‘Elise?’ Sarah tensed.
‘I had arranged to meet her for lunch at my apartment. She was bringing the portrait.’
‘Elise was?’
‘She is the artist,’ Alex drawled. ‘Maybe when she comes to our party tonight you might try to review your opinion of Elise...’
‘She painted the portrait?’ Sarah was shaken.
‘And, because you threw her out the last time she came calling, I didn’t want to rock the boat by inviting her here in case you misunderstood our relationship or said something which might offend her.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah muttered, beginning to wonder in dismay if she had seriously misjudged the other woman.
‘Elise and I are good friends and the very fact that we never slept together should tell you that there was no great spark on either side,’ Alex pointed out wryly. ‘Vivien doesn’t like her, but I hope that when you get to know her better you’ll change your mind. Don’t hold it against Elise that I once toyed with the idea of marrying her... She genuinely did come here because she was shocked by the way I was behaving.’
‘I was really cut off and I didn’t know what you’d been doing until she told me.’
‘She understood, knew she had presumed too much, but she did only want to help. Last night I went over to her home to pick up the portrait.’
‘Alex, I heard you on the phone to her the night before last and I thought you were setting up an assignation with her,’ Sarah muttered in a small voice.
Alex burst out laughing. ‘Is that why you came to my office?’ he suddenly demanded in a choked voice, comprehension gleaming in his shrewd golden gaze. Then he was laughing again, so hard that he fell back against the pillows.
Hot-cheeked, Sarah gazed down at him. ‘It wasn’t funny...I was very upset!’
‘Serves you right for eavesdropping,’ Alex teased, pulling her down on top of him with hard hands. ‘I’m not complaining. I wouldn’t have missed that visit of yours for a million pounds!’
‘Just one more thing...mistresses,’ Sarah remarked frigidly.
‘What mistresses? Dios...where do you think I would get the energy?’
‘I know you have the energy, Alex.’
‘Long gone...since before the wedding.’ Alex dropped a kiss on her surprised mouth, a wonderfully tender kiss. ‘I knew I was going to make love to you. I wouldn’t go from one woman to another. And where would I ever find another woman as honest as you?’
‘Just don’t bother looking,’ Sarah instructed.
‘How do you f
eel about getting married again?’ Alex probed.
‘Again?’
‘So that we could mean every word...in the strictest sense,’ he drawled huskily.
Sarah sank into the growing heat of him. ‘I think that sounds like heaven,’ she conceded with a radiant smile that quite took his breath away.
‘And since you’re in such a generous mood,’ Alex murmured in a velvety purr that made her skin tighten over her bones, ‘once a year, as a sort of very special anniversary known only to us, would you—?’
‘Yes,’ she grinned.
‘But I didn’t make my request...’
‘I know what you want. You’re shameless, Alex.’
‘Madly in love, hopelessly in love,’ Alex groaned, stealing a kiss with every sentence. ‘And once a year you can shock me—’
‘Only once a year? Oh, I think I can do better than that, Alex...much...much better,’ she whispered with teasing provocation while she drowned in his golden eyes. ‘But you’ll just have to wait and see...’