The Taming of Xander Sterne

by Carole Mortimer

  Sam had noted that Xander remained at the top table talking to one of the other two bridesmaids.

  As a friend of the bride rather than a relative, Sam and Daisy had been seated at a table towards the back of the huge ballroom, but close enough to be able to watch and enjoy all of the wedding party. She had even been asked to dance by a couple of the single male guests. Invitations she had refused, using the excuse of not wanting to leave Daisy sitting on her own.

  Yes, it had been a beautiful wedding, but it had made for a long day, and at nine o’clock in the evening it really was time for her to take her sleepy daughter back to Xander’s apartment.

  Sam had thought she had said her goodbyes to Andy and Darius without anyone noticing, before slipping quietly out of the ballroom. Obviously she had been wrong.

  She straightened. ‘Darius assured me it would be no problem for you to take a taxi home later.’

  ‘Did he?’ Xander enquired mildly.

  ‘Yes.’ Sam frowned at that mildness. ‘Please don’t let me keep you any longer from enjoying the rest of the wedding reception. I think the bridesmaid might be missing you,’ she dismissed teasingly.

  In all honesty Xander was more than a little tired of the company of the bridesmaid, a young woman who seemed bound and determined on achieving the tradition of one of the bridesmaids going to bed with the best man the night of the wedding. A tradition Xander would normally have been only too happy to satisfy! But not tonight. And the excuse that his broken leg was still healing didn’t seem to have deterred the woman in the slightest from succeeding in her mission!

  Oh, she was attractive enough with her blonde hair, limpid blue eyes and curvaceous figure, and usually Xander wouldn’t have hesitated in taking her up on the obviously blatant offer.

  But instead of responding to that overt flirtation, he had found himself constantly seeking out a head of fiery red curls, both during the wedding ceremony at the church, and later during the reception.

  Samantha was wearing a figure-hugging red gown that should have clashed with those red curls, but somehow only deepened the colour of her hair to a vibrant copper, adding a creamy glow to her cheeks and the tops of her breasts visible above the scooped neckline of the gown.

  Something Xander had noted several other men admiring during the wedding reception, a couple of them having approached her table and asked her to dance. Invitations she had refused with a smiling shake of her head.

  Refusals that had caused Xander to smile in satisfaction.

  And warning him that he was taking altogether too close an interest in the woman temporarily employed to drive and take care of him, and currently staying at his apartment.

  A warning he had taken absolutely no notice of, when he saw Samantha quietly making her excuses to Miranda and Darius, before slipping from the ballroom with the obvious intention of leaving.

  ‘You aren’t,’ he clipped abruptly in answer to her comment regarding the persistent bridesmaid. ‘I’ve actually had enough for one day too, so if you wouldn’t mind waiting a few minutes, while I make my own goodbyes, I’m ready to come home with you and Daisy now.’

  Sam felt a little uncomfortable hearing Xander describe his apartment as home for all of them. Because they all knew, as far as she and Daisy were concerned, it was only a very temporary accommodation.

  Looking at Xander a little more closely, though, she could see that he did indeed look a little pale under his tan, and there were also dark bruises of tiredness and strain beneath his eyes. He was leaning rather heavily on the walking stick he had insisted was going to be his only walking aid at his brother’s wedding.

  Was it so surprising, when Xander had barely been out of his apartment for weeks, but had now spent the whole day and part of the evening socialising with his brother and Andy’s wedding guests, that he was now feeling the effects of such a busy day?

  ‘Of course.’ Sam nodded. ‘We’ll wait out here for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He gave a rueful grimace as he turned awkwardly and limped back to the ballroom, leaning heavily on the walking stick as he did so.

  ‘Xander looks tired too, Mummy,’ Daisy observed softly.

  ‘Mr Sterne, darling,’ Sam corrected distractedly, more than a little concerned for him herself.

  Daisy frowned. ‘He told me this morning that I should call him Xander.’

  Sam looked down at her daughter in surprise. ‘He did?’

  ‘Yes.’ Daisy gave a gap-toothed smile; she looked adorable in the amethyst-coloured knee-length party gown that had been bought especially for the occasion. Sam had happily missed out on lunches to see her daughter looking so happy.

  She regarded her daughter quizzically. ‘You like him, don’t you?’

  Daisy nodded. ‘He’s nice.’

  After spending the last twenty-four hours with him, that was even less the word Sam would have used to describe Xander Sterne than it had been when Daisy had asked about him yesterday afternoon!

  He was impossible. Infuriating. Arrogant. Most certainly outrageous on occasion; Sam still hadn’t forgotten that intimate conversation the previous evening regarding whether or not she had any tattoos, and where she might have them if she did. A tattoo that the scooped neckline of her gown barely managed to cover...

  But nice? Xander was much too immediately male to be described with such an insipid word.

  And yet Daisy, who was so often shy in the company of men, seemed totally relaxed in Xander’s company.

  Obviously Daisy saw something in him that Sam didn’t.

  Or, more likely, not...

  Being only five, Daisy wouldn’t be aware of Xander’s immediacy, of how disturbingly male he was. Or recognise that the man possessed a lethal and sensual magnetism. And the naked body of a Norse god—

  ‘Ready?’

  And the stealth of a predator!

  Sam had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t even been aware of Xander’s return, despite the sound the rubber end of his walking stick must surely have made on the marble floor.

  She straightened her shoulders determinedly. ‘Ready.’ She nodded briskly. ‘If you and Daisy would like to sit here and wait, I’ll go down in the lift to the car park and bring your car round to the front of the building?’ She looked down questioningly at Daisy.

  ‘Good idea.’ Xander nodded. ‘We’ll be okay here together, won’t we, Daisy?’ He hadn’t missed Samantha’s deference to her young daughter over the suggested arrangements.

  Did Samantha somehow sense that inner rage Xander was at such pains to try and keep under his control?

  He and Darius had found plenty of time to chat this morning, once Samantha had dropped him off at his brother’s apartment. Darius had once again been at pains to reassure Xander that the reason for his rage six weeks ago was perfectly understandable, that he would have reacted to that situation in the same way, and that Xander had only responded so strongly to that situation because of their own family history of having an abusive father. That it didn’t mean Xander would ever feel that angry again.

  But what if Darius was wrong? And what if Samantha had sensed that rage inside him?

  Xander gave a jolt of surprise as Daisy smiled up at him shyly as she slipped her warm little hand into his much larger one. ‘I’ll stay here and look after Xander for you, Mummy.’

  Xander was so bemused by having that little hand resting so trustingly in his that it took him a second or two to register exactly what Daisy had said. Causing him to grimace, when he looked up to find himself the focus of the laughing eyes of Daisy’s mother.

  Great; not only was his blasted leg aching like the devil, because he had been on it for most of the day and had stubbornly refused to use his crutches, but now he was the focus of Daisy’s sympathy and the butt of Samantha’s amusement.

 
Still, there was some compensation to remaining here with Daisy, Xander decided as the two of them sat down in two of the armchairs in the marble reception area, and so allowing him to watch the sexy sway of Samantha’s hips and bottom as she walked over to the lift that would take her down to the car parked in the underground car park, which he had insisted she use to drive herself and Daisy to the wedding earlier.

  For all that she was only a little over five feet tall, Samantha’s slender legs looked long and silky above the three-inch-heeled shoes she was wearing today.

  Causing Xander to muse as to how it would feel to have those silky legs wrapped about his waist...

  What the...?

  While Xander had been sitting there imagining how he would make love to Samantha, another man had approached her and was now holding tightly to her arm as he talked to her.

  A man, Xander noted grimly as Samantha turned briefly to shoot a worried glance in his own and Daisy’s direction, who had caused her face to pale.

  Xander instantly felt that rising tide of anger he had hoped never to feel again. And for the same reason: the sight of a man roughly manhandling a woman.

  The man’s fingers painfully gripped the top of one of Samantha’s arms as he talked to her in a lowered and intense tone.

  * * *

  ‘Take your hand off me, Malcolm!’ Sam snapped agitatedly as she stared up into the face of the man she had once been married to but had hoped never to set eyes on again after the divorce.

  It was a handsome face still, dominated by glittering blue eyes, the darkness of Malcolm’s hair, at the age of forty-one, showing only a distinguished sprinkling of grey at his temples, his perfectly tailored suit emphasising the width of his shoulders, and narrow waist and hips.

  What were the chances, the probability, that Malcolm would be at the London Midas Hotel on the very same evening that Sam happened to be here for Andy and Darius’s wedding reception?

  What were the chances, with Sam’s change in circumstances after their separation and divorce, that she would ever have been inside the exclusive Midas hotel at all, let alone on the same evening as her ex?

  Unless...

  Was it possible that Malcolm could be one of the evening guests invited to Andy and Darius’s wedding?

  Sam had mentioned her brief marriage and divorce to Andy, of course, but only in passing, and in relation to how that might affect Daisy. She certainly hadn’t told her friend the name of the man she had once been briefly married to.

  Sam knew the newly married couple had invited fifty or so guests for the evening part of the wedding reception, most of them parents of the children to whom Andy taught ballet, or business acquaintances of Darius’s.

  Was it possible that Malcolm was one of the latter?

  It was more than possible, Sam acknowledged with an inward groan, wondering why it had never occurred to her before that Malcolm and Darius might know each other. Malcolm was a successful businessman, just as Darius and Xander were, and—

  Did that mean that Xander knew Malcolm too?

  ‘I asked what you’re doing here, Sam,’ Malcolm rasped harshly, her request that he release her obviously having had absolutely no effect, as his fingers continued to bite painfully into the top of her arm.

  Her eyes flashed. ‘And I told you that it’s absolutely none of your business what I do any more.’ She glanced behind him to where a beautiful blonde stood waiting for him.

  ‘And aren’t you being a little rude just leaving your date standing over there alone while you verbally abuse your ex-wife?’

  ‘I don’t give a damn whether it’s rude or not.’

  ‘Well, I do!’ Sam snapped, her days of being intimidated by this man—visibly, at least—long over. Inwardly it was a different matter. Inwardly Malcolm still made her quake, but mainly with revulsion, she now realised with a frown. ‘Take your hand off me, Malcolm, or I’ll call someone over from hotel security and have them make you do it,’ she warned coldly.

  His face twisted viciously. ‘Why, you little—’

  ‘Now, Malcolm!’ She met his furious gaze unflinchingly.

  She wondered how she could ever have been married to this man. How she could ever have tried so hard to make that marriage work after Daisy was born. How she could ever have thought she loved him.

  Oh, there was no doubting that Malcolm was still an attractive man, but Sam could now see and recognise the edge of cruelty to his mouth, and the cold calculation of those blue eyes that looked down at her so possessively.

  ‘I think I like you like this, Sam.’ Malcolm’s gaze swept over her in blatant insolence. ‘You look absolutely amazing in that red dress. Even better out of it, if my memory serves me correctly!’

  Sam gave a shudder of revulsion as she recognised the flash of desire as Malcolm blatantly undressed her with his eyes.

  ‘Lucky for me that I haven’t forgotten a single thing about you!’ she dismissed scornfully. ‘Most especially how much I despise you!’

  Malcolm’s face flushed with fury. ‘What have you done with your precious daughter this evening while you’re out enjoying yourself?’

  It took every effort of will on Sam’s part not to glance across the hotel reception to where Daisy sat beside Xander. The last thing she wanted was for Malcolm to realise that Daisy was here too, and possibly make even more of a scene in one of Xander’s prestigious hotels.

  Daisy hadn’t so much as asked about her father once since the separation and divorce, and Sam doubted her daughter would even recognise him if she did see him. She hoped and prayed Daisy wouldn’t recognise him.

  She raised her chin. ‘Again, Malcolm, that’s absolutely none of your business.’

  ‘She’s my daughter too.’

  ‘Daisy was never your daughter!’ Sam hissed, her eyes flashing darkly as she felt absolutely incensed by Malcolm’s claim. How dared he, after the way he had treated Daisy? How dared he? ‘Get your hands off me now or I will call security.’

  Malcolm regarded her through narrowed lids, that gleam of sexual admiration still glittering in his eyes as he slowly released her. ‘How about I ditch my date for the evening and the two of us take a room here for the night instead?’

  Sam drew in a harsh breath even as she gave another shiver of revulsion, wanting nothing more at that moment than to slap the man she had once been married to. ‘Goodbye, Malcolm,’ she said coldly instead, having just dared a glance across the reception area and seen that Xander was getting awkwardly to his feet, his tiredness making that more laborious than it might otherwise have been, while the darkness of his gaze was fixed steadily on where she and Malcolm stood in obviously heated conversation.

  The last thing Sam wanted was for Xander to come over here and realise that she was talking to her ex-husband. An ex-husband he might possibly know too.

  Bad enough that Sam and Malcolm had met again at all, but she knew Xander well enough to know he was the sort of man who would demand answers from her regarding the man who had spoken to her. That he would want details of the acquaintance. All of them.

  They were details Sam didn’t want to give him.

  Mainly because she was too ashamed. Of how much, and for how long she had tried to make her marriage to Malcolm work, and the sacrifices she had made trying to achieve that.

  Looking at Malcolm now, she was able to see beyond that surface charm and handsomeness that had once dazzled her into believing she was in love with him, as much as he claimed to be in love with her, and could now clearly recognise Malcolm’s coldness, as well as his cruelty.

  ‘Malcolm?’ His date for the evening had obviously tired of waiting as she looked over at him in puzzled enquiry.

  Malcolm turned to smile charmingly at the other woman. ‘I’ll be right there, Sonya.’ His eyes hardened as he turned back to Sam. ‘This c
onversation isn’t over,’ he warned her softly.

  ‘Oh, it’s most definitely over,’ Sam assured him.

  He smiled tauntingly. ‘No, Sam, it really isn’t. I’m sure I’m going to find you so much more fun now that you’re all grown up.’

  Sam’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘We’re divorced.’

  ‘So?’ he taunted. ‘Never heard the phrase one more for the road?’

  Surely that applied to a drink, and not—not—

  ‘We have a deal,’ she reminded shakily. ‘Daisy and I will stay out of your life and you will stay out of ours.’

  Malcolm gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘And I’m willing to continue doing just that. For a price.’

  ‘I already paid your price.’

  ‘And now I’m going to collect the interest.’ His eyes had narrowed darkly. ‘Give my daughter a hug for me when you see her,’ he added softly. Threateningly.

  ‘You—’

  ‘Enjoy the rest of your evening, Sam,’ Malcolm taunted before turning on his heel to join his date for the evening, his hand beneath the other woman’s elbow as the two of them then proceeded, as Sam had suspected that they might, towards the ballroom where Andy and Darius’s wedding reception was being held.

  Oh, why hadn’t she left sooner? Why had she come here at all?

  ‘Everything okay, Samantha?’

  Sam was shaking so badly, her knees knocking so much, she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to remain standing for much longer, let alone be capable of finding a suitable answer to Xander’s puzzled query.

  Was everything okay?

  It couldn’t have been less so.

  Not only had Sam seen Malcolm again when she had been least expecting it, tonight or any other night, but he had definitely threatened her, and used a tacit threat against Daisy as leverage to cash in on it.

  And the intelligent and astute Xander had been a witness to that meeting. Even if he could have no idea about the content of their conversation.

  As for Daisy?

  Sam looked down anxiously at her young daughter. She’d walked over with Xander, her hand still resting trustingly in his. Had Daisy recognised Malcolm as her father?