LITMIR.BIZ

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fist behind her back, nails biting into her palm. “How could you lose me?”

      “Things happen.”

      He was wrong about that, Sam thought, hands tingling, body cold and icy as if her blood had frozen in her veins. Things only happened to Johann van Bergen. “To you,” she said bitterly.

      He opened one eye, looked at her, deep wrinkles fanning from his eyes. “Since you’re not doing anything, liebchen, could you get me another drink?”

      Liebchen. Liebling. Nothing like good old German endearments he didn’t mean, had never meant. Seething, Sam dug her nails harder into her skin. “No.”

      Grunting, Johann rolled the cold tumbler across his forehead. He was obviously hungover. He’d been out all night, had only recently stumbled in. “Explain this to me.”

      His lashes lifted, his pale blue gaze slid over her, inspecting her. “Is that a new dress?”

      Sam glanced down at her cream brocade dress with rich lavender and purple threads, the hem of the dress edged with silky purple ribbon. The dress had been part of her trousseau two years ago, part of the elegant designer wardrobe Johann had bought for her before she’d discovered he was deep in debt and couldn’t afford groceries much less fine clothes. “No. We can’t afford new clothes, remember?”

      He grunted again, rolled the glass in the opposite direction over his brow. “Mein Gott, you remind me of my mother. She was a nag, too.”

      Sam didn’t flinch, stooping instead to numbly pick up a gold tasseled pillow that had fallen from the threadbare sofa onto the hardwood floor and tossed it back onto the couch.

      Johann could mock her all he wanted. Theirs had been a marriage of convenience. Nothing more, nothing less. She didn’t care now what he thought of her, hadn’t cared for his opinion when she’d married him. The only reason she’d agreed to the marriage in the first place was to protect his child. A child he seemed determined to neglect and reject.

      “I’m not going to him,” she said now, “Or with him, or anywhere near him. You’ll have to find another way to settle your debt.”

      “Oh, you’re tough now, are you? I wonder if you’d be so tough if I’d wagered my darling daughter instead of you.” He paused. “Gabriela, my beautiful little angel daughter.” He laughed low, mockingly and shook his glass, rattling the ice cubes. “I did consider it, though. More than once. But Bartolo was interested in you. Not sure why. You’ve no money, no education, no connections, no family. You’re British. Boring. And might I add, frigid.”

      “It shouldn’t matter if I’m frigid since there won’t be any physical intimacy.”

      “Not with me, anyway. But I can’t see him taking you and not taking you, if you get my meaning.”

      She did, all too well, and it was all she could do to keep her disgust from showing.

      To think that Johann would wager her…

      And to think that this Bartolo would accept…

      Sam had put up with Johann’s abuse for years and she told herself not to let the insults hurt, told herself his opinion didn’t matter but on the inside she was cold, so cold, as if the December chill had burrowed all the way through her. She was there to protect Gabby, nothing else mattered. “So what happens now?”

      “Cristiano comes to get you. You’re his problem now and I wish him all the luck in the world.”

      “Johann!”

      “Must you talk so loud? I’ve a hellish headache.”

      She lowered her voice marginally. “This isn’t funny.”

      He slunk lower in his chair. “No, it’s not funny. I’ve lost everything. My cars. My penthouse. Now my villa. It’s all gone.”

      Her throat felt raw. She couldn’t disguise her bitterness. “Why do you gamble?”

      “Christ, Sam, it wasn’t like I killed someone.” He took a gulp from his glass. “It was a mistake.”

      Sam stared at the man who’d been her husband for exactly four hundred and sixty-five days and her employer for two years before that. He was an alcoholic, a gambler, a womanizer and the father of the most amazing, beautiful, and once lonely little girl in the world. “What happens to Gabby?”

      “I don’t know. She never came up.”

      “Well, I won’t leave her here with you. If I go, I take Gabby with me.”

      Johann took another great gulp, draining his glass. “I don’t think that’s up to you. It’s not up to me anymore. It’s his decision. He’s the one that owns you.”

      Owns you. Owns. Like meat. Or a piece of property. Real estate in the Côte d’Azur. Eyes burning, her throat swollen, Sam swallowed the pain. Intellectually she knew Johann had never loved her, never wanted her, had only married her to keep Gabby’s mother’s family from taking her, but still, his coldness, his indifference and cruelty cut.

      “You’ll use Gabby to force me into another man’s bed?” Sam sank down onto the edge of the couch.

      “Well, you were no use in mine.”

      Sam felt a moment of panic, pure unadulterated panic. At twenty-eight, she knew who she was, and what she was, and Johann was right. She wasn’t a sexual woman, not even a sensual woman. Despite the wedding ring on her finger, she had no knowledge of men, of sex, or desire. And she was content to leave it that way. A woman didn’t have to be sexual. A woman didn’t need a man. She’d been alone for years but she wasn’t alone anymore. She had Gabby. She loved Gabby. “I’ll do this…go to him…settle your debt, on one condition. You let me adopt her.”

      “It’s out of my hands.”

      He acted as if Gabby was nothing more than a tennis ball. He’d just throw her in any direction, toss her where it suited him. “Impossible! You’re her father, her legal guardian—”

      “But I told you, Sam. God, I do wish you’d listen.” Irritably Johann pressed the crystal tumbler to his temple. “Cristiano is coming for you. He wants you. You. Understand?”

      She heard him, but she didn’t understand.

      The idea of a man wanting her was more than she could comprehend and she stared at Johann so long it hurt her eyes, her mind, her heart.

      Baron van Bergen was handsome and dissolute. Selfish. Impulsive. Immature. And the father of the most gorgeous child with the most beautiful heart. Sam had been a nanny for some of the wealthiest, famous families in the world and she’d never met a child like Gabriela van Bergen before.

      “I want to see him,” she choked. “I want to see him now.”

      “He’s coming later, Sam.”

      “I won’t wait. I must see him now. I must speak to him now—”

      “And tell me what?” The voice drawled from the doorway and even without looking Sam recognized the voice. Cristiano Bartolo. The devil had arrived.

      CHAPTER TWO

      AN ICY heat washed through Sam. Skin prickling, she turned on the sofa’s arm to face the door and was immediately struck by heat, a dark heat that seared and burned from all the way across the room. “How did you get in?” she demanded.

      Cristiano held up a key ring. “My key.”

      “Your key.”

      His broad shoulders twisted and he smiled that same mocking smile he’d smiled last night. “My villa.”

      It wasn’t much of a villa, not in its current state of shabby disrepair. When Sam first met Johann, he had a larger, finer villa on the Rock, close to the royal palace, tucked in an elegant old square, set off by equally elegant old fountains,

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