His eyes lanced to Laurel, and the expression in them was murderous.
But for Dan’s sake, the sake of the son who had been taken from him, he had to veil all that he felt about the woman who had done so.
Laurel saw his expression, knew what caused it. Her own hardened in response. She could feel, like a tangible force, the anger radiating from him, the steely will to get his own way. Totally ruthless, implacable. She’d felt its ugly force seven years ago, refusing point-blank to believe her, credit her with any honesty, but to jump to the conclusion he’d already decided on. Guilty as charged. He was judge, jury and hangman, all in one.Thief, he had called her, and had stuck with it ever since.
Stealing that bracelet. Stealing his son.
That’s what he thought of her.
And it was bitter, bitter gall.
“Okay, in you go.” Xander helped Dan clamber up into the car the following Friday afternoon, parked at the kerb of the narrow two-up-two-down terraced house in the North London inner suburb where his son had had to live.
But no longer. I will insist on that!
Laurel could say that the new rental house was only for a holiday, but once Dan saw it he’d be bound to want to live there and go to the new school with the playing fields and swimming pool. He just had to get used to the idea, that was all. And today would start that off. Dan’s school term had ended at lunchtime, and they were free to leave London. For good, Xander was determined.
Thrusting Laurel’s suitcases into the capacious boot of the SUV he’d hired, he left her to get in while he settled Dan into the booster seat fitted into the rear. Moments later they were setting off. Satnav guided him out on to the nearby arterial road, heading west out of London.
“Are we on holiday now?” Dan asked from the back seat.
“Yes,” Laurel answered. She was using that same bright voice as in the restaurant last weekend.
He didn’t contradict her. If it helped Dan adjust to his new life, thinking it was only for a holiday, well, he would go along with that too.
For Dan’s sake.
Because from now on, everything in Xander’s life would be for his son’s sake.
Xander’s eyes glanced to the rearview mirror as he merged onto the motorway heading out of London. Laurel’s head was turned towards Dan, pointing out the road signs to him, telling him where they were headed.
But where they were headed was crystal clear to Xander. Into the future. A future he would decide for his son from now on.
Not the woman who’d stolen him from him…
Who could go to hell and stay there for all he cared…
His eyes snapped back to the road. He might wish Laurel to hell, but he could not despatch her there. For Dan’s sake.
She’s his safety, his sense of security. I get that. Have to accept it.
Memory bit suddenly, of his own mother. She’d been, so he now could see, with his adult eyes, a foil to his father’s strong personality. She’d been calm, placid even. Quiet, unobtrusive but always there.
Until she’d died—
He yanked his memory away. Those final few years of her life, ailing steadily, for all the desperate money his father had thrown at her medical care. And when she’d finally slipped beyond all further care, just as he’d finished university, he and his father had known a loss that had united them even more strongly in grief as in love.
His gaze went to Dan. The son he might have lost all his life, had it not been for that moment of sliding doors at the elevator in the department store…anger bit in him yet again.
Deliberately he calmed himself. Refocussed on the present. He’d spent time with Dan twice more during this last week of term, meeting up with his son and the woman who’d stolen him from him after school at a café nearby. Over a milkshake and a bun Dan had visibly started to relax more, getting used to him, chatting to him, telling him what he’d been doing at school, telling his father more about himself under Xander’s obvious interest in him. Xander had taken things slowly, just wanting Dan to feel at ease with him. He continued that now.
“Not far to go,” he said cheerfully. “We come off at the next junction.”
“It’s coming up!” Dan pointed to the sign.
“Well spotted,” said Xander, and moved into the slow lane.
Once off the motorway they took an A road, shortly driving though a prosperous-looking market town with an old church and a town square. On the far side they went past a school set in its own grounds.
