Bridal Bargains

‘Will you stop saying that? And don’t you dare kiss me!’ she protested when he started to lower his head. ‘You think you can just kiss away every objection I put up against you but you can’t. I—’

‘If you two are going to start that again I may as well leave you to it …’

As if in a daze, Nell looked around, saw her mother-in-law—dressed goddess-style in wine-red silk—appear in view. She blinked, stunned that she could have so easily forgotten that Gabriela was even there! Then she became aware of other things, like the way she and Xander were standing in the doorway, almost wedged there by his rock-solid, unyielding stance. Her hands were on his chest, palms flat, fingers splayed. His still curved her slender neck. But worst of all her hips were resting against his hips. They didn’t need to be pressing that close to him but they were as if they couldn’t help themselves.

A rush of colour burned into her cheeks. As if he knew why it did, Xander slid his hands down her tense back to her hips and crushed her even closer, then did what she’d told him not to do and kissed her on the mouth.

‘Don’t so much as move another foot near that door, Madre,’ he murmured with cool threat as he lifted his head again. ‘It is judgement day, and you will not get out of this building until you have paid your dues to my wife.’

Judgement day? Pay her dues? Nell stared up at him with a mind gone blank.

He ignored the look, and suddenly he was all sharp and businesslike again. ‘In here, I think.’

Looping an arm around Nell’s shoulders, he turned her into the apartment then led her over to a chair then pressed her down into it.

‘Don’t tremble so much,’ he scolded quietly.

‘I …’

He kissed her fiercely—again.

‘Oh, stop it, caro,’ his mother snapped out impatiently as she appeared on the threshold of the apartment. ‘Can’t you keep your hands off her for five minutes? Helen is not going anywhere, as apparently I am not. Dio, Helen,’ she added with a small shiver. ‘How can you stay in this soulless place? I always hated it. Demitri never managed to get me to stay here once.’

‘Did he ever get you to do anything you didn’t want to do?’ her son shot back at her.

‘Oh, that’s so unfair!’ Gabriela protested. ‘And so typical of you, Alexander, to always take your father’s side!’

‘You made him miserable—’

‘I made him happy!’ his mother angrily declared. ‘How dare you, with your own marriage hanging in the balance by what I choose to reveal here, stand there and judge mine?’

They were suddenly back to fighting across the width of the sitting room, and doing it in English this time so Nell could at least understand the words if not the reasons for them. Looking from one face to the other, she couldn’t decide which of them was going to catch light first. Xander was a proud Greek by birth but a hot-tempered Italian by nature, and she wondered if he had a clue as to how much like his mother he was?

‘I can judge because I had to live with it.’

‘Poor little rich boy, so badly treated,’ his mother mocked. ‘Helen, what is that top you are wearing?’ Gabriela turned her attention away from her angry son to toss some derision her daughter-in-law’s way instead.

‘Leave Nell out of this,’ her son hissed as Nell cringed into the chair feeling like a rag doll suddenly.

‘I think she’s already very much in it.’

The fact that her dry point hit home showed in the way Xander stiffened his elegant shoulders.

‘Maybe you’re right.’ He took in a deep breath, then next thing Nell knew he had moved to stand behind her chair and his hands were settling on her shoulders in a possessive act no one could mistake. ‘Congratulate us, Madre,’ he then murmured dulcetly. ‘Nell and I are going to have a baby, which means that you are going to be a grandmother …’

CHAPTER TWELVE

GABRIELA went so white that Nell thought she was going to faint on them and tried to rise to her feet to go to her.

‘Remain where you are.’ Xander’s hands kept her seated. ‘She will recover in a moment.’

‘How can you be so heartless?’ she gasped.

‘I find it remarkably easy,’ he answered coolly.

‘But she’s in shock—’

Gabriela gave a slow—slow blink of her beautiful eyes.