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...