The Taming of Xander Sterne

by Carole Mortimer

  Because he was definitely perfect. But decent? Absolutely not!

  He looked like a pagan god who had risen from the sea, his chest still gleaming with droplets of water from where he had obviously washed his hair in the shower, that tousled blondness appearing darker when damp, the long length of his legs obviously also still wet and dripping water onto the carpet.

  ‘I can’t bend down that far,’ he drawled as he saw the direction of her gaze.

  ‘You should have called me,’ Sam said briskly.

  ‘I didn’t want to embarrass you again.’

  ‘I wasn’t—’

  ‘Yes, you were,’ he rasped harshly. ‘Are.’ He moved to sit on the side of the bed as he looked up at her through narrowed eyes. ‘The question is why are you, when you’ve been married and have a daughter to prove it?’

  ‘I told you, I’m not embarrassed.’ Sam moved briskly across the room to drop down onto her knees in front of him as she began to towel dry the long length of his legs, taking care to gentle her movements on his injured leg, avoiding the several healing scars running the length of it.

  ‘Liar,’ he drawled.

  Sam looked up at him sharply. ‘I think you have an overinflated opinion of your own sexual prowess, Mr Sterne.’

  ‘Not recently I don’t,’ he admitted.

  The perfect opening... ‘I should have mentioned this to you before.’ Sam kept her head bent as she concentrated on drying his feet. ‘I don’t think—I would prefer, for the duration of our stay here, that you didn’t—I realise this is an imposition,’ she began again, ‘but Daisy is only five, and I really don’t—’

  ‘Do you seriously think there’s a danger of any woman being interested in going to bed with me the way I am at the moment?’ Xander bit out harshly as he obviously guessed where her fumbling conversation was going.

  What Sam thought was that there was a distinct possibility that women would still want to go to bed with this devastatingly handsome and sensual man, even if he were on his deathbed!

  There was an innate sensuality to Xander Sterne that would no doubt still be with him when he was ninety. And the bone structure of his face was such that he would always have that chiselled handsomeness that so many women—including Sam, unfortunately—found so devastatingly attractive.

  ‘Or that I’m even capable of making love to a woman at the moment?’ he demanded.

  Sam raised her brows. ‘I’m sure if you were to experiment that you would find a position that was comfortable— Forget I said that,’ she dismissed as she stood up quickly from drying his feet, her cheeks once again blazing with embarrassed colour.

  What had she been thinking?

  Too much about being in bed with Xander, that was what she had been thinking about!

  ‘I’m intrigued, Samantha.’ He now regarded her teasingly. ‘Exactly what position did you have in mind?’ He looked thoughtful. ‘The woman on the top would probably be the most comfortable for me, I suppose.’

  ‘Look, all I was trying to say a few minutes ago was that I know this is an imposition, but I really would prefer it if you refrained from bringing any women to your apartment for the next two weeks while Daisy and I are staying here,’ she muttered exasperatedly.

  He arched one blond and arrogant brow. ‘Are you going to make it worth my while?’

  Sam blinked. ‘Sorry?’

  He placed his hands on the bed behind him as he leant back on his arms, emphasising the muscles of his shoulders and arms as he looked up at her challengingly. ‘What are you offering if I agree not to bring any women to the apartment while you and Daisy are staying here?’

  Sam’s mouth firmed at what she had been sure was a deliberate and blatant display of his masculinity, followed by what sounded like a proposition. ‘I’m not offering anything in exchange for what I consider to be a reasonable and polite request.’

  ‘That’s one answer, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s the only answer you’re going to get from me,’ Sam assured him stiffly. ‘At the risk of receiving yet another one of your less than subtle replies—do you need anything else from me tonight?’

  Xander couldn’t help but grin as he saw the challenge sparkling in the boldness of Samantha’s gaze, and realised that he was starting to like her. Not just in a sexual way—after his physical response to her earlier, that was a given!—but he definitely approved of her spirited conversation, and her sense of humour too.

  Possibly a first for him where a woman was concerned.

  Over the years Xander had fallen into the habit of dating models and actresses, visually beautiful and physically desirable women. But he hadn’t necessarily got to know them well enough to discover their personalities too. Mainly, because he hadn’t been particularly interested in knowing them that well, as long as they were beautiful to look at and satisfied him in bed. Which really wasn’t as selfishly one-sided as it sounded, because the same was true in reverse; as long as those women could be seen out and about and be photographed on the arm of the billionaire Xander Sterne, they seemed more than happy with the arrangement.

  A little—a lot!—shallow of them, and him, perhaps, but the sort of wealth and power he possessed seemed to attract that type of woman.

  Samantha was totally different from any of the women he had known before.

  And not just because she was a divorced woman with a young daughter.

  Samantha interested him in ways Xander had never even considered with any other woman. He wanted to know about her: her marriage, her husband, and her divorce. More importantly perhaps, what she had done and how she had lived in the years since that divorce.

  And none of that had anything to do with the fact that he’d also like to take Samantha to bed.

  Well, perhaps it had a little to do with it!

  He certainly wouldn’t say no, for instance, if she were to offer to go to bed with him without first telling him any of those things. In any position she wanted.

  Although, from the look of disgust she was shooting him now, he didn’t think that was even a possibility!

  ‘I’m good, thanks,’ Xander drawled.

  Sam didn’t think this man was good at all. Impossible. Temperamental. Sexy. Wickedly outrageous. But he definitely wasn’t good.

  She straightened. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, then, Mr Sterne.’

  ‘Oh, you can count on it, Samantha,’ he murmured as he watched her cross the room to the door before speaking again. ‘I meant to ask, do you have any tattoos?’

  Sam froze halfway across the bedroom before turning slowly back to face him, her eyes wide. ‘What?’

  ‘Do you have any tattoos?’ 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 m
y 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 out of the shower. Pyjamas that simply weren’t there.

  A knowledge that wasn’t in the least conducive to Sam being able to fall asleep once she had climbed into her own bed.

  Consequently, it had been the early hours of the morning before she had managed to drift off to sleep, resulting in her oversleeping this morning.

  Sam was more than a little surprised by how relaxed Daisy seemed to be in Xander’s company; usually her daughter was extremely shy around men. Big men like him especially.

  No doubt yet another result of Malcolm’s complete indifference to his daughter. Malcolm wasn’t as big as Xander, but no doubt he would appear so to a small child. A small child who knew to leave a room if Malcolm came into it.

  And yet Daisy seemed perfectly happy in Xander’s company.

  ‘I have to be at Darius’s apartment by ten-thirty this morning, if you could drive me over there? I’ll shower there before I dress for the wedding.’

  ‘Of course.’ Sam breathed an inward sigh of relief that he seemed to have tired—for the moment!—of teasing her. And that she didn’t have the ordeal of accompanying him to the shower to get through either this morning.

  ‘Although quite how helpful I’m going to be as best man is anyone’s guess,’ he added bitterly.

  ‘I’m sure that, if nothing else, Darius will welcome your moral support today.’ Sam still found Darius a little intimidating, but Andy loved him very much, and surely even a man that arrogantly self-confident must be feeling a little nervous on his wedding day?

  ‘I won’t be back until late this evening,’ Xand
er continued dismissively, ‘so it’s up to you what you and Daisy do with the rest of your day.’

  Sam gave him a startled look. ‘Er—’

  ‘As long as you’re back here in time this evening to help me shower—’

  ‘Mr Sterne.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be a problem—’

  ‘Xander!’

  ‘Sorry?’ He gave an irritated frown.

  Sam gave an uncomfortable grimace. ‘Daisy and I are invited to the wedding.’

  Well, of course they were, Xander realised.

  If Samantha was a good enough friend for Miranda to recommend her for this job, then she was obviously going to invite her to the wedding too...

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘LEAVING ALREADY?’

  Sam turned from where she was helping Daisy into her coat, looking across to where Xander stood watching her, the three of them in the gold and black marble entrance hall of the fabulously exclusive London Midas Hotel, where Andy and Darius’s wedding reception was still taking place. ‘It’s almost nine o’clock, and Daisy’s tired.’ She gave a rueful smile as her daughter gave a yawn.

  It had been a beautiful wedding; Andy had made a beautiful bride, Darius a handsome and distinguished bridegroom. Xander’s best-man speech at the reception had caused much hilarity as he’d related—as was the custom—some of Darius’s more embarrassing teenage adventures. He had wisely refrained from mentioning any of his twin’s more risqué adult exploits; both the Sterne brothers had been making headlines in the newspapers for the past twelve years regarding those!

  After the delicious wedding breakfast there had been dancing, and Andy and Darius had made an absolutely stunning couple as they danced that first dance alone, one so dark and handsome the other very fair and beautiful. The two of them had eyes only for each other as they moved gracefully about the dance floor.

  They were joined by Darius’s mother and stepfather for the second dance of the evening, a time when Xander should have also stood up with the chief bridesmaid, but obviously couldn’t. Instead Andy’s sister Kim had danced with her husband, Colin.