Bridal Bargains

No, she wouldn’t. ‘What’s to repeat?’ Flicking him a guarded look, she looked quickly away again. ‘I remember driving down the driveway and through the gates then turning into the lane—’

‘Left or right?’

‘I don’t remember—’

‘Well, it might help if you said where it was you were going.’

‘I don’t remember that either.’

‘Try,’ he said.

‘What for?’ she flipped back. ‘What does it matter now where I was going? I obviously didn’t get there.’

‘True.’ He grimaced. ‘Instead of arriving—wherever it was—you left the road at speed on a notorious bend we all treat with respect. You then proceeded to plough through a ro

w of bushes and concluded the journey by piling head-on into a tree.’

‘Thanks for filling in the gaps,’ she derided.

‘The car boot sprang open on impact,’ he continued, unmoved by her tone. ‘Your possessions were strewn everywhere. Sweaters, skirts, dresses, underwear …’

‘Charity!’ she declared with a sudden burst of memory. ‘I remember now, I was taking some of my old things to the charity shop in the village.’

‘Charity,’ Xander repeated in a voice as thin as silk. ‘Well, that explains the need to drive like a maniac. Now explain to me why you dismissed Hugo Vance …’

Nell froze where she lay curled on her side, her moment of triumph at her own quick thinking fizzling out at the introduction of her ex-bodyguard’s name. She moved, ignoring the creases of pain in her ribs to drag herself into a sitting position so she could grab her knees in a loose but very defensive hug, her hair slithering across her slender shoulders to float all around her in a river of rippling Titian silk.

‘I don’t need a bodyguard,’ she muttered.

‘I have three,’ Xander replied. ‘What does that tell you about what you need?’

‘I’m not you.’ She sent him an acrid look. ‘I don’t stride around the world, playing God and throwing my weight around—’

His eyes gave a sudden glint. ‘So that is how you see me—as a god that throws his weight around?’ The silken tone gave her no clue as to what was about to come next. ‘Well, my beautiful Helen,’ he drawled in a thoroughly lazy attitude, ‘just watch this space—’

In a single snaking move he was off the chair and leaning over her. The next second and he was gathering her hair up and away from her face. A controlled tug sent her head back. A stifled gasp brought her startled eyes flicking up to clash with his.

What she saw glowing there set her trembling. ‘You’re hurting—’

‘No, I’m not,’ he denied through gritted teeth. ‘But I am teetering, cara mia, so watch out how many more lies you wish to spout at me!’

‘I’m not lying!’

‘No?’ With some more of that controlled strength he wound her hair around his fingers, urging her head back an extra vulnerable inch so as to expose the long, creamy length of her slender throat.

‘You were leaving me,’ he bit at her in hard accusation. ‘You were speeding like a crazy woman down that lane because you were leaving me for another man and you got rid of Vance to give yourself a nice clean getaway, only that damn tree got in the way!’

Caught out lying so thoroughly, she felt hot colour rush into her cheeks. His eyes flared as he watched it happen. Defiance rose in response.

‘So what if I was?’ she tossed back at him. ‘What possible difference was it going to make to the way you run your life? We don’t have a marriage, we have a business arrangement that I didn’t even get to have a say about!’ Tears were burning now—hot, angry tears. ‘And I dismissed Hugo a week ago, much that you noticed or cared! I have a right to live my own life any way I want—’

‘And let another man make love to you any time that you want?’

The raking insert closed Nell’s throat, strangling her breath and the denial she could have given in answer to that. Her angry lips followed suit, snapping shut because she didn’t want to say it. She did not want to give him anything that could feed his mammoth ego.

The silence between them began to spark like static, his lean face strapped by a fury that stretched his golden skin across the bones in his cheeks as their eyes made war across a gap of barely an inch. Then his other hand came up to cover her throat, light-fingered and gentle but oh, so menacing.

‘Say it, yenika,’ he encouraged thinly. ‘Live dangerously …’