She was away for three hours and in that time Xander was in touch with every step that she took. Grim, cold-face stretched taut by the burning pulse of anger he was keeping tamped down inside.
Work had ceased. Life had ceased, he mused harshly.
Beyond the four walls of his office a series of instructions was being carried out to the letter while he sat in grim isolation, telephones, people, everything shut out but for his mobile link to Jake Mather. If she bolted she would not get five paces before Jake would have her in his grasp. If she was foolishly letting herself believe that safety lay in the heaving crowds she was trying to lose herself in then she was in for a hard knock of truth. Jake had been joined by his other men, one of which was in the process of tracing the call she had just made from a public call box. Xander had not enquired as to how this could be done. He did not want to know. But behind the cold mask he was wearing on his face he knew that the name Marcel Dubois was about to be quoted at him.
It was.
'Where is she now?' he scythed at Jake Mather.
'To be truthful, boss, I think she's on her way back to you.'
To be truthful, Xander mimicked acidly, he knew that Nell must know by now that she did not have another choice. She thought he lived in a zoo? Well, now she knew what it felt like, having been swarmed all over by his security people since she'd stepped onto Oxford Street.
Though he now had to accept that he was going to be disappointed that she did not require bundling into the back of the limo that was loitering in a side-street, ready and prepared to receive its protesting package. Satisfaction coiled around his tense chest muscles when Jake's voice arrived in his ear with, 'Turning into the street now ... '
He was out of the chair and swinging to the window before the final word left his security guard's lips. Something hard hit him in the chest as he caught sight of her head with all of its glorious, bright Titian hair shimmering around her face and shoulders instead of being neatly contained in the braid she'd left with.
Xander found himself gritting his teeth as he absorbed her purposeful stride. She was angry. Good, because so was he. If she wanted all-out war he was ready for it. She was carrying the distinctive yellow and black bags from her wild buying spree in Selfridges. She'd changed her clothes too. The summer-blue suit had gone and in its place tight designer jeans that moulded her long, sensational legs and a soft brown suede jacket that hung loose across a creamy coloured top.
If she'd deliberately chosen the clothes to make him sit up and take notice then she could not have done a better job, because he was seeing her exactly as he had first seen her when she'd walked through her father's front door, wild and windswept. As she turned to walk up the grey marble steps to his building she paused and looked up and, as if she knew he was watching her from up here, her green eyes suddenly sparked and tossed up bolts of burning fire.
'Well, come on up, my fiery witch,' he invited beneath his breath.
Turning, he broke the connection with Jake Mather then reached out to flip a key on his computer keyboard to bring his glass and steel foyer up on to the screen. As he watched his wife stride purposefully across the foyer via the in-house CCTV system he was lifting his jacket from the back of the chair and smoothly shrugging it on. Her barely concealed patience as she rode alone inside the steel-cased lift held his attention while his fingers dealt with his shirt-collar button and straightened his tie. By the time she began the long walk down the corridor towards his office, his finger-ravaged hair had been neatly smoothed and he was ready for her.
Nell pushed open the door and stepped into the room, green eyes flashing like emerald storms. The door slammed back into its housing and she dropped the bags then speared those eyes on Xander, who was casually swinging in his chair behind the desk, looking as crisp and as sharp as he'd looked when she left him-and of course he was holding a telephone to his ear.
Her fury hit boiling point. 'Would you like to explain to me where the heck you get the stone-cold arrogance to believe that you own my life?' she shrilled.
Without so much as a flicker in response from those long dark eyelashes, he murmured some very sexy Italian into the phone's mouthpiece, then gently replaced it on its rest.
'If you have a yen to argue the finer points of ownership then by all means do so,' he invited. 'But before you begin you will explain to me please why you needed to spend thirty minutes in the ladies' room in Selfridges. Were you feeling ill again?'
Oh, so casually asked. Nell felt a sudden trickle of ice run right down her spine. 'How many men did you have following me?' she gasped.
'Seven,' he supplied. 'Including Jake Mather, whom I presume you spotted quite quickly-mainly because he was not instructed to hide,' he seemed compelled to add.
'He tried to stop me using a public telephone,' she said tightly.
With the calmness of a coiled snake, he reached out and picked up the phone then offered it to her. 'Try this one. All calls are free.'
The green eyes sent him a withering look. 'Don't be so obnoxious,' she condemned. 'You have no right to have me tagged, tailed and guarded like some-'
'Animal in a zoo?' he suggested when words failed her. 'Or, more appropriately in this case,' he then added thinly, 'like an untrustworthy wife!'
'I can't be trusted?' Nell launched back at him. 'That's rich coming from the most twisted and devious-Machiavellian swine it was ever my misfortune to meet!'
'Oh, you met a worse one, cara,' Xander drawled. 'What's that supposed to mean?'
Without any warning he lost his relaxed posture to shoot to his feet. 'You were leaving me for him-again!'
With the backcloth of grey Nell could not see his face but she could feel the anger bouncing off him.
'On the first opportunity you were presented with you rang him!' he all but snarled.
'You traced that call?' she gasped out in disbelief.
'You make me sick,' Xander announced, then gave a contemptuous flick of a long-fingered hand when Nell just gaped. 'I don't even want to look at you.'
On that damning indictment he swung away to the window, leaving Nell standing there shaking and quivering-not with hurt but in disbelief!
'How dare you speak like that to me?' she shook out furiously.
'Easily.' Twisting back, he picked up a manila file from his desk, brandished it at her then dropped it again. 'The police report on your accident,' he incised. 'You may read it if you wish.'
But Nell did not wish. Nell was already striding across the office and pushing open the doors to his apartment. 'You were not driving that car!' he flung after her. 'The angle of your seat belt burns proves it! You were sitting in the left seat, not the right-and if I drove myself more frequently in England I would have realised that as soon as I clapped eyes on your bruises and you would have been dead!'
Her face white, her lips clamped together in a flat line of disgust that was ripping her apart inside, without a pause in her stride she threw open the next set of doors, aware that Xander was tracking right behind her. Aware that in one small, satisfied way she had taken him by surprise by walking away.
'You are so in love with the guy that you told nobody that salient fact!' he rasped out from the bedroom doorway. 'You have been protecting him from taking any blame even though the lily-livered coward slunk away from the scene, leaving you lying there badly injured and in need of help!'
All the time he was tossing his accusations at her Nell was throwing the doors open wide on his wardrobe and dragging open his sweater drawer. The soft cashmere garments landed in a discarded scatter. If Xander had been in a more sensible state of mind he might have been forewarned as to what was about to hit him.
As it was he strode forward, gripping the manila file as if it was some kind of weapon. Now she spun on him and it was so nice to watch his breathing still when he saw the expression of icy distaste on her face.
'He did not slink away. I sent him away,' she corrected. 'As you say, I protected him from you and your lynch mob and what you might do to him.'
'Because you love him.' He sounded hoarse.
Nell nodded. Why deny it? 'In the same way you have been protecting your family-because you love them?'
The sarcastic tilt in her questioning tone floated right by him. 'You are my family,' he ground out.
'No-here is your family, Xander,' Nell said quietly, and placed the framed photograph down on the bed. 'Goodness knows why you didn't marry Vanessa and give her and that little boy who looks like he loves you very m-much the right to use your name.' She sucked in a dreadful, choked breath. 'But don't ever dare refer to me as your family again because I'm not-they are. I think it's time that you got your priorities right and owned up to that.'
He seemed to be having difficulty taking it all in. Nell stared up at his blank, taut face and waited for some kind of response. But all she did see was his eyes shifting from her white face to the sweaters scattered on the floor before slowly, almost unseeingly moving to the bed. As understanding did begin to dawn she watched his face slowly leech of its rich golden colour then his eyes turned black.
'I can explain this-'
'No.' Nell shook her head. 'Explain to them why you dared to marry me!'
'But this is crazy!' He suddenly exploded back to life again. 'I can explain this-!' he insisted.
'But I don't want to hear!' she all but screamed at him. His eyes flashing black with rage now, he stepped round the bed, slamming the manila file down as he came towards her. The file landed right on top of the framed photograph, Nell saw in dismay.
'You did that on purpose,' she shook out accusingly.