Bridal Bargains

by Michelle Reid

  ‘You’re trying to imply that my father put me up for auction,’ she whispered.

  ‘You will please make note that I am trying hard not to say those ugly words, agape mou,’ he returned.

  But they were there—they were there!

  ‘My father wouldn’t do such a h-horrible thing to me.’

  Silence. All Xander did was toss the rest of his whisky to the back of his throat. Nell felt the churning surge of nausea in her stomach.

  ‘I w-wouldn’t have Clive Benson touch me w-with a bargepole.’

  ‘I am so relieved that I did not encourage such feelings of objection,’ Xander drawled. ‘But take a moment to consider what you would have done if I had not offered a rescue package. Without me or—someone else to bail him out, your father’s company, his employees and countless other subsidiaries would have gone under and sunk without a trace. He would have been in debt to his eye-teeth. His bullish pride would have been shattered. His home would have gone and his beautiful daughter would have found herself tossed out on the street. Suddenly wealthy men like Clive Benson don’t look so bad, hmm?’

  ‘Stop the car,’ Nell breathed thickly.

  He looked utterly incredulous. ‘We are travelling on the motorway!’ he laughed, then he saw her milky pallor and his voice roughened. ‘For goodness’ sake, Nell, it’s too late for you to run away from—’

  ‘Stop the car!’ she all but shrieked at him just before her hand jerked up to cover her mouth.

  To give him his due, when he realised what was about to happen he moved like lightning, wrenching forward to snatch up the internal telephone and snapping out the order to Rico. Nell all but fell out of the car, staggering on wobbly legs across the hard shoulder of the motorway before she was thoroughly and violently sick onto the grass verge.

  The arms that came to take her weight and keep her hair back at the same time were a godsend. She didn’t even care that he had to stand there watching her bring up the full contents of her heaving stomach. She’d never felt so wretched—or so distressed. Everything he’d said and not said was pulsing and throbbing inside her.

  When it was over she folded at the knees. In grim silence Xander picked her up and resettled her on the back seat of the Bentley with her feet still out on the tarmac. He began snapping out orders while Nell desperately wanted to gulp in some deep lungfuls of fresh air but didn’t dare do it in case she set the nausea off again. She was shaking like crazy. Even when Xander squatted down in front of her and gently urged her to sip the cool water that had appeared from nowhere, she still couldn’t stop shaking like a leaf.

  ‘My bag,’ she managed to push out thickly.

  He didn’t question the request, just reached inside and found her bag where she’d placed it on the car floor and silently laid it on her lap. Her trembling fingers fumbled with the catch as she tried to open it. She could feel Xander wanting to take it and do the clasp for her but he didn’t give in to the urge. Maybe he knew that even a small thing like that was going to tip this awful situation right over the edge.

  The clasp sprang open; fingers scrambling inside, she found the little plastic envelope of damp freshen-ups she always carried, and managed to peel one away from the rest. Her hair was hanging all over her face and she was glad to have it hide the ravages she knew were there. I will never look at him again, she vowed sickly as she used the damp tissue to wipe her face, then she took the cool glass of water from him and began sipping sparingly while he continued to squat there with his hands clenched in fists between his spread thighs.

  ‘OK?’ he questioned her huskily after a few more minutes.

  She nodded, offering the glass back to him, but didn’t attempt to lift her head. Other things began to impinge on her consciousness, like the sound of other cars roaring past them on the motorway and the other car pulled up bumper to bumper with theirs. The three tough bodyguards had positioned themselves at a discreet but protective distance around the car.

  She couldn’t even be spared the dignity of privacy while she was sick.

  ‘Nell, I’m sorry. I didn’t say all of that to—’ One of his hands was lifting towards her.

  ‘Don’t touch me.’ She withdrew from him like a tortoise retracting into its shell.

  Swivelling her legs into the car, she just sat motionless while he remained squatting there, the pull on the air so taut it felt as if it could wrench her in two.

  He stayed like that for a few more seconds then rose to his full height. The car door closed, Nell used the few seconds it took him to stride around the car to comb her hair away from her face with trembling fingers. He arrived in the seat beside her, Nell turned her face to the side-window. The bodyguards dispersed. Car engines fired and the journey towards London continued in perfect—perfect—silence.

  She must have dozed off, though she didn’t remember doing it, but the next thing she knew the car had pulled to a stop outside a row of London townhouses sporting polished brass plates on the walls by the doors.

  ‘Where are we?’ she questioned. But Xander was already climbing out of the car. By the time he opened her door for her then stood there in grim silence waiting for her to get out, Nell had worked out exactly where they were.

  ‘I don’t need a doctor,’ she protested.

  The hand that took a grip on her arm said everything as he all but lifted her with it out of the car. He walked her up the steps and in through a doorway, where she glimpsed the word ‘Gynaecologist’ on one of the plaques with a sinking heart.

  ‘It’s too soon to consult anyone about …’

  Half an hour later, with her grim-faced companion’s hand like an electric charge to the hollow of her back, she was walking out again feeling washed-out and wasted and close to tears.

  It was confirmed. She was pregnant. About three weeks along, at a considered guess. Potent didn’t even cover it. He’d managed to achieve his goal at first try, knowing him, she thought bitterly.

  ‘Mission accomplished,’ she said in a voice that dripped ice, then stepped away from that proprietary hand and walked alone to the waiting car.

  CHAPTER NINE

  XANDER sat beside her as the car swept them onwards and wished to hell that he knew what to do to break this bloody grip guilt had on his conscience. In one short day he had managed to obliterate three weeks of total heaven.

  He didn’t want to feel like this!

  He didn’t want to look at her only to see that pained expression she’d worn on her pale face when the doctor had confirmed her pregnancy. He’d seen the same expression once already today when she’d been forced to tell him her suspicions about their baby because she knew it was the only way she would have stopped him taking her like a rutting beast!

  In a zoo.

  Theos. She had never spoken a truer word to him. How do you approach a woman who saw you like that?

  How did you look her in the face when you’d just bludgeoned her with the ugly truth about her father?

  You don’t, came the tough but true answer. You back right off if you have a drop left of civilised blood. You put your stupid, juvenile burn of jealousy over the bloody Frenchman back under wraps, then take up the happy task of slowly and painfully trying to rebuild trust.

  He turned his face to the side-window. Everything inside him felt as if it was carved in stone. One minute more of this God-awful silence and he was going to explode!

  Relief arrived when he saw the front of his super-modern smoked-glass office building loom up beside the car. Rico got out and opened his door for him. Xander climbed out then moved round the car with the civilised intention of assisting Nell to alight, but she did that on her own.

  He said nothing, took her arm, she flinched then settled. In a strained way he thanked her for that, and kept his own flinching contained inside. As they walked together through the smoked-glass doors into the vaulted foyer he saw the zoo analogy come up and hit him in the face like a bloody great tank.

  Glass everywhere, cold tungsten
steel. People—employees, for God’s sake—stopping what they should be doing to turn and stare. He felt Nell quiver, his fingers twitched on her slender arm. Behind his grim lips his teeth were biting together so tightly they hurt as he walked her across the foyer and into the executive lift. The doors closed. They were transported upwards with ultimate speed. She stared at the floor, he stared at the wall half an inch to the side of her head.

  And the hell of it was that he was willing her to look at him, willing her to make that slow, sensual journey up from his polished shoes to his face.

  It didn’t happen. He’d never felt so bloody bereft.

  The doors swished open. Nell had to steel herself to accept the return of his hand on her arm. Inherent Greek manners demanded that he hold her like this but she wished he were walking ten feet away.

  She had never been inside this building before, definitely never been up here in his spacious and plush executive domain. More glass and steel met her gaze, interspersed now with panels of rich walnut and yet more curious faces that kept her eyes glued to her shoes.

  The murmured greetings delivered with respect echoed the length of the long walk down the corridor. Xander said nothing. He was like a mechanical machine delivering a package.

  Then his hand moved from her arm to the centre of her back as he leant forward to open a pair of huge walnut doors. She felt his fingers slide into the weight of her hair and for a moment—a brief, sense-grabbing moment—his fingertips curled then straightened on a sharply compulsive sensual stroke.

  Her breathing froze. She looked up at him. She hadn’t wanted to do it but now it was too late and he was looking down. Everything stopped—everything! The door, only half pushed out of its housing, the sea of faces they’d left in their wake. He stood at least six inches taller than her and she wished—wished—wished she hated that handsome dark face!

  Her eyes began to blur with stupid tears, her mouth started to quiver.

  ‘Nell, don’t,’ he murmured thickly then turned like a whip on the sea of faces. ‘Have you nothing better to do than to watch me make love to my wife?’

  Shocked by the sudden outburst, Nell drew in a sharp breath. Muffled sounds erupted behind them. Xander bit out a curse then pushed the door wide and propelled her inside.

  She found herself standing in a huge walnut-panelled office with a wall of glass, a steel-legged desk and a vast expanse of polished floor. The door shut with a controlled thud. As soon as it happened Nell spun around.

  ‘What made you shout that out?’ she demanded shrilly.

  ‘Even zoo animals get sick of being stared at,’ he rasped.

  He had a grip on her hand now and was trailing her behind him across the room towards another set of double doors while, in a near-dizzy state of too many shocks in a single day, Nell found herself struggling with pangs of remorse.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry I said that,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘It was only the truth. I do live in a zoo.’

  A telephone started ringing somewhere. In a state of complete disorientation, Nell found herself being trailed in a different direction, towards the desk, where whole rows of paperwork stood lined up in thick, neat stacks. In amongst the stacks was the ringing telephone. Xander hooked it up with his free hand and began a clipped conversation in Greek.

  She tried to slip her hand free but he refused to let go of it. The moment he replaced the receiver it started ringing again. Keeping her firmly anchored to him, Xander embarked on a series of conversations as one call led to another then another.

  As one call stopped and before another started, Nell drew in a deep breath. ‘Look, you’re busy. And I need …’ to lie down, she had been going to say but changed her mind because lying down meant a bed, and she didn’t want to think about beds. ‘If you’ll let me use the limo, I’ll go down to Rose—’

  ‘You stay with me.’ It was not up for argument. ‘We are not—’

  The phone shrilled out its demand for his attention. On a growl of annoyance Xander snatched it up. ‘Hold the calls until I say otherwise!’ he instructed, the bark of his voice rattling the windows.

  Nell winced. ‘I hate bullies.’

  ‘Tough.’ She was being trailed across the floor again. ‘The vote’s still out on your fate, so you stay.’

  It took Nell a few seconds to get his meaning. ‘Will you stop throwing my words back in my face?’

  By then he’d taken them through that other pair of doors and her attention was seized, because this was no office but some kind of beautiful sitting room decorated and furnished to Xander’s impeccable high standards and luxurious good taste.

  ‘What is this place?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘My apartment.’

  ‘You mean this is your City place?’ She sounded so surprised that he sent her a wry look.

  ‘What did you expect—some purple and red velvet-lined pad in atmospheric Soho specifically designed for bedding my women?’

  The bedding-of-his-women bit brought the lovely Vanessa right into full focus. Instantly her face turned to paste.

  He saw it and bit out a sigh. ‘When I’m in town I work, I crash out here, I work,’ he enunciated abruptly. ‘I also keep a place in the country but have never got to sleep there yet.’

  His sarcasm was really on a roll, Nell noted heavily, and was suddenly fighting yet another battle with tears … The next thing she knew she was being engulfed by a pair of arms, her face pressed to his chest.

  ‘Idiot …’

  The husky tone of his voice rumbled right through her. She wasn’t sure who was the idiot, her or him, but she did know she wanted to be right where she was right now, and that had to make her a complete idiot.

  The small haven of comfort didn’t last long though. ‘Come on,’ he said gruffly, and turned her beneath the crook of his arm to guide her through yet another set of doors into a—bedroom with a huge, smooth coffee and cream covered bed on which he urged her to sit down on the edge.

  ‘Now listen,’ he said, coming to squat down in front of her. ‘It’s been a hell of a day and you’re exhausted. The wise doctor advised rest so you will obey him and rest—alone agape mou,’ he added severely at the protest he’d already predicted was about to shoot from her lips. ‘I have work to do, consisting of a mountain of paperwork to plough through before I chair a meeting in …’ glancing at his watch ‘… less than an hour.’ Grimacing, he sprang lithely to his feet. ‘There is a bathroom through that door,’ he indicated. ‘And a kitchen adjoining the other room if you feel the need for sustenance …’

  He was already over at the window and drawing the curtains, so disgustingly invigorated by the prospect of work, while all Nell wanted to do was crawl into this bed and sleep.

  ‘If you need me for anything,’ he said as he walked back to her, ‘there is a telephone in every room. All you have to do is hit the one button and you will reach me. OK?’

  Locating the telephone on the bedside cabinet, Nell looked at it wistfully. ‘Can I ring out on it?’

  ‘No, you cannot!’ He was suddenly in front of her and taking her shoulders to pull her upright. ‘Now, listen, you aggravating bundle of controversy. I am in no mood to fight with you any more today, but if you attempt to contact your ex-lover I’ll fight hard and dirty—got that?’ He gave her a gentle shake.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  He let go of her with an impatient hiss. ‘Go to bed, get some rest and stop wishing for miracles.’

  With that he strode out of the room with his dark head held high and his wide shoulders straight, leaving Nell wilting wearily back onto the bed.

  Less than ten minutes later, stripped to her underwear, she crawled between the cool Egyptian cotton sheets. Feeling utterly bulldozed, she simply closed her eyes and dropped into sleep.

  Pregnant, was her last memorable thought. I really am pregnant …

  Pregnant, Xander was thinking as he stood in the doorway, following the streaming cascade of Titian hair spread out o
n the pillow until his gaze settled on her pale, pinched, sleeping face.

  Was he pleased?

  Hell, he didn’t know. He wanted to be pleased. He wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But when he looked upon the face of this—impossible woman, he had a sinking suspicion that the cost he was going to pay for the pleasure of impregnating her was going to be much too high.

  Smothering a sigh, he eased himself away from the doorframe and stepped back into the sitting room, pulling the door quietly shut.

  Time to stop playing the lovelorn idiot, he told himself, and time to play the hard-hitting, go-getting business tycoon.

  A role he was much more familiar with. A role he wished he felt an ounce of enthusiasm for right now but he didn’t, which did not go down with his proud Greek ego very well.

  Greek tycoon slain by a Titian-haired witch, he mentally wrote his own tabloid headline. Grimaced then braced his shoulders and went into his office, firmly closing that door behind him too.

  Nell came drifting awake to the sound of rattling crockery. It reminded her so much of Thea Sophia that she lay there in smiling contentment, imagining herself to be on the island—until a lazy voice said, ‘I hope that smile means you’re dreaming about me.’

  She opened her eyes to find Xander standing over her, looking lean and mean in his sharp business suit, and reality came crashing in. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘We’re in London, aren’t we?’ Yawned and stretched then looked back at him. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Refreshment time,’ he said lightly, turning away then turning back again with a tray in his hands.

  Nell slithered up the pillows, dragged the sheet up to cover her breasts then yawned again, rubbed her eyes then swept her tumbled hair back from her face.