The Brunelli Baby Bargain. KIM LAWRENCE

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CHAPTER ONE

      SAM took a deep sustaining breath and muttered, ‘Don’t bottle it now,’ to herself as she approached the young woman who sat behind a large glass desk. With her blonde hair and hourglass figure the woman had the kind of beauty that always attracted men’s attention.

      Diminutive redheads with freckles, on the other hand, were not so universally lusted after, at least in Sam’s experience, although it had seemed for a while that Will had thought differently—until the day she had walked in and found her erstwhile fiancé in bed with a beautiful blonde.

      Normally when Sam’s thoughts touched on this memorable occasion she experienced a wave of nausea that turned her sensitive stomach inside out, but not this time. This time her stomach was already paralysed with sheer terror.

      Her eyelashes brushed her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes closed and took a second breath, willing her frantically racing heart, which felt as though it were imminently about to break through her ribcage, to slow. She forced a smile; if a person acted as though they expected to be shown the door, they probably would be.

      She had taken several hours to achieve the appearance of someone who might consider strolling into the headquarters of a multinational empire and demanding to see the man who was top of the food chain as something she did every day of the week, but, catching sight of her reflection in a mirrored panel on the opposite wall, she knew her efforts had been wasted.

      This was not going to work.

      Ignoring the voice of pessimism, or rather reality, in her head, Sam pinned the smile back on and cleared her throat. The sound attracted the attention of the receptionist, but only briefly because at that exact moment the glass lift doors to Sam’s left silently opened to reveal another blonde, a tall voluptuous one wearing a very small red dress.

      The girl behind the desk stared and so did Sam; so also did the men with cameras who had appeared from nowhere as if by magic.

      The ravishing blonde seemed totally unfazed by the flash photography and the volley of questions the paparazzi flung in her direction. She simply bared her perfect teeth in a brilliant smile and proved that, even though she had made the transition from modelling to Hollywood, she still knew how to strut her stuff. Flanked by two large muscular bodyguards, she glided through the foyer pausing once or twice to give the hungry press a pose while responding with an enigmatic smile and a coy, ‘No comment,’ to their demands to know if she and Cesare were back together.

      As the door closed leaving only the heavy scent of the actress’s exotic perfume in the air Sam was wondering much the same thing—talk about bad timing! The last thing any man wanted to hear was the news she had come to deliver, but she imagined that this was doubly true of a man who had just been reconciled with the love of his life.

      Sam sighed and tried to push the image of the actress from her head; she wasn’t here to compete for the Italian’s attention or his affections. She wasn’t even slightly interested in Cesare Brunelli’s love life and she had no wish to be part of it, something she would make quite clear.

      Her only reason for being here was simple: tell him and leave. The ball would then be in his court and if he decided not to pick it up then that would make life a lot simpler.

      All she had to do was tell him.

      It was now or never!

      At the moment never was looking pretty damn good!

      She winced as her designer shoes pinched. They had been a bargain, but were also a painful half a size too small, though the confidence boost they gave her far outweighed any discomfort.

      ‘I’m…’ She stopped as she tried to introduce herself to the woman behind the desk, her mouth open, her confident manner wobbling into pessimistic anxiety.

      What was she meant to say?

      I’m Sam, but that won’t mean anything—your boss doesn’t know my name, he doesn’t even know the colour of my eyes, he’s oblivious to the fact I have freckles, and my hair is ginger. But I thought that given the circumstances it was only polite to let him know my news face to face as opposed to some more impersonal method—I’m having his baby.

      As she stood in the reception of Cesare’s offices, Sam thought of the differences between an Italian billionaire and a girl who juggled her finances each month. She had probably earned less during her entire working life than Cesare did in a minute! Still, things were improving professionally—she’d put in four years of unglamorous work on the local newspaper in the Scottish market town where she had been born, making tea before rising to cover the weddings and church fêtes. Now, finally, her hard work had paid dividends and she had landed a job, although a very junior one, admittedly, at a national daily here in London.

      ‘Yeah, things are better than they were in my day,’ the established older female journalist who had taken her under her wing had told her. ‘You have talent, Sam,’ she conceded, making Sam glow with pride.

      ‘But,’ she warned, ‘you need to give one hundred per cent if you want people to think you are serious and, while scruples aren’t a bad thing exactly, you need to be a bit more…flexible. Oh, and it goes without saying that the last thing you want at this point in your career is a high-maintenance relationship.’ At this point she had laughed and Sam had joined in. ‘Or a family…professional suicide!’

       Baby!

      Sam wasn’t laughing now as she considered this new and frankly scary detour in her hitherto predictable life. She had been scared—she still was—but there had never been any tortured soul-searching; it had simply never occurred to her not to have this baby.

      Underneath the scariness and the panic there was a deep-seated and totally inexplicable feeling of rightness… This was not a feeling she anticipated