Bridal Bargains

‘Damn you to hell for bringing me down to this,’ Alexander Doumas grated roughly. It was the driven sound of a grudging surrender.

The next sound Mia heard was the creak of old leather as her father came to his feet. It was a familiar sound, one she had grown to recognise with dread when she was younger, and even now, at the reasonably mature age of twenty-five, she was still able to experience the same stomach-clutching response as she had in childhood.

Jack Frazier was a brute and a bully. He always had been and always would be. Man or woman. Friend or foe. Adult or child. His need to dominate made no exceptions.

‘Then I’ll leave you to discuss the finer details with my daughter,’ he concluded. ‘Get in touch with my lawyer tomorrow. He will iron out any questions you may have, then get a contract drawn up.’

With that, and sounding insultingly perfunctory now that he had the answer he wanted from the other man, Jack Frazier, cold, cruel, ruthless man that he was, walked out of the room and left them to it.

And with the closing of the study door came quite a different silence. Bitter was the only word Mia could come up with to describe it—a silence so bitter it was attacking the back of her neck like acid.

I should have left my hair down, she mused in the same dry, mockingly fatalistic way she had dealt with all of this.

It was the only way, really. She couldn’t fight it so she mocked it. It was either that or weep, and she’d done enough weeping during her twenty-five years to know very well that tears did nothing but make you feel worse.

‘Drink?’

The sound of glass chinking against fine crystal had her turning to face the room for the first time since the interview had begun. Alexander Doumas was helping himself to some of her father’s best whisky.

‘No, thank you,’ she said, and stayed where she was, with her arms lightly folded beneath the gentle thrust of her breasts, while she watched him toss back a rather large measure.

Poor devil, she thought again. Men of his ilk just weren’t used to surrendering anything to anyone—never mind to a nasty piece of work like her father.

Alexander Doumas had arrived here this afternoon, looking supremely confident in his ability to strike a fair agreement with Jack Frazier. Now he was having to deal with the very unpalatable fact that he had been well and truly scuppered—caught hook, line and sinker by a man who always knew exactly what bait to use to catch his prey. And even the fine flavour of her father’s best malt whisky wasn’t masking the nasty taste that capture had placed in his mouth.

He glanced at her, his deep-set, dark brown Mediterranean eyes flicking her a whiplashing look of contempt from beneath the glowering dip of his frowning black eyebrows. ‘You had a lot to say for yourself,’ he commented in a clipped voice.

Mia gave an empty little shrug. ‘Better men than me have taken him on and failed,’ she countered.

She was referring to him, of course, and the way he grimaced into his glass acknowledged the point.

‘So you are quite happy to agree to all of this, I must presume.’

Happy? Mia picked up the word and tasted it for a few moments, before deciding ruefully, that—yes—she was, she supposed, happy to do whatever it would take to fulfil her side of this filthy bargain.

‘Let me explain something to you,’ she offered in a tone gauged to soothe not aggravate. ‘My father never puts any plan into action unless he is absolutely sure that all participants are going to agree to whatever it is he wants from them. It’s the way he works. The way he has always worked,’ she tagged on pointedly. ‘So, if you are hoping to find your redemption through me, I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

‘In other words—’ His burning gaze was back on her again ‘—you are willing to sleep with anyone if Daddy commands it.’

‘Yes.’ Despite the deliberate insult, her coolly composed face showed absolutely nothing—no hint of offence, no distaste, not even anger.

His did, though, showing all of those things plus a few others all meant to label her nothing better than a trollop.

Maybe she was nothing better than a trollop, allowing her father to do this to her, Mia conceded. Certainly, past history had marked her as a trollop.

‘Did you do the choosing yourself?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Is that what this is really all about?’

Taken by surprise by the suggestion, her eyes widened. Then she laughed—a surprisingly pleasant sound amidst all the bitterness and tension. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘You said yourself that my father is a barbarian. It would go totally against his character to allow me to choose anything for myself. But how conceited of you to suggest it …’ she added softly.

‘It had to be asked,’ he said, stiffening slightly at the gentle censure.

‘Did it?’ Mia was not so sure about that. ‘It seems to me that you’re seeing yourself as the only victim here, Mr Doumas,’ she said more soberly. ‘And at this juncture it may well help if I remind you that there tend to be different kinds of victims in most disasters.’

‘And you are a victim of your own father’s tyranny—is that what you are trying to tell me?’

His scepticism was clear. Her green eyes darkened. If Alexander Doumas came to know her better he would take careful note of that. She was Jack Frazier’s daughter after all.

‘I am not trying to tell you anything,’ Mia coolly countered. ‘I don’t have to justify myself to you, you see.’