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palm on his chest and shimmied a little closer. Her hair was so silky and so unbelievably blonde that Alexa could only stare in wonder.

      ‘Andrea...’ Theo caught the blonde’s hand, halted it firmly in its tracks and held it slightly at a distance before dropping it. It was a gesture that was cool and indifferent. Alexa would have been mortified. The blonde remained perky and upbeat. ‘I’d like you to meet Alexa...’

      ‘You’re really short, aren’t you?’

      ‘Alexa is my fiancée.’ Theo’s voice was soft, silky, glacial. ‘And now, before I start getting annoyed at your interruption, I suggest you take yourself back to your group of friends.’

      For a few seconds the blonde was nonplussed. Alexa almost, but not quite, felt sorry for her. In her world she would rule supreme, but with a few words from Theo she was reduced to a woman of no standing.

      ‘You don’t mean that...’

      She tried for provocative and Alexa, with a stab of pure womanly satisfaction, could have told her that she had made a mistake. One look at Theo’s shuttered face should have sent the blonde running for cover.

      ‘I mean it, Andrea. I’m giving you two seconds. You don’t leave...you see that big guy, standing on the corner...?’

      Andrea left, head held high, long, slim body taut with anger and wounded pride.

      ‘I don’t mind leaving if you feel that you might be uncomfortable here...’ Alexa hovered, uncertain as to what to say in the wake of that dramatic scene.

      Theo looked down at her, bemused. ‘Why would I feel uncomfortable?’

      He signalled with a nod to a hassled-looking waitress, who immediately patted her hair and plastered a smile on her face when she spotted him. Every other customer apparently forgotten, she dashed over to them and cleared a path to a table at the back of the restaurant.

      ‘It’s reserved,’ the waitress confided with a giggle, ‘but I’ll sort something else out for the women who reserved it...’

      Alexa automatically opened her mouth to protest, but Theo was already sitting and ordering a bottle of wine for them to share without looking at the menu.

      ‘Why do you think I would feel uncomfortable?’ he asked again, as soon as she was seated. ‘And stop looking guilty because someone else had reserved this table. That charming little waitress said she’d sort it out—let’s let her do her job.’

      ‘Her job isn’t to pander to customers who haven’t booked a table.’

      ‘Not my problem.’ He shrugged. ‘Now, moving on...’

      Alexa sighed. The man was utterly impossible. The more time she spent in his company, the more cemented that impression became.

      ‘I guess that woman must be one of your girlfriends and I just thought it might be awkward for you to be in the same place as she is when you know she’ll probably be gossiping about you to her friends...’

      Theo was looking utterly relaxed. ‘You guess correctly,’ he said, pushing back his chair to accommodate his long body. ‘Ex-girlfriend. Barely lasted a month, if you want the truth. The woman turned out to be a bunny-boiler. What started as a little bit of fun with a reasonably attractive woman turned into a dozen phone calls a day and attempts to get into my diary to make sure I wasn’t seeing anyone else...’

      Andrea had wanted a hell of a lot more than he had been prepared to give. Big mistake. On the love front...he had nothing to give. He’d seen what unrestrained emotions did to a guy—had seen the way his mother’s death had destroyed his father...the way it had left a great gaping hole in his and Daniel’s lives. No. Frothy, dewy-eyed looks from women were the ultimate turn-off to him, and trying to get anything more out of him than passion was their fastest way to the exit.

      Alexa’s mind had become stuck on his description of the blonde bombshell as a ‘reasonably attractive woman’.

      What on earth did he consider stunning? Were his values so much different from everyone else’s because of the way he looked? What on earth must he think of her?

      ‘Some women are possessive, I guess...’ she said.

      Wine had been brought to the table and poured into oversized goblets and she took a sip of the chilled liquid and then stared at the glass—which seemed less fraught with potential danger than staring at him and getting into a mental muddle.

      Theo nodded. He found it amazing that a life of luxury and wealth appeared to have had so little effect on the woman sitting opposite him. The privileges which should have turned her into the sort of vain, self-obsessed young woman he met every day of the week in his social circles seemed to have had the opposite effect. Frankly, and against all odds, she roused his curiosity.

      ‘I’ve always found it a healthy option to stay away from those,’ Theo drawled. ‘Life’s too short to waste any of it with a woman who wants to micro-manage my life. No, I don’t give a damn if Andrea is sitting five inches away from us, gossiping with her friends.The only thing Andrea will tell anyone is that I am now engaged.’

      ‘Engaged to someone short.’

      He laughed, and his cool green eyes skirted over her flushed face. ‘There’s no law about falling in love with someone who doesn’t fit the insane prototype other people have come up with,’ he murmured.

      No, Alexa thought, and as he had pointed out they made the perfect society match. Two prominent families united in marriage. Who would think to scratch beneath the surface to see two individuals who couldn’t have been less suited?

      ‘How is it that you have never settled down?’ she asked with blunt curiosity.

      It was an extremely personal question—but why not? There would be occasions they spent together away from the spotlight, and they couldn’t lapse into silence whenever they were together, could they? It would make living together extremely difficult—even if their living together would be taking place in opposite wings of whatever house they ended up living in...

      She wondered whether they might not end up being friends, and then nearly laughed hysterically at that notion—because the man was just too much, too larger than life, to be considered a potential buddy. Potential buddies didn’t make you feel as though you were standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down. Buddies were comfortable to be around, unthreatening, safe...

      Theo looked at her consideringly. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his ex-girlfriend shooting venomous looks in their direction. He wanted to grin, because he knew that the single thing that would enrage Andrea and all those women like her—all those beautiful, arrogantly self-assured women he had dated in the past—was the fact that he was engaged to someone they would consider downright plain.

      The fact that Alexa had been born to privilege would make little difference. Beautiful women were notoriously superficial when it came to judging other women, by standards that were almost always according to looks.

      He felt a sudden surge of protectiveness towards his fake wife-to-be.

      He reached forward and stroked the side of her face, linking his fingers through hers at the same time.

      Another public display of affection, Alexa thought as her heart picked up a frantic pace. And particularly appropriate given that their actions were being minutely watched by an ex-girlfriend who would be busy spreading the news that the most eligible man on the planet had been caught.

      An ex-girlfriend who was probably appalled and stunned that he had been stupid enough to fall for someone like her...

      Alexa had always known that when it came to looks she could only ever aspire to be average. She didn’t have razor-sharp cheekbones or long, thirty-four-inch legs or shiny poker-straight hair. She had never felt comfortable in revealing clothes and largely avoided wearing anything that was too bright or too eye-catching.

      And yet here she was. Engaged to a man who could have

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