Bridal Bargains

‘You conned Mia into believing she was signing away all rights to her baby,’ he bit out, ‘when in reality what she did sign was not worth the damned paper it was written on!’

Her father was staring down at whatever it was that Alex had slapped down in front of him. Mia’s eyelashes fluttered as she, too, looked down at

the desk where she could just see a corner of a sickeningly familiar document.

It was her own copy of what her father had made her sign seven years ago. It had to be. Alex must have gone through her private papers, without her knowing it.

‘She did sign it, though!’ Jack Frazier suddenly hit back jeeringly. ‘In fact, she was only too bloody eager to hand over her bastard child to me!’

‘Oh,’ Mia gasped, having to push an icy fist up against her mouth to stop the sound from escaping.

He wasn’t even bothering to deny it!

‘Or be out on the streets, as you so charitably put it at the time!’ Alex tagged on scathingly. ‘You played on her youth, her naïvety, her desperation and her inability to tell a legal document from absolute garbage!’ he went on. ‘And you did it all with a cold-blooded heartless cruelty that must make her very happy that you are not her real father!’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Jack Frazier jerked out.

‘This is what it means …’ Another piece of paper landed on the desk. ‘Your blood group,’ he said curtly, then slapped another piece of paper on top of it. ‘Karl Dansing’s blood group.’ Another piece of paper arrived the same way. ‘And finally—thankfully—my wife’s blood group!’ Alex said with grim satisfaction. ‘Note the odd one out?’ he prompted bitingly.

‘Any questions?’ he then asked. ‘No, I thought not, because you knew this already, didn’t you? Which is why you have been punishing her all these bloody years. Well …’ He leaned forward, his dark face a map of blistering contempt for the other man. ‘It is now over,’ he said. ‘And you are no longer welcome here.’

‘But what’s the matter with you, man?’ Jack Frazier blustered in angry frustration. Something had gone wrong with all his careful planning and he still had not worked out exactly what that something was. ‘If I am prepared to accept Mia as my daughter, then the damned island is yours when she gives birth to my grandson!’

‘But Mia is not carrying your grandson,’ Alex coolly contradicted. ‘She is carrying my daughter.’

‘What? You mean she couldn’t even get that right?’

Dark eyes suddenly began to look very dangerous. ‘Watch what you say here,’ Alex warned. ‘This is my home—and my wife—you are maligning.’

‘A wife you didn’t damned well want in the first place!’ Jack Frazier said scornfully. ‘But if you’ve decided to keep her, there will be other children no doubt—sons!’ he added covetously. ‘All you have to do is give me back Suzanna, and Mia will be as compliant as a pussy cat, I promise you. Another year and you could still have your island!’

‘You can keep the island,’ Alex countered coldly. ‘I have no wish to set foot on it again. In fact,’ he added, ‘you have nothing I want that I have not already taken away from you. Which makes you defunct as far as any of my family are concerned. So, as you once put it so eloquently to me—the door, Mr Frazier, is over there.’

‘But—!’

‘Get him out of here,’ Alex grated at his brother, his face drawn into taut lines of utter disgust.

Leon moved, and so did Mia, jolting out of the stasis that had been holding her to move shakily back to the stairs. She had no wish to come face to face with Jack Frazier. She had no wish to set eyes on him ever again.

She was standing by the bedroom window when Alex came looking for her.

‘I hope you are pleased with yourself,’ he said in a clipped voice.

‘Not really.’ She turned to send him a wryly apologetic smile. He still looked angry, his beautiful olive skin paler than it should have been. ‘I almost blew that for you,’ she admitted. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why did you come down there when I specifically asked you not to?’

‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘It was a—compulsion. I couldn’t see any way that you could make him give up Suzanna, without giving him what he wanted, you see.’

‘And in return for your lack of trust in me you learned a whole lot more about yourself than you actually wanted to know!’

That made her eyes flash. ‘I learned that you had the bare-faced cheek to go through my private papers!’ she hit back indignantly.

‘Ah …’ At least he had the grace to grimace guiltily at that one. The anger died out of him, his warm hands sliding around her body to draw her close. ‘I was desperately in love with a woman who refused to trust me as far as she could throw me,’ he murmured in his own defence. ‘Men that desperate do desperate things. Forgive me?’ he pleaded, bending his dark head so he could nuzzle her ear.

Mia wasn’t ready to forgive anyone anything. Her head moved back, away from that diverting mouth. ‘When did you go through my private papers?’ she demanded to know.

He sighed, his smile at her stubbornness rueful. ‘I came straight here after leaving you in London,’ he told her. ‘Initially, I wanted to see if there was any way we could reverse the adoption,’ he explained, ‘but the moment I read that damned thing I knew it was not legal!’ His angry sigh brushed her face.