Modern Romance March 2015 Collection 1. Кэрол Мортимер

he repeated as if this were a perfectly normal conversation.

      Which it certainly wasn’t. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

      ‘Ah ha, that means you do,’ he murmured with satisfaction. ‘If you didn’t you would have said no,’ he explained at her perplexed frown.

      Sam grimaced. ‘Maybe I’m just too surprised by the question to have instantly denied it?’

      ‘Still not saying no, Samantha,’ he mocked, a wicked glint in his eyes as he looked her over from her head to her toes. ‘Now where would you choose to have a tattoo, I wonder?’

      Sam could feel the colour once again warming her cheeks under the frankness of that gaze. ‘This really isn’t a suitable conversation, Mr Sterne.’

      ‘Oh, come on, Samantha, I’ve been stuck in hospital and this apartment for the past six weeks; surely you aren’t mean enough to deny me a little entertainment?’

      ‘The puppy-dog look doesn’t look so good on you,’ Sam assured him cuttingly.

      ‘Then answer the question! Sorry.’ He scowled darkly. ‘I’m just—’ He ran a frustrated hand through the thickness of his blond hair. ‘You aren’t seeing me at my best.’

      ‘No?’ Sam wasn’t sure she could cope with seeing this man at his best.

      ‘No,’ he confirmed heavily. ‘I was just— What’s wrong with telling me where you have your tattoo?’

      ‘Goodnight, Mr Sterne.’ Sam turned towards the door.

      ‘Is it on your breast?’

      Sam faltered slightly but managed to keep on walking.

      ‘Your shoulder?’

      Why did the door suddenly seem so far away?

      ‘Maybe your deliciously rounded bottom?’

      Sam’s hand shook slightly as she was finally close enough to reach out to take hold of the door handle.

      ‘Or maybe it’s at the top of your thigh where only a lover would see it?’

      Sam quickly pulled the handle down and opened the door.

      ‘Now the thought of that is definitely going to keep me awake long into the night!’ Xander murmured.

      ‘Goodnight, Mr Sterne,’ she repeated firmly before stepping out into the hallway, closing the door behind her before leaning weakly back against it, able to hear Xander’s soft laughter echo from behind it.

      The man was impossible. Worse than impossible!

      And the tiny tattoo on the top slope of her left breast seemed to throb as much at the moment as it had on the day she’d had it done five years ago.

      * * *

      ‘How do you like your toast, Daisy?’ Xander frowned across the kitchen at the little girl as she sat at the breakfast bar in her pyjamas, her hair a glorious tangle of red curls about her slender shoulders. ‘I can do lightly golden or burnt?’

      ‘Burnt, please,’ she answered politely.

      Xander had been the only one up when he’d come to the kitchen a short time ago, but that hadn’t lasted for long. Daisy had appeared shyly in the doorway just a few minutes later, obviously having heard someone moving about in the kitchen, and no doubt assuming it was her mother.

      Xander’s first reaction was to panic. To wonder if he was up to dealing with her, or if he should just go and get Samantha.

      What if Daisy spilt some juice and he lost it? What if she dropped cereal or jam on the breakfast bar, and his violent temper made another unwanted appearance?

      The rage he had felt that night in the Midas nightclub had been frightening enough, but Xander knew he would never forgive himself if he verbally or physically hurt a child. As he had been hurt by his father.

      After staring blankly at Daisy for several minutes Xander had forced down the panic, decided not to go and wake Samantha, but to instead test himself and offer Daisy the same breakfast he was having.

      So far it was going reasonably well. He had tried to smile as he poured Daisy some juice, and his voice had remained reasonably calm when he offered to make her some toast along with his own.

      He usually didn’t eat breakfast at all, preferring to grab a quick cup of coffee, but he was making an exception by eating a slice of toast this morning, unsure of when he would be able to eat again.

      Darius and Miranda’s wedding was at one o’clock today, but the meal wasn’t being served until four o’clock, to allow time for the taking of photographs after the service, and the greeting of guests at the Midas Hotel later.

      As Darius’s best man, Xander had his own wedding duties to take care of.

      ‘Oh, no!’ A breathless Samantha suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking almost as dishevelled as her young daughter, in a robe belted tightly about her slender waist, her red hair a wild tangle about her shoulders, her legs bare. ‘I am so sorry!’ She rushed into the room. ‘I should have been up and getting your breakfast long before this. I must have overslept.’

      ‘Calm down, Samantha,’ Xander advised abruptly. ‘Daisy and I have been managing just fine on our own, haven’t we?’ He placed Daisy’s plate of buttered—and burnt—toast in front of her on the breakfast bar, once again congratulating himself on having got through the past ten minutes without having a single urge to lose the temper he now feared.

      Although he couldn’t say he was sorry that Samantha had put in an appearance.

      Sam had never felt so disorientated in her life as when she woke up in a strange bed a few minutes ago, before the reality that she was currently staying in Xander Sterne’s apartment came crashing down on her. A glance at the bedside clock had shown her it was already eight o’clock, way past the time Daisy usually woke her in the morning.

      She had leapt out of bed, quickly pulling on and tying her robe over the vest and shorts she wore to sleep in as she hurried next door to Daisy’s bedroom, only to find her daughter’s bed had obviously been slept in but was now empty.

      The last thing Sam had expected, after hurrying down the hallway to the kitchen, was to find her daughter sitting at the breakfast bar while Xander made and served her breakfast.

      Especially when Sam was being paid—very generously—to make and serve his breakfast!

      It didn’t help that his face looked a little pale this morning, and his limp was much more pronounced too as he hobbled about the kitchen.

      Because he shouldn’t be standing on his leg for any length of time yet. Because she was being paid to ensure that he didn’t.

      She had also promised him that he wouldn’t even know Daisy was in his apartment, and yet here he was, the morning after their arrival, preparing her breakfast!

      ‘I really am sorry,’ Sam mumbled awkwardly as Xander poured some coffee into a mug before handing it to her.

      Today he wore a fitted brown T-shirt and faded blue jeans, his feet bare on the tiled floor.

      The latter no doubt because he couldn’t bend down far enough to put on his own socks and shoes and she hadn’t been around to do it for him.

      How could she have been so stupid as to oversleep on her very first morning here?

      Probably because she had tossed and turned in her bed for most of the night before, unable to sleep because she was so totally aware of that last conversation with Xander. Of the fact that he was lying naked in his own bed just down the hallway!

      How did Sam know he was naked?

      Because while he was in the shower she had searched through the drawers in his dressing table and the wardrobes for pyjamas, in readiness for when he came