The Taming of Xander Sterne(32)

                Xander frowned. ‘The conversation seemed rather protracted just for you to tell him he’d made a mistake in identity?’

                Her mouth firmed stubbornly. ‘Nevertheless, that’s what I was doing. We might as well all go down in the lift to the car park together now that the two of you are right here?’ she prompted lightly as the lift doors opened and she stepped inside to look at him enquiringly.

                Xander had absolutely no doubt that Samantha was lying to him.

                The intensity of the conversation he had witnessed, the expressions on Samantha’s face as she spoke to the other man, certainly hadn’t looked as if she was politely assuring a stranger that he had mistaken her for someone else. The opposite, in fact. Samantha had initially looked distressed, and then her expression had become coldly impenetrable, followed by one of fear. Xander had also recognised an almost proprietary gleam of ownership in the other man’s eyes at one stage of that intense conversation.

                Because the man felt proprietary in regard to Samantha? Perhaps because he was an ex-lover?

                It was certainly a more plausible explanation for the heated encounter than the one Samantha had just given him.

                That flare of temper Xander had felt—and so feared feeling again—when he first saw the guy manhandling Samantha had now settled into a deep-down coldness.

                He still wanted to strangle the man, for daring to put his hand on Samantha, but it was in a cold and measured way, rather than down to a heated lack of control.

                Whether or not that control would last was anyone’s guess!

                ‘Fine,’ he agreed tersely to Samantha’s suggestion as he and Daisy stepped into the lift beside her, deciding to let the conversation go. For now.

                But he had every intention of making Samantha tell him the truth about the man who had accosted her.

                And sooner rather than later.

                * * *

                ‘Daisy okay?’ Xander enquired as Samantha hovered in the doorway of the sitting room after bathing her daughter and putting her to bed.

                ‘Already fast asleep.’ Samantha nodded. She’d changed into a thin blue sweater and faded jeans, her feet were bare, and her hair once again secured at her crown.

                ‘Join me for a nightcap.’ Xander held up a decanter of brandy, having removed his morning jacket and cravat, and unfastening the top button of his wing-collared white shirt. ‘And before you even think about saying no thank you, in your oh-so-polite manner—’ his voice hardened as he poured the brandy into two crystal glasses ‘—it wasn’t a request.’ He looked across at her challengingly.

                Sam felt an uneasy lurch of her stomach as she recognised Xander’s uncompromising expression. ‘I’m tired.’

                ‘It’s only a little after ten o’clock.’

                ‘And it’s been a long and exciting day.’

                ‘Then a brandy will help relax you before you go to bed.’ He left his walking stick beside the fireplace as he limped slowly across the room to place the two glasses of brandy down on the coffee table before sinking down onto the cream leather sofa.

                ‘I’m already relaxed.’

                ‘Liar.’ Xander could literally feel Samantha’s tension, and he could see it too, in the way she held herself so stiffly.