The Italian's Wedding Ultimatum Read online

  Actually, they were the same clothes she'd been wearing when he'd proposed. Not really the sort of outfit a girl should wear when the man in her life asked her to marry him. But then it hadn't been that sort of proposal. To her mind it had been more in the nature of an ultimatum.

  But then Alessandro was an ultimatum sort of man.

  It had been less than twenty-four hours since Alessandro, not a man accustomed to hearing no, had stormed off, saying that when she came to her senses she knew where to find him. She had never known a man so prone to slinging around ultimatums... The problem was, Sam reflected dully, he generally didn't have to wait long - at least where she was concerned!

  He said, You will, she responded with an equally determined, Never; and five minutes later she was panting to fall in with his plans. It was not a good precedent to set, but she was very aware after the last twelve hours' events that there were more important things at stake than her pride or proving a point.

  It wasn't until she had walked out of the hospital that morning and the taxi driver had asked her where she wanted to go that Sam had found the flaw in Alessandro's parting shot - she didn't know where to find him!

  She didn't have the faintest idea where he lived, worked, or for that matter if he was still in the country. In the faint hope that her taxi driver would not be as ignorant as she was, she had said, The Di Lrvio offices." and got a cheery, "Right you are, love," in return.

  As for coming to her senses - that sort of depended on your definition. As far as Sam was concerned coming to her senses involved waking up one morning and not being in love with her Italian lover.

  That hadn't happened. She suspected that it probably never would - not that she'd actually been to bed yet.

  The phone had rung a bare two hours after Alessandro had stormed off, and Sam still hadn't cooled down.

  It obviously hadn't even crossed his mind that she wouldn't come crawling. Well, if he was waiting for her, he'd wait a damned long time. A person would have to be totally insane to marry such a pompous, opinionated, dyed-in-the wool male chauvinist. Of course he was also the man who could make her skin tingle, who could make her feel sassy, sexy and generally irresistible. Never seeing him again might mean she would never have those feelings again. No might about it.

  I want to feel that way again!

  Pushing aside the intrusive thought, Sam had concentrated on all the things she wouldn't miss about him. For a start he was always prepared to think the worst of her - the cheque situation being a perfect example. And not only was he infuriatingly stubborn, he was congenitally incapable of admitting when he was wrong.

  He'd had the cheek to say she had no idea of what she was letting herself in for! She'd taught a class of thirty, for heaven's sake!

  Taking a certain grim satisfaction from the fact that she was going to show him - even if it killed her - that she was perfectly capable of bringing up their child, she had picked up the receiver still on an angry, defiant high. She would be such a perfect single mother that one day even he would be forced to eat his words. Hopefully he would choke on them.

  She had nursed her anger until the moment when she had picked up the phone and heard Rachel's voice.

  "Sam - thank God You're there! I don't know what to do."

  "Rachel?" Her friend's voice was hardly recognisable.

  It took some time, but Sam eventually got the bones of the story out of her friend. It transpired that Rachel had received a call when she'd got to work that morning from the nanny, who'd said she was concerned about Harry. Rachel had left work immediately, and by the time she'd reached home the nanny had already called for an ambulance. Rachel was ringing Sam from the hospital, where the staff had uttered a word guaranteed to make any parent's blood run cold - meningitis.

  Sam called a cab and rushed to the hospital. The young nanny who was trying to cope with Rachel greeted her arrival with relief. Rachel greeted her with a tear-stained face and a stream of bitter self-recrimination.

  "He's got meningitis, Sam, and it's all my fault! I should have stayed at home. A good mother would have stayed at home. What sort of mother puts a meeting before her child? I just thought he had a cold.. .he did say his head was hurting."

  "Rachel, there's no way you could have known."

  "That's what I've been telling her," said the young nanny.

  "Anybody would have thought he had a cold, I thought he had a cold. It wasn't until his mum had gone that he really went off," she explained to Sam. The doctors say that it happens that way sometimes. But they all say we got him here very quickly, and that's good."

  Between them, Sam and the young nanny, who both felt pretty inadequate to the task, tried their best to support the distraught young mother through the evening and interminable night.

  This morning the doctors were cautiously optimistic - although they were making no promises.

  Sam and the nanny persuaded Rachel, who had barely left her child's side since she'd been allowed in the ICU, to come and get a drink.

  Rachel, her face waxen with fear and exhaustion, sat and sipped her tea. "I wish Simon was here. I don't even know if he got my message. New York." she said, her voice wobbling. "So f... far away. I just don't know what to do. Simon would know what to do. You two have been great, of course, but."

  "We're not Simon." Sam nodded understandingly. "He'll be here soon, Rachel," she promised, hoping like hell he wouldn't make her a liar.

  It was ten minutes later when Simon, who had got the message, walked into the small lounge where the three women were sitting.

  Sam just knew that she would never forget the look on Rachel's face when she saw her husband. She had seen another side of being a single parent, and quite frankly she no longer thought she was up to the task.

  The disaster that had torn apart Rachel's perfect life last night had had the effect of putting her own concerns in perspective, and now gave Sam the strength to walk boldly into the lobby.

  "Hang in there, Rachel," she murmured, crossing her fingers.

  The interior of the cutting-edge building had so many reflective surfaces that Sam blinked, momentarily blinded as she entered under the watchful eyes of two uniformed but discreet security guards. The woman seated in a reception area flanked by two metal sculptures was blonde, and groomed to within an inch of her life. Her nails ruled out a lifestyle that involved strenuous tasks like taking the lid off a jar. Women who looked like her were the reason Sam never shopped for clothes in certain smart designer shops.

  Now, however, was not a time to be intimidated by a snooty expression and killer nails. Deciding on the direct approach, Sam marched up and with a confident smile announced, "I'd like to see Mr Di Livio." She'd reserve the boldness in case the direct approach didn't work.

  The pencilled brows of the woman behind the desk rose and she looked faintly amused. "You have an appointment?"

  Sam felt a flush travel up her neck. "No, but-"

  Tm afraid that Mr Di Livio doesn't see people without appointments." She served up another professional smile and a look of pitying condescension before turning her attention to the computer screen in front of her.

  About to turn and leave, Sam stopped. You're acting like a wimp. Lifting her chin, she said firmly, "He'll see me."

  The other woman's sleek head lifted. There was a slight hint of exasperation in her professional smile as she addressed Sam. "There are no exceptions."

  "I'm not going anywhere until I see him." Even as she made this brave claim, on the periphery of her vision Sam was conscious of a security guard who clearly had other ideas approaching. "Tell him Sam is here. He'll see me," she told the other woman. "Tell him I've changed my mind."

  "Miss, if you'll just?" The security guard's hand hovered above the sleeve of her denim jacket.

  "Tell him I will marry him."

  The women's rather protuberant eyes widened to their fullest extent. "Marry?"

  Sam was suddenly too mad to be intimidated. "Be very, very sure before
you laugh," she suggested quietly to the other woman, who was tottering on the verge of laughter.

  Something in her manner brought a flicker of uncertainty to the other woman's eyes.

  "Why don't you just ring upstairs?" Sam suggested.

  Before the woman had come to a decision a door behind Sam silently slid open and out stepped Alessandro. He froze mid-stride, his dark brows drawing together as he saw her.

  "Sam."

  Deaf to the startled note of pleasure in his deep voice, Sam spun around. The breath left her body as she saw him standing there. Until that point she had not realised how badly she had missed looking at him. Not even twenty-four hours. Dear God, girl, do you have it bad.

  The pleasure had been replaced by caution as he asked, "What are you doing here?"

  She wanted to say, I've just realised that I can't bring up our baby on my own. I've realised that if anything bad happens I want you there to hold my hand And I want you there to share the good things too. The first steps, first words. Feeling her eyes fill, she blinked and said none of those things-which was just as well, because they would undoubtedly have sent Alessandro running for cover. "I was passing..."

  "I'm assuming that means you have come to your senses?"

  She loosed a dry laugh. "Or lost them," she retorted.

  His feet were silent on the polished Italian limestone floor as he walked towards her. "I must admit I thought you'd make me wait longer."

  The mocking quality in his voice was something Sam told herself she had to expect under the circumstances. "What can I say?" she asked, lifting her slender shoulders in a shrug. "I can't imagine my life without you in it?" she suggested, rolling her eyes sarcastically.

  When he realised how true this was, as he inevitably would, because Alessandro was far too perceptive not to, she wasn't going to be able to shrug it off. But right now she couldn't think that far ahead.

  As he scanned her upturned features the taunting quality left his face. The freckles on her nose stood out starkly against the dramatic pallor of her skin. The purple smudges under her eyes had not been there yesterday.

  It was only the presence of others that stopped Alessandro demanding on the spot what she had been doing to herself. The anger that caused his dark eyes to flare was aimed almost entirely at himself. How could he be angry with someone who looked one step away from total collapse. If he'd stuck around, instead of walking out, she wouldn't be in this state. But he hadn't stuck around, and in his eyes the fact that Samantha was stubborn and irrational enough to drive the most tolerant of men crazy was no excuse for his behaviour.

  He put his hand under her elbow. "Cancel my meetings for the rest of the day, Edward," he said, without taking his eyes from Sam's face.

  A younger man, whom Sam hadn't been aware of until that moment, blinked, opened his mouth - presumably to protest - and changed his mind.

  "I can come back later if you're busy," Sam said, thinking, If you say yes, I'll kill you.

  The fingers around her elbow tightened. "Actually, you can cancel my meetings until Monday."

  In the car, Alessandro got straight to the point. "Am I to take it that you will marry me?"

  "Am I to take it that you had any doubts?" Without waiting for a response to her quip, she tilted her head to look up at him. "You do know that it would be easier to get to see the Prime Minister than you?" And definitely easier on her traumatised nervous system, she decided, unable to tear her eyes from his face.

  "Why didn't you ring to tell me you were coming?"

  Her eyes slid from his. A little creativity, if not outright lying was called for. She could hardly say, I ripped up your number because I didn't trust myself not to ring you every five seconds. "I lost your mobile number. Where are we going?" she added shrilly.

  "Somewhere we can talk without interruptions."

  Sam's face scrunched up in dismay. "God," she groaned. "Do we have to talk?"

  He angled an impatient look at her face. "We are going to get married. I think you should resign yourself to the inescapable fact that we will of necessity spend some of the next forty years talking." But most of it in bed.

  "Forty years!" Sam exclaimed.

  "If you want to talk statistics, the average life expectancy of-"

  "I don't want to talk... statistics, that is. You're not trying to tell me you expect us to stay married, are you?"

  "That's what the contract says."

  Sam shot a resentful glance up at his patrician profile. "We always end up arguing."

  "Only on the occasions we don't end up making love."

  This silky observation reduced her to silence, which lasted until the chauffeur-driven car he had bundled her into drew up outside a row of Georgian terraces. Not that her silence seemed to have bothered Alessandro, who had spent most of the journey hitting keys on a laptop while simultaneously taking calls in several languages. She had heard of multi-tasking but this was ridiculous... Pressing a hand to her stomach, she wondered if the baby would inherit his IQ.

  It was only when she had preceded him up a shallow flight of stairs that led to an impressive door that Sam realised this wasn't a terrace, but one house. "You live here?"

  "Some of the time."

  "So nursery space is not going to be a problem, then?" she said drily as she entered the marble-floored hallway. "Good God!"

  Alessandro watched, his expression amused, as she did a wide-eyed three-hundred-and-sixty-degree rotation.

  "You approve?"

  "I've always wanted to live in a museum - or failing that a really swish mausoleum. You live here alone." This much space for one man seemed bizarre to someone who had been brought up in an Edwardian semi.

  "There are the staff." As he spoke, one of their number appeared. Alessandro spoke in Italian and the thick-set figure replied in the same language. He nodded in a respectful way towards Sam before vanishing.

  "Did you say something to him about me?" she demanded suspiciously.

  Alessandro looked amused. "I said you were thirsty and would like a cup of tea."

  A cup of tea was the very least she needed. "Who did you say I was? You didn't say anything about us getting married, did you?"

  "I am not required to identify my guests, and I do not discuss my private business with my staff. Now, sit down before you fall down and tell me what has happened."

  The addition made Sam blink. Once more his powers of perception were unnerving. "How do you know something has?"

  "It does not take a genius. You are as pale as a ghost and you look as though you haven't been to bed."

  He too had spent a sleepless night. It wasn't every day a man discovered he was about to become a father and had a marriage proposal rejected. For hours he had silently seethed over what he considered her unreasonable behaviour.

  "I haven't." She lifted her hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn. "I was in hospital all night."

  At her side, Alessandro froze.

  "Hospital?" There was screaming tension in every line of his long, lean body as he scanned her face.

  "Yes, I've just come from St Jude's-"

  He stared at her, disbelief etched into every line of his taut features. Behind the disbelief lurked fear. "And you did not contact me?" he cut in, dragging both hands through his hair.

  "Contact you? Why should I have?"

  "Dio mio, I don't believe you... How can you ask?" He stopped abruptly and, exerting obvious self-control, tempered his tone as he said tersely, "Sit down." Sam found herself being urged into a chair. Alessandro squatted down beside her, the strain in his face. "They let you leave?" His voice suggested he disapproved of the decision. "You are all right? The baby?"

  Sam, realising his mistake, shook her head. "No, it wasn't me - I was there with Rachel. You remember? Harry's mum?" Her voice became suspended by tears as an image of the little boy looking so frail and vulnerable flashed into her head. "Sorry... "

  "Sorry?"

  Her mind still filled with images of the te
rribly ill toddler who, when she had previously seen him had been so fit and well, she didn't pick up on his tense tone.

  "Well, it would have solved your problem, wouldn't it?" It wasn't that she thought he wished their child harm, but any man in his situation would find it tough not to do a bit of if only.

  Her unthinking reflection caused the remaining colour to leave Alessandro's face. Eyes blazing in a stony set face, he took her by the shoulders.

  "You will never ever say such a thing to me again."

  His tone made her flinch. She met his eyes, registered the molten fury in his taut face and realised belatedly how much her throw away comment had offended him. She knew that it wasn't reasonable to be mad with him for not wanting this baby as much as she did, any more than it was reasonable to be angry with him because he didn't love her back, but Sam couldn't help herself.

  She was dismayed to feel her eyes fill up again with weak tears. "Well, it's true," she gulped. "You may not want to hear it, but the fact is it would have made life a lot simpler for you if I had been the patient." She pressed her hands protectively to her belly and swallowed. "It's not as if you want the baby to be here," she reminded him thickly. "You'd like it to go away, so that you can get your life back to normal."

  Seeing the single tear rolling down her cheek, he felt some of the icy hauteur fade from his face. "Have I ever said that?"

  Her eyes slid from his. "You didn't have to. It's obvious," she countered with a loud, unhappy sniff. "Any man in your situation would feel that way."

  "I am not any man."

  Sam lifted her eyes to his face and thought, Tell me something I don't already know!

  A nerve along his strong jaw began to throb, "Do you wish our baby would go away?"

  "That's not the same."

  He arched a dark brow. "You think not?" Sam released a startled gasp as he moved her hands and laid one of his own across her belly. She looked at the big hand, resting warm and firm on her, and her throat closed over with some unidentifiable emotion. "You are carrying this child, but this baby is half you, half me - a part of both of us. You would lay down your life to save him."

  An overwhelmed Sam blinked up at him and realised that it was a statement, not a question.