she taunted Malcolm, those dark brown eyes glowing with admiration, an approving smile slowly curving those sculpted lips.
Sam shakily returned that smile, dearly hoping she looked more confident than she felt.
Xander’s warmth faded as he turned back to face the other man. ‘Which of us is the more powerful, do you think, Howard?’ he mused dryly. ‘How long do you think you’ll be able to continue to be in business if I don’t come through with that loan? And how long would you continue to be invited to the fashionable parties you so enjoy, if I should decide to make my aversion to you public? How many restaurants would suddenly find they have no tables available? How many of London’s elite would begin to question why it is I find you so obnoxious?’
‘Because you’re obviously having an affair with my ex-wife!’ the other man blustered.
‘I work for him,’ Sam corrected firmly, decisively, her gaze hardening as she realised from Malcolm’s bluster just how weak he really was. ‘You will go to Xander’s lawyer, Malcolm. You will sign the contract. And then you will never show your face anywhere that I might ever see it again. Because if you don’t,’ she continued coldly as Malcolm would have spoken, ‘I will let Xander ruin you.’
Xander had never admired Samantha more than he did at that moment. She looked magnificent. All fiery eyed, and with her hair like a living flame about her shoulders.
Howard breathed hard. ‘And if I do sign this contract what guarantee do I have that you’ll keep your side of the bargain?’
‘You have my own and Samantha’s word on it,’ Xander answered the other man harshly. ‘And, unlike you, Samantha’s integrity is unimpeachable. My own word, again unlike your own, is completely dependable as well as deeply respected.’
The older man’s face twisted into an ugly mask. ‘Why the hell should I give you that power?’
‘Because I will take delight in ruining you if you don’t sign the contract?’ Xander retorted mildly.
Howard snorted. ‘I would be living with the sword of Damocles hanging over my head for the rest of my life!’
‘Better than having it thrust into your cold dead heart,’ Xander countered unsympathetically.
Howard eyed him for several long moments, obviously fighting an inner battle with himself; arrogance as opposed to good sense. ‘Okay, I’ll sign your blasted contract!’ he finally burst out fiercely as the latter obviously won. ‘But you had better make sure you keep to your side of the bargain.’
‘I just said I would,’ Xander rasped, wishing this man would just go now. He so badly needed to hold Samantha, to comfort her, to take away that lost look he could see in her eyes.
Malcolm eyed them both scornfully. ‘The two of you are welcome to each other.’
‘Is that really the best you can do?’ Sam asked, wondering why she had ever been frightened of this man. Certainly wondering how she could ever have thought she was in love with him!
‘Oh, and, Malcolm,’ she added as he turned to where Xander now pointedly held the door open for him to leave, waiting until she had Malcolm’s full attention before continuing, ‘for the record, you were too damned selfish to ever know what I liked in bed!’
His face darkened as he took a threatening step back towards her.
‘I ought to just—’
A little red-haired whirlwind dashed past an obviously surprised Xander to enter the study and begin kicking Malcolm’s shins. ‘Don’t you dare hurt my mummy!’
Malcolm looked stunned for several seconds and then he reached down to grasp his daughter’s shoulders in an attempt to hold her away from him. ‘It’s Daddy, Daisy.’
‘You’re not my daddy! Daddies are nice, and you’re mean,’ Daisy stormed. ‘I hate you!’ Tears streamed down Daisy’s face as she continued to kick him.
Sam had been so stunned when Daisy rushed so unexpectedly into the room that for a few seconds she had been completely unable to react. But she now rose quickly to her feet before rushing round the desk to pull Daisy away from Malcolm and take her into her arms. ‘It’s all right, darling,’ she assured Daisy as hot tears coursed down both their cheeks. She held her daughter tightly in her arms. ‘Everything is going to be all right. I promise.’
Daisy clung to her. ‘Make him go away, Xander! Make him go away!’ She sobbed into Sam’s shoulder.
Sam looked appealingly at a white-faced Xander over the top of Daisy’s head, giving a choked sob as she watched him grasp hold of the back of Malcolm’s shirt before pulling the other man out of the room and closing the door behind them.
Leaving Sam the privacy she needed to calm and soothe her broken-hearted daughter.
* * *
‘Whew, it’s been quite a day.’ Xander sat in an armchair in the sitting room later that evening, Samantha seated opposite. And if Xander felt emotionally exhausted by the events of the day, then Samantha still looked shell-shocked.
‘Daisy and I have to leave.’
‘What?’ Xander sat forward, frowning darkly at Samantha’s quietly spoken comment.
Sam focused on him with effort; she was so tired she just wanted to crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head, and stay there for the rest of the weekend.
It was not going to happen, of course.
Once Sam had calmed Daisy down, promising her daughter over and over again that she would never see that horrible man again, Daisy had seemed to recover, with the resilience of all small children, from her emotional outburst. Xander’s suggestion, when he returned to the study a few minutes later, of them all going to the cinema to see the film that Daisy wanted to see had clinched the deal.
Whereas Sam’s recovery had all been a front, for Daisy’s sake, and later that day she had found the tears slipping silently down her face as she stared up unseeingly at the animated film on the big screen in front of her. The feel of Xander’s comforting fingers curling about hers in the darkness had been her complete undoing, and she had found herself falling slowly towards him, her head resting on his shoulder as she continued to quietly sob.
The rest of the day had been a blur, something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Xander had taken them all for a pizza after the cinema, and then read Daisy a story and tucked her up in bed after Sam had given her daughter her evening bath.
Upsetting as Daisy’s outburst to Malcolm had been, it was Xander who was now at the centre of Sam’s concerns.
Sam had realised today that it wasn’t just Daisy who had come to rely on him too much this past week. She was also guilty of leaning on him. Depending on him too much.
And it had to stop.
Oh, she wouldn’t dream of stopping Xander from continuing to see Daisy, if he wanted to; that would just be too cruel when her daughter so obviously adored him.
But Sam’s own dependence on him had to end.
Right now.
‘I
