which had stiffened. and glanced at the roses taking up half her flat.

‘You’re going to have to take most of these back to your apartment,’ she said, buying time—because there was still a stubborn part of her that didn’t want to fall into his arms at the snap of his fingers. She felt like someone with one foot hanging off the edge of a cliff, even though she didn’t know why because, as he’d said, mutual lust didn’t involve the depth charge of a proper relationship…

This was going to be an adventure that would take her right out of her comfort zone.

She had tried the online dating in search of a soul mate and had found three losers and a would-be loser. She had been out with guys who had been the last word in fun, who had been laid-back and full of creative spark, and she had only been tempted to get close to one of them—and that one had ended up being just a little too much fun for her liking.

Sergio Burzi occupied a place of his own. He had laid his cards on the table. He wanted sex and nothing more. She wasn’t even really sure what he thought of her. Did he still think that she was after what he could give her?

It sounded so weirdly clinical—even though sex was the least clinical thing on the face of the earth.

She didn’t do clinical—not when it came to emotions—but…

What he aroused in her was so overwhelming. She just had to look at his cool, handsome face, just had to hear the deep timbre of his voice, and all her reservations flew out of her head.

She felt his eyes follow her as she strolled towards the window and then turned to look at him.

‘When you do, I’ll help you put them in vases. Or something…’

Sergio relaxed. He hadn’t even known how much he wanted this. ‘It’ll have to be the something…my apartment lacks vases. It’s the first time I will have had flowers returned to me…’

But there was a first time for everything.

Admittedly he had never factored that into his life before, but he was willing to go along for the ride…until, of course, the ride became boring and it was time to get off…

CHAPTER FOUR

BUT RIGHT NOW…

He shut out the nagging little things that didn’t add up. Who cared? She wasn’t being interviewed for the job of being his life partner. This was about lust. This was about sex. He knew from experience that the physical never lasted, however good it was. Sooner rather than later tedium began to set in, and no amount of intellectual sparring could stanch the tide once it had begun.

The advantage of going out with high-powered career women was that they had less potential to become clingy. They had jobs, careers…there wasn’t any danger of them becoming dependent, needy, demanding.

He frowned, distracted by his train of thought.

‘Penny for them?’ Susie said lightly.

‘Come again?’

‘You’re frowning.’ She was drawn to sit right next to him, nestle into him, and she fought off the weakness. He would be very used to getting what he wanted from a woman. So even if this was all about physical attraction surely they could spend a little time talking.

‘It happens occasionally.’ Sergio focused on her with lazy intensity.

‘Why are you frowning? You must have everything you could possibly want in life. Although…’ she chewed her lip thoughtfully ‘…it’s not all about money and possessions, is it? I mean, you have an apartment that most people would kill for, but there’s more to life than a fancy apartment and a fast car…’

‘Are you about to launch into homilies about money not being the be-all and end-all?’

‘You’re so cynical.’

‘I prefer to call it realistic.’ He patted the space next to him and she shuffled along the sofa so that she was sitting a bit closer, with her legs crossed.

Sergio suppressed a sigh of frustration. Why had he thought that this might be a straightforward affair? Two adults attracted to one another who could enjoy one other in a fleeting, no-strings-attached situation? Had he really been stupid enough to imagine that some flowers would seamlessly pave the way?

‘I’ve never been that convinced about the advantages of being realistic,’ Susie said pensively. ‘I mean, I think optimism is much more important.’

Sergio detected the sound of warning bells ringing. ‘Which is precisely why I’m not your type,’ he inserted smoothly.

‘I wish you would stop reminding me of that. It just makes it hard for me to think about doing something that’s not going to last. I’m not an idiot. I know relationships end all the time. But I never thought I’d be the kind of person who gets involved with someone when I know it’s not going anywhere. I never thought I’d waste my time like that.’

‘That’s because this is probably the first time in your life that you’ve fallen prey to that little thing called desire.’ He reached out and lazily stroked her wrist. ‘The red dress was more obvious, but this shapeless outfit of yours is doing all sorts of interesting things to my system… Are you wearing a bra? No, I don’t think you are… Shuffle a bit closer and I can find out one way or the other. Of course if you are wearing a bra then it’s going to have to come off, because I want to feel your breasts in my hands…’

Susie’s breathing quickened. How was she supposed to think when he was saying stuff like that? And was he right? Was she feeling like this, behaving like this, because he turned her on as no one ever had in her life before?

‘I…I…I’ve had a boyfriend,’ she said weakly, clinging to the conversation even though talking was getting difficult when he was looking at her like that, his eyes all brooding and sexy and intense. ‘I know what…physical attraction is all about…’

‘Do you?’ He held the bottom of her jumper between his fingers and gave a gentle tug, which was enough to make her eyelids flutter and her breathing hitch in her throat even more.

No! He was right—she didn’t know a thing about desire…at least not desire like this, which was eating her up, devouring her, making her want to pass out from its intensity…

‘I don’t believe you. I can feel you throbbing for me. You’re hot and you’re wet and you don’t know how much longer you can sit there with your legs crossed, pretending to hold a normal conversation.’

‘You don’t know everything.’

‘When it comes to sex you’d be shocked at how much I know.’

‘I’m not sure I want to hear that.’

‘You want me to touch you… I know you want to hear that. And you can’t begin to imagine how much I want to touch you. Why do you think I came here? This is one of those rare occasions when I’ve done something that makes very little sense…’

Susie liked the sound of that. She liked the thought that she might be driving him a little crazy. Because he was driving her more than a little crazy and she wanted him to touch her so badly that she could scarcely think straight.

‘I’m not wearing a bra,’ she muttered, excited and shocked by the brazenness of that admission.

‘Let me see.’

Her hands were trembling as she lifted the jumper. Was she really doing this? Her breasts felt heavy, sensitive, her nipples pulsing. She had squeezed her eyes tightly shut but now she half opened them to sneak a glance at his face and the heat in his eyes made her giddy.