Bridal Bargains

by Michelle Reid

  ‘And a son was easier for your father to accept as his own than a mere daughter,’ he concluded grimly, ‘because it suited him to accept a son where, because of his bigotry, he didn’t need to accept the daughter.’

  ‘Now you’re catching on,’ Mia said very drily. ‘If you want the full truth of it, I don’t think my father is capable of fathering children,’ she announced quite detachedly. ‘More to the point, I think he knows it, which is why he set you and me up for this kind of deal when he could, at his age and with his money, have quite easily got himself another wife and produced a dozen more sons of his own. What’s more,’ she added, ‘I think my mother was unfaithful to him from the day she married him.’

  It was another confession that managed to shock her simply because she was actually telling it to Alex of all men.

  ‘She came from a very socially acceptable family that had lost most of its money to inheritance tax. My father wanted to be accepted by that society so he bought himself into it, by marrying my mother. He wanted very socially acceptable sons to carry on his name for him, but when she didn’t produce them he began to get nasty, calling her all those unpleasant names people can call women who don’t have children easily. So she went out and got herself a lover. Conceived a child—though she was never absolutely sure whether either of her children belonged to her husband or her lover because she continued to sleep with both of them right up until the moment she managed to kill herself.’

  ‘And the lover?’

  ‘He died of cancer a couple of years ago,’ Mia said, then added reluctantly. ‘He was Karl Dansing, the electronics magnate.’

  There was a stifled gasp of shock from the man beside her. ‘Are you trying to tell me,’ he murmured gruffly, ‘that you could be Karl Dansing’s daughter?’

  ‘Does that impress you?’ Mia drawled. ‘Well, don’t go off the deep end about it,’ she said mockingly before he could say anything further. ‘As father figures go, neither impress me much. Karl Dansing must have known that Tony and I could have been his children but he never once owned up to it while he was alive, and didn’t even give us a mention in his will.’

  ‘But—.’

  ‘Look—’ She sighed wearily. ‘Can we stop the inquisition, please? I’m too tired to deal with it and just too indifferent to want to talk about it! If you want to know anything else, put your investigators to work,’ she suggested grimly. ‘I’m sure they will come up with something juicy for you if you pay them well enough!’

  With that, she closed her eyes firmly again, aware that she sounded embittered by her own sordid history. After all, who wanted to claim as parents the kind of people she had just described? She certainly didn’t. Even spoiled, selfish, supremely avaricious Tony hadn’t. ‘I’ll make do with what I’ve got,’ he’d said to her once when Karl Dansing’s name had come up. ‘He may be worth a hell of a lot more than Jack but he has four other kids to share his money, whereas I’ll be getting the whole lot from Jack one day.’

  Only he hadn’t got anything in the end, had he? Because Tony had died very much the same way their mother had died—in a car accident, while driving too fast with a skinful of booze and heaven alone knew what else.

  She still missed him. Oddly and surprisingly, considering his selfish view of life. But they had shared a kind of affection for each other. And Tony had been good to Suzanna. In his own way she suspected he had even loved the child, which was enough for Mia to forgive him his other faults.

  Suzanna …

  Her mind drifted back to that poor, defenceless child she had left sleeping in her hospital bed. All at once depression swept over her. What was she going to do? she wondered fretfully. How was she going to bring herself to leave Suzanna again when Alex decided it was time to go back to Greece?

  A more urgent question was how long he was going to let her stay here. A couple of days? A week? Maybe two, if she was lucky?

  Whatever, it was not going to be long enough. Just seeing the little girl lying there had told Mia that Suzanna needed her to be closer to her!

  It was the long vacation from school at the moment, which meant Suzanna would have to go back to her father’s house when she was eventually discharged from hospital. The child couldn’t cope with Jack Frazier on her own. She never had been able to. He only had to look at her to petrify her.

  Cissy had told her during that hurried phone call today that her father had accused Suzanna of fabricating the pain in her side. He’d called it attention-seeking, and had told her that if she expected to get Mia back by playing on his sympathy then she was in for a disappointment because Mia was never coming back so she may as well get used to it.

  Oh, God. How could one human being be so cruel to another? What had made Jack Frazier the cold hearted monster he was?

  Her hand came up to rub at her eyes, where the ache behind them was beginning to drag at what was left of her severely depleted stamina.

  Beside her, Alex moved. She went still, her nerve-ends beginning to sing beneath the surface of her skin because she had a horrible feeling he was going to reach out and touch her. If he did touch her, she was going to fall apart completely.

  Then the car stopped and, bringing her hand away from her wary eyes, she found that his attention was fixed outside the car and not on her at all.

  Which was a levelling experience, she discovered as she watched him open his door and climb out, impatiently waving the chauffeur away so he could come around the car and open Mia’s door himself.

  ‘You are almost dead on your feet,’ he muttered, watching her sway slightly as she joined him on the pavement.

  ‘I just need a good night’s sleep,’ she replied.

  ‘What you need,’ he grunted, as he helped her up the steps of a very exclusive white-painted town-house she presumed must be his home when he was in London, ‘is to be yourself occasionally, and not all these other personalities you conjure up, depending on who it is you are having to deal with!’

  ‘Oh, very cryptic,’ she mocked.

  ‘Not cryptic—tragic,’ he corrected grimly. ‘A good psychoanalyst could make a life study out of you,’ he muttered, stabbing an angry finger at the front doorbell. ‘Today alone I have met the vixen, the ruthless negotiator, the loving mother and the cynic,’ he said, with tight-lipped sarcasm. ‘As the old saying goes, would the real woman please stand and reveal herself?’

  ‘Not for you she won’t,’ she tossed back frostily.

  ‘Oh, I’ve already met her,’ he insisted tightly. ‘In her bed, in the darkness. And she is quite the most fascinating one of all, I assure you.’

  ‘You’re mistaken,’ Mia replied. ‘That was the whore you met there—Why are you ringing this bell, instead of using a key to get in the house?’ she asked frowningly.

  ‘Because—obviously—the house does not belong to me,’ he replied sardonically.

  The front door swung open, and she was suddenly faced with exactly whose house this was.

  Oh, hell! she thought wearily. What now? Why this? What was it supposed to mean?

  It was Alex’s younger brother, Leon.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘AH,’ LEON smiled politely enough. ‘So you are here at last. We were beginning to give up on you.’

  But Mia could see by the way his eyes barely touched her that he was no happier to see her standing on his doorstep than she was to be here. He obviously still resented her intrusion into Alex’s life, and was not going to bother to hide it.

  ‘Come on in,’ he said.

  Her shoulders drooped wearily, the long, long day spent enduring all the other stresses leaving her with nothing with which to fight this next ordeal.

  An arm came warmly about her shoulders, and for once she huddled gratefully into it, going into retreat because it was the only thing she could do as Alex propelled her into a warmly lit hallway then paused to murmur something to his brother in his own language.

  She didn’t know what he’d said—didn’t want to know—but
she sensed the hint of a warning beneath the casual tone and the arm around her shoulders tightened briefly, as if to offer support.

  With what she suspected was a forced lightness, Alex enquired rather drily, ‘Where’s the wicked witch?’

  ‘I heard that,’ a sharp female voice responded.

  What now? Mia wondered, raising very wary eyes to see the most exquisite vision of blonde loveliness, dressed in tight faded jeans and a skinny white top, appear at the top of the stairway in front of her.

  Very tall and incredibly slender, she had the bluest pair of eyes Mia had ever encountered but what was most disconcerting was that those eyes were smiling at her warmly—genuinely warmly.

  ‘Hi,’ she said pleasantly. Then, before Mia could answer, she went on, ‘Oh, good grief, but you look dreadful! What’s the matter with you, Alex?’ She frowned at him. ‘Trailing a pregnant woman all over the world, as if she’s some piece of baggage! How is your sister?’ she asked Mia, without waiting for Alex to answer either. ‘Is she very poorly? Mia, isn’t it?’ She smiled that warm smile again. ‘I’m Carol,’ she announced. ‘The lucky one because I got the nicer brother. You drew the short straw, I’m afraid, when you got Alex.’

  ‘Mia is exhausted,’ Alex interrupted rather irritably. ‘She doesn’t need all your crazy chatter right now. She needs her bed.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ Carol said, sounding rather disconcerted by his curt tone. ‘This way, Mia. Gosh, you look done in. Will you let me help you? You can lean on me, if you want to. I don’t mind.’

  ‘I can manage, thank you,’ Mia answered quietly.

  ‘Yes. Right.’ Carol nodded, and after a short pause, when she glanced from one brother to the other, she turned and began to lead the way up the stairs while Mia followed, having to draw on the very last dregs of her stamina.

  She was shown into a prettily decorated bedroom, with blue walls and apricot furnishings. There was a connecting bathroom, where Carol took it upon herself to run Mia a bath while all Mia could do was lower herself onto the side of the bed and wilt.

  By the time Carol came back into the bedroom Mia knew all about Leon, the great love of Carol’s life. How they met, where they met and where he had proposed to her. She now knew that they had been married for two years but were not going to start a family yet because Leon had insisted that his children were born in Greece and they couldn’t go and live in Greece until the new hotel they had just bought and were refurbishing here in London was finished up and running.

  ‘The bath’s ready,’ Carol announced. ‘All you have to do is get undressed and sink into it. I’ll be back in half an hour to make sure you’re all right …’

  Silence. At last a blessed, beautiful silence fell upon the room at her exit. Mia remained where she was for a few precious minutes and simply let that silence flow all around her, then made herself get up and trail her weary body into the bathroom.

  By the time she had hauled herself in and out of the bath again she was so utterly worn out that she had to sit down on the bathroom stool to recover. Hell, she thought as her head began to swim, a quick shower would have been more sensible in your condition. You really should have known that!

  ‘How are you doing in there?’

  Carol was back already, Mia noted wryly.

  ‘One moment,’ she called back, hurriedly donning the short white silk slip-style nightdress Carol had thoughtfully hung behind the bathroom door for her. She ran a quick brush through her hair and, on a deep fortifying breath, let herself out of the bathroom.

  ‘Wow!’ the other woman gasped. ‘Look at all that hair! You’re gorgeous, aren’t you? No wonder Alex has been walking around looking as though he doesn’t know what’s hit him! I hope my figure looks as good as yours does with a bump stuck on the front of it. Here, get into bed. You’ll be more comfortable there …’

  Without a word, Mia did as she was told. A tray landed across her lap. Her pillows were fluffed up.

  ‘Now …’ Standing back to view her ministrations, Carol frowned and then smiled when she realised she was frowning, as though she was trying very hard to make Mia feel wanted. ‘I’m going to leave you—Alex’s orders.’ She grimaced. ‘He’s frightened I’ll say something I shouldn’t—like I think its disgraceful the way he’s been treating you, no matter what the circumstances. See?’ She grinned. ‘I’ve said it anyway!’

  Not that she seemed to care!

  At last she disappeared. Mia wilted again, and in the next second her mind switched off. As if it had taken more than enough for one day and was refusing to accept any more, it dropped her into a slumber from which she didn’t even stir when the bedroom door opened again an hour later.

  Alex stood on the threshold, staring at the way she had fallen asleep, half sitting up and with the untouched tray still lying across her lap.

  With stealth he closed the door, then moved across the carpet to stand over her. She looked exhausted, even in sleep, the signs of stress evident in her washed-out face. Without disturbing her, he removed the tray and set it aside. Then, after another brief grim study of her, he turned and walked into the bathroom.

  Ten minutes later he was back, showered, shaved and wrapped in a thin black cotton bathrobe. Silently he moved around the room, switching off several lamps Carol had left burning. Then, with the darkness enfolding him, he came back to the bed, removed the bathrobe and slid his unashamedly naked body into the bed beside her.

  Still she did not so much as move a muscle. He lay there on his side and watched her for ages before—on a grimace that said he didn’t much fancy what he was about to do next—he leaned over her so he could slide an arm beneath her shoulders and lift her just enough to remove one of the pillows from behind her.

  As he settled her back again in what he hoped was a more comfortable position her eyes flickered open, green homing directly onto guarded brown.

  Mia blinked slowly, her sleep-sluggish mind taking its time to remember that it had been long months since she had woken to find him leaning over her in the darkness like this.

  As she did remember, her eyes widened warily.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Alex said softly. ‘I was not about to seduce you while you were sleeping. I was simply trying to make you more comfortable.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered, still staring owlishly into those rich, dark, slightly rueful eyes of his.

  ‘Carol’s idea,’ he said. ‘She naturally assumes we share a bed, and I was not up to one of her question-and-answer sessions, by informing her that we did not.’

  Grimacing, he moved away from her, going to lie on his back and stare at the ceiling while Mia took a few moments to take in this totally unexpected new situation.

  He intended to share her bed, she seemed to find it necessary to tell herself. They had been married for almost seven long months, and never shared the same bed as a married couple normally did.

  Now this. It felt weird, like lying next to a stranger.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Its a big enough bed.’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose we will manage.’

  Silence fell, the kind of tight, stinging, uncomfortable silence that caught at the breath and increased the tension in the darkness of the room.

  ‘Why did you bring me here to your brother’s house?’ Mia asked when she could stand it no longer.

  ‘It is the family house,’ he said. ‘Leon and Carol are in residence right now because Leon is based here at the moment. They expect me to stay with them when I am in London. It would have been … awkward if I had taken you to a hotel.’

  ‘I won’t do or say anything that could embarrass you,’ she assured him huskily.

  His dark head turned. Mia felt his eyes on her. ‘You have a very low opinion of me, don’t you?’ he said.

  Mia’s head turned so that their eyes clashed again. ‘It’s mutual,’ she countered.

  He didn’t answer, those lush, long, coal-black lashes flickering slightly as he continued to
lie there studying her in the darkness—a darkness they had always been more comfortable in. A darkness where most of their most intimate moments had taken place—their mutual passion, their ability to drown in each other.

  Drown, as Mia could feel herself beginning to drown right now—drown in those deep, dark, sensually knowing eyes that could probe right inside her and touch places only this man had touched, ignite senses only this man could ignite.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ he ordered softly.

  Sleep. Yes, she agreed, dragging her eyes away from his. Don’t look at him, she told herself sternly as she turned her head on the pillow. Don’t even think about him, lying here next to you.

  And don’t, for goodness’ sake, remember what it feels like to have him make love to you!

  The stern lecture made no difference because she did imagine him making love to her. She could feel his hands caress her body, feel his mouth move sensually on hers, could feel her breathing growing shallow as her heart picked up pace and that place between her thighs begin to pulse with a message so erotic that she had to lie very still with her muscles tightly clenched in an effort to subdue the feeling.

  What made it all worse was that it was all happening under his steady gaze. She could sense him watching her, knew he was witnessing the increase in her breathing and the way her eyes couldn’t close because she was holding herself so tense beside him. A tension that was fizzing in the air around them. Sexual tension.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ he repeated in a soft, silken voice that utterly rejected every message her stupid body was sending him.

  Dismayed, she threw herself onto her side and away from him, so agonised by her own weaknesses that it actually hurt like a physical pain.

  It took her ages to relax and ages to drift back into a restless slumber—only to come blisteringly awake again the moment she felt him move beside her.

  With her heart beginning to pound in her aching chest, she listened to him release a heavy sigh then carefully slide out of the bed. There was a rustling sound as he pulled a robe over his body. Even in the darkness, with her back towards him, she could feel his grimness and knew—just knew—that the grimness was there because he hated this situation so much.