But it was his voice that spoke out loud.
“Everything,” he said. His voice changed. “Starting with this meal.” He reached for the parmesan, started to grate it over his pasta. “You should eat, Laurel. You’re strung out like wire. And me, pretty much the same.” He offered her the parmesan, and she took it automatically, mechanically shredding it over her spaghetti, then setting it down again. She reached for her wine glass, taking a mouthful, needing it.
Xander was already stuck into his pasta, and she did likewise, though she could taste nothing. Tension was, indeed, racking through her. Was he going to say again what he’d said before, wanting a different answer from her? She had none to give.
“This is good,” Xander said, indicating the pasta, twisting another forkful of spaghetti. “Thank you.”
She gave a half shrug. “It was easy enough. The sauce is out of a jar.”
“Lunch on the plane was a long time ago,” he said, “so this is much appreciated.”
He finished off his bowl, pushed it aside. Reached for his wine. Took a breath as he replaced the glass. Looked right across at Laurel. Something was in his eyes, but she didn’t know what. Only that she had not seen it before. She was wary and tense, guarding herself from whatever he might say.
But what he said was nothing that she’d expected.
“I want to tell you, Laurel, about my marriage.”
My marriage.
The words tolled in Xander’s brain. His disastrous failure of a marriage, which Olympia had finally cut and run from to find her own belated happiness. He wished her well.
He took a breath, began his sorry story.
He did not figure well in it.
“A lot of people, Laurel, wanted me to marry Olympia. Her parents wanted it. I was a good catch, well-matched for their daughter, comfortably wealthy, and our families were friends. My father wanted it too for reasons I can make…allowances…for. After my mother died my father pressed me increasingly to marry. He wanted me to find the happiness he’d found with my mother. He did not want me to delay. He longed for grandchildren now that his wife was gone. And as my mother had always liked Olympia, been fond of her, she seemed therefore, to my father, the ideal match for me.”
He paused. “Olympia thought so too. So—” he took a breath “—there I was, four people all wanting me to marry Olympia. And why should I not? She was intelligent, attractive, of good character, perfectly compatible, with the same social and financial background as myself. The ideal match indeed.”
He let his gaze rest on Laurel. “All I had to do was propose and name the date.”
He took a breath, a difficult one. “Instead—” He broke off.
Abruptly, he pushed back his chair, scraping on the stone floor tiles. He turned towards the window, dark against the night outside. His hands gripped the windowsill. Then he began to speak, his voice low and rapid.
“Laurel, when I set eyes on you for the very first time in that café on the beach, I wanted you. I was ripe for an affair, I admit that freely. Though just why that should be, when I was all set to propose to Olympia—” his voice twisted “—I did not wish to consider. I only knew that I wanted you and that you—well, you made it obvious the idea also appealed to you. So we sailed away, you and I, and had our affair. Happy and carefree. And it was incredibly good,” he said, “like I’d never known before.”
He stopped, did not look around.
“I never wanted it to end.”
Still he did not look around. “But it had to end so that I could do what everyone was waiting for me to do. Marry Olympia. She even—” his voice twisted again “—turned up on board to remind me of that.”
“She made that clear to me,” Laurel said, her voice as dry as sand, “that my time was up. So there we were, two women, hackles raised, scrapping over you, and you, moody as hell, wishing us both to perdition.”
“No,” he looked at her now. “Only one of you.”
She tried not to flinch, not wanting it to show. Yes, Xander had wished her to perdition all right, and she had gone. There was a heaviness forming inside her, hard and painful. Jerkily she reach for her wine, but it did not go down easily, or have any bolstering effect on her. She set down her glass. She didn’t want to look at him. So she didn’t. She stared down at her half-eaten pasta instead. It blurred beneath her gaze. She realised he was talking still.
“Laurel,” Xander’s voice was sombre, “you need to understand what happened when Olympia joined the yacht. Reminding me, just by her presence, what I was supposed to be doing. Proposing to her without further delay. Which meant you had to go. But she knew your fantastic looks totally outshone hers, so she was waspish and condescending towards you, fighting you with what weapons she had.” His voice changed. “And so did I.”
She looked up him then. Not understanding. He was looking at her, his expression shuttered. His voice heavy.
“When her bracelet went missing and was found in your suitcase, I found my weapon too. One I desperately needed.”
She frowned. His words made no sense. “I…I don’t understand.”
He gave a rasp in his throat. “No more than I. Until now.” His eyes rested on her, like weights she could not bear. “I condemned you for stealing Olympia’s bracelet, Laurel, because I needed to believe you were a thief.”
