Much later, lying in a wonderful tangle of peaceful satiation, Sara rubbed her cheek lovingly against a smooth brown shoulder and thought about the chaotic, insecure childhood Alex must have had. 'You're really close to your brother and sisters, aren't you?'
'It astonishes me when I think of what a whiny little brat Marco was, always throwing tantrums and telling tales,' he mused lazily. 'Donatella, now…she was very quiet and serious. She used to follow me everywhere. The twins… they were born shortly before I opted out of my father's tangled love life. Their mother was convinced I had to be pathologically jealous of them. Dio… she panicked if I went near them!'
'Bitch,' Sara said feelingly.
Alex vented a wry laugh. 'She's not like that now. She hasn't remarried and she hates Francine, so if there's a problem with Cara or Lucilla it lands in my lap.'
'Why not their father's?'
'Sandro will use any excuse not to get involved, and his excuse is generally Francine. She rules him with a rod of iron. She's very conscious that she's survived longer than any of her predecessors. She's hard as nails but occasionally I feel a little sorry for her. She's thirty-seven and I strongly suspect she would like a child but she's convinced that a baby would land her in the divorce court, and, going on previous form, she's very probably right,' Alex conceded. 'Like me, Francine worked out a long time ago that Sandro finds a wife who is also a mother a decided turn-off.'
Sara had tensed. 'But you're not like that.'
'I'd be very stupid to tell you if I was,' Alex mocked.
'Alex… be serious.'
'Why? Any prospect of us having a child is a very long way off,' he returned flatly.
Sarafrowned, astonished that he could think that she had no right to the smallest input on the subject. 'How long… is very long?'
Alex exhaled on an impatient hiss. 'Let me put it this way, cara-I have no plans to compete with your former fiance in the fertility stakes!'
'I beg your pardon?' Sara gasped, thoroughly disconcerted by that response as she lifted herself up to look at him.
'Nor have I any intention of changing my mind in the near future.' Alex surveyed her with hard dark eyes. 'It's not a topic open to debate. Why do you think I take responsibility for birth control? I saw this threat clouding my horizon weeks ago!'
Threat? Her cheeks flamed. 'Did you indeed?'
'Si…the same second you told me that your cousin was pregnant,' Alex drawled softly. 'You are not in competition with her.'
'What on earth are you talking about? I asked a simple question,' Sara gritted defensively.
'And I gave you a simple answer. No,' Alex said emphatically. 'Sublimate your maternal urges in cats and dogs.'
Sara shifted across the bed as if she had been bitten by a rattlesnake. 'I have no idea why you had to drag Antonia into this!' Her voice shook with angry incomprehension and hurt.
Alex dimmed the lights. 'Go to sleep.'
'Don't treat me like a child!' she protested incredulously.
'I refuse to argue with you about this.'
'You're like your father, aren't you?' she condemned wildly.
'Madredi Dio…it I'd been like Sandra, cara, you would have been dumped before the ink was dry on the marriage licence!'
In the darkness Sara went rigid with shocked disbelief. He played really dirty in a fight… And you're surprised! an inner voice carolled drily. 'So why didn't you just do that?' she demanded.
'Don't ask me in the mood I'm in.'
'I want to know!'
'It's like there's a piece of elastic which keeps on hauling me back… but at this moment, bellamia, it's stretched very taut!' And the fact that he didn't like the feeling at all lanced clear as a bell through every splintering syllable.
'Help yourself to a pair of scissors!' Sara suggested painfully, sick and tired of the frequency with which Alex implied that their marriage might not have a future. Every time she stood up to him, he unleashed that threat.
The builders' foreman greeted her at the door of the manor house. "The phone has been ringing off the hook for you for the past two hours, MrsRossini. Somebody called Pete.'
'So, you are there,' Pete muttered frantically when she answered the next time the phone rang. 'What the heck was in that fax? Alex went through the roof and he was in a bad enough mood even before it arrived!'
'Did he tell you to track me down?'
'Obviously. This bid is at a crucial stage. He's very busy with the French negotiators,' Pete stressed with audible in
credulity, that she should require such an explanation. 'Have you had bad news or something? Can't you handle it on your own? You know Alex doesn't like to be disturbed when he's-'