Kitabı oku: «Bridal Bargains», sayfa 3

The kitchen was a housewife’s dream, all lovingly waxed wood and red quarry-tiled flooring. There was a huge Aga sitting in what Claire presumed had once been the fireplace, the kind of smells coming from the pots busy simmering away on its top enticing enough to make her stomach cry out in appeal.

A young dark-haired woman of around her own age was standing near to the Aga, close to a baby’s travel cot. As Claire made eagerly for the cot, the young woman melted silently away.

Melanie was lying there, wide awake for once, and looking curiously around her. She had been changed, she noticed, and was wearing what looked like a brand-new sleep suit in the softest shade of pink that showed off her olive skin and jetblack cap of fine straight hair.

There was nothing about her that resembled her dead mama, Claire observed sadly—and felt the tears begin to threaten as they always did when she let herself think of her mother.

‘Please …’ she murmured a little thickly to the man who was standing silently by. ‘I need to hold her—can you get her for me?’

Common sense told her not to attempt to bend down there and scoop Melanie up for herself.

‘Of course,’ he said, and with an economy of movement he bent to lift the baby, straightened and turned towards Claire—only to pause indecisively.

‘How will you do this?’ he asked, frowning over the problem. ‘You don’t want to put any stress on your bruised ribcage.’

Looking around her, Claire decided it was probably best to ease herself into one of the kitchen chairs; at least then she could use the tabletop as an aid to take some of the baby’s weight.

A moment after she had settled herself, Melanie arrived in the crook of her arm, and, resting it on the table, Claire released a long, soft, breathy sigh, then lowered her face to the baby’s sweet-smelling cheek.

If anyone, having witnessed this moment, could still wonder if she really loved this baby, then they would have had to be blind.

Andreas Markopoulou wasn’t blind. But he was moved in a way that would have shocked Claire if she’d happened to glance at him.

Angry was the word. Harshly, coldly—frighteningly angry.

‘Ah, you come at last.’ Lefka suddenly appeared from another room just off the kitchen, the sound of her heavily accented voice bringing Claire’s head up. Looking at Claire with Melanie, the housekeeper smiled warmly. ‘You love this baby,’ she said, not asking the question but simply stating a fact. ‘Good,’ she nodded. ‘For this baby is an angel. She has stolen my heart.’

Claire had a feeling that she meant it, too; her dark eyes definitely had a love-struck look about them.

‘But she will not be happy with me if I do not feed her the bottle soon. So you will show me, please—what to do? My daughter Althea will hold the child.’

By the time Claire had escaped from the kitchen, as reassured as ever anyone could be that Melanie was in safe and loving hands, she had come to a decision.

Going in search of her host, she found him sitting behind his desk, his fingers flying across the laptop keyboard while he talked on the telephone at the same time.

By now, it had gone truly dark outside, and the dark red velvet curtains hanging behind him had been closed, the room softly lit by several intelligently placed table lamps that didn’t try to fight against the inviting glow of the fire.

As he glanced up and saw Claire standing there, she saw that the whole effect had softened and enriched his Mediterranean skin tone, helping to smooth out the harsher angles to his lean-boned face so he looked younger somehow—much less intimidating than he had started to appear to her.

‘I’ll stay here,’ she announced.

CHAPTER THREE

‘FOR Melanie’s sake,’ she added, knowing she sounded surly, but then, she was resenting her own climb-down so her voice was projecting that.

But the last hour spent with Melanie had turned out to be a tough lesson in how little she was able to do for the baby in her present state. And, although witnessing the way Lefka and her daughter Althea had been efficient and gentle and unendingly caring as they saw to her sister had been the main factor that had brought about her decision, her stubborn soul found it a bitter pill to take.

So Claire stood in stiff silence, watching those thoughtful eyes study her, and waited with gritted teeth for him to ask her why she had changed her mind.

Yet he didn’t do that. All he did was nod his dark head in mute acceptance of her decision.

A diplomat, she thought, mocking his restraint.

‘I will show you to your room, then,’ he said, coming gracefully to his feet.

‘No need.’ She shook her head. ‘Althea is going to do that. But I do need some things from my flat,’ she then added. ‘Fresh clothes and—things,’ she explained, feeling a faint flush working its way into her cheeks when she saw the way his gaze dropped automatically to the disreputable state of the ‘things’ she was presently wearing.

In truth, she felt a bit like a bag lady that had been brought in off the street and allowed to experience how the other half lived.

‘If you give Althea a list of your requirements, I will send her with her father to collect them.’

Definitely the diplomat, she reiterated silently as she picked up on his carefully neutralised tone.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured politely. Then, ‘Her father?’ she questioned, realising what he had just said.

‘Nikos, my chauffeur,’ he nodded, coming around his desk. ‘They have the top floor to this house as a self-contained apartment.’

As he talked he had been walking smoothly towards her, and the closer he came, the more her nerve-ends began to flutter. Why, she wasn’t sure. Then he came to a stop in front of her and reached out to gently cup her chin, arrogantly lifting it so she had to look at him—and she knew exactly why her nerve-ends became agitated whenever he came too close.

Her flesh liked to feel his flesh against it, and that implied a sexual attraction that she just did not want to acknowledge.

‘Stop being afraid of me,’ he commanded, obviously seeing something flash in her guarded blue eyes.

‘I’m not.’ She denied the charge, but pulled away from his touch anyway.

Sighing slightly, he turned away from her, but not before she had glimpsed a hint of irritation with her. ‘I have the keys to your home,’ he announced, as cool and flat as calm waters. And, at her soft gasp of surprise because she hadn’t given a single thought as to where her keys were, he turned back again, to flick her with one of his unfathomable looks. ‘As you were being transferred into the ambulance, I instructed Nikos to make your flat safe and lock up,’ he explained.

‘Then if you have my keys,’ she shot at him sarcastically, ‘I’m surprised you didn’t have the whole place transferred here while I couldn’t stop you!’

She was referring to the very unpalatable fact that her sister seemed to have acquired a complete new wardrobe of clothes—plus just about every gadget ever invented to make a mother’s life an easier one!

To her amazement he stiffened up as if she had just hit him! ‘I would not be so ill-mannered as to remove anything from your home without your permission!’ he informed her haughtily. ‘It would be tantamount to stealing!’

‘Yet you felt no qualms about stealing me!’ Claire shot back.

Irritation really showed on his hard face now. ‘I—stole both of you.’ He made that fine but seemingly important distinction. ‘For your own good, since we both know you cannot manage without my help. Now, can we drop this—conversation?’ he went on impatiently. ‘It is serving no useful purpose—and I have more important work to do!’

Stung by his tone and being made to feel like an awkward child who had just been severely reprimanded by an adult, Claire turned without another word and reached for the door.

‘Don’t …’ The gruff voice sounded too close to her ear.

‘Don’t what?’ she mumbled, the too ready tears not far away.

He didn’t reply; instead he reached around her with his arm, his hand appearing in front of her misted vision as it closed over her own hand and gently prised it free of the door handle. Just as gently, he turned her round to face him and Claire found herself looking at the blurred bulk of his white-shirted chest once again.

She heard him sigh, and wished she could stop being so pathetic! It was humiliating to keep wanting to cry like this! ‘This isn’t going to work,’ she choked.

‘Just because we fight,’ he replied, his deep voice completely wiped clean of all hint of anger, ‘it does not mean that we cannot get along with each other. It simply shows that we are two very strong-willed people who both like to win in an argument.’

It seemed to Claire that he had been winning every single battle they’d fought today—which didn’t say much for her own strength of will.

‘Well, try not to be so arrogant,’ she advised, firmly pushing herself away from him. ‘And maybe we will get through this without killing each other.’

With that she turned back to the door, opened it and walked away, rather pleased for grabbing the last word for a change—and surprised that he’d let her have it without cutting the legs out from under her.

Althea showed her to a rather elegant bedroom suite decorated and furnished in a tasteful range of soft blues through to watery greens. There was a large white en-suite bathroom that seemed to have been stocked with just about every requirement anyone could possibly look for, plus a cavernous walk-in dressing room lined with custom-designed shelves and hanging space.

Her pathetically few items of clothing were going to look really great in here, Claire thought ruefully, turning her attention back to the main bedroom and looking around her to decide where she was going to place Melanie’s crib when it arrived.

Then she stopped, realising suddenly that she wasn’t going to be able to have Melanie in here with her! Not unless Althea or her mother came along with the baby—for how was she supposed to deal with nights feeds when she couldn’t even manage to fix a teat into a bottle, never mind everything else?

‘Where is Melanie going to sleep?’ she asked Althea, who was waiting for her to compose the list of things she needed from her flat.

And even the writing of a simple list was going to be completely beyond her, she realised next. She was going to have to dictate it to Althea.

Softly spoken, gentle, introverted and shy, Althea answered carefully, ‘Mamma suggests, if you agree to it, that perhaps the little one would be best sleeping next to my bed?’

Which placed not just a room between her and Melanie—but a whole wretched floor. It hit her hard, that. It had her standing there gazing helplessly around her, feeling a bit like a boat that had lost its rudder.

The list didn’t take very long to dictate. After all, what did Claire need here but a few changes of clothes and the odd personal item? But it was only as Althea left to go and find her father that another thought suddenly struck her, bringing with it a rather ugly clutch of shame at the knowledge that Althea, who was used to living like—this, was going to walk into her shabby little flat and see what Claire and Melanie were more used to.

And pride, Claire Stenson, is a very poor companion! She immediately scolded herself for allowing it to encroach. Hadn’t she already learned that salutary little lesson years ago when she and her mother had lost everything—even so-called lifelong friends and most of the clothes off their backs?

With that stern reminder, her chin came up, and she turned her attention to something much more important. Namely, needing to use the bathroom quite urgently. Whereby she spent the next ten minutes encountering a whole new set of obstacles that took some trouble to overcome.

She would have liked to fill the bath with hot, fragrant water and lie down in it for ever, but that was so much out of the question that she didn’t even bother to do much more than think how wonderful it would be. But a shower was a different proposition, she mused, with a thoughtful look at the clear glass cubicle over in the corner …

Spying a long white terry-towelling robe hanging behind the bathroom door made her mind up for her. And with a sudden determination that eventually turned into a panting frustration she struggled out of her dirty clothes.

She only hoped that Althea wasn’t long, because there was no way she was putting those clothes back on her body, she decided as she stood there, naked, giving the small pile in the corner of the bathroom a distasteful glare before turning away from it.

Which was when she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror that was fixed to one of the tiled walls, and all normal thought processes stalled for the moment as dismay completely froze her.

She looked as if someone had given her a good beating. The cut at her temple was pretty minor but the lump that had formed beneath it was distorting the shape of her face! And the bruising on the left-hand side of her lower ribcage had already begun to turn an ugly back and blue.

But that wasn’t all of it, she noted woefully. Not nearly all of it. Though the rest was purely personal. A painfully personal view of herself as the man downstairs must have been seeing her each time those dark eyes had settled on her, she realised with a small shudder.

How much weight had she actually lost? she asked herself as she stood there feeling the shock of self-awareness ricochet through her for the first time since her mother had died.

Two months ago she’d had a nice figure—even if she did say so herself! Slender and sleek, not thin and bony! Even her breasts … these small, pointed breasts had absolutely no fullness left in them!

And her hair … Her good hand went up to touch her lank, lifeless hair where it hung around her pale and sadly hollowed-out face.

What had she been doing to herself? Where had she gone? She used to be happy, bright, always smiling, with hair and skin that glowed with health, and a well cared for, athletic body. Not this thin, lank, dull-eyed person who looked as if she’d been kicked black and blue.

She was suddenly filled with an almost overwhelming urge to toss herself in the corner of the bathroom where her ruined clothes lay discarded!

Yet, surprisingly, seeing a vivid picture of herself, sitting there slumped in the corner along with her torn shirt and dirty jeans, was so comical that she laughed.

By the time she had managed to have a shower and shampoo her hair whilst keeping her plaster-cast dry by winding her arm around the outside of the cubical wall whilst the other hand did all the work, she emerged from the steamy confines refreshed, smelling sweet, and feeling generally a whole lot better all round. Mainly, she suspected, because she’d managed to do it all for herself without having to ask for any help.

Encouraged by her own success and thinking on her feet now, she decided to let the terry bathrobe do the job of soaking up the excess moisture from her skin so she didn’t have to jar her bruises by attempting to dry herself with a towel. In fact, the only task that defeated her was knotting the robe belt around her middle. And that was such a minor thing after all the other obstacles she had so successfully negotiated that she thought nothing more about it as she walked back into the bedroom, dabbing a towel at her damp hair—only to stop dead in her tracks.

‘Oh!’ The stifled exclamation of surprise left her throat like a sigh, yet he heard it, and it brought him twisting on his heel to face her. Then, for a few short, thickening moments, neither of them moved again.

It’s like having time stand still, Claire thought as she stared at his lean, dark face and felt the strangest sensation wash over her—like a sharp implement being drawn down her backbone, setting off a sensory chain reaction that had her whole system tingling.

Then he spoke. ‘For goodness’ sake,’ he bit out. ‘Do you have to look so disturbed that you find me here? I have not come to ravish you—though it may be prudent for you to—do something about the robe,’ he suggested, with a grim flick of the hand that sent her wide eyes jerking downwards.

In an agony of dismay she dropped the towel so she could whip the two sides of the robe together across her naked front, then clamped them there with her plastered wrist.

‘Have you never heard of knocking?’ she choked, almost suffocating in her own embarrassment.

‘I did knock,’ he replied. ‘But when I received no answer I let myself in, believing you may well be sleeping.’

‘Which makes it all right, does it?’ She flashed him a hot, resentful glance. ‘You see nothing wrong in coming into a guest’s bedroom while she sleeps in blissful ignorance of your presence?’

If she said all of that to hit back at him for embarrassing her, it didn’t work. All he did was throw up his arrogant head and glare at her as if he was waiting for her to apologise for his intrusion!

Then he let out an impatient sigh. ‘This is all so unnecessarily foolish,’ he muttered, and began striding towards her with the kind of purpose that had Claire backing warily.

‘Stop it!’ he hissed, reaching down to grab hold of the two ends of the robe belt that were hanging at either side of her. With a firm yank he brought her to a standstill, then proceeded to tower over her like some avenging dark angel.

He was angry, she could see that. But there was something else going on behind that hard, tight expression that seriously disturbed her—though at that moment she wasn’t sure why.

Then he bent towards her. He’s going to kiss me! she thought wildly, and gasped out some kind of shaky little protest as her heart gave a painful thump against her ribs then began palpitating madly when panic erupted in a roaring mad rush that set her brain spinning.

What he actually did do was knot her robe belt around her middle. It was like being on a helter-skelter ride of out-of-control emotion. Instead of feeling high as a kite on panic, she suddenly felt dizzy with the effects of a sinking relief.

Then he kissed her.

And after everything else that had gone before it she had nothing—nothing left to fight him with. The sense of relief had relaxed all the tension out of her, so he caught her undefended, his mouth crushing hers with a ruthless precision that literally shocked her breathless.

Warm, smooth, very knowledgeable lips fused warmly with hers. Blue eyes wide open with shock and staring, she found herself looking straight down into the black abyss of his. The rest of her followed, free-falling into that terrible darkness without the means to stop herself.

Then he was gone. As abruptly as he had made the contact, he withdrew it.

‘Now be afraid,’ he grimly invited, and while she stood there just staring at him with huge blank blue eyes he turned on his heel and strode off to the other side of the room.

In the sizzling taut silence which followed she could have heard a pin drop on the thick carpet beneath her bare feet. She was too stunned to speak and he was obviously still too angry.

For anger it had been that had made him kiss her like that; she wasn’t so punch-drunk as not to have recognised that. It had been a kiss to punish, not a kiss to frighten. He had already warned her several times today that he reacted badly to challenge.

Well, she had just received personal experience of that bad reaction, Claire acknowledged. ‘If you ever do that again, I will scratch your eyes out,’ she informed him shakily.

‘Before or after you expose your body to me?’

He was such a merciless devil! If her legs hadn’t felt so shaky she would have gone over there and scratched his eyes out anyway!

Then she remembered what it had felt like to fall into them, and shivered, the will to fight shrivelling out of her because she never wanted to risk looking into those eyes like that again.

So instead she began looking around her in a rather dazed effort to remember what she had been doing when she’d discovered him here.

She saw the white towel lying on the deep blue carpet and remembered she had been using it to dry the excess water off her wet hair. Knowing that bending to pick it up again was completely beyond her physical abilities at the moment, she ignored the towel and went over to the dressing table where, earlier, she had spied a hairbrush.

He was standing with his back to her, in front of a polished wood tallboy inside which, Althea had shown her, were housed a television set and a very expensive-looking music system.

The room with everything, she thought sarcastically, and grimaced as she picked up the hairbrush and began drawing it through her damp hair.

‘What are you here for anyway?’ she asked, needing to break through the silence. ‘I presume you did have a reason to come in here?’

He turned, stiff, tense, and supremely remote—like a man sitting alone on the top of a mountain, she thought, and felt a return of her earlier sense of humour at the absurd image.

No apology forthcoming this time, she noted, and the smile actually reached her eyes.

He saw it, didn’t like it and frowned, something interestingly like the pompous male equivalent to a blush streaking a hint of colour across his dark cheekbones. Fascinated by that, Claire turned more fully to face him so she could see how he was going to deal with this momentary loss of his precious composure.

Recognising exactly what she was doing and why, he released a heavy sigh. ‘How are the ribs?’

Ah, a diversion, she noted. ‘Sore,’ she replied, telling the blunt truth of it.

‘And the wrist?’

‘Agony,’ she grimaced.

‘Then maybe I did the right thing coming in here to bring you—these …’ He was holding up a small bottle of what had to be tablets. ‘Pain-killers,’ he explained. ‘Issued by the hospital. I forgot I had them.’

Half turning, he placed the bottle on the top of the tallboy. Then he turned back to Claire. ‘Where is your sling?’

Glancing down to where her plastered wrist was hanging heavily at her side, ‘I must have left it in the bathroom,’ she replied, putting down the hairbrush so she could use her hand to lift the cast into a more comfortable position resting against her middle.

Without another word he strode off, his composure intact now, and his arrogance along with it, she observed as she watched him disappear into the bathroom then come out again carrying the modern version of a sling in his hand.

About to approach her, he paused, thought twice about it, then—sardonically—requested, ‘May I?’

Her wry half nod gave her permission and he came forward. By then she had moved to ease herself into a sitting position on the edge of the dressing table, so he really towered over her this time as he coolly looped the sling-belt over her head then gently took hold of her plastered wrist.

‘You didn’t even get it wet,’ he remarked.

‘I’m a very clever girl,’ she answered lightly.

‘And sometimes,’ he drawled, ‘you are very reckless and naïve.’

‘How you can make such a sweeping remark about me when you’ve barely known me for a day is beyond me,’ she threw right back. Then she broke the banter to issue a wince and a groan as he gently eased the weighty plaster-cast into its support.

Instantly his eyes flicked upwards to her face, wondrously lustrous curling black lashes coiling away from those dangerous black holes to reveal—not anger, but genuine concern.

‘How much pain are you actually in?’ he demanded huskily.

A lot, she wanted to say, but tempered the reply to a rueful, ‘Some,’ that was supposed to have sounded careless but ended up quivering as it left her.

The anger came back then. ‘How much and where?’ He grimly insisted on a truthful answer.

‘All over,’ she confessed as all hint of flippancy drained right out of her and her throat began to thicken with pathetic, weak tears.

On a soft curse, he moved away from her again, going back into the bathroom to return carrying a glass of water. Not even glancing her way, he strode across the room to pick up the pill bottle. Coming back, he handed her the glass of water then shook two small pills into his palm. In grim silence he offered them to her. And in tearful silence she took them and washed them down with the water.

A tear trickled down her cheek. She went to wipe it away with the glass—but he got there before her, his long fingers gently splaying across her damp hair while he smoothed his thumb pad across her cheek.

And the worst of it was, she wanted to lean right into those splayed fingers. She wanted to bury her face in his big hard chest and sob her wretched heart out!

‘I can’t even stand up!’ she confessed despairingly. ‘My hip’s gone all stiff—and my thigh and my ribs!’

A moment later she was being lifted into his arms and it hurt like blazes but she didn’t care.

‘I am such a pathetic baby!’ she sobbed as he carried her across the room towards the bed.

‘You are hurt. You are shocked. You are exhausted,’ he responded sternly. ‘Which means you are allowed to be pathetic.’

A joke! She laughed, and the tears stopped.

Laying her carefully on the bed, he reached across her and flipped the other side of the king-size duvet over her. His face was still stern, but she found she liked looking at it now.

‘How old are you?’ she asked curiously.

He paused as he was about to straighten. Looked into pool-deep blue eyes—and offered her a cold little grimace. ‘As old as the hills,’ he drawled—and stood back. ‘Now rest,’ he ordered. ‘And let the pain-killers do their job. We eat in …’ he took a quick glance at the paper-thin gold watch he had wrapped around his hair-peppered wrist ‘… two hours. By then Althea should be back with your things. So you may get up and join me for dinner downstairs, or you can eat up here. The choice is yours.’

With that he turned and was gone. It was like having the fire go out suddenly, Claire decided with a shiver, then frowned, wondering why she was comparing him to a fire when he was more like a freezer most of the time …

She went downstairs for dinner. Mainly because she didn’t want to be a bigger nuisance to these people than she was already being—and because she was desperate to see Melanie, who was being bathed and fed by Lefka while Althea unpacked Claire’s clothes then helped her to dress in a fresh pair of jeans and a simple black tee shirt that was loose enough and baggy enough to pull on and off without causing her too much trouble.

Althea showed her into a large drawing room that was nicely decorated in champagne golds and soft greens. Another fire was burning in the grate and the soft sounds of classical music floated soothingly in the air.

Andreas was there, dressed in a fresh pale blue shirt and a pair of steel-grey trousers that sat neatly on his lean waist. But what really surprised her was to find him holding Melanie comfortably at his shoulder.

‘You look better,’ he remarked, bringing her eyes up from the baby to find him running his gaze over her now shiny gold hair. It had dried on its own while she’d rested and really needed styling, but its own slight kink had saved it from looking a complete fly-away mess.

‘I feel it,’ she nodded, with a smile that brought his eyes into focus on hers. Whatever it was that was written in those dark depths, Claire suddenly found herself remembering that kiss earlier, and had to break the contact quickly before she embarrassed herself by blushing.

‘How has she been?’ she then asked anxiously, looking back at Melanie who looked so tiny against the broad expanse of his chest.

‘Like an angel,’ he drawled. ‘So Lefka informs me. She is smitten,’ he confided—then said more softly, ‘And I cannot blame her.’

He really meant it, too, Claire realised as she briefly flicked her eyes back to his face to find it softening as he glanced at the baby.

‘She is awake. Would you like to hold her?’

‘Oh, yes, please …’ No one—unless they’d experienced it—could know what it felt like to be separated from the baby she had taken care of single-handedly since their mother had died.

‘Perhaps if you sit down on one of the comfortable chairs then you can cradle her in your lap,’ he suggested.

Claire didn’t need telling twice; walking over to one of the champagne-coloured easy chairs, she sank carefully into its comfort-soft cushions then eagerly accepted the baby.

The moment that Melanie saw Claire’s face smiling down on her, her tiny mouth broke into a welcoming smile.

‘She knows you,’ he said, sounding surprised.

‘Of course,’ Claire answered. ‘I’m her surrogate mother—aren’t I, my darling?’

After that she completely forgot about Andreas Markopoulou, who, after a moment or two, lowered himself into the chair opposite them then sat looking on as Claire immersed herself in the sheer pleasure of her mother’s baby, talking softly to her while Melanie looked and listened with rapt attention.

Dinner was pleasant. Nothing fancy, just simple but tasty vegetable soup followed by boiled rice and thin slivers of pan-fried chicken that she could easily manage to eat by only using her fork.

Refusing the deep red full-blooded wine he was drinking with his meal, she asked for water instead. And they talked quietly. Well, she talked—Claire made the wry distinction—while he encouraged her with strategically placed questions that resulted in her whole life to date getting aired at that dinner table.

When she eventually sat back, talked-out and replete, having refused any dessert to finish her meal, she made herself ask the question that had been troubling her on and off throughout the whole day.