The Purchased Wife(21)

Dark glasses shading the brightness of the sun from his eyes, he checked the water first for sight of her but there was no sign of a Titian-haired mermaid swimming alone down there. Teeth flashing white on a hiss of relief because if she was feeling anywhere near as bad as he was feeling she was in no fit state to swim alone, he switched his attention to the shore. He d already checked the other side of the island, checked the paths through the trees without a single sighting of her. A viscous curse aimed at himself for introducing her to his boyhood collection of hiding places had led him on a wild-goose chase on foot. From up here it was like looking for a butterfly in a forest. If he did not spot her soon then he was going to panic. He could already feel it clawing at the inner tissues of tension racked across his chest.

What if she had decided to swim? What if she had been crazy enough to strike a direct line right out to sea? He swung the craft around, eyes scanning the glistening blue ocean for a sign of one wilful idiot with a desire to drown herself just to make him feel worse. Don't be stupid, he then told himself. Nell isn't that stupid.

And he uttered another curse as he swung the helicopter back to face the island then set it crabbing along the shoreline. She might hate him right now but not enough to risk killing herself-and their unborn child.

Their unborn child. A baby! He was still struggling to come to terms with the shock. His beautiful Helen was going to have his baby and he had never felt so wretched about anything in his entire life!

What had he done? Why had he done it? Jealousy was not an emotion he was used to. Women were jealously possessive of him, not the other way round! Women, he repeated and let out a scornful huff of a laugh. Woman in the singular, he corrected. One tough, teasing, exquisite creature that fell apart in his arms on a regular basis yet still protected her bloody Frenchman!

What was he doing out there? Nell wondered as she watched him hover then move and hover again. Then enlightenment dawned. Why it took so long to sink in that he was looking for her she had no idea but, hugging the piece of driftwood to her, she lowered her head over it and squeezed her eyes tight shut and willed him to go away.

As if her wish was his command she heard him move further along the coast and for some totally indefensible reason the tears flooded again. She wouldn't cry-she wouldn't! she told herself forcefully as she listened to the dying whoosh of the rotor blades until only stillness filled the air.

Tomorrow she left here, she decided. She could do it and she knew exactly how. All it required was for her to feign illness and frighten poor Thea Sophia into calling in the air ambulance. She knew it could be done because she'd witnessed it happening when one of the maids had been taken ill suddenly during her first week here. The air ambulance had swooped in with a full complement of medical crew and efficiently carried the maid away. Once she was away from this island she would disappear as thoroughly as Marcel had apparently done and to hell with Xander. She never wanted to lay eyes on him again.

Then, without warning, the helicopter was back and suddenly so close that her chin scraped the driftwood as her head shot up. By then Xander had inched the machine in so close to the edge of the ledge that for a horrible moment she truly believed he was going to crash! Leaping to her feet, she ran to the edge on some crazy idea that she could make him stop!

For a hellish kind of moment Xander thought she was going to take to the water. Icy dread bathed his flesh as he looked down at the sea where the ebbing tide had uncovered the razor jutting peaks of some lethal rocks.

'Get back, you fool!' he heard himself bellow at the top of his ragged voice, almost lost control of the helicopter and, by the time he'd wrestled with it and looked back at her, she was already teetering on the edge and caught up in a whirlwind of dry, stinging dust and flying debris, her slender frame cowering as she stared at him in abject horror.

Teeth lashed together, he pushed in closer, herding her backwards step by unsteady step until she was safely back from the edge. But he stayed there, hovering so dangerously close that if he didn’t t harness nerves of steel he had a feeling it would be him tumbling to his death.

Shaken, severely shaken when she realised what Xander was doing, Nell began to back away, so terrified for him she took the stinging whip of dust full in the face while she screamed at him to move back! The whole mad, nerve-slaughtering incident could only have used a few seconds but by the time she saw him begin his retreat she was close to fainting with relief.

Xander kept his jaw locked tight as he swung the machine away. If he could he would land on the damn beach so he could run up there and strangle life out of her for being so stupid, but there were too many overhanging branches covering the narrow crescent of sand to make it a safe place to land.

Biting out a thick curse, he flew back round the island to land by the house. Having settled the machine down he then just sat there, bathed in sweat and shaking too badly to move. What if she'd jumped? What if the rotor blades' fierce down-draft had toppled her over the edge? He climbed out of the cockpit. His legs felt hollow as he walked. The sun was hot but his skin wore the chill of stark mind-blowing fear. '

What next? What now...?

He knew what now, he told himself grimly as he set his feet walking in the direction of the pathway that would take him up the hill.

Nell saw the helicopter was safely back on its pad as soon as she crested the peak of the hill and her footsteps stilled. She'd thought Xander had gone. She'd hoped he had gone. Now she could see that he hadn't, her instincts were telling her to flee back into the woods and find a new place to hide from him. Then the man himself appeared, rounding a bend in the path below, sunlight filtering through the trees to dapple his long frame dressed in smooth black trousers and a crisp white business shirt with a slender dark tie knotted at his brown throat. When he saw her he pulled to a stop.

He looked every inch the lean, dark Greek tycoon, Nell thought sinkingly. Hewn from rock, and twice as hard. Lowering her eyes, she hugged the piece of driftwood even tighter to her chest then took some short, shallow breaths to help her feet to move.

He waited, watching her from behind the shade of his silver framed sunglasses, the rest of his face caught by a stillness that worried her more than if he'd come charging like a bull up the hill. She'd always known that Xander could be tough, cold, ruthless. She'd always been aware of that streak of danger lurking inside him that was sensible to be wary of. But even on those few occasions when she'd sensed the danger had been threatening to spill over she'd never really expected him to give in to it. Now he had-twice in as many hours. First back at the villa then up there on the rock ledge when he'd driven the helicopter right at her without a care for his own safety.

Now she did not know what to expect from him-didn't want to know. If she possessed the luxury of choice she would not even want to be even this close to him again.

As it was her feet kept her moving down the path until she drew to a halt about six feet away from him. Tension sparked in the sun-dappled silence, and kept her eyes focused on a point to the right of his wide, white-shirted chest.

Xander felt the muscle around his heart tighten when he saw the chalky pallor pasting her cheeks. He knew he'd frightened her with the helicopter manoeuvre. Hell, he'd frightened himself! She'd frightened him. Now all he wanted to do was gather her into his arms and just hold her close, but what had come before the fright on the rocky ledge had lost him the right to do that.

'I thought you'd gone.' She spoke first, her voice distant and cool.

'No.' He, on the other hand, sounded raw and husky. 'Are you OK?'

She gave no reply as if the answer spoke for itself. She was not OK. Looking into those carefully lowered, beautiful eyes set in that beautiful face, he thought it was as if a light had gone out. He'd switched it off. Now he didn't know what to do or say that would switch it on again.

Dragging off his sunglasses, he pushed them into his trouser pocket then gripped them in a strangling clinch. 'What's with the piece of driftwood?' he asked out of a need to say something, however inane.

The bewildered way she glanced down at the piece of sun bleached wood hugged close to her chest, he had a suspicion that she'd forgotten it was there.

'N-nothing,' she mumbled. 'I-like it.'

She liked it...

This was crazy! They'd almost killed each other not ten minutes ago; now here they were, standing halfway up a hill discussing bloody driftwood when they should be-

'Shall we go down?' he suggested on a thick, driven rasp. She nodded, lowered her eyes all the way to the ground and pushed her feet into movement again. When she drew level with him he fell into step beside her and the tension inside him pounded in his chest as they walked side by side without uttering another damn word.

When they reached the house, Thea was standing anxiously in the doorway.

'Oh, there you are!' She hurried forward to close Nell's pale face between gnarled fingers in a gesture of relief. 'Alexander was so worried when he could not find you. The foolish boy went crazy, upsetting everyone by turning the whole house upside down and searching the wood before he jumped in his helicopter to look for you from the air.'

The foolish boy stood by in grim silence while Nell quietly soothed the old lady's anxious nerves. 'I was walking on the other side of the island,' she said gently.

'This explains why you did not hear us calling to you.' Thea nodded. 'Now you must hurry and change out of those beach clothes or he will grow truly impatient and go without you.' Nell started frowning. 'Go where?' she asked.