Bridal Bargains

‘For money,’ Gabriela pointed out. ‘Don’t forget the millions you take care of for her. Or the huge trust set up in the boy’s name.’

‘Or the hours of emotional support both Vanessa and her son required once Alex was born. I became a father without taking part in the act of conception and I do not recall you ever feeling sorry for my plight.’

‘You didn’t have to take duty to such extremes—’

‘He’s my half-brother!’ Xander expelled in hoarse-voiced fury. ‘Half my own flesh and blood!’

‘I know I am a very selfish woman,’ his mother said shakenly. ‘I know you see me as a spoiled, vain, useless waste of space. But it is happening again, isn’t it?’ She looked helpless suddenly. ‘You are willing to sacrifice me for them just as your father was willing to do the same thing.’

‘No,’ Xander uttered gruffly.

‘You already threatened it, Alexander,’ she wearily reminded him. ‘Your father did the same.’

‘Hence the dramatic overdose aimed to pull him back into line again?’ Xander said hardly. ‘If that isn’t extreme then I don’t know what is, Madre. Now I’ve made you talk about this, am I to wait with bated breath for you to use the same emotional blackmail on me?’

His mother went white. On a gasp of horror at his cruelty Nell shot to her feet. ‘Xan—’

But Gabriela got in first. ‘I have my regrets, Alexander,’ she told him stiffly. ‘And I can now feel the cutting pangs of remorse for denying your father the right to know his other son. But if you believe I have not been punished very adequately for my sins then you’re wrong. When Demitri died I lost a major part of myself. I still miss him so much …’

‘You know,’ Xander drawled, ‘I would respond kindly to that blatant attempt to play on my sympathies if it was not for the fact that only minutes before Nell came in you were still refusing to sacrifice your ego for the sake of our marriage.’

Gabriela accepted this final indictment with a wry little smile. ‘Ah, that sin called ego,’ she drily mocked herself then turned to go.

‘No—don’t go,’ Nell begged huskily. ‘You both need to resolve this …’

Gabriela looked into her daughter-in-law’s anxious face then at Xander’s rock-like stance and offered up a grimace. ‘You are a sweet person, Helen. You will make a good mother to my grandchild. Let us hope that my son will be a good father, for I think he forgets that I was not the only parent to leave him for another love.’

Then she walked away, leaving Nell staring helplessly after her while Xander continued to stand there like a cold, hard, stubborn fool!

‘Go after her.’ She swung on him urgently. ‘She’s your mother, for goodness’ sake. You love her, you know you do—faults and sins alike!’ When he still didn’t move from his stiff stance, ‘If you let her go now you will never see her again because the both of you are too stuffed full of pride to give a sol

itary inch! I thought you were bigger than this! Xander, please …!’ she begged painfully.

But she didn’t need to add the last part because with a tight, angry growl of blistering frustration he spun and strode after her, leaving Nell staring after him feeling very much as if she’d just been run over by a pair of trucks.

She watched his hands reach out to grasp Gabriela’s narrow shoulders, watched through a deepening glaze of tears as he turned her into his chest. She caught the tones of thick, gruff, husky Italian, felt her heart quiver as the proud Gabriela broke her control on a muffled sob.

Then she turned away and began to shake like a leaf, still too befuddled by what she had been told to even attempt to sort it out in her head.

She made for the kitchen, leaving mother and son alone to mend their differences while she attempted to do something really normal like setting about making coffee but feeling so at odds with herself and with Xander that she didn’t hear him arrive at the door.

‘OK?’ The husky question came from behind her.

Stiffening her spine, she pressed her lips together and nodded, not sure she wanted to look at him until she’d made up her mind if she hated him for putting his mother through that ordeal, or loved him for doing it for her.

‘No more nausea?’ he questioned when it became clear she wasn’t going to speak.

‘I’m fine,’ she managed, fingers fiddling with the slender white china cup she’d set out ready for her coffee. ‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Not if you’re planning to poison it,’ he said drily, then hissed out a weary sigh. ‘Nell, we need to—’

‘Your telephone’s ringing.’

And it was. They both listened to it for a few fraught seconds, Nell with her eyes squeezed tightly shut on a tense prayer that he would just go and answer the damn thing. Xander, she was sure because she could feel it, piercing the vulnerable tilt of her neck with grim intent in his gaze, wanted her to turn and look at him.

‘Easy on the belladonna,’ he instructed heavily after a moment and went back to his office, leaving her wilting though she didn’t really know why.

A few minutes later she was bracing her shoulders and carrying two cups of freshly made coffee into his office. Xander was still on the phone with his dark head resting back against the chair’s leather upholstery, and his eyes were closed. He looked tired, she noticed, dragged down and fed up. As she walked across the expanse of floor towards the desk she saw his lashes give a flicker and quickly looked away.