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past.’

      ‘How so?’

      ‘I’ve seen the occasional picture in a trashy mag.’ She liked the way the words trashy mag rolled off her tongue.

      ‘You read “trashy mags”? You surprise me. I thought I might be getting a highbrow intellectual for a wife. I’m disappointed.’

      There was a thread of amusement in his voice which she decided to ignore, because it seemed to point to a side of his personality that wasn’t part of the package she had conjured up.

      ‘They’re the only things to read at the hairdresser,’ Alexa told him airily. ‘Great big stacks of silly magazines, full of useless gossip. I saw a picture of you in one of them a couple of months ago. A tall, blonde woman was clinging to you as though she might fall flat on her face unless you kept her propped up. Maybe she’d had too much to drink...’ Alexa mused, enjoying herself for the first time that evening. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. But I suppose those society dos usually involve a lot of alcohol. I’ve been asked to several over the years,’ she inserted, truthfully enough, because as the daughter of a prominent Italian family she had occasionally been asked to some event or other in aid of a good cause, ‘but I try and avoid them.’

      ‘How virtuous.’

      ‘So, yes, I know that you date tall model-types. A bit like your brother. He also pops up in those kinds of magazines, with some drunken supermodel hanging on to him for dear life...’

      Theo thought of Daniel and for a second tried to imagine what the mouthy little brunette facing him would have thought of his brother. His brother was the essence of a playboy—which was why he had laughed uproariously when Theo had told him about the situation he was stuck in.

      It would have been Daniel’s ultimate nightmare, and he had been overjoyed at the prospect of being able to remain free, single and unattached, without having to worry that their father might start making noises about him settling down. One son who had settled down would be plenty good enough.

      ‘I like the way you think the supermodel was drunk...’ Theo murmured, temporarily distracted by her digression and thinking that, yes, there was a very high chance that whoever she had seen clinging to him had had too much to drink. ‘Maybe she was clinging to me because she liked the sensation of being pressed up against me... A lot of women do...’

      Alexa blinked and blushed. ‘Well...’ the conversation had meandered, and she had only herself to blame ‘...in case you hadn’t noticed I’m not six-foot-two and blonde, so you can’t turn me into one of your supermodels...’

      ‘You know exactly what I was talking about, Alexa...’

      ‘Do I?’ The way he said her name sent little shivers through her, and her eyes glazed over as she tried to fight off the unusual sensation.

      ‘Show up next to me in a pair of jeans, some trainers and a baggy sweatshirt and people are going to scratch their heads in bewilderment. And show up next to me you’re going to have to—because we’re going to spend the next couple of months convincing whoever needs convincing that we’re a loved-up couple.’

      ‘I have a job...’ Alexa stared at him in horror.

      ‘I’m not asking you to shadow me twenty-four hours of the day,’ Theo clarified. ‘In fact I won’t even be in Italy for significant periods of time. My work is primarily in London. I will, however, try and arrange my business dealings so that I can be here more often than I normally would. I don’t see that I have much choice in the matter. At any rate, when I’m in London you’re going to have to drop whatever you’re doing and put in an appearance. Two people who are supposed to be madly in love should be madly in love enough that they actually want to spend time in the same country together.’

      ‘Are you telling me that I will have to give up my job?’

      Theo looked at her pensively. ‘You work in a law office. Am I right?’

      ‘How did you know?’

      ‘Your parents told me before you came down,’ Theo said wryly. ‘They thought a little background information about you would be a good idea.’

      ‘What else did they say?’

      ‘That you don’t seem particularly enthralled by it...’

      Alexa was dismayed. She liked what she did well enough, but her liking it only ‘well enough’ would not have gone unnoticed by her parents. She was their only child, and they could tune in to her moods in ways that were scary.

      Was that why they had jumped to the conclusion that she was somehow unhappy with her life?

      Like a detective in possession of clue number one, Alexa could begin to see why they might have also come to the conclusion that if she wasn’t happy in her job, she wasn’t happy in her life—and her mother, traditional as she was, would have instantly decided that it was because there was no guy in the picture. She was now twenty-six years old—at an age when so many Italian girls she had grown up with were married, some with kids. Her mother wouldn’t have understood that she was just missing the independence she had had in another country.

      ‘I haven’t been there very long.’

      ‘A year and a half is long enough to decide whether you like a job or not. My point being that it won’t be any great sacrifice for you to be flexible with it while we indulge in our passionate love affair. And when we do tie the knot it won’t be any great sacrifice either for you to jack it in altogether and return to London with me. There’s no way I can live out here.’

      Alexa’s head was spinning. It didn’t get worse than this. Not only had her life been overturned, but she felt as if she were on a rollercoaster ride and someone else had complete control of the on/off switch.

      ‘I don’t just work at a law firm,’ she said tightly, ‘I also volunteer three evenings a week at a local women’s shelter, and that’s something that I do happen to like—very much!’

      That came as a surprise to Theo. Her parents hadn’t mentioned it, and he wondered whether they’d thought it was something he might find a little embarrassing.

      He didn’t.

      In fact he was intrigued. There was no need for her to do anything but enjoy living in the lap of luxury. There was certainly no need for her to have a job, but he could understand her wanting that well enough. However, helping out at a women’s shelter was way beyond the call of duty, and he felt a twinge of curiosity about this woman who was going to become his wife.

      Since curiosity and women didn’t tend to go hand in hand for him, he allowed himself a few seconds to enjoy the novel sensation.

      ‘Doing what?’ he asked with genuine interest.

      Alexa hesitated. Determined that total detachment was the only way to deal with a situation she didn’t like, convinced anyhow that someone like Theo De Angelis was just the sort of man she could only ever view as an adversary, she was wary of this brief lull in warfare.

      He was leaning forward, frowning slightly, his head inclined to one side, waiting for her to reply.

      And just for a split second she glimpsed the ferocity of his charm—the charm that drew women like magnets and ensured that his face was always plastered somewhere inside one of those trashy magazines she had told him about.

      For a split second it was as if she were the only woman in the universe who interested him. That was how it felt. And even though she knew that it was an illusion, and it didn’t change her fundamental opinion of him, she was still...

      Sucked in...

      ‘I... You probably don’t get this...’ she tried for defensive and belligerent but achieved breathless ‘...but I am actually interested in putting back into the community...’

      ‘I’d like to argue that one with you, but go on...’

      ‘I did Law at university, and my experience

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