“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!Shedidn’t hide her bracelet in your suitcase—youdid, 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.
