Bridal Bargains

by Michelle Reid

  She could not see how voluptuously alluring she looked, with her new maternal shape moulding the front of her body while the rest of her remained incredibly slender in every other way.

  In fact, the one and only plus point she could find to all of this was that she loved her baby already. Although she might not like what he was doing to the shape of her body, she did not resent him doing it.

  ‘You grow, my darling,’ she whispered softly one morning, as she stood in front of the full-length mirror, ruefully viewing the physical changes while her fingers ran a gentle caress over her swollen abdomen. ‘You take whatever you want from your mama to become the strong little man I want you to be.’

  And he did take a lot, she had to admit. Took enough to see her safely tucked up in bed before ten each evening and resting several times throughout the day.

  Then, on a Wednesday afternoon, two weeks into her fifth month of pregnancy, she was lying on her bed, resting, when she received a telephone call that put the energy back into her with a vengeance. Sofia had answered the call, then came running to get her.

  ‘A Mrs Leyton?’ She said the name with difficulty. ‘She say it is urgent.’

  Mrs Leyton—Cissy, her father’s housekeeper—ringing here? Alarm shot through Mia, the kind of alarm that sent her legs to the floor and had her rushing down the stairs to the nearest telephone.

  There were only two reasons why her father’s housekeeper would be calling here—either something had happened to her father or something had happened to Suzanna.

  Pray to God it isn’t Suzanna, she begged as she lifted the receiver to her ear with a trembling hand.

  It was Suzanna.

  Ten minutes after that she was rushing around her bedroom, packing a small case, in a state of high turmoil.

  ‘Listen, Elena,’ she snapped at the hovering housekeeper for the very first time since she had arrived here. ‘I have to go to England. I don’t care how I get there, even if I have to swim! But I do have to go!’

  ‘But the master says you are not to leave the island without him.’

  ‘I don’t damn well care what the master has said!’ she bit back, lifting a flushed face and wild eyes from what she was doing. ‘You must have some way you can contact him in case of an emergency! So contact him!’ she commanded.

  ‘Contact me for what?’ a cool voice enquired from the open doorway to her bedroom.

  Mia straightened from what she was doing and spun around to face him. ‘Oh, Alex!’ she sighed in relief. ‘Thank goodness …’

  ‘Prosehe!’ she heard him shout as sudden dizziness overcame her.

  She landed in an ungainly huddle on the bed beside her open suitcase, not unconscious but sickeningly close to it. Beyond the dizziness she could hear him still cursing, and was vaguely aware of him pushing the housekeeper out of the way in his urgency to reach her.

  ‘You stupid, thoughtless female!’ he growled at her angrily as he came to stand over her. ‘When are you going to learn that you cannot exert yourself like this?’

  ‘I’m all right now,’ she whispered, through lips gone strangely numb.

  ‘Oh, you look it,’ he mocked grimly, watching the struggle it cost her to sit up again. ‘Go any whiter and I won’t be able to tell you from the sheet!’

  ‘Just listen!’ she cut across him, impatiently ignoring the lingering dizziness, the cloying sense of sickness disturbing her stomach. ‘Suzanna, my s-sister, has been taken ill with acute appendicitis. I have to go to England,’ she told him. ‘She needs me.’

  ‘She needs her father,’ Alexander inserted coolly. ‘You need to rest and take care of yourself.’

  Was that a refusal? Mia glanced up at him and saw that his face was wearing that familiar closed expression. She felt her heart sink when she realised she had a battle on her hands. Elena, she noticed, had disappeared out of the firing line.

  ‘She needs me,’ Mia insisted.

  Alex walked off towards the bathroom as if she hadn’t spoken.

  Mia got up, panic beginning to join all the other fears that were flurrying through her. ‘Alex …’ She met him at the bathroom door, her limbs still shaking and her head still whirling so dizzily that she had to clutch at the doorframe to steady herself. ‘Please …’ she pleaded with him. ‘She’s only seven years old! She’s in pain and frightened! She needs me there to reassure her! I’ve always been there for her when she’s needed someone!’

  ‘Well, this time it will have to be someone else,’ he declared, ‘because you are not going. Here …’ He offered her the glass of water he had gone into the bathroom to collect.

  ‘I don’t want that,’ she snapped, and tried to spin away from him, but he stopped her, his free hand closing around her wrist.

  ‘You are amazing, do you know that?’ he bit out angrily. ‘You walk around this place as if you live on a different planet to the rest of us! You rarely show emotion. You rarely raise your voice or make a move that has not been carefully thought out beforehand! You drift through each day as though you are not really living it. Then some stupid damned phone call comes, and you are suddenly so out of control that you are actually a danger to yourself!’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ She frowned at the anger blazing in his eyes.

  ‘You—and the way you live here as if you do not really exist!’ he barked. ‘You …’ his dark face came closer ‘… almost fainting because you are suddenly doing everything so thoughtlessly that it makes a damned mockery of all that self-control you usually exert over yourself! You!’ he said forcefully. ‘Almost making the same move just now that sent you toppling on the bed a mere moment ago! And all because of what?’ he demanded. ‘A sister who has a father to look to her comfort! A sister who can damn well comfort herself because you are not moving off this island!’

  ‘But, you know my father!’ she cried. ‘Do you honestly think he would make time to bother visiting a child he barely remembers exists? She needs me, Alex! Me! And I have to go to her!’

  ‘No.’

  It was that blunt—so unequivocal that Mia let out a stunned gasp of appalled disbelief. He ignored it, as he ignored her pale, pained shattered face. He let go of her wrist to walk around her.

  ‘In case you hadn’t noticed,’ he went on grimly, ‘I am back here earlier than usual today because I thought you might enjoy a change of scenery.’

  He was back early? Mia blinked at her watch and then blinked back at him, wondering confusedly what the hell that had to do with Suzanna.

  ‘So I have arranged for us to eat a picnic out on a secluded bay I know on the other side of the island,’ he continued off-handedly. ‘Sofia is preparing the food for us as I speak.’

  ‘I’m not going to sit quietly and eat some damned picnic while Suzanna needs me!’ she gasped.

  ‘You will, Mia.’ It was so unusual for him to say her name that hearing it now made her blink again and stare at him—made her see exactly why he was using it. He was using it as a don’t-push-me-or-I’ll-get-nasty warning. ‘You will do exactly what I say you can do. Your sister is not your concern.’ he said. ‘The child you now carry in your womb is your concern. Get your priorities right and forget you even received that phone call for, I promise you, it will be the last one you will receive from this moment on!’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ she said, her mouth turning down in a derisive sneer. ‘The prisoner has now been placed in solitary confinement—is that it? I am not allowed off this stupid island in case someone guesses the shape of my body may have something to do with you! I am not allowed to speak to anyone outside these grounds in case I stupidly let them know my connection with you! Now I am not to receive phone calls from my own family in case they get the foolish impression that I still have a mind of my own to use now and then!’

  ‘That’s it …’ he nodded ‘… in a nutshell. Now, do you want to swim while we are there? If so, pack some swimming gear.’

  ‘I am not going with you!’ she shouted at him.

 
His eyes narrowed, his dark head lifting as if she had just reached out and struck him. ‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ he said, actually sounding shocked.

  As an answer to that she walked over to her half-packed suitcase, closed it and hauled it off the bed.

  She was a fool to try it, she knew that even as she attempted it. The suitcase was wrenched from her, the hand that came around her swollen body careful of the pressure it applied but demonstrating its intent none the less.

  ‘Now, listen to me,’ he said though gritted teeth from behind her. ‘You signed a contract whereby I have more rights over you than you have over yourself. You are carrying my child!’

  ‘Your passport to your most coveted dream, you mean,’ she tossed at him. ‘Other than that, I am nothing to you but the damned loss leader you had to accept if you had any chance of getting your hands on that stupid dream!’

  ‘Loss leader?’ he seemed rather stunned at her choice of phrase. ‘You see yourself as a loss leader? What the hell do you think I am?’

  ‘A cruel and heartless swine, if you keep me from going to a sick and frightened child who needs me!’ she threw at him, and pushed his arm away from her, rather surprised when he let her do it. ‘But, unlike you, I can’t treat a child’s pain and distress as nothing so I’m going—whether you like it or not!’

  Reaching out, she snatched up her handbag and began to walk towards the bedroom door. Blow the case, she told herself grimly. She didn’t need it. She had money of her own. She could buy fresh clothes when she needed them. She didn’t need Alex. She could pay for her own passage off this damned island.

  ‘I will not let you go, you know,’ he informed her grimly.

  ‘I am not aware of asking your permission,’ she replied, as cold as ice and shaking so badly her legs could barely support her.

  ‘My men will detain you the moment you approach the gates of the villa.’

  She was at the top of the landing now, her hand clutching the banister, so she felt reasonably safe in spinning to face him without risking tumbling down those stairs in another silly faint.

  He was standing several feet away, but was eyeing her calculatingly, as if he was wondering what she would do if he made another dive for her.

  ‘Are you saying they will physically stop me?’ she demanded.

  ‘No,’ he conceded, ‘but I certainly will. Come away from the edge of those stairs,’ he commanded tersely. ‘Your face tells me you are struggling to stay upright.’

  ‘And your face tells me you have no idea whatsoever of what it is like to love someone more than you love yourself.’

  ‘Are you talking about your sister?’ he countered.

  If anything, she went even paler. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘Suzanna needs me. I am the only m-mother she has known all her life, and she has a right to expect me to come to her when she’s hurting.’

  ‘Go to her without my permission and you break your contract with me.’

  Just like that. She stood there and stared at him.

  Oh, so clever, she was thinking bitterly. He was calling her bluff. He was reminding her of the one tiny clause she had shown no interest in among all those other clauses he had thrust upon her in that contract—the clause that stated she not leave Greece without his permission while carrying his child or she forfeited custody of the child.

  At the time of signing she had seen no reason why she should want to leave Greece until this ordeal was over.

  Her heart gave a painful thump, her stomach muscles coiling in sickening understanding. It was time to choose—Suzanna or the baby growing inside her. A baby she loved already and would go on loving far more than this cruel man would ever love it.

  Could she do that to her baby—forfeit all control over his little life to this man?

  The rest didn’t matter. The rest would happen, no matter what she did now. She was putting nothing else at risk but her baby’s future.

  My God, she thought bleakly, why does fate like to test me like this? Her eyes closed, her throat moving in a constricted swallow. As she hovered there, at the top of those polished stairs, she saw Suzanna’s wan little face, looking up at her. Suzanna, with the same solemn green eyes as her own, with the same copper-red hair as her own and with the naturally vibrant personality that went with green eyes and red hair crushed out of her, just as it had been crushed out of Mia.

  And, yes, she accepted, with an ache inside that almost sent her doubling up in agony, that she could forfeit this baby for Suzanna. She could do it simply because Suzanna had endured enough misery in her seven short years, whereas at least this baby would be allowed to be himself—that was one distinction she felt she could make between Alex and her father. Both might be despots, both might be ruthless and heartless, but Alex would not punish his son for the sins of the mother.

  Mia’s eyes fluttered open and looked into those darkly watchful ones. ‘I h-have to go,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’

  With that, she turned and walked down the stairs. Her heart was bleeding and her eyes were blurred by wretched tears because it was like history repeating itself and she didn’t think she could bear it.

  ‘Wait.’

  She was at the bottom of the stairs before his command hit her eardrums. She stopped, shaking, frozen by the horrible fear that she was going to completely break down and give in to him if he put any more pressure on her.

  His soft tread on the stairs as he came down towards her sounded like thunder inside her head. She didn’t turn this time. She couldn’t bring herself to face him because she knew her own face was showing such a conflagration of emotion that he would probably not understand it.

  ‘Why?’ he demanded roughly as he reached her. ‘Give me one good reason why this so important to you, why you would throw away all rights to your own unborn child, and I will let you go to your damned sister!’

  Her eyes fluttered shut, her heart squeezing in her breast on a pang of agony that only she would ever understand. Give him one good reason, he had demanded.

  One good reason.

  Well, she had one. ‘Suzanna is not my sister,’ she informed him unsteadily. ‘She is my daughter …’

  For the first time in seven years she had let herself say it, and it felt so strange that she shuddered.

  ‘Is that a good enough reason for you?’ she said into the bone-crunching silence that echoed around her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  NO ANSWER. Alex didn’t say a single word and, after that, neither did she. Mia was trembling too badly to speak, anyway. She didn’t know what kept Alex silent, and at that moment she didn’t really care.

  She was too shocked, dazed by her own admission and paralysed by the burning knowledge that, by saying what she had said, she had just lost Suzanna on a broken promise to another man.

  Her father had warned her. It had been part of their bargain, written into that other contract they had signed between them. She was to tell no one of her true relationship to Suzanna before he had his precious grandson.

  Now what had she got left? she asked herself starkly. She was standing here, ready to forfeit her claim over her unborn child, and had now, in effect, forfeited her claim over the one she had given birth to seven long years ago!

  What did that make her? What kind of mother was she?

  The hand was gentle on her wrist when it caught hold of her this time, but it was a mark of how badly she had shaken herself that she didn’t even try to pull away from him.

  ‘Come on,’ he urged her huskily. ‘It will take about an hour to get my plane to the airport here. Come and sit down while I make arrangements …’

  He was treating her like someone would a highly volatile substance. She didn’t really blame him. She felt very volatile, as though she might just explode with any more provocation.

  It was a further mark of how weakened the ugly scene had left her that she allowed herself to lean against him a little as he guided her across the hall and into the sunny sitting room. He saw
her seated on one of the pale blue sofas then seemed to hover over her, as though he was preparing to say something.

  Mia kept her eyes lowered and bit deep into her trembling bottom lip, waiting tensely for the questions to come.

  Yet they didn’t come. In the end Alex let out a small sigh and moved away—right out of the room, in fact—leaving her sitting there, still tense, still locked in the appalling fall-out of her own shocking confession.

  Later—she wasn’t sure how much later—Sofia arrived with a tray of tea-things, which she placed on a table in front of Mia, and then disappeared without a word.

  More minutes ticked by. Alex came back and paused when he saw her sitting there just as he had left her. It was he who poured out a cup of tea for her and gently placed the cup and saucer in her hand.

  ‘Drink,’ he commanded.

  She drank like an automaton. He stood over her, and once again she could sense the questions, rattling around his head. He wasn’t a fool. He would already have worked out that if Suzanna was seven years old and Mia twenty-five then Mia had to have been very young when she’d fallen pregnant.

  Seventeen years old, in fact. A small grimace touched her bloodless mouth as she lifted the cup to it. Seventeen, and her mother barely cold in her grave after killing herself in a car accident that was her own fault because she had been drinking. Her husband had driven her to look for escape from his mental cruelty in an alcoholic haze—which was still no excuse for leaving Mia alone with a father who hated her and a brother who couldn’t care less about her.

  So she’d rebelled.

  And what a rebellion it had been, she mocked herself now and as bitterly as she had done ever since those wild six months after her seventeenth birthday.

  She’d skipped boarding school. Run away. Had got in with a crowd of young groupies who’d followed the current rock group of the time around the country. It had taken the lead singer two months to notice her, a month to take her virginity and a another month to tire of her and throw her out of his life.