Bridal Bargains

by Michelle Reid

  When you’ve had your fingers burned by complacency not once but twice, unless you are a complete fool you do not take chances on it happening again.

  And what was she doing with that piece of driftwood? he questioned suddenly. The way she was caressing it was almost erotic. Was she imagining it was him—or someone else?

  Jealousy. Uncertainty. He did not like feeling like this! With a grim clenching of every bone in him he spun away from the window, wondering what the hell he was going to do. He had to go to London. He did not want to take Nell with him. But was she going to accept that?

  Not a chance in hell, he thought as he began gathering together papers that littered the top of his desk. Papers that were important to running an empire—yet all he wanted to do was hide away here with his wife!

  A black scowl darkened his face as he strode into the hallway. Seeing Nell stashing the piece of driftwood by the open door, he pulled to a stop as he made one of those clean-cut, uncompromising decisions that usually made him feel better about himself.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he announced brusquely.

  ‘We do?’ Surprise lit her tone as she walked towards him, a sensational, wand-slender, Titian-haired woman wearing a halo of sunlight all around her. ‘Well that makes a change,’ she drawled teasingly.

  He was wearing white, Nell noted. Xander liked to wear white, white, loose, fine muslin shirts that allowed the gorgeously tight, bronzed shape of his body show through, and white linen trousers that fastened with a tie cord low on his lean waist. One tug at the cord and she would reveal the real man, she thought temptingly, felt the hot secretion of desire sting her senses and wished she had more control over herself.

  But she didn’t and her mouth quirked into a rueful smile that acknowledged her weakness as she came to a halt in front of him and lifted her face for a kiss.

  It didn’t arrive. She focused her eyes on his hard, handsome face. He was cross, she realised. Her smile died.

  ‘What was the smile for?’ he demanded suspiciously.

  ‘Well, it was for you but I’ve taken it back. What’s the scowl for?’ she countered.

  He made an impatient flick with a long-fingered hand. ‘I have to go to London today,’ he told her abruptly.

  London. Her eyes lit up. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘So you don’t have to sound so cross about it. I’ll go and pack and we can—’

  ‘No.’ Xander used the refusal as if it were a landmine he was setting down in the small space between them. ‘You will stay here.’

  Nell’s chin shot up again, green eyes making full contact with grimly uncompromising brown, then for the space of ten taut seconds she gave no response. Not with her steady gaze or her closed, perfectly formed mouth—or any other part of her, yet some inner body language had to be speaking to him because Xander tensed every muscle he had.

  ‘It’s business,’ he clipped out as if that justified everything. ‘I can be back here in two days. No need for both of us to uproot.’

  ‘Do you want sex before you leave?’

  It was not an invitation. In fact it was more like a cold slap in the face. The provocative witch, Xander thought heavily. ‘Not if you are going to turn it into a punishment,’ he returned drily, then grimaced because he was aware by the tingling of his flesh that he’d take the punishment if it was all that he was going to get.

  ‘Goodbye, then,’ she said and abruptly turned about.

  She was going to walk away! Shock lanced through him. Didn’t she care one way or another if he took her with him or not?

  ‘Nell …’ He rasped out her name not sure if it was said in anger or appeal. Then he took a step forward to catch her arm and the explosion erupted. She swung back, green eyes alive now and flashing with rage and biting contempt.

  ‘What do you want from me, Xander?’ she lashed out at him. ‘Do you expect me to smile happily as I wave you off? Do you think I like knowing I’m a prisoner here, that I can only leave this island at your behest?’

  ‘It’s for your own safety.’ He frowned darkly.

  ‘For your peace of mind, you mean.’

  ‘I have enemies! How do I know that your Frenchman isn’t one of them until I locate him so that I can find out?’

  ‘You mean—you’re actually looking for him?’ Her eyes went wide with shock.

  His hooded. ‘My people are.’ He made yet another terse gesture with a hand. ‘Your fate lies in what he has to say for himself.’

  But his people hadn’t found Marcel yet, Nell surmised from that and could not keep the relief from showing on her face.

  Xander saw it. His own face hardened. ‘You know where he is!’

  She went to turn away again but his grip on her arm spun her back round. Defiance roared through her system. ‘Don’t manhandle me,’ she protested angrily.

  ‘Tell me where he is,’ Xander hissed.

  ‘Where’s Vanessa?’ she retaliated.

  ‘This is not about Vanessa!’

  ‘Well, I’m making it about her!’ she flashed. ‘Tit for tat, Xander,’ she tossed back. ‘You tell me all about your mistress and I’ll tell you about my—’

  ‘He was never your lover,’ he derided before she’d even got the final word out.

  But he wasn’t denying that Vanessa was his! ‘Not physically,’ she conceded. ‘But emotionally? How would you know if I love him? You wouldn’t know about emotional love if it jumped up and bit you!’

  The scorn in her voice had him tugging her towards him. Even as she landed hard up against his chest she was registering that something inside him had snapped. With ruthless intent he caught hold of the silken knot holding her hair up and used it to tug her head back then capture her angry mouth.

  Titian silk crackled when it tumbled over his fingers as they strained against each other right there in the hall. Thin cotton beachwear was no barrier to hide what was happening to him but Nell was determined she was not going to give in to it. He was equally determined that she would.

  A sound somewhere close intruded on the struggle. With an angry growl Xander scooped her up and swung her into his study, kicked the door shut behind them as he strode across the room to drop her on the soft leather sofa then followed her with his weight.

  There the struggle continued. She plucked at his skin through his thin clothes with angry fingers, he forged a path with urgent fingers between her thighs.

  ‘Stop it,’ she gasped as his touch set her sobbing because she could feel herself responding even though she hated herself for it.

  ‘Why?’ he breathed tensely. ‘This is not emotional enough? You think I go crazy like this for anyone? You think that you would feel hot and as willing as this for your Frenchman’s touch?’

  That he did not want an answer showed in the way he crushed her mouth open and plundered its sensitive interior. He was jealous of Marcel. He was doing this from the burning depths of a jealous rage. If she didn’t stop him he was going to take her like this with none of the preliminaries then hate himself for it afterwards.

  Closing her fingers in his hair, she pulled his head back to free her burning mouth. ‘I think I’m pregnant,’ she told him shakily, and watched as shock totally froze him, the colour draining out of his face.

  In the pin-drop silence that followed neither of them took a single pounding breath, then Nell’s mouth gave a vulnerable little quiver and he jackknifed away from her, landing on his feet by the sofa with his back towards her, muscles flexing all over him as he came to terms with what he had just been about to do.

  Nothing like a good shock to turn the heat down, Nell thought bitterly and sat up, shaking fingers pulling her sarong back into place.

  ‘Sorry to spoil your farewell,’ she heard herself add with the slicing cut of embitterment.

  His dark head jerked as if she’d hit him. In many ways Nell wished that she had. She had never felt so shocked and shaken. Without saying a word he just walked from the room.

  Nell couldn’t move. She thought he’d tau
ght her everything there was to know about making love but now she knew differently. A soulless slaking of lust that he dared to call emotion had not shown up in his repertoire before.

  Nor had it prevented her from almost toppling into its cold, murky, thick depths. She started to shiver she was so cold suddenly, hating herself—despising him.

  On the other side of the door Xander had frozen again, eyes closed, face locked into a taut mask of self-contempt. He did not want to believe that he had just done that. He did not want to remember the pained look on her face when she’d said what she said.

  Pregnant. He flinched. What had he done here? How had he allowed three weeks of damn near perfection sink as low as this?

  Marcel Dubois. The name arrived in his head like a black taunt.

  No excuse, he dismissed. No damned excuse for doing what he had. The hand he used to scrape through his hair was trembling. Grimly he made for the stairs with a sudden dire need to wash the shame from his skin.

  Nell was just trying to find the strength to stand up when the telephone on Xander’s desk began to ring. She thought about ignoring it but something stronger than good sense pulled her like a magnet towards it and had her lifting the receiver off its rest.

  When your life shatters, it really shatters, she thought blankly as a soft, slightly husky female voice murmured, ‘Xander, darling? Is it all right for us to speak?’

  The receiver clattered as it landed back on its rest. Pale as a ghost, Nell turned and walked to the door and out of the room then out of the house.

  The piece of driftwood stood where she’d left it. Why she picked it up she hadn’t a single clue but she hugged it to her front as she walked around the side of the house and took the path that would take her up the hill.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  TWO hours later, dressed for his trip to London in tailored black trousers and a crisp white business shirt, Xander gave up trying to locate Nell on foot and decided to take to the air instead. His mouth was tense, his lean face set and severe. He left an anxious-looking Thea standing by the pool, wringing her hands.

  ‘Why did you have to fight with her?’ she’d scolded him earlier. ‘She’s a good girl, Alexander. A trip to London to see her papa would not have put you out.’

  The ‘good girl’ part was still cutting into him. The fact that Thea had overheard just enough of their fight to draw her own conclusions did not help his riddling feelings of guilt as the helicopter blades wound up, disturbing the hot morning as he took to the air.

  Sat huddled on a rock hidden beneath the deep shade of a tree close to the spot from the one they usually dived from, Nell listened as the helicopter flew overhead.

  He was going—leaving her here despite everything. Why she thought he might have a change of mind now he knew her suspicions about the baby she didn’t know—but she had thought it.

  Her eyes flooded with hot, helpless tears.

  Vanessa. She shivered, feeling cold despite the fierce heat of the day. Perhaps his urgent business in London was really urgent Vanessa business. No wonder he’d become so angry when she wanted to go with him. What man wanted a wife along when he was looking forward to enjoying his long-standing mistress?

  She hated him for treating her like this. She hated herself for falling so totally under his spell when she had known—known that Vanessa was always there, hovering like the black plague in the background. A sudden husky, tear-thickened laugh broke from her aching throat. Face it, Nell, she told herself. You are the one he hides away like a mistress while Vanessa gets to play the very public wife!

  Sweeping around the rocky headland, with deft use of the controls Xander swung the helicopter round to face the island then began to search the tiny cove.

  She had to be here somewhere, he told himself grimly. Where the hell else could she go?

  Dark glasses shading the brightness of the sun from his eyes, he checked the water first for sight of her but there was no sign of a Titian-haired mermaid swimming alone down there.

  Teeth flashing white on a hiss of relief because if she was feeling anywhere near as bad as he was feeling she was in no fit state to swim alone, he switched his attention to the shore. He’d already checked the other side of the island, checked the paths through the trees without a single sighting of her. A viscous curse aimed at himself for introducing her to his boyhood collection of hiding places had led him on a wild-goose chase on foot. From up here it was like looking for a butterfly in a forest. If he did not spot her soon then he was going to panic. He could already feel it clawing at the inner tissues of tension racked across his chest.

  What if she had decided to swim? What if she had been crazy enough to strike a direct line right out to sea? He swung the craft around, eyes scanning the glistening blue ocean for a sign of one wilful idiot with a desire to drown herself just to make him feel worse.

  Don’t be stupid, he then told himself. Nell isn’t that stupid. And he uttered another curse as he swung the helicopter back to face the island then set it crabbing along the shoreline. She might hate him right now but not enough to risk killing herself—and their unborn child.

  Their unborn child. A baby! He was still struggling to come to terms with the shock. His beautiful Helen was going to have his baby and he had never felt so wretched about anything in his entire life!

  What had he done? Why had he done it? Jealousy was not an emotion he was used to. Women were jealously possessive of him, not the other way round!

  Women, he repeated and let out a scornful huff of a laugh. Woman in the singular, he corrected. One tough, teasing, exquisite creature that fell apart in his arms on a regular basis yet still protected her bloody Frenchman!

  What was he doing out there? Nell wondered as she watched him hover then move and hover again. Then enlightenment dawned. Why it took so long to sink in that he was looking for her she had no idea but, hugging the piece of driftwood to her, she lowered her head over it and squeezed her eyes tight shut and willed him to go away.

  As if her wish was his command she heard him move further along the coast and for some totally indefensible reason the tears flooded again. She wouldn’t cry—she wouldn’t! she told herself forcefully as she listened to the dying whoosh of the rotor blades until only stillness filled the air.

  Tomorrow she left here, she decided. She could do it and she knew exactly how. All it required was for her to feign illness and frighten poor Thea Sophia into calling in the air ambulance. She knew it could be done because she’d witnessed it happening when one of the maids had been taken ill suddenly during her first week here. The air ambulance had swooped in with a full complement of medical crew and efficiently carried the maid away.

  Once she was away from this island she would disappear as thoroughly as Marcel had apparently done and to hell with Xander. She never wanted to lay eyes on him again.

  Then, without warning, the helicopter was back and suddenly so close that her chin scraped the driftwood as her head shot up. By then Xander had inched the machine in so close to the edge of the ledge that for a horrible moment she truly believed he was going to crash!

  Leaping to her feet, she ran to the edge on some crazy idea that she could make him stop!

  For a hellish kind of moment Xander thought she was going to take to the water. Icy dread bathed his flesh as he looked down at the sea where the ebbing tide had uncovered the razor jutting peaks of some lethal rocks.

  ‘Get back, you fool!’ he heard himself bellow at the top of his ragged voice, almost lost control of the helicopter and, by the time he’d wrestled with it and looked back at her, she was already teetering on the edge and caught up in a whirlwind of dry, stinging dust and flying debris, her slender frame cowering as she stared at him in abject horror.

  Teeth lashed together, he pushed in closer, herding her backwards step by unsteady step until she was safely back from the edge. Then he stayed there, hovering so dangerously close that if he didn’t harness nerves of steel he had a feeling it would be hi
m tumbling to his death.

  Shaken, severely shaken when she realised what Xander was doing, Nell began to back away, so terrified for him she took the stinging whip of dust full in the face while she screamed at him to move back!

  The whole mad, nerve-slaughtering incident could only have used a few seconds but by the time she saw him begin his retreat she was close to fainting with relief.

  Xander kept his jaw locked tight as he swung the machine away. If he could he would land on the damn beach so he could run up there and strangle life out of her for being so stupid, but there were too many overhanging branches covering the narrow crescent of sand to make it a safe place to land.

  Biting out a thick curse, he flew back round the island to land by the house. Having settled the machine down, he then just sat there, bathed in sweat and shaking too badly to move. What if she’d jumped? What if the rotor blades’ fierce down-draft had toppled her over the edge?

  He climbed out of the cockpit. His legs felt hollow as he walked. The sun was hot but his skin wore the chill of stark, mind-blowing fear.

  What next? What now …?

  He knew what now, he told himself grimly as he set his feet walking in the direction of the pathway that would take him up the hill.

  Nell saw the helicopter was safely back on its pad as soon as she crested the peak of the hill and her footsteps stilled. She’d thought Xander had gone. She’d hoped he had gone. Now she could see that he hadn’t, her instincts were telling her to flee back into the woods and find a new place to hide from him.

  Then the man himself appeared, rounding a bend in the path below, sunlight filtering through the trees to dapple his long frame dressed in smooth black trousers and a crisp white business shirt with a slender dark tie knotted at his brown throat. When he saw her he pulled to a stop.