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With the whole outfit put together—the classic jewelry around her neck, the perilously high shoes adding a further four inches to her frame, the dress that clung in all the right places—she felt like a million dollars. And she felt even better when she saw the expression in his eyes as he stood watching her descend the staircase.
“Stop that,” he said unsteadily, and Megan gathered herself sufficiently to answer.
“Stop what?”
“Looking so damned sexy. An outing to the theater doesn’t stand a chance when your mouth is begging to be kissed…along with every other part of your body. Maybe,” he growled, taking her into his arms, “we should just keep the taxi waiting a few minutes.”
Megan laughed and touched the extravagant string of diamonds at her neck. “I’m not missing a minute of this play, Alessandro Caretti!”
“Are you telling me that I take second place in your life to a bunch of actors on a stage?”
She sighed. “I’m not your property, Alessandro.”
“When it comes to my women, I don’t do sharing.”
PROLOGUE
‘WHAT the hell did you think you were playing at?’
Alessandro had stormed into the bedroom. There was no other way to put it. He had stormed into the bedroom. The beautiful, angular lines of his face were tight with anger and Megan didn’t know why. Well, she sort of knew why. She just couldn’t quite understand the depth of his fury.
‘Playing at?’ she asked weakly, hands clasped behind her back as she leant against the wall.
Having been practically shoved into the bedroom an hour before, like a stray bug that had inadvertently wandered into his bedsit, necessitating immediate quarantine, she had been on the verge of dozing off when the sound of his footsteps heading towards the room had seen her springing off the bed and virtually standing to attention by the window. Of course she had known that he wouldn’t be sunshine and light, not after his reaction to her perfectly innocent and well-intentioned birthday surprise. She just hadn’t reckoned on this backlash of anger.
‘You heard me! That ridiculous stunt of yours!’
The voice that could make her weak with love and longing, that could drive her mad with desire, was cold and cutting.
‘It wasn’t a ridiculous stunt. It was a birthday surprise. I thought you’d like it.’
‘Like you barging in unannounced and bursting out of a birthday cake? When I’m in the process of having a meeting with people who could change the direction of my life?’
Megan chewed her lip and stared at him. God, he was so beautiful. Even now, when he looked as though he would happily throttle her given half a chance, he was still sinfully sexy. Six foot two inches of gorgeous, head-turning masculinity, and all she wanted to do was coax him out of this black humour—because it was his birthday, after all, even if he had no desire to celebrate it.
She risked a little smile. ‘You have no idea how strenuous it is being a birthday cake! I have the scars to prove it!’ No exaggeration there, she thought. Her amazing plan had involved her friend Charlotte rigging up two boxes into something that resembled a cake—a piece of engineering which, Megan had been assured, would work like clockwork. One spring, and bingo! She would be revealed in all her glory! Her blonde curls had been tamed into a Marilyn Monroe format of soft waves, a mole had been perfectly positioned on one cheekbone, her full lips had been primed to scarlet, pouting perfection.
Needless to say they had not bargained on the full hour it had taken to be delivered in rush-hour traffic. Nor had they foreseen the possibility that the cunning contraption might prove to have a mind of its own, refusing to oblige a swift and easy exit, so that once in Alessandro’s poky front room she had found herself having to do battle with masking tape when her legs were numb and her blood circulation virtually non-existent.
It had all added up to an inglorious, fairly shambolic situation, which had seen her crawling out of the box amidst a mass of screwed-up tape and crunched-up pink tissue paper—at which point she had been confronted by the embarrassing sight of three men in pinstriped suits and one very, very angry boyfriend.
‘I was supposed to be Marilyn Monroe,’ she expanded, when her smile failed to make headway.
She gestured to her outfit, which had started off in much better condition. Three hours before it had been a glamorous black swimsuit, revealing a tantalising amount of cleavage. She also wore high, black shoes, long black gloves and fishnet stockings. The swimsuit was still intact, but one glove was currently residing somewhere in said birthday cake, the shoes had been kicked off, and the fishnet tights now sported a long, unattractive rip down one leg. Not so much Marilyn-of-the-Happy-Birthday-Song as Marilyn-on-Tour-of-War-duty.
