page4 (1/1)

When would Bella ever find true love? they’d speculated ad nauseam

Sergio stared down at the still-silent phone, hating hi hiain But why hadn’t she rung back? She’d actually sounded nervous And why had she hung up so abruptly? Had her latest lover come into the room and found her on the phone to anothersuccessful in her career, Bella was a very bad picker of men

Which was nobody’s fault but her own!

Stillhe did not like to think of her being treated badly

Sergio swore at his tortured train of thoughts Damn it all, she wasn’t his responsibility any more Hadn’t been since the divorce He shouldn’t care about her at all! But somehow, for some perverse reason, he did care Which was perhaps hen she’d shown up out of the blue at his father’s funeral last year, looking tired and strained, he’d given her his private phone nu, then he would be there for her

Perversely, he hadn’t recognised her at first She’d been wearing a large black hat, a black wig and dark glasses Even when she’d revealed her identity to him, he hadn’t reacted the way he would have expected, with a mad rush of rampant desire When she’d expressed her condolences, then added a sincere apology for the way her mother had treated her father, his only eine that grief over his father’s death had da in Bella’s provocative presence could rouse hi to talk to her more But when someone else had come up to speak to hioodbye and disappeared

He’d never told Jeremy or Alex that the , or confiding, at that particular ti hold of hied hi Bella his phone nuht she would ever contact hiht her back into the forefront of his mind It had taken a supreme effort of will to push her back to a place where she was noht—she would break out of the ive him hell

It was pathetic, really Exasperated with himself, he slipped his phone in his trouser pocket and headed for the door, determined not to waste another moment of headspace on that infernal woht crossed his mind

Maybe she was pregnant!

This ti In the old days a single wonant would have been a disaster But this wasn’t the old days If Bella had happened to accidentally fall pregnant—a highly unlikely idea, he now appreciated—she wouldn’t need his help She had enough money to hire nannies and any other help she needed She certainly wouldn’t ask any man—especially himself—to make an honest woio had had many fantasies about Bella over the years, none of thee

Woe They were made to be admired and desired Made to be bedded, not wedded As for childrenclearly Bella had never felt the urge to reproduce Yet she could have, if she’d wanted to A lot of celebrity woe No, clearly Bella wasn’t interested in that kind of coiven she’d been raised by a wohter to becoio believed Dolores had only hter’s tuition in singing and dancing She’d seduced the Italian hen he had been lonely and vulnerable, then trapped hinancy that hadhad been on her finger Sergio could not prove that she’d never been pregnant at all, but he’d always suspected When she’d asked for a divorce as soon as Bella’s career had taken off, his suspicions had been confirmed Not that he’d said astruly loved Dolores And Bella as well

Sergio didn’t blae ed children And Bella was definitely daed Why else would she become involved with a succession of men whose reputations preceded theio that Bella lived her life like one long reality show, played out in front of theherself to be paraded in front of the paparazzi by men ere more interested in her as a trophy than a person