'Not even to me?'
'Don't look so hurt,' he chided. 'Do you think it didn't hurt me to realise that you were not equipped with the necessary defences to live my life? I already knew I'd been unforgivably selfish, crowding you into marriage so young. I saw in a single miserable flash of enlightenment as I watched you enact that little tragedy just how selfish I had been. I saw how every jealous woman out there was going to have a story to whisper in your ear. It would have been like leading a lamb into a slaughterhouse then standing back to watch it be skinned.'
'So you walked away.' Her soft mouth wobbled.
'Yes.' He kissed the wobble then sighed. 'When I left you at Rosemere I did it determined to set you free-but I could not. I kept on putting it off. Kept coming to see you, couldn't stay away! Kept trying to convince myself that while you seemed content with what you had then you were OK. The night I offered to renegotiate our contract was the one time I was ready to rip the damn thing up and let you go. I've never felt happier when you turned the offer down without even hearing me out. I was off the hook for another few months until my conscience got to me again. Then that second photo of me with Vanessa appeared and you crashed your car. I've never felt so bloody lousy in my entire life!'
'Good,' she said. 'It's nice to know that I wasn't the only one feeling like that.'
'Ah, but that was before I knew about the new man in your life.' He smiled. 'I switched from feeling lousy with remorse to a thirty-four-year-old lusty, cradle-snatching lecher in a single blink of an eye. You think you were jealous of Vanessa? You barely scratched the surface of jealousy, agape mou. But I did. I scratched it right down to its bloody, primitive raw.'
'I love it when you're primitive.' She moved a little closer in an effort to capture his mouth.
His head went back. 'I'm being serious!'
'So what do you want me to say-get away from me, you uncivilised beast? Shall I get your pack of bodyguards to string you up to a tree and tar and feather you for wanting me too much to let me go?'
'Loving you too much,' he corrected softly.
'And aren't you the lucky one that I loved you too much to drive away...?'
'What's that supposed to mean?' He frowned at her.
Nell gave a little idle shrug. 'Only that Marcel was driving me back to Rosemere when we crashed. I thought your police report would have told you that.'
'If it did, I never got to read that far,' he murmured dazedly. 'I just read the bit about you being in the passenger seat and went berserk.'
'I noticed,' she murmured feelingly.
'Forgive me for what I said?'
Nell shook her head.
Xander uttered a sigh then changed tactics. He lifted her up until she straddled him then strode across the room.
'Where are we going?' she asked innocently.
'Guess,' he drawled. 'If I am to pay a penance then I will do it in comfort.'
And he did.
The island was trapped in the sultry heat of the late afternoon when the helicopters began to arrive. From her place at the nursery window Nell watched as Marcel jumped down onto the ground then walked towards the glinting pool. He looked so absolutely gorgeous that Nell uttered a small sigh of sisterly pride. A sudden cry of delight went up, then a young boy in swimming shorts was racing to meet him. Marcel grinned lazily as he accepted this show· of pure hero worship from the much younger Alex.
'My hero status has been eclipsed by the matinee idol,' Xander murmured with a regretful sigh.
'Never mind, your real son worships you,' Nell consoled. 'And look at your mother and my father watching them together. They're actually smiling. That has to be a first for both of them.'
'It's called bowing to fate,' Xander said. 'They either accept our family as a whole or they miss out.'
'And who'd have thought Gabriela would be so besotted?'
'Why should she not,' Gabriela's son defended loyally, 'when my son looks exactly like me?'
'Too like you,' Nell complained, turning away from the window to go and lean over the cot, where Demitri Pascalis lay kicking contentedly. 'Now, you know I love you,' she informed the wide-eyed baby. 'But I still don't think it's fair that you didn't even elect to have my green eyes.'
The baby let out a shriek of delighted laughter. He didn't care that he looked the absolute spit of his dark-eyed papa. 'Cruel,' she scolded. 'But I will get my own back,' she warned him.
'And how do you intend to do that?' Xander asked. Straightening up to find herself slipping easily beneath his waiting arm, Nell smiled one of those wait-and-see threats at him as she let him lead her away.
'I see,' Xander murmured fatalistically. 'The wicked witch is mixing spells again.'
As they left the baby's room Thea Sophia slipped quietly into it, and took the comfortable chair placed by the cot. Out came her lacework and her gnarled fingers got busy while the baby chatted away to her. He would fall asleep in a few minutes, bailing out with a blink of an eye, but until that happpened he had his ever-attentive thea to entertain.
Walking Nell into their sunny bedroom, Xander turned her to face him. He was dressed in one of his loose white shirts and casual trousers, but soon they would have to start getting dressed up for the party that was to take place tonight-which was a shame, in Nell's opinion, because she preferred to keep him in clothes she could strip off quickly.
'Mmm,' she said as she pressed her lips to the triangle of hair-roughened flesh exposed by the open neck of his shirt. 'You taste of sun and salt and sexy masculinity.'
'And you have a one-track mind,' he sighed.
'It's my birthday. I'm allowed a treat.'
'Several treats.'
'OK,' she shrugged, not arguing the point because it was oh, so much more interesting to discover how smoothly the shirt fell open to her lightest touch. She ran her fingernails down his front and watched taut muscles flex.
'You're so gorgeous,' she murmured helplessly-and received her reward with the hungry clamp of his mouth. It didn't take much longer for them to be lost. Xander's muttered, 'We don't have time for this,' was ruined by the urgency with which he stripped her blue T-shirt dress off her and tumbled her onto the bed. They made hot, frenzied love while the rest of the family chatted by the poolside.
When they came downstairs two hours later you would be forgiven for thinking that Nell had spent the whole afternoon achieving that gloriously chic look she'd donned in a short half-hour. She was wearing aquamarine silk, smooth and slinky, a perfect set of blue diamonds sparkling at her creamy throat.
Her hair was up to show them off because Xander had given her them for her birthday. And if anyone wondered at the rueful grimace he offered when his mother congratulated his wife on how two hours' pampering could put such a wonderful glow to her daughter-in-law, no one would have thought to question whether he knew something that they did not. He looked far too smooth and sophisticated to be recalling what they'd been doing in the shower only half an hour ago.
They separated, they danced and circulated amongst their fifty-strong guests as goods hosts did. They laughed and teased and flirted and came together on the terrace to snatch a private moment or two gazing at the moon.
'Happy?' Xander asked, holding her in front of him.
'Mmm,' Nell murmured uncertainly.
'Something missing from your perfect day?'
'Mmm,' she nodded.
'You would like me to toss you into the pool perhaps?'
'Not tonight, thank you,' she answered primly, then took hold of one of his hands and slid it over her abdomen. 'I'm afraid it's tender loving care time again,' she softly confided.
Xander immediately stiffened like a man in shock. 'I hope you are teasing me!' he grated.
'No,' Nell sighed.
He swung her around, a dark glitter in his eyes. 'You mean you really are pregnant? But our son is only ten months old!'
'I want a red-haired, green-eyed girl child this time,' she told him. 'And you really are lousy at birth control.'
'Ah, so I am to get the blame again.'
'Of course,' she said then wound her arms around his neck and leaned provocatively into him. 'But then you never, ever disappoint...'