Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

‘Was the Frenchman who phoned you a relative?’

Pippa frowned in surprise. ‘No, he’s married to a friend. I’ve never quite taken to him—’

‘But didn’t I hear you arranging to meet him next week?’

‘He asked me to visit his wife’s favourite maternity shop with him and help him choose some outfits as a surprise for her.’ Pippa sighed. ‘I just couldn’t credit that she was expecting yet another kid. That’ll be number three and she’s only twenty-three…’

Andreo had relaxed but he was ashamed of his own suspicions about her relationship with her friend’s husband. He decided that he had met far too many calculating women, who would go to any lengths to capture a rich man whether they wanted him or not.

Pippa watched him switch on the power shower in the big cubicle and simply reach for her again. He acted as if he owned her but what

shook her most was that she liked him acting that way. He was protective and, when he wanted to be, gentle in a way she had never associated with his sex, especially with a guy who was so innately masculine and aggressive at other times. He made her feel like a cross between a spun glass ornament in need of constant care and a sexual enchantress because he couldn’t even share the shower with her without getting aroused again.

He was her perfect dream guy. She had not been wrong about that. He was gorgeous, fantastic in bed and he treated her as though she was as irresistible as Cleopatra. It was no wonder she was already halfway to being infatuated. Given very little encouragement, she thought in shrinking dismay, she would fall head over heels in love with him and make a complete ass of herself!

‘We’ll order in some food…I don’t think I could be trusted in a public place with you yet, bella mia.’ Having enfolded her in a fleecy towel, he lifted her hands and pressed his lips to the centre of each palm, looking down at her from beneath dense black lashes longer than her own with a provocative gleam in his teasing gaze. ‘But I’ve got you all evening and all night…’

Pippa tensed, imagining sleeping in his arms, waking up with him and deciding that she could not indulge herself in that amount of intimacy with him. ‘I’m not staying the night,’ she told him in a rush.

‘Why not?’ One arm carelessly curved round her, Andreo was already punching out a number on the phone by the bed.

‘I don’t stay the night…I mean, I…prefer to go home to my own bed,’ she declared.

Andreo slung the phone back down. ‘How would you know what you prefer? I’ve got to be the first guy you’ve stayed with—’

‘I just prefer it…OK?’ She worried at her lower lip anxiously.

His strong bone structure taut, Andreo veiled his fulminating gaze and wondered if his own sins were coming home to roost. As a rule, he never invited his lovers to stay the night. Staying over added a whole different dimension to a relationship and he liked to keep things casual. So why had he invited her?

‘No problem.’ Jawline at an aggressive angle, Andreo ordered in Thai food without asking her what she wanted.

Luckily, Pippa adored Thai food. Sitting cross-legged on a big swanky sofa, clad in a towelling robe, she ate with appetite and she asked Andreo how he had come to have a brother so much younger than he was.

‘Marco was a surprise package when my mother was in her forties. My father died when he was five, so Marco turns to me a lot,’ Andreo said. ‘We have three older sisters, all married, all very given to spoiling little brothers and he was turning into a horrible precocious brat. So I persuaded Mama to send him away to school. He’s much improved.’

‘What was it like being one of five children?’ she prompted curiously.

‘Fun…it would’ve been more fun, though, if a couple of the bossy sisters had been boys,’ he drawled with mockery. ‘Some day I’d like a big family.’

Pippa gave him a startled look. ‘I don’t want kids at all,’ she confided without thinking, reacting to her own surprise that a guy like Andreo D’Alessio could admit to such an unfashionable ambition.

Andreo was frowning. ‘You don’t want kids…any?’

Feeling awkward, she added with rather forced amusement, ‘I’m more into my career.’

‘So what are you planning to do if I have got you pregnant?’ Andreo enquired with a derisive edge to his dark, deep drawl.

Pippa paled. ‘That’s not going to happen…why are you saying that?’

‘Because after that mishap on the contraceptive front the night before last, it’s a distinct possibility and I’d appreciate knowing right now up front,’ Andreo incised with angry emphasis, ‘what the score is likely to be if you do conceive!’

Pippa pushed away her plate and scrambled off the sofa. Her restive fingers worked feverishly at the robe’s over-long sleeves, which were threatening to engulf her hands. ‘I don’t like this conversation.’

‘Per meraviglia! You think I do? But I’ve asked a fair question,’ Andreo bit out rawly.

Furious with him, mortified and feeling threatened by the subject under discussion, Pippa spun on her heel and headed back to the bedroom. Gathering up her clothes in haste, she hurried into the bathroom.

Before she could get the door shut, however, Andreo appeared, lean, powerful face set hard. ‘I think that you could give me an answer…’