Chapter Three #2
Bitterness filled him for the years he had lost with his own son.
Black anger against her.
Laurel had no idea whether Xander intended to stay for tea but put extra pasta on to boil anyway. She would make mac and cheese, one of Dan’s favourites. Whether Xander liked it or not, she didn’t give a damn. It hadn’t featured in Greece seven years ago.
She hauled her mind away. She would not, must not, let memory go back there, however hard it was to stop it, now that Xander was a physical presence in her life again, stirring up wayward, treacherous memories.
If she remembered anything about that time it must only be the way it ended.
Thrown off his yacht, denounced as a thief.
Tears stinging her eyes that she should never, never have shed, because he hadn’t been worth a single, single tear…
Deliberately, she whipped up her old, familiar sense of outrage, fury. That was all Xander was worth. All he would ever be worth…
And whether he was her beloved son’s father, or whether he still had the same power to draw her eye as he had from the very, very first, did not change that an iota. Not a single iota.
The mac and cheese was good. Simple but tasty and filling. Xander cleared his plate.
“I’m for seconds, what about you, Dan?” he asked.
“Yes please!” Dan said enthusiastically.
Xander helped them both from the covered serving dish, then, out of politeness in front of his son, no consideration of her personally, glancing at Laurel. “You?” he said.
She shook her head.
“Mum says too much pasta makes her fat,” Dan commented.
“Your mother isn’t fat,” Xander said without thinking. “In fact—” he broke off, about to say that her figure was still a knockout.
No, no personal comments. He hauled his thoughts away—memories. Dangerous memories. Irrelevant memories. Totally irrelevant.
He turned his attention back to Dan. The only reason he was within six feet of Laurel at all.
“What would you like to do tomorrow?” he asked him. “Because,” he said, “I’ve got an idea.”
Dan looked immediately interested.
“The hotel I’m staying at has a pool,” Xander told him. “Would you like to try it out?”
Dan’s face lit up. “Can we?” He turned to his mother.
“Why not?” she said lightly. She was using that light voice, Xander had become aware, whenever she got dragged in to the conversation.
But he could hear suppressed emotion in it.
He didn’t give a damn. Her feelings were of no relevance to him.
He just wanted her compliance with his plans for his son. Nothing else.
At least she wasn’t coming up with some asinine objection to going swimming. Unlike the fuss she made over his buying clothes and toys for his son. Six missed birthdays, he thought bitterly. All to make up for—
That she took from her own son—
She’d not just deprived him of his own son; she’d deprived his son of his father. Anger bit in him again. But that anger must never be visible to Dan.
“It will give you practice for the pool at your new school,” he said.
He’d been glad too soon about her not objecting to his plans.
“If he goes there!” Laurel interjected sharply. “It’s not decided—not in the least!”
Xander, teeth gritting, ignored her, focussed only on Dan. “We can go and check out the school sometime, see whether you like it. I think you will. Anyway,” he said, not wanting a debate starting that he could do without, “tomorrow, the hotel pool. Shall we go for it?”
“Yes, please!” said Dan.
“Great,” said Xander.
He didn’t bother to wait for any comment from Laurel and got to his feet. “Shall we watch the rest of that film from yesterday?” he asked Dan.
“Yes, please!” said Dan to that too, and stood up, shooting into the sitting room. As Xander followed him, Laurel’s voice stayed him.
“Tonight, before you leave this evening, I need to talk to you.” Her voice sounded stiff, and he turned.
“What about?” he asked curtly.
“I’ll tell you when I talk to you.”
He gave an irritated sigh, wanting whatever she had to say over and done with. He wasn’t interested anyway. If she had any more objections to raise, he’d cut them down. “Let me fix the film for Dan first.”
He did so, with a tinge of guilt that Dan would enjoy it more than he would.
Laurel’s dry warning from the night before replayed in his head.
He was back moments later, leaving Dan cross-legged and fully engaged with all the multifarious cartoon characters again.
He pulled the door half shut, wondering what Laurel wanted. Not caring overmuch.
Back in the kitchen she was starting to wash up at the sink.
“There is a dishwasher,” he said caustically.
“Not worth it for so little,” she replied.
She drew a breath, abandoning the dishes.
She seemed to be steeling herself. He watched her with a sardonic expression on his face.
“I need to understand,” she started, eyeballing him, “just how much time you intend to spend with Dan. You’ll be coming and going, back and forth from Greece, I get that, and I understand, right now, over the holidays, you’ll want to see a lot of him, but what happens afterwards?
I have to manage his expectations. How often will he get to see you? ”
Xander could see tension in her face. It irritated him, yet he could also see why she was asking. Managing Dan’s expectations was, indeed, crucial. But it was impossible to give her a definitive answer just now.
He said as much.
“There are complications,” he said. “There’s a lot I still have to work out.” His voice was brusque, and he knew it, but he didn’t want her pressuring him.
She’s in no position to do so! I’m the injured party here. I’m the one she’s kept Dan from!
And he, not she, would be calling the shots from now on.
He saw her expression change, tighten even more.
“Including, of course,” she said, and it was her voice that was caustic now, “the big complication of your wife…”
Xander was staring at her as if she’d said something in an alien language.
“My wife?” he echoed.
Laurel’s eyes flashed. “Yes, your wife! Remember her? Olympia.”
“Olympia,” he echoed.
Laurel swallowed. It was like swallowing a razor.
“Yes, the saintly Olympia! Your intended fiancée, as she made very clear to me. I know you married her. I saw it on the internet. It was in a Greek newspaper, and I hit Translate. You married her straight…straight—” her voice wobbled fractionally “—after you dumped me at Piraeus. Well, weeks after, at any rate…” Her voice trailed off.
He was still looking at her. Was she not supposed to know about Olympia, how he’d married her in some huge Greek socialite wedding costing a bomb, splashing photos in the press? Well tough, because she did—
Irritation bit at her. “Oh, for God’s sake, did you think I didn’t know? And whatever I think of her, I can see that discovering you have a son tucked away in the UK is not exactly going to be fun for her!”
His voice cut across hers. “Olympia,” he said, “will not give a damn.”
Laurel stared. “That’s callous, even for you. Any wife at all would care whether her husband had a secret son somewhere! Let alone—” bitterness entered her voice “—that the mother turned out to be me!”
She saw Xander’s hands fold around the edge of the breakfast bar. “Any wife might,” he said heavily. “But Olympia is not my wife. So she will not, as I say, give a damn about Dan’s existence. The only child’s existence she cares about is her own.”
Laurel paled. “Dan has a sibling?” Her voice was hollow. She should have expected this, should have seen it coming. After all, it had been seven years since Xander had married Olympia. Of course there would have been children in that time…
“One might, at a stretch,” Xander said now, “call Olympia’s baby a step-sibling.”
“Step? You mean half—”
“No. Step.” She heard Xander’s sharp intake of breath.
“Olympia walked out on me over a year ago, left me for another man and promptly got pregnant. Something—” his voice edged “—that had never happened in six years of marriage. Our divorce,” he went on, his voice expressionless, “was rushed through just in time for her to marry and ensure a legitimate baby.”
Thoughts rushed through Laurel’s brain, messy and confused. Then distilled into one single realization. “You’re not married,” she said.
A curious light glinted in Xander’s eyes. “No,” he said. His eyes rested on her. There was something in them she didn’t like. Didn’t like even more than the way he looked at her when he was busy ignoring her.
“Does it make a difference, Laurel, that I’m not married any more? Does it…change things…for you?” She could hear a taunt in his voice. She didn’t know what it was for.
“It…it makes things simpler,” she said. Because it did, she had to acknowledge that. Didn’t she prefer Dan’s father not to be married to another woman…let alone with other children by that marriage?
He was still looking at her, and that expression in his eyes was making her even more uneasy.
“How simple would you like them to be, Laurel? You never approached me for child maintenance when you thought I was married, but maybe now that you know I’m not you see another opportunity. A better one. Maybe one you’d have liked seven years ago, had Olympia not spiked your guns.”
Laurel’s eyes flashed. “By hiding her own bracelet in my suitcase so she could call me out as a thief and get you to throw me off your yacht?” she bit out viciously.
An answering flash came from his eyes—darker, more vicious. “Don’t try and badmouth Olympia again! You did it once before and I called you out on it! She didn’t hide her bracelet in your suitcase—you did, then tried to blame her when I found it!”
Laurel’s hands slammed down on the metal draining board by the sink, so the cutlery on it jumped noisily.
“I did not steal her bracelet! I did not steal it!”
Her voice had risen, fury in it. The same fury she had felt seven years ago when he’d made his accusation, his denunciation.
Contempt sheared across his face. “You stole it! Denying it, trying to blame Olympia, won’t work now any more than it worked seven years ago! So stop lying to me!”
Laurel’s hand fisted in frustration. Anger was boiling up in her, she couldn’t stop it. It was happening again, a nightmare replay of his accusation seven years ago. Refusing to believe her, refusing to listen, refusing everything except to condemn her.
“It’s the truth!” she spat.
He leant across the breakfast bar at her. His face was black, his eyes like knives. “It’s a lie now, just as it was then! You’re still nothing but a lying little thief!”
Fury boiled over in her. Burst out of her.
Eyes blazing. Heart hammering inside chest, pounding in her veins.
“Don’t you dare speak to me like that! Never.
Do you understand me? My God, I had to put up with your foul accusations seven years ago!
But not any longer! Never, ever again!” she spat, loud and angry, fury contorting her face.
His was contorted too. Voice rising, overriding hers.
Shouting her down. “I’ll speak to you any damn way I choose!
You don’t get to dictate to me! You’re a thief and a liar who couldn’t even find the honesty to damn well admit it when the evidence of it was in front of my eyes!
You just went on and on and damn well denied it! ”
She reared back. “Because I didn’t do it, that’s why!” She was shouting too now and didn’t care. Black fury was possessing her, boiling over in her. “And I will not have you throw all that garbage at me again! So just shut up! Do you hear me? Just shut the hell up!”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” The snarl came again, louder now, to override her, dominate her, allow her no voice, no defence.
Like he did last time—seven years ago! Going on and on at me! Trying to force a confession from me.
Sickness rose in her throat and such anger, such black, black anger. He was still denouncing her, that hateful, condemning refusal to believe her. His raised fury-laden voice slamming into her.
“Well, no dice!” His mouth twisted, ugly and thinned, knives in his eyes, narrowed and vicious, fury naked in them, black rage.
“I know you for what you are! And, my God, if I could have chosen any other woman on earth as a mother to my son, I would! Do you think I want trash like you anywhere near him?” His face enraged, darkening and condemning, his voice louder yet, shutting her down, silencing her.
He lifted one hand, brought it slamming down on the countertop.
Voice rising even louder in his vehement rage.
“You stole that bracelet. No one else did! You! So don’t stand there and try and sleaze your way out of it! Don’t even think you can—”
He broke off. Froze.
Expression changing. Eyes going past her. To the door into the sitting room.
Slowly, like in a nightmare, Laurel turned. And the nightmare became real.
Dan was standing there stark and motionless in the now fully open doorway, abject terror in his face.