The Taming of Xander Sterne(12)

                For having ever held out even the fragile hope her marriage would one day return to their first year together, when she and Malcolm had seemed so happy together. For hoping, praying, that Malcolm would one day come to love his beautiful daughter.

                She had wasted almost three years hoping and praying for those things, not just of her own life but of Daisy’s too, and on a man Sam had belatedly realised she wasn’t sure she had ever really known, let alone loved. A rich and arrogant man who had seen his much younger wife only as an asset, to be paraded on his arm, and to fill his bed at night. A man who was too selfish, too self-absorbed, to love the beautiful daughter they had made together.

                Xander Sterne was even richer and more powerful than Malcolm could ever hope to be, and Sam didn’t even want to acknowledge that he was also far more disturbingly attractive too. That he possessed a sensual magnetism she responded to, however unwillingly.

                Her days of allowing herself to be attracted to rich and powerful men were long gone!

                Having been forced to live by a set of rules once, Sam wasn’t sure she could now adhere to another set, laid down by Xander Sterne for the time she and Daisy would be staying with him in his apartment.

                ‘Samantha?’

                She blinked before focusing on the man now studying her with piercing eyes beneath long lashes.

                ‘Sam,’ she invited automatically.

                ‘I prefer Samantha,’ he dismissed arrogantly—as if that settled the matter.

                Which in Xander Sterne’s self-assured eyes, it probably did. And really, what did it matter whether this man called her Sam or Samantha, when in two weeks’ time they would never set eyes on each other again?

                ‘Whatever you’re comfortable with,’ she allowed disinterestedly. ‘And to answer your question, Daisy has already been fed, bathed, and is now fast asleep in bed.’

                Xander had no idea where Samantha’s thoughts had been for the past few moments, but he was pretty sure they couldn’t have been pleasant ones. Her eyes had taken on a haunted look, the hollows of her cheeks paler than ever against the fullness of her rose-coloured lips. ‘It’s only eight o’clock.’

                Samantha nodded. ‘Daisy always goes to bed at seven o’clock on schooldays.’

                Something else Xander didn’t know about children.

                ‘Fine.’ He shrugged. ‘Then perhaps you and I can talk about those rules after dinner?’

                Her back stiffened. ‘Of course, Mr Sterne.’

                ‘Xander.’

                ‘I would prefer that we keep things formal between the two of us.’

                ‘Does that mean you would really prefer that I call you Mrs Smith?’

                ‘No, because I’m not Mrs Smith,’ she answered with a humourless twist of her lips.

                Xander studied her through narrowed lids. ‘I seem to remember my brother telling me you’re divorced?’

                ‘I am.’ She nodded tersely. ‘I reverted to my maiden name after the divorce.’

                He frowned. ‘Is Daisy’s surname Smith too?’

                ‘Yes.’ Her mouth tightened defensively.