LITMIR.BIZ

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      Stepping from the car, Sam smoothed her coat over her dress and waited in front of the Hotel de Paris while Cristiano finished the call.

      Anger burned in her, anger and indignation. What kind of man took a woman from her family? What kind of man would accept a wagered wife?

      It disgusted her, horrified her, and her hands clenched helplessly inside her coat pockets, her gaze fixed on the hotel’s belle epoch architecture. Be calm, she told herself, be calm. Losing control won’t help anything.

      She focused on the hotel’s architecture instead. The Hotel de Paris and Le Casino were both constructed in the middle of the nineteenth century on a square overlooking the sea. She’d read somewhere that the square had once been an untidy wasteland, overgrown with dense vegetation, hiding deep in the cliffs near seawater-filled caves.

      Apparently the famous Monte Carlo Le Casino had been built first, and the hotel second, the hotel just steps from the casino. Once the hotel was finished, stables were added to house horses and carriages, then a fountain designed, and finally gardens landscaped with imported palm trees to create an exotic tableau to lure winter weary Parisians.

      Sam was no Parisian, but she was weary. Very weary.

      He had to let her explain about Gabby, had to listen to Gabriela’s situation. Gabby couldn’t be left with Johann. Johann might be her father but he wasn’t to be trusted, especially not with a vulnerable child.

      Abruptly Cristiano finished his call and put away his phone. “I’m sorry—”

      “No. No,” she said fiercely, hands bunching into fists inside her coat pockets. “I won’t go.”

      “Baroness—”

      “You don’t understand. This isn’t about me, it’s about Gabriela.”

      His hard expression briefly eased. “I’m not sending you on your way, Baroness.”

      “You’re not?”

      “No. I was going to say, I’m sorry I had to take the call, but I’ve taken care of my meeting. There’s nowhere I have to be for the next hour. We’re free now to sit down and discuss Gabriela.”

      Sam felt relief and embarrassment wash through her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I thought…assumed…you were giving me the brush-off.”

      His eyes, hazel green and gold, warmed. “Give you the brush-off? Baroness, I’ve just spent ten million pounds to make you mine. The last thing I want to do is give you the brush-off.”

      His. There was that possession again. His, to be his, to belong to someone. To belong to a man.

      It was odd, she thought, nerves twitching, her body so tense she felt like the tightened strings on a violin, but she’d been married twice and had never belonged to a man. And now Cristiano Bartolo talked about possession and yet there’d be no marriage.

      Life was strange. No, make that impossible.

      “Shall we go in?” Cristiano said, gesturing to the hotel.

      “Mr. Bartolo?”

      “Yes, Baroness?”

      Something in his voice made her blush, and she took a step back, her skin tingling, a fire burning from the inside out. He was hard, male, confident. Strong.

      Very, very strong.

      And that’s what unnerved her most. Sam wasn’t used to male strength, hadn’t experience with a man like Cristiano Bartolo. Yes, she’d been married twice, but neither husband had been strong, or male, like this. Neither husband commanded attention, seized control, shaped the world to suit them. “I haven’t agreed to anything,” she said breathlessly, “you do realize that, don’t you? I’m here to talk—that’s it.”

      The corner of his mouth lifted in a faint, mocking smile. “You do know the moment a woman throws up walls and restrictions, a man’s determined to destroy them?”

      The tops of her cheekbones burned. Even her ears felt hot. “I’m not trying to be provocative.”

      “But that’s the charm, Baroness. You’re provocative just by being you.” And turning, he climbed the hotel’s marble steps giving Sam no choice but to follow.

      Sam noticed how the doorman jumped to attention, and while he nodded politely at both, he murmured a warm welcome to Cristiano.

      Sam glanced back at the doorman as they entered the hotel’s grand domed lobby. “He addressed you by name,” she said.

      “I’m a fixture here.”

      “You have quite a few meetings here, then?”

      “If you want to call them meetings.”

      A cryptic answer, but one she understood perfectly well. Maybe she hadn’t had sex, but she knew what it was. “So you meet women here?”

      “I have a room here.”

      “Always?”

      “When I feel the need to entertain.”

      When he wanted to sleep with a woman. She turned away, stared across the lobby feeling ridiculously old and prudish. She’d never thought she’d end up twenty-eight and celibate. When Charles proposed, she’d thought she’d have such a different life. She’d be a wife, lover and mother. Instead fate intervened and she’d become this. Tired. Worried. Worn.

      “I can show you my suite, if you’d like,” he offered.

      They were standing in the hotel’s grand lobby now, almost directly beneath the vast blue glass dome and Sam flashed him a look of disdain. “No, thank you.”

      Cristiano laughed, softly, seductively. He liked that flash of fire in her. It was a relief to know she wasn’t always so grave and serious. And yet already the spark in her was gone, replaced by more quiet worry, the line of which was almost permanently etched between her fine brown eyebrows.

      Last night she’d looked regal, a conquering warrior, and yet today in the morning light, dressed in her simple, sturdy tweed coat, her fair English complexion tinged pink and her blue eyes wide, round, he thought she looked very young, very English, and very scared.

      Cristiano liked women, enjoyed women, but he didn’t enjoy them scared.

      He wanted Samantha, wanted to own her, possess her, but not trembling like a frightened puppy in his bed. He wanted a woman, a strong woman, with spirit.

      “Well, you will see it,” he said lazily, “the question is just—how soon?”

      Sam was listening to him, she was, and yet his words didn’t penetrate her brain.

      Instead she watched his mouth move, the lips parting, shaping, and she found herself fascinated by the shape of his mouth, the hard lines of his face. He had a strong jaw, strong straight nose, fiercely black eyebrows and then there was that cleft in his square chin and two deep grooves on either side of his firm mouth. His eyes, thickly lashed, were neither green nor gold, but hazel, what ought to be an ordinary hazel but there was so much heat in his eyes, so much spirit and intelligence his eyes fairly snapped with energy. With life.

      Again it struck her that he was awake. Alert.

      Alive.

      Had she been with Johann so long she’d forgotten what it was like to speak to a man that really looked at her? Listened to her? Had she been so isolated these past four years she’d forgotten how men behaved?

      “How soon until you see it, Baroness?”

      Samantha blinked, knew she’d missed whatever question or point Cristiano had just said. “I don’t know,” she stammered.

      He inclined his head, then turned, and walked through the hotel’s grand lobby toward one of the sitting areas at the far end of the room.

      Sam

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