Excerpt from The Gabardi Wife

 Here's an excerpt from The Gabardi Wife.

HOLLY BAKER PULLED open her front door, with a toddler on her hip and a smile on her lips, expecting to see the courier with her grocery order.

Instead she looked up into the face of Alexi Gabardi, and everything promptly went blank.

She stared at him in a stupor as his coal-black eyes flicked casually over her before settling on her face. Finally, she remembered to breathe.

“Hi,” she said. Her voice had an edge of dim-wittedness that matched how she felt.

“Good afternoon, Holly.” Alexi said it without any trace of emotion, even though his gaze switched to Samantha, now waving her arms as she made an attempt to grab hold of his jacket.

Alexi moved a wary fraction away from her tiny fists, a moment before his expression switched from discomfort to one of shock.

He jerked back around to look at Holly, then stared back at Sammie, and Holly’s brain began to function again.

She drew in a deep breath, felt a little more of her equilibrium restored at what Alexi was mistakenly concluding, and in spite of her thumping heart she said calmly, “I can see you’re wondering, but you’re off the hook. You’re not the father.”

Alexi folded his arms across his chest, and arched one brow on his chiselled, olive-skinned face. “In case you were wondering,” he said smoothly, “I didn’t think I was.”

Sammie suddenly wailed, and Holly let her down. No doubt Alexi had done the maths and figured out the impossibility of it. Did he, she wondered, think that Samantha was her child?

She watched Sammie a moment longer to check she was safely playing, before she turned warily back to Alexi.

Get a grip, Holly. Her heart pounded and her brain was still a little fuzzy at the shock of seeing him.  It had been a year. Nearly a year since she had boarded that flight from London to New Zealand, with all hope gone that he was ever going to give a damn about her ever again.

“So Alexi,” she said, “What brings you to New Zealand?” Her voice was still calm.  Good. No indication of the churning in her stomach, and the horrendous pounding in her chest.

His mouth curved in a smile but his eyes said that she had just asked the most inane question imaginable.

“You know why I’m here.” He moved slowly from his relaxed position to straighten up to his full six foot four.  “And you damned well know the reason.’”

Oh, yes, she knew the reason, and that was the point. He was meant to be on the other side of the world, home in his beloved London. Alexi Gabardi  never took time away from the family empire unless it absolutely warranted it, and she was at a loss to see what warranted it when he didn’t need to be here.

She eyed him with disbelief. “I don’t buy for a second that you came all this way just to see me. I know you, Alexi. I know what’s important to you.”

He pursed his lips and the movement sent a current through her. She focused intently back on his eyes, to stop herself remembering just how his lips had felt when they’d been focused on her.

He said, “I didn’t come here just to see you. Some business down this part of the world needed my attention so it suited me to combine that, with this”—his gaze hardened a moment—“this other little matter.”

That sounded more logical, more like the Alexi she knew. The tension eased up a fraction, and she said, “How convenient for you, then.”

“No,” he corrected, his jaw clenching. “It is not convenient, Cara. It is not convenient at all. It is damned inconvenient when I have better ways to spend my time than pandering to this whim of yours.”

This whim of hers? She stared at him, at a loss to figure out just why he was so het-up about this.

He was meant to be relieved, overjoyed even, now she was giving him his freedom back; giving him his life back.

“You could invite me in,” Alexi suggested.

She mentally spluttered. “I could,” she said, “but I’d rather not.”

His brow lifted in amusement, and with a sweeping move of her arm, she gestured back to Sammie.  “I’m busy being a nanny, as you can see.”

Sammie let out a wail, and Holly latched on to the sound. “And now isn’t a good time.”

“I didn’t for a moment think there was ever going to be a good time.”

“Really? So you turn up like this, out of the blue, and expect me to just drop everything?”

“I have no expectations, Holly, not anymore, but since you clearly have other responsibilities...” He winced as Sammie gave a piercing wail. “We’ll do it later. I presume you are free tonight?”  He glanced over her shoulder as if expecting to see someone. “Or is there some other person in your life, demanding your attention?”

She didn’t answer the question. There was no-one. At least, not in the way he was suggesting. She said, “Tonight should be okay.”

His mouth curled. “That’s kind of you to so graciously give me the time.”

She folded her arms. “Not really. I want to get this sorted as much as you do.” More so, she added silently, since she was the one who’d instigated it.

He remarked, “It could, of course, have been handled more efficiently if you hadn’t disappeared.”

“It was hardly disappearing,” she corrected. “You knew I was here, that I was back home, and it’s not as if I vanished from sight and have been living off the grid ever since.”

“Your mobile number had been disconnected, you never returned emails, and your parents were equally as unhelpful.”

She couldn’t deny any of that because it was all true, although it had been a full month before she had intentionally cut her ties with Alexi and with the life she’d had with him. He had known she’d been unhappy before she came back home for what was meant to be a visit but had turned out to be permanent. But then, it had felt like talking to a brick wall towards the end.

She said, “So how did you track me down?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “Tamara did.”

She narrowed her gaze in fake shock. “Tamara? You mean you actually asked your assistant to find me? That seems a risky little move to make, Alexi. Having someone else find your own wife and having to admit you had no idea where your own wife even was.”