She watched Alex emerge from the house again, couldn't even summon up the curiosity to wonder why he had gone back in. His black hair was ruffled by the breeze but so perfectly cut that it fell straight back into place. Dark eyes mirrored the sunlight-flashing gold against the hard symmetry of his masculine features. He looked quite extravagantly gorgeous in a pearl-grey suit that was very Italian in style. The overall effect was one of quite breathtaking elegance and sophistication. Who was she? she found herself wondering helplessly. Who was the woman who had walked away when Alex had laid his heart at her feet?
He swung in beside her. 'You have some preference about where you would like to go?'
'Anywhere…'
He laughed spontaneously. 'Dio, I timed my arrival well. I also have plans of my own…'
That was scarcely a revelation. Alex would always know exactly where he was going and what he was doing.; Unlike Brian…Brian, who she had once fondly believed to be strong, decisive and forthright, she reflected painfully. Right now Brian seemed lost in a turmoil of his own making, and he had been loyal to neither her nor Antonia. Had Brian come to her that day in her office and told her that he loved her cousin, she would have respected him more and understood him better.
'You've lost weight,' Alex remarked casually. * 'Scarlet women do.'
'You get much thinner and you'll slide through a grating. There wasn't a lot of you to begin with.'
Was she getting too thin? She glanced down anxiously at the slender curves filling out her pink cotton T-shirt and jeans, and for some reason also recalled that she had no makeup on. Her cheeks flushed. For goodness' sake! It wasn't as if she was out on a hot date! 'Why did you come down?' she asked.
'I missed you?'
'Try again.'
'I was a little worried about the effect of all the publicity?'
"The little-office-girl-makes-good bit… or the Alex-Rossini-goes-down-market bit?'
'If being with you is slumming, there's not an office girl in the City safe.' Alex casually tossed a newspaper onto her lap. 'Have you seen the latest?'
Sara stiffened. 'I thought I'd had my fifteen minutes of fame.'
With a sinking heart, she read the gossip column. TasminLaslo was reportedly furious to learn that she had been replaced by a woman she described as 'an impertinent little typist', and the actress had gone on to share the news that the same typist had called her employer 'a slick, womanising swine'.
'I said it,' Sara whispered sickly. 'I said it that day when she phoned… that she was well rid of you.'
'Honesty got the better of you?'
'You have every right to be angry with me,' Sara conceded tautly.
'It was a fair assessment of my character to date. I don't give a damn, but if I know Tasmin she'll find a way to make this story run and run.'
Yet even in receipt of that daunting assurance Sara could feel a sense of calm stealing over her for the first time in days. It was the most incredible relief to escape the hothouse pressure and angry tensions of the Dalton household.
'Antonia's pregnant.' It leapt straight out of her subconscious onto her tongue.
Alex burst out laughing. Sara dealt him a stunned look.
'Sorry, cara. That was not very kind of me… but it does cross one's mind that, whatever else she is, she's a remarkably determined young woman.'
'Brian doesn't know yet. Of course, when he does… he'll leave me alone.'
'Is that what you want?'
'Yes… absolutely,' Sara returned, fiercely defensive on that point.
'I suspect the heat is already off you,' Alex delivered smoothly. 'When I went back into the house, I told them.'
Her seat belt pulled tight as Sara's back jerked blade-straight. 'Told them what?'
'I only wanted to make myself known to your family. Under fire, you surely did not expect me to pose: alongside you as a martyred miscreant?'
''My choice. You couldn't have expected them to do more. My aunt didn't even particularly want to take me on. I'm illegitimate,' Sara pointed out stiffly. 'Not so uncommon these days.' 'My father was a Greek waiter.'
'Rich, warm Mediterranean blood… do I apologise for mine?' Alex elevated an ebony brow with decided hauteur.
Sara was betrayed into a rueful laugh. 'I wasn't apologising-'
'You were. How did your parents meet?'
'My mother was on holiday. She was only out there a week. She was twenty-one,' Sara told him. 'Nobody wanted her to keep me but she did. So they told her she could manage on her own… It's fair enough that they weren't exactly over the moon when I landed back on, their doorstep. My grandparents were too old to take me!on. Antonia was only a year older. My aunt and uncle stepped in. They didn't have to.'