Bridal Bargains

by Michelle Reid

  ‘Did you pay my aunt to keep away from me?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘The reason why she started this was because she had lost her job, was in a terrible amount of debt, and she saw me as a quick way to get herself out of trouble. But she then proceeded to lose the money trying to double it by speculating on the markets.’

  ‘So she came to your office today wanting more.’

  ‘I kicked her out,’ he stated flatly. ‘She took her revenge. I should have expected it—being a ruthless rat myself dealing with one of my kind.’

  Which seemed to round it all off pretty well, Claire thought as the pain in her breast eased to a dull ache.

  ‘I never did any of this to hurt you, Claire,’ he murmured, as if he could sense what she was feeling. ‘Though you probably find it impossible to believe right now, I acted with your interests at heart also.’

  It was impossible, she agreed. People who had your interests at heart did not lie, cheat and plot to steal from you.

  ‘Your aunt intended to give me Melanie, take the money and run,’ he told her. ‘I could not have done that to you,’ he added huskily. ‘I only had to know you for half an hour to realise I could not have done it. So I lied,’ he admitted. ‘I gave you what you seemed to need then, which was a reason worthy of you staying within my protection. Think about it,’ he urged. ‘When has anything I’ve done—lies or truth—actually been done to deliberately hurt you?’

  Silence met that. The kind of silence that throbbed and pulled and prodded at the self-control she was having to exert over herself not to break down and cry all over him.

  ‘Stay,’ he fed gently into that silence. ‘Don’t let yourself be manoeuvred by a cold and embittered woman who has never done anything but hurt you …’

  ‘I can’t think straight,’ she whispered, pushing a hand up to her aching eyes. ‘I need time to come to terms with all of this before I make a decision as to whether I stay or go.’

  Andreas seemed to draw himself up. ‘Fair enough,’ he agreed, and his tone altered, cooled, and became businesslike. ‘Take your time,’ he invited. ‘There is no rush.’

  With that he began to walk away. Making the tactical retreat, Claire recognised as she watched him with the tears already splitting her vision into a million fragmented parts.

  Halfway to the door the toe of his shoe caught something that lay on the floor amongst the debris of her recently discarded clothes. Through the blur of tears she watched him pause and glance down, watched him go still for a moment before be bent to pick something up. It never occurred to her what that something was—until she heard the tearing of flimsy paper.

  And, on a lightning shot of panic, she was galvanised into action, darting across the room in an effort to snatch the pregnancy testing kit out of his hands before he realised what it was he was looking at!

  Too late. He spun to stare at her. Her heart sank to the soles of her feet. He’d gone white—perfectly, sickeningly white. ‘Why have you bought this?’ he demanded hoarsely.

  He might be white, but Claire wasn’t; she was blushing like a schoolgirl. ‘Please give it to me,’ she insisted, holding out a badly trembling hand.

  ‘Why?’ he barked.

  The sheer ferocity of it thoroughly shocked her. Her blue eyes widened in surprise, and she began backing away, cautiously—bewilderedly. Not understanding the need for this depth of anger.

  ‘Answer me,’ he commanded forcefully. ‘Answer me, Claire!’

  ‘I w-would have told you,’ she stammered shakily. ‘If—if it w-was positive.’ Was that why he was so angry—because he believed she’d intended to hide it from him? ‘I would have told you, Andreas!’ she repeated shrilly when he actually took a step towards her.

  ‘I want you out of this house,’ he hissed furiously at her. ‘Within the hour, do you hear me? I want you gone from my sight and I never want to see you again!’

  ‘But—why are you so angry?’ Claire shrilled, still backing while he paced towards her like a wild animal needing to taste fresh blood. ‘We haven’t used protection once in all the weeks we’ve been making love! Surely you must have considered this a strong possibility?’

  ‘And I used to get these damned things shoved in my face once a month by my first wife!’ he rasped. ‘For five hellish years, I used to listen to her sob her heart out once a month when the damn things told her what we both already knew! I am infertile, Claire!’ he raked rawly at her—watched her face blanch in shock, and tossed the packet aside in disgust.

  The dreadful words held her still and shaking, confusion and horror warring for dominance on her face. ‘I know you said you never wanted children of your own,’ she whispered. ‘But … I feel pregnant, Andreas!’ she cried out pleadingly.

  ‘So did Sofia,’ he growled. ‘Every single wretched month.’

  ‘No …’ she breathed, refusing to take on board what he was saying here. ‘I’m not like her—I’m not!’ she insisted as those hard black eyes flicked her a contemptuous look. ‘I love you!’ she cried, saying the words out loud for the very first time in her desperation. ‘I couldn’t hurt you by playing on your feelings like that!’

  ‘Sofia loved me,’ he replied. ‘She worshipped the ground that I walked upon! She leaned on me—lived for me!’ A harshly grating sound of scornful laughter escaped him. ‘And in the end she even decided to put me out of my misery by killing herself in the name of love!’

  That was six years ago, and he still has not recovered from what that final act of rank selfishness did to his soul, she realised.

  She was so white in the face now that she began to look like marble. ‘I don’t want to believe all of this …’ she breathed as if in a crazed nightmare.

  ‘Then make yourself believe,’ he advised her coldly. ‘For I am infertile and this marriage is over. I will not be put through that kind of hell again—not for you—not for any woman,’ he concluded as he strode angrily for the door.

  This time he passed through it without any hesitation. The door closed behind him, leaving Claire standing there, trembling from the top of her head to the soles of her feet as she tried desperately to come to terms with all the ugliness and horror that had been unveiled in this room today.

  Infertile …

  With her head turning on a neck that was too locked by stress to make the movement a smooth one, she stared dazedly at the flat packet now lying on the bed where he had tossed it. What to her had been a silly purchase made in the excitement of the moment was an instrument of torture to Andreas.

  She shuddered, hating the very sight of it now, and was about to turn away from it in sickened distaste, when something he had said suddenly stilled her.

  Make yourself believe, Andreas had said.

  Make yourself believe …

  Feeling her heart turn to stone in appalled dismay at what she was daring to consider, Claire picked up the packet.

  The fierce roar of a car racing away from the house filled her head as she walked grimly into her bathroom.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT WAS very late by the time his car swung back into the driveway. Huddled inside a warm winter coat, Claire was sitting on one of the pale blue upholstered chairs on the front terrace, where she had been waiting for him for what seemed like hours now.

  He had to have seen her sitting there because his car headlights had picked her out as he’d driven by on his way to the garages. Yet long, long minutes went by before his tall, dark figure loomed up at her from the inky darkness.

  And her first response when she looked up at him was a cold little shiver. ‘Still here, I see,’ he drawled.

  ‘I needed to ask you a question before I left,’ she explained. ‘So I decided to wait until you got back.’

  ‘You mean there is a lie we forgot to rake over?’ he mocked.

  ‘Maybe.’ She smiled a little sadly. ‘I’m not sure … Will you at least sit down and listen?’ she then requested. ‘Only it’s very difficult to talk to someone
who is bent on cutting you to ribbons with their eyes while you speak.’

  He smiled that smile she hated so much, and for a moment she thought he was going to tell her to go to hell. The tension soared, filling the cool winter night with a hostility that clutched at her throat.

  Maybe it did something similar to him, because he released a taut sigh as if attempting to dispel the feeling, then in the next moment was reluctantly dropping down into the chair next to her.

  ‘Fire away,’ he grimly invited.

  But now that she had his attention she found she’d lost the courage to say what she wanted to say. Ironic, really, she mused, when you think how many hours I’ve waited so patiently for this moment.

  ‘Nice evening?’ she asked, merely as a cover while she got her courage back.

  His dark head turned to look at her delicately drawn profile. She looked so pale, her skin seemed to glow ghost-like in the darkness. ‘Is that the question?’ he enquired. ‘Or just an extra one you decided to throw in?’

  In other words, he was not going to make this easier for her, Claire noted. ‘I am not naturally a cruel or vindictive person, Andreas,’ she murmured soberly. ‘I did not set out to deliberately hurt you today.’

  ‘Now that definitely was not a question,’ he clipped.

  And he definitely was not going to make this easy. At which point she decided to just hit him with it and wait to see what he did.

  ‘Have you been making love to me for all of these weeks just for the hell of it because I was there and so obviously willing?’ she asked. ‘Or did you actually let yourself care something for me before you allowed things to go that far?’

  He shifted restlessly, so his chair creaked on the tiled terrace floor. From the way his jaw clenched, he didn’t like the question and liked even less having to offer an answer.

  ‘I did not make love to you for the hell of it,’ he said.

  Claire sat there beside him and smothered the urge to sigh loudly in relief as she felt a huge weight lift from her shoulders because, if he had not done it for the hell of it, then he must care—even if he never actually said that he did.

  ‘Then may I stay?’ she requested huskily. ‘Please?’

  He made a jerky movement with his head that made her feel as if she’d hit him again. ‘You said one question,’ he gritted. ‘That makes two.’

  So she rephrased it. ‘I’ll go if you want me to, but I prefer to stay. I need to stay here with you.’

  ‘And Melanie, of course,’ he cynically mocked.

  Claire’s blue eyes flashed, glinting a warning at his hard profile. ‘Don’t bring Melanie into this,’ she admonished. ‘What is best for Melanie is a separate issue. I am talking about me here. My needs.’ She tersely pressed the point. ‘What I am going to do!’

  ‘And you want to stay,’ he drawled with crushing derision. ‘How very—saintly of you, considering who you would be staying with.’

  ‘Do you think that by mocking both me and yourself in the same sentence you will force me to hate you enough to leave without you having to tell me to go?’ she demanded.

  ‘I thought I had already done that,’ he remarked, saw her wince, and with a sigh relented in his acid tone a little. ‘Listen to me, Claire,’ he prompted heavily. ‘You are generous and loving and selflessly kind,’ he told her. ‘But you are also young and extremely beautiful. If you leave here now, you will soon pick up the threads of your own life, eventually meet a lucky man one day who will fulfil your heart’s desire in every single way. But I am not that man,’ he stated gruffly. ‘I am too old for you, too—flawed, and just too cynical for someone as fresh and perfect as you.’

  ‘But you aren’t saying that you wouldn’t like to be that lucky man,’ she said. ‘Only that you don’t think you can be him.’

  His laugh was soft and rueful. ‘I forgot to say stubborn, too,’ he murmured—only to tag on harshly, ‘Why can’t you make this easier on both of us and accept that I am not going to let you stay with me?’

  ‘Because I love you,’ she replied. ‘Though I don’t think you deserve it. Or you couldn’t be trying to hurt me like this. And if you dare to quote the cruel to be kind thing at me,’ she added warningly, ‘I will probably hit you again—old man.’

  ‘Then I won’t say it,’ he promised. ‘But neither will I change my mind.’

  He sounded so strong, so—resolved, her heart gave a painful little lurch in response to it. ‘So, if I get up right now and walk off into that darkness leaving Melanie behind—which is what you only ever really wanted—will that make you happy, Andreas? Will it?’

  He didn’t answer, but she could feel the sharp increase in his tension. On impulse she stood up—could have wept when his hand snaked out to capture hers and he muttered, ‘No,’ so rawly that it rasped over his throat like sandpaper, and his grip was intense.

  In a flurry of shaking limbs she spun around to come and squat down in front of him. Her hair had grown longer over the last couple of months, grown thicker and glossier so that even here, in the darkness of the terrace, it shone like golden syrup around the tense pallor of her face as she tried to capture his eyes. Only he wouldn’t let her do that—hadn’t, in fact, since he’d appeared in front of her tonight. And that made her hurt for him, because she understood why he would not meet her gaze.

  It was wretched—utterly wretched.

  ‘OK,’ she murmured shakily. ‘New scenario—right?’ Her free hand went up, ice-cold and trembling fingertips touching the white ring of tension circling his mouth. ‘You meet a girl, you fall in love with her. You ask her to marry you. She turns round and tells you that she can’t have children. Do you just walk away, Andreas?’ she asked him gently. ‘Does the fact that she can’t give you children suddenly make her less worthy of your love?’

  ‘This is a senseless exercise,’ he gritted, dislodging her fingers with a tense movement of his head. ‘Simply because it is not the case here.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Claire challenged. ‘How can either you or I know whether I don’t have my own flaw that will stop me from conceiving? When it has never been put to the test?’

  ‘And never will be by me,’ he uttered grimly.

  ‘But that isn’t the point I was trying to make,’ she pressed. ‘Are you saying that when this fantastic new man comes along to sweep me off my feet I have to have him checked out to see if he’s fertile before I fall in love with him? And that he has to do the same with me?’

  ‘Don’t be foolish.’ He began to scowl. ‘And stop this line of argument right now. For I refuse to play mind games with ifs, buts and maybes. Why can’t you simply accept that I am not going to let you stay here with me?’

  ‘Then why are you holding so tightly to my hand?’ Claire countered softly.

  His hand snapped away from her, his hard face darkening with a sudden loss of patience. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he muttered, going to get up.

  But Claire beat him to it. ‘So have I,’ she agreed, straightening away from him before he could stand up. ‘So I am going to go to my lonely bed to dream of wildly exciting men with very high sperm counts,’ she bitterly informed him. ‘And you never know—if I dream hard enough, by the time morning comes around, I may have managed to purge my love for you right out of me! Then leaving here tomorrow could well turn out to be a pleasure!’

  With that she stalked into the house, leaving him sitting there alone with only his stubborn pride to help him mull over what she had just said.

  On reaching her room, she stripped off her clothes and climbed into bed, closed her eyes and, with gritted teeth, waited to see if her angry words managed to shock a reaction out of him.

  Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, the door to his own room slammed shut, and a few more minutes after that the connecting door flew open. Claire refused to open her eyes.

  ‘You asked for this,’ he growled, coming to lean over her. ‘You wanted to make me angry—well, I’m angry,’ he confirmed as his naked b
ody slid between the sheets. ‘You wanted to make me jealous,’ he added as he reached out for her. ‘Well, I am damned well jealous!’

  ‘Of my dreams?’ she taunted, opening her eyes.

  ‘Of everything to do with you!’ he rasped, and imprisoned her very willing mouth.

  It became a battle of wills as to who could arouse the other more. He kissed and licked and teased her, and shrouded her in the heaviest kind of sensuality. And she returned everything with interest, driving him out of control with the touch of her mouth and the caress of her fingers and the soft urgency with which she whispered her desire to him. ‘Will my other men make me feel as good as this?’ she dared to question curiously.

  Her innocence before he came along added immense power to the question. But it was dangerous, it was reckless. He responded by entering her like a man who had lost touch with his sanity.

  And as he drove her before him into the same wild place she thought she heard an anguished whimper, and realised with a sense of wretched guilt that the sound had come from him.

  ‘I don’t leave tomorrow, then?’ she murmured when it was all over and she was lying curled close up against him, his arms still wrapped around her as if they couldn’t let go.

  ‘You stay until you are ready to go,’ he replied. ‘I refuse to accept more than that from you.’

  Very magnanimous, Claire thought, and broke herself free from his arms to walk off to her own bathroom. When she came back she had something hidden in the palm of her hand—though he didn’t notice that because he was too busy absorbing every nuance of her slender shape as she came back to him.

  Straddling his lean waist, she sat looking thoughtfully down at his dark face. His eyes were hooded again—but lazily, their dark depths gleaming with a deliciously greedy possessiveness as they looked at her body.

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ she confessed. ‘But I need you to promise me that you won’t get angry.’