He didn't even bother to deny it. 'I would love to know,' he gritted, 'how you've managed to turn this into a fight about them instead of one about your bloody lover!'
'I h-hate you for that.' Nell wasn't listening. 'How could you do that to that poor little boy?'
Taking hold of her shoulders, he gave them a small shake then pulled her hard up against his chest. 'Listen to me when I speak,' he ground out. 'They are not important. You-your Frenchman is!'
'He isn't French, he's Canadian,' Nell mumbled, still staring at the way he'd covered the photograph as if he'd committed some mortal sin. 'He's also my-'
'Canadian...' Xander repeated as if a whole load of pennies had just dropped into place. 'You stupid fool, Pascalis,' he growled furiously at himself. Then those expressive black eyes flared Nell a look of blistering contempt. 'What did the two of you do-make love on a mountain while your mother lay dying in her bed-?'
The crack of her hand landing against the side of his face made a whiplashing echo around the room. Nell stood locked within his iron-hard grip, panting, breasts heaving as she watched her finger marks rise on his cheek. There was a horrible moment while she stared into those black eyes when she thought he was going to retaliate.
Then he let go, his fingers unclipping from her shoulders before he took a step back. The moment he did Nell began to shiver. Pale as death now and still shocked by her own act of violence, a cold chill shook her, bringing her arms up to hug her body, tense fingers clutching at the soft suede sleeves of her jacket.
She took in a slow breath. 'As I was about to say before you said w-what you said, Marcel is not my-'
'Well, I know he did not taste the main treat, yenika,' he drawled insolently. 'But there is more to sex than a-'
'He's my brother, you filthy-minded beast!' Nell flung at him.
It was as if someone had plugged him into an electric socket, the whole of his posture racked up with a jerk. 'Theas,' he husked. 'That was a joke-yes?' Then as he stared into her angry face, 'Theas,' he breathed again. 'You are serious.'
'H-half-brother,' she extended in a trembling voice.
Violently, he twisted his back to her, lifted up a long fingered hand and grabbed the back of his neck. Blistering tension was scored into every bone and sinew.
'You should have told me.'
'Why?' Nell quavered.
'Why...?' He swung round to spear her with a piercing glare. 'I did not know you even had a brother! Don't you think such a thing warranted a mention some time in the last year?'
'If you'd cared enough about me to want to know about me you would have found it out!' she shrilled. 'And anyway...' she pulled in a deep breath '...I enjoyed watching you squirm. It made a pleasant change from squirming myself.'
'What is that supposed to mean?' he demanded stiffly.
Nell felt the sudden threat of wounded tears. 'I was in love with you when you asked me to marry you. I don't think you even noticed or cared!'
'I cared,' he grunted.
'So much that you were with your mistress a week before you married me! Now I find out that she has your child!'
White- faced now, 'No,' he said. 'Listen to me...' He took a step towards her, one hand reaching out, but Nell backed away. 'I w-was going to leave you today.' She shook out the confession. 'If it hadn't been for your men dogging my every step I would have disappeared and you would not have found me.' The way his jaw line gave a tense twitch made her wonder if he was biting back the desire to argue with her about that.
'You play with people, Xander. You like to be in control and when you're not you react as if we have no right to pull on your strings! I've seen you do it with your mother. You did it with those ten men last night. You're always doing it with me. You did it today when you set your hounds on me-'
'You said it yourself you were going to disappear-'
That was my choice!' she launched at him, felt the tears start to come and had to tug her fingers up to cover her quivering mouth. At the same time her other hand went to her stomach because it was beginning to feel strange, kind of achy and quivery and anxious.
‘Nell...'
One hand covering her mouth, the other her stomach, Nell was already spinning away. She made a dash for the bathroom with no idea that Xander was right behind her, so he took the full force of the door slamming shut in his face.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOR a few blinded seconds Xander just stood there with that solid wall of wood a mere hair's breadth from his face and the whole of his front vibrating from the force with which the door had shut.
Still reeling from the stuff that Nell had thrown at him, he spun to face the other way.
Her half-brother. 'Hell,' he muttered thickly.
His eyes went to the bed and the manila file and he went over there and snatched it up with some deep-ridden desire to toss that damn thing across the room-only he saw the photo frame he'd uncovered and he froze as he stared down at the lovely smiling Vanessa and a laughing Alex.
'To Papa Xander, love from your Alex', he read and the oddest kind of laugh broke from his throat. Then the sound of retching filtered out through the bathroom door and he was dropping the file again to stride back the way he had come. Even as he pushed open the bathroom door and saw her hanging over the toilet bowl guilt was dealing him a well-deserved punch to his gut because he had allowed himself to forget her delicate condition while they'd been fighting like cat and dog.
Nell heard him arrive just as she was shuddering into stillness. 'Go away,' she whimpered, only to discover that talking was enough to set the whole thing off again.
Two seconds later he was taking control of the situation with the same grim, silent efficiency he had used on the motorway the day before. When eventually it was over and she'd rinsed her mouth out with a mouthwash, he lifted her limp, wasted and hot body into his arms and she discovered she had no strength left to fight him off.
'I hate you,' she whispered instead.
'Ne,’ he agreed, carrying her into the bedroom.
'I wish you'd never set eyes on me.'
'Ne,’ he agreed again, reaching down to toss back the covers before bringing her gently down on the edge of the bed.
'My feeling like this is your fault.'
'Entirely,' he admitted. 'Relax your arms from my neck so I can remove your jacket...'
It was the most humiliating part of it all to realise how she was clinging to him. Her arms dropped heavily to her sides. He removed the jacket while she watched his totally expressionless face. No man should be that good-looking, she thought bitterly. It gave him unfair advantage in the jaws of a fight because she wanted so desperately to reach out and kiss him that she felt dizzy allover again.
Her new flat shoes came next, landing with a clunk on the floor. His sensual mouth set straight, eyes hooded by those glossy black eyelashes, he then laid her back against the pillows with extreme care before shifting down her body to unzip her new jeans; a second later and the denim was sliding off her legs with a deft expertise. As the cool air hit her clammy flesh she began to shiver and, with his lips now pinched back against his set teeth, he covered her with the duvet then stepped back and proceeded to yank off his jacket followed by his tie.
'Don't you dare!' she gasped in quivering horror.
'Don't be stupid,' he growled back. 'I might be a control freak but I am not a sadist.'
The next thing his shoes had been heeled off and he was stretching out beside her and tugging both Nell and the duvet into his arms. She curled herself right into him then burst into tears. It was like throwing open a floodgate; she just couldn't control it. With the top of her head pressed into his chest she sobbed her heart out while he lay there and held her and said absolutely nothing.
It was as if every hurtful thing he'd ever done to her came out for an airing in those tears. The way he'd made her fall in love with him then asked her to marry him in that cool, grim tone she only noticed much later when it was too late. The way he'd stood over her while she signed his rotten pre-nuptial without batting an eyelid because she loved him and trusted him then discovered the painful way that love was blind! If Marcel hadn't emailed her urgently with a link to the gossip pages of an American tabloid, she would have sailed down the church aisle to him in a besotted haze. .
'I h-had to marry you,' she sobbed into his shirt front, unaware that he hadn't been in on her first wave of grievances. 'I was scared you'd pull out of the deal with my father.' 'Shh,' he said, tangling his fingers in her hair and pressing her closer.
'I f-felt like a child-bride in a regency m-melodrama, s-sold to the unprincipled rake then dropped like a hot potato w-when he got more than he bargained f-for.' She'd spent the next year pining for what might have been and wishing she'd stayed blind.
'Marcel wanted to come and get me then but I wouldn't let him. I played the child-bride in a regency melodrama, h-hoping you were going to turn up one day and realise you were head over heels in love with me but you didn't.'
'You saw me as a self-obsessed rat and I probably was then but you were so innocent and naive you didn't have a clue what was happening around you. I was trying to protect you until you-'
'Enter the hero stage left,' she mocked thickly, rolling away from him and reaching out for the box of tissues that sat on the table by the bed. Fingers trembling, she plucked a tissue free and sniffed into it. 'Right in the knick of time he saves the innocent twit of a girl from the ugly guy with the f-fat lips.'
There was a shimmer of movement behind her that made her twist sharply to look at him. But if he was laughing at her it wasn't showing on his face. The tears clogged in her throat because it wasn't fair that he should have such liquid, dark, serious eyes that seemed to be trying to tug her right inside him.