Bridal Bargains

‘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!