Kitabı oku: «Bridal Bargains: The Tycoon's Bride / The Purchased Wife / The Price Of A Bride»

Bridal Bargains
The Tycoon’s Bride
The Purchased Wife
The Price of a Bride
Michelle Reid

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

MICHELLE REID grew up on the southern edges of Manchester, the youngest in a family of five lively children. Now she lives in the beautiful county of Cheshire, with her busy executive husband and two grown-up daughters. She loves reading, the ballet and playing tennis when she gets the chance. She hates cooking, cleaning and despises ironing! Sleep she can do without and produces some of her best written work during the early hours of the morning.

The Tycoon’s Bride

CHAPTER ONE

‘ADOPTION?’ Claire repeated in dismay. ‘You want me to give Melanie away to strangers?’

Standing there, white-faced and shaking in the shabby sitting room of her equally shabby little flat, Claire stared at her aunt as if she had just turned into a real live she-devil. In truth, she was having trouble believing that any of this was really happening. In the last few tragic weeks it felt as if her whole life had been wrenched out from under her.

Now this, she thought wretchedly. ‘I am going to pretend you never said that, Aunt Laura,’ she said, cuddling the sleeping baby just that little bit closer as if trying to shield her from what was being proposed here.

‘No, you’re not,’ her aunt countered sternly. ‘You’re going to listen to me. Do you honestly think I would be suggesting this if I believed you were coping?’

‘I am coping!’ Claire angrily insisted.

Wearing a pin-neat chic little two-piece grey suit and with her perfectly made up face and elegantly groomed blonde hair, Laura Cavell only needed to send her coldly fastidious eyes on a brief scan of their surroundings to completely denounce that declaration.

The place was in a mess, every available space cluttered with all the usual baby paraphernalia—the floor, the chairs, the unit tops in the attached tiny kitchen. It was only October but the notoriously unpredictable British weather was already wintry. Yet what small amount of heat there was coming from the electric fire was being blocked off behind a clothes-horse laden with wet baby clothes. The washing had to be dried somehow and Claire had no other way of doing it now she could no longer afford to use the laundrette in the high street. So the windows were steamed up, the air inside the chilly little room damp with hanging condensation.

Claire herself looked no better, her once outstandingly pretty face ravaged by too much grief, by too much worry, and by too many disturbed nights caused by a baby who only seemed to sleep when she was holding her.

‘I only asked you for help with my rent, for goodness’ sake,’ she mumbled defensively, feeling like a stray cat that had dared to beg at a queen’s front door.

‘And sometimes people have to be cruel to be kind,’ her aunt replied with a cold little shrug of her elegant shoulders. ‘If that means I have to use ruthless methods to make you see the error in what you’re trying to do here, then so be it.’

Which, Claire presumed, was her way of saying that she wasn’t going to part with a single penny. But then, Aunt Laura had never been known for her charity.

‘Melanie isn’t even your child, Claire!’

‘But she is my sister!’ Claire angrily flashed back. ‘How can you want to have her taken away from me?’ It was a cry from the heart—a copiously bleeding heart that had known too much pain and grief over the last half year.

Her aunt winced—but her stance didn’t alter. ‘Your half-sister,’ she corrected her. ‘You don’t even know who her father is,’ she added, her red-painted mouth pursing with real distaste as she glanced down at the dark-haired, olive-skinned baby cradled in Claire’s arms.

‘What difference is that supposed to make?’ Claire demanded, her blue eyes widening in affront at the rude remark. So, her mother had a fling with a Spanish waiter—so what? she wanted to shout. At least she’d still been able to attract a man—which was something after what she had been through with Claire’s father! ‘Melanie is still my flesh and blood, and I am still hers!’ she declared, only just managing to bite back the angry reminder that her aunt was supposed to be their flesh and blood also!

Not that it had ever shown. Claire’s mother had always said that Aunt Laura had no heart to speak of. She was hard, she was tough, and the fact that she held down a very important job playing PA to the top dog at one of Europe’s biggest merchant banks meant that she was also totally dedicated to her career.

The moment that Claire had dared to ask for help, she must have been racking her brains looking for a solution that would put an end to what she must be seeing as the beginning of years of hassle. So, to a woman who had found it very easy to sacrifice love, marriage and the prospect of her own children for the sake of that career, telling her own niece to give her sister away came easy to Aunt Laura.

Claire felt sick to her stomach.

‘You’re only twenty-one years old, damn it!’ Aunt Laura sighed out impatiently when she caught a glimpse of Claire’s expression. ‘Until a month ago you were still a student. Now you’ve dropped out of university but you have no job,’ she listed. ‘No means whatsoever to support yourself, never mind a small baby! And now you tell me you can’t even afford to pay the rent on this awful place!’

‘I will find a job soon enough, I’m certain of it,’ Claire stated proudly.

‘A job doing what?’ she was instantly challenged. ‘Waiting at tables like that—child’s father did? Cleaning floors? Skivvying for others when you could be doing what your mother wanted you to do, and getting your degree? And who is going to look after Melanie while you do scrub floors?’ her aunt pushed on remorselessly. ‘It takes a lot of money to employ a good baby-minder, Claire,’ she warned. ‘Your mother’s estate barely left enough to bury her.’

The derision in that final remark cut Claire right to the quick. ‘I have rights! I must have rights!’ she cried. ‘Surely the State will help me!’

‘Of course,’ her aunt agreed. ‘But only as much as it absolutely has to do. The days are long gone when the State was prepared to pay up without much of a murmur. They encourage self-help these days—which is just another way of telling you to go away and get on with it,’ she derided. ‘And Melanie has rights too, you know; you seem to have overlooked that. Do you think she is going to thank you for bringing her up in poverty when she could be living with the kind of people who could give her everything?’

With the sheer brutality of her aunt’s words scoring deep grooves into her already lacerated soul, Claire reeled away in an agony of mind-numbing confusion.

Would it be better for Melanie if she gave her up? she actually found herself wondering. Suddenly she was starting to see the future through the baby’s eyes. And her aunt could well be telling the truth; Melanie would have no grounds to thank her for condemning her to the kind of life she could provide for her.

Silently she moved across the room to go and place the sleeping baby in her crib in the corner. She was so thin now that the pair of jeans and stretch-cotton blouse she was wearing were hanging on her body. Only a couple of months ago they would have been as tightly fitting as you would have expected any healthy young woman’s clothes to be.

But a couple of months ago Melanie had not been born. And Claire’s mother had still been here, happily looking forward to giving birth to a new life, which she’d seen as the path to a whole new beginning, after what the previous few years had put them through.

Just three years ago Claire had been the only child of two utterly doting parents. Then her father had died at his own hand when he couldn’t face the fact that his business had failed, taking just about everything they owned along with it. They’d lost their home, their furniture—even most of their clothes had to be sold to pay back their debtors. By then they had moved from the Holland Park area of London into rented accommodation here in the East End.

Victoria Stenson had never really recovered from the way her husband of more than twenty years had bailed out of life, leaving her to pick up the pieces. On top of all that, she’d had to watch so-called friends melt clean away as her circumstances altered. Claire had had to leave her private school to finish her final year of education at the local state school. She too had had to watch her friends disappear in much the same way her mother had done.

It had been a tough, painful time that left Victoria Stenson feeling very disillusioned and bitter. She’d had to find a job, which, having spent the last twenty years of her life being taken care of, wasn’t at all easy. Oddly enough, it was Aunt Laura who’d helped then. She’d found her sister a job working in an up-market fashion boutique where her natural flare for style and what suited people had come in useful.

But then, Victoria Stenson had been a very classy lady. As a tall and slender natural toffee-blonde, at forty-two years old she had still been a very attractive woman who proved to be very good at her new job. So when the lady who owned the boutique had suddenly taken ill and could not go on a planned trip to Madrid to check out one of her fashion suppliers, she’d felt no qualms in sending Victoria in her place.

The rest was history. By the time she’d come home again, Claire could not believe the change in her mother. She’d looked almost happy; more relaxed, more—at peace with herself. A couple of weeks later she’d found out why.

‘I’m pregnant,’ her mother had announced. And eight months later little Melanie was born. Small, sweet, olive-skinned and with a crop of black hair that they’d both found so comical when compared with their own fair colouring. It was love at first sight for all three of them.

They’d brought Melanie home here to this small flat with its two small bedrooms and tiny kitchen and bathroom. A couple of weeks later Victoria had gone back to work. It was August, and Claire was on her long summer break from university, so it had worked well that she could care for Melanie while her mother was out. They would have to find a baby-minder later—they had been aware of that—but for now they were both happy to share the caring between them and all in all things were beginning to look up for them, they’d thought.

Then tragedy had struck yet again. Victoria Stenson had suffered a massive haemorrhage that she’d never recovered from, leaving Claire shell-shocked and utterly grief-stricken, with a baby to care for and nothing much else to help her to do it.

Outside a car horn sounded. Behind Claire, her aunt Laura took a glance at her wristwatch and frowned. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she murmured impatiently. ‘Oh—for goodness’ sake,’ she then snapped out. ‘Will you leave the child alone for a moment and listen to me?’

As if she could actually feel her aunt’s animosity towards her, the baby let out a soft yelp. It was purely instinctive for Claire to reach down and brush a soothing caress across the baby’s petal-soft cheek, and as she did so a well of love came surging up inside her.

It wasn’t fair, she thought tragically. It just wasn’t fair what life was throwing at her! She wanted to keep Melanie with her! She wanted her mother back. She wanted her father back. She wanted her life back how it used to be before all of these horrible things began to happen.

‘What are our options?’ she questioned thickly, tears clearly not far away.

Behind her, her aunt sensed success coming closer and smothered a smile of satisfaction. ‘There are waiting lists longer than you can imagine of childless couples who would be very grateful to you for—’

‘I don’t want gratitude,’ Claire cut in, straightening to slice the older woman to ribbons with a razor of a look.

‘No.’ Wrong move, Aunt Laura realised. ‘People who would give her a loving home, then,’ she quickly backtracked. ‘And a loving family life with all the security that comes along with that.’

But I would not have a place in her life, Claire thought bleakly. And tried to imagine strange arms cradling her sister, strange hands caring for her, feeding her, clothing her—loving her …

A cold sense of despair went chasing through her system, her eyes blurring as the tears tried to follow.

‘There are discreet ways of going about it,’ her aunt was saying. ‘Private agencies that only accept the very best of society onto their books. The kind of people who would make sure Melanie wanted for nothing for the rest of her life. Surely it is at least worth considering the idea—if only for Melanie’s sake …’

For Melanie’s sake. Having found the right button to push, the super-sharp PA to one of Europe’s top bankers was now using it ruthlessly.

‘You could go back to university and finish your degree,’ Aunt Laura continued. ‘I would be prepared to help you to do that, because I think it’s the right thing for you to do. But not this, Claire,’ she murmured, with another contemptuous scan of their surroundings. ‘I will not help you to wreck two lives when both you and Melanie deserve better than this …’

Melanie.

‘I’ll—think about it,’ Claire heard herself whisper. But even as she said the dreadful words it felt as if someone was reaching down inside her and ripping her bleeding heart from her breast.

‘Good,’ her aunt murmured approvingly. ‘While you do that, I will approach some of the agencies for you,’ she offered. ‘See what is required and how m—’

The car horn sounded again, cutting her off mid-word. And, on a small sigh of irritation, Laura Cavell glanced at her niece, saw the dreadful misery now apparent on her pale face—and relented a little. Opening her small clutch purse, she withdrew a slender leather wallet.

‘Look, take this …’ she said, sliding a folded wad of paper money out of the wallet which she placed on the arm of the sofa. ‘It should see you through until I can get back to you in a couple of days. By then I will expect you to have made a decision.’

Staring at the money, Claire nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she breathed, but they both knew she didn’t really feel grateful.

‘Please try to think with your head, not your heart, Claire,’ was her aunt’s final volley as she walked to the door.

Then she was gone, leaving Claire standing there staring at the money she had left behind her.

Her thirty pieces of silver, she likened tragically, and had to wrap her slender arms around her body in an effort to still the icy chill that suddenly ran through her blood.

Because that’s what this money is, she acknowledged as she made herself walk forward and sit down beside the wad of notes. The price of betrayal of those we love most.

With her heart throbbing dully in her breast, she reached out with a hand and picked up the folded wad with the grim intention of finding out how much that betrayal was worth these days.

But she didn’t even get as far as counting the notes when something dropped out from in between them that had her launching herself off the sofa and running to yank open the door.

Her flat was on the first floor. She made a dive for the stairwell just as the main front door downstairs slammed shut. Muttering a couple of choice curses that would have drawn her mother’s wrath if she had been alive to hear them, Claire began racing down the stairs in pursuit of Aunt Laura with the wad of bills still clutched in her hand—and with them a gold plastic credit card.

An ice-cold north-easterly wind hit her full in the face as she dragged open the heavy front door. She paused and shivered, her thin blouse no protection as she stood there at the top of the steps urgently searching the street in front of her for a glimpse of her aunt Laura’s distinctive figure.

It was a narrow street but a busy one, used as a cut-through between two main highways. It was lined on both sides by high Victorian-style terraced houses that would once have been quite elegant until time and decay, and greedy property developers, had turned them into cheap tenement dwellings.

The two rows of cheap and old cars parked up against the kerb reflected the quality of the tenants. So the long, sleek limousine Claire could see her aunt climbing into stood out like a rich dark hybrid rose amongst a tangle of briar. It was parked on the other side of the street and facing towards her with its engine already running.

‘Aunt Laura!’ she called out, trying to catch her attention before she disappeared into its spacious rear compartment. But the wind whipped her voice away, the rear door closed her aunt inside and almost instantly the limousine inched into movement.

Without thinking what she was doing, Claire darted forwards, the thin-soled ballet slippers she wore around the flat no protection from the cold, hard pavement as she ran across it then out into the street with the intention of stopping the car before it had gained momentum.

What came next happened so very quickly that the whole became lost in a blur of confusing sounds and images. She had a feeling, for instance, that she would remember to her dying day the sound of a horn shrilling furiously at her. Just as she would always have a rather curious image of her own golden hair fanning out in a shimmering arc around her face and shoulders as her head spun to register the delivery van bearing inexorably down on her.

Then there was the ear-piercing sound of screeching brakes, the acrid smell of burning rubber, and the warning cries from helpless onlookers who were seeing as clearly as she was seeing what was about to happen.

And even as the adrenaline did the exact opposite of what she needed it to do for her and froze her utterly to the spot instead of jolting her into taking avoiding action—she still managed to note the terrible look on the delivery driver’s face when he too realised that he was not going to be able to stop without hitting her.

Yet—interestingly—the impact itself she barely registered. She felt a thump to her right-hand side, but not the pain that should have come with it.

The next thing she knew, she was lying in the road and a dark-eyed stranger was leaning over her while someone in the background was talking wildly in a choked, shocked, shaking voice. ‘She just ran out in front of me!’ he was saying over and over. ‘I didn’t stand a chance! She just ran out in front of me—she just ran out in front of me …’

Was he referring to her? Claire wondered dizzily, and on a frown of confusion attempted to sit up.

‘Don’t move,’ a quiet voice commanded. Vaguely she registered the hint of a foreign accent, liked the deep velvet sound of it and smiled accordingly.

‘OK,’ she complied. Crazily, it really did seem that simple. She still felt nothing, and, in those first few conscious moments, she remembered nothing, which didn’t seem to matter either. A strange state of mind, she decided—all fluffy and floaty.

‘Am I dying or something?’ she wondered curiously.

‘Not while I am here to stop you,’ replied the stranger.

She found herself smiling at that too. Arrogant devil, she thought. And became aware of a hand resting on one of her shoulders while another hand was dispassionately travelling all over her body as if it had every right to do something like that. Yet—oddly—she let him. Her worry-bruised deep blue eyes solemnly studied him as he carried out his examination. He wasn’t young, she noted, but he wasn’t exactly old either. And his skin—like his voice—was definitely foreign, bronzed and sleek, and he had a nicely defined mouth that, for some reason, she wanted to reach up and trace with her fingertips.

But really it was his eyes that held her attention. They were dark—so dark it was like looking into nothing.

Catching her studying him, he sent her a brief grim smile that made something alien stir inside her. She didn’t understand it—didn’t recognise the feeling, but it was disturbing enough to make her close her eyes and shut him out again as a wave of dizziness rolled over her.

She began to shiver suddenly—though she wasn’t sure why unless the cold was beginning to get her—yet she didn’t feel cold—not at all, actually—which was strange in itself considering the icy weather.

Something warm and silky landed on top of her, and she realised that he had taken off his jacket and covered her with it.

It was only then that it occurred to her that she shouldn’t be lying here; that she had been in a hurry to get somewhere—though for the life of her she couldn’t remember where she was supposed to be going.

‘I said—don’t move!’ the deep voice insisted.

‘Did I?’ she asked, frowning confusedly because she certainly wasn’t aware of moving.

In fact she didn’t feel able to do anything very much—even breathing in air was strangely difficult. Her chest felt tight, her limbs heavy.

And for all she knew she could be very seriously injured. It was well documented, wasn’t it—that the worse you were, the less you felt? ‘My chest hurts,’ she confided, meaning to reassure herself with that bit of information.

He didn’t seem to understand that, though, because she heard his harsh expletive muttered beneath his breath. ‘Has someone called the emergency services?’ he demanded of—whoever. Claire wasn’t sure who, nor cared that much really. But she did become aware of hurried footsteps coming towards her.

‘I’ve seen to it,’ another voice announced breathlessly. Then, ‘I can’t believe she just ran out in the street like that!’ the voice added angrily.

Her aunt. Claire winced on a rush of total recall.

‘Did that hurt?’ the stranger enquired concernedly. He was touching her right wrist, and, yes, it did hurt, she realised belatedly. But that wasn’t why she had winced.

A pair of handmade Italian court shoes appeared beside her. ‘What made you do such a stupid thing?’ her aunt demanded furiously.

Lifting up her injured wrist, she opened her fingers with effort. Lying there, half hidden amongst the crumpled wad of notes, was her aunt’s plastic gold card. ‘You left this behind,’ she explained. ‘I thought you might be needing it …’

For the space of thirty long, taut seconds, no one else made a single solitary sound as they stared at the gold card in Claire’s palm.

Then the stranger spoke. ‘You know this girl?’ he demanded sharply of her aunt Laura. ‘She is the niece you came here to see this morning?’

‘Yes,’ Laura Cavell confirmed with enough reluctance to make Claire wince all over again.

How can anyone be so uncomfortable with the fact that they possess family? Claire wondered bleakly. And at last managed to pull herself into a sitting position while everyone’s attention was elsewhere.

‘Look, Mr Markopoulou …’ Aunt Laura was saying, sounding unusually anxious for her. ‘If you want to leave this situation to me now, you could still just manage to catch your flight to Madrid.’

That was the moment when Claire realised that the tall, dark stranger was none other than Aunt Laura’s hot-shot tycoon employer! No wonder she is sounding so anxious, she mused ruefully.

‘I thought I told you not to move,’ the dark voice censured.

‘I’m fine now—really,’ she lied. ‘No one needs to miss their flight. In fact, I think I would like to get up now.’

‘I think not,’ the stranger drawled, his black eyes autocratic. ‘You will remain exactly where you are until the emergency services arrive to check you over.’

No way, Claire thought. If they took her to hospital then Aunt Laura would have her certified as unfit to take care of Melanie before she could even turn around!

Then, ‘Oh, no!’ she gasped, scrambling shakily to her feet. She’d left the baby in the flat on her own!

Her head felt groggy, her shoulders stiff, and her insides were shaking so badly that they were making her feel sick.

‘Where do you think you are going?’ the stranger demanded, vaulting to his feet like a well-honed athlete.

‘I have to go now,’ she murmured hazily.

Barely registering the small crowd clustered around them, she took a few staggering steps forward—then remembered the gold card still clutched in her hand—the cause of all of this trouble in the first place, she acknowledged mockingly as she spun back towards Aunt Laura.

‘Here …’ she said, plucking the card out from amongst the crumpled bank notes and handing it over.

Her aunt took it in grim silence, her red-painted mouth tight with angry embarrassment.

Turning back to find the stranger had moved to stand directly in her path, Claire mumbled an awkward, ‘Thanks for your trouble,’ went to divert around him only to come to yet another confused halt when she noticed the pristine whiteness of his shirt.

No jacket …

Glancing behind her, she was appalled to see his jacket lying on the road where it had slid away from her unnoticed when she’d got up. ‘Oh—I’m so sorry!’ she gasped, making a move to go and collect it.

He got there before her, though. Tall, dark, whipcord lean, he bent to retrieve it in one smooth movement.

‘I’m so very sorry.’ Claire apologised a second time.

His idle shrug dismissed the oversight. ‘Here …’ Instead the jacket landed back around her shoulders. ‘You seem to need it more than I do at this moment,’ he explained. Then he bent his head towards her to add gently, ‘You are shivering.’

‘But …’ The rest of what she had been going to say got lost in a sudden wave of dizziness. Her wrist was hurting, her chest felt very tight, and her head was beginning to thump. She became aware of a cluster of blurred faces all staring at them in rapt curiosity.

An arm came gently about her shoulders. ‘Come on,’ her aunt Laura’s boss said coolly. ‘Show me where you live and I will see that you get there …’

‘It really isn’t necessary,’ she protested.

‘It is, I assure you,’ he insisted rather grimly. ‘For I am not leaving until I am sure you have been checked out professionally.’

And it was amazing—but he meant it! He even sounded as though he cared! Hot tears suddenly filled her eyes, though she had no idea why they did. ‘It isn’t even as though it was your car that hit me!’ she choked out in something between a sob and a protest.

‘No, my van did that,’ another male voice intruded. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ the newcomer then enquired worriedly.

‘Yes—really.’ Seeing the shock still whitening the driver’s face, she sent him a reassuring smile. ‘A bit winded,’ she confessed. ‘But otherwise I’m OK. I’m sorry I was so stupid.’

‘No problem—no problem,’ the other man said, and he walked off looking relieved to be getting away from it all without getting into more trouble.

Claire felt another wave of dizziness wash over her. The arm resting across her shoulders suddenly became supportive. ‘Lead the way, Miss Cavell,’ his grim voice commanded.

Silent as a grave and stiff-backed as a corpse, Laura Cavell stalked into the house while they followed behind her. Her aunt was going to despise her for showing her up like this in front of her boss, Claire thought wearily as they trod the stairs. ‘You don’t have to go to this much trouble, you know,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘I really am all right.’

‘No, you are not,’ the man beside her replied. ‘Your right wrist is injured. You have a cut on your head that needs attention. And when you breathe you gasp—which suggests you may have cracked a rib or two.’

An injured wrist. A cracked rib or two. Claire closed her eyes and wondered bleakly when something good was going to happen.

There didn’t seem to be much use in hoping for it, she decided heavily. Things around her seemed to be going from bad to worse with every passing minute.

When they reached her flat she broke free from him so she could precede him through the door. Laura was standing by the clothes-horse—valiantly trying to hide it, Claire suspected, with the first hint of humour she’d felt in weeks.

Then, from behind her, she could sense her aunt’s boss running his gaze over his shabby surroundings and all hint of humour completely left her. Outside in the street stood a limousine belonging to a man who was rich enough to travel everywhere in absolute luxury. His clothes shrieked of bespoke tailoring. No doubt his many homes were large and palatial, and here he was, Claire concluded, standing in what was probably the shabbiest abode it had ever been his misfortune to experience.

Shame washed through her. Why she didn’t know, because the feelings of a complete stranger really shouldn’t matter to her. But something made her turn around to confirm the look of distaste she just knew would be written all over his lean, dark, super-elegant features.

It was there.

She felt hurt, so very hurt.

Then, as if to completely demolish her, a soft snuffling sound came from the corner of the room, and the way his expression altered to a look of shocked horror as he accurately registered just what that sound belonged to finally wrecked what was left of her fragile composure. In an act of teeth-gritting defiance, she whipped off his jacket and threw it at him.

Startled, his black eyes widened on her. ‘You don’t have to come in,’ she clipped, suddenly alight with a bristling hostility. ‘And actually I would prefer it if you didn’t.’

‘Claire!’ her aunt objected furiously.

‘I don’t care!’ she flashed. ‘I just want you both to get out of here!’

Angrily she spun away to hurry over to the small baby crib where Melanie was still sleeping peacefully, she was relieved to discover.

But the tears weren’t far away. She could feel them coming as she stood there leaning over the crib with an aching wrist hanging limply by her side and her ribcage beginning to pain her badly.

Behind her the silence went on and on. They hadn’t gone and she wished that they would because she was beginning to feel rather hot and shaky.

‘Please go,’ she pleaded. Then, without warning, she fainted.

Maybe he saw it coming. Maybe he was already walking over to where she stood without her being aware that he’d moved. Whatever, as Claire felt herself going, as the blood slowly drained away from her head and her legs began to go limp, a pair of arms came securely around her, and the last thing she recalled was hearing the distinctive wail of an ambulance siren as she slumped heavily against him.

After that everything became a bit hazy, and she didn’t really start making sense of what was happening to her until she was travelling in the ambulance—accompanied by none other than Aunt Laura’s boss who was cradling Melanie.

But no Aunt Laura.

‘She will be joining us later,’ the stranger replied when Claire queried her aunt’s absence. ‘She needed to attend to some urgent business.’

Frowning at him through huge, pain-bruised blue eyes, she wondered why he wasn’t taking care of his own urgent business. But their arrival at the local hospital forestalled any more conversation between them when she was taken away to be examined and x-rayed.

Her ribs, she discovered, were only bruised, but her wrist was a different matter. A broken scaphoid, the doctor called it, and they would have to put her out briefly to reset it.

‘What about Melanie?’ she fretted as the pre-med they had given her began to send her brain fuzzy. ‘How am I going to cope with my wrist in plaster? Where’s Aunt Laura?’

‘If you want your aunt here, then I will get her here,’ a deep voice that was starting to sound very familiar quietly promised. She had expected Aunt Laura’s boss to melt away once they reached the hospital, but to her surprise he had stayed with her the whole time.

‘No,’ she sighed in shaky refusal, shifting restlessly where she lay because he didn’t understand. It wasn’t that she wanted her aunt—she just needed to know where she was and what she was doing because she didn’t trust her not to take matters into her own hands where Melanie was concerned, while she was in no fit state to stop her.

‘Don’t let her take her away from me,’ she mumbled slurredly.

‘I won’t,’ the voice promised.

That was the last thing she remembered for the next hour or so, so she had no idea that he continued to stand there beside her bed grimly watching over her until they came to wheel her away.

When she did eventually resurface, it was to find herself lying in a small side room with her wrist encased in its new plaster cast and secured by a sling. They had left her fingers and thumb free at least, she noticed—not that she felt overwhelmed with gratitude for that because she knew she still wasn’t going to be able to handle a baby.

What did concern her was that it was going to take up to eight weeks to mend.

Eight weeks …

Sighing heavily, she closed her weary eyes and tried pretending that this was all just a bad dream.

‘Worrying already?’ a deep voice dryly intruded.

CHAPTER TWO

CLAIRE’S eyes flicked open, something disturbingly close to pleasure feathering across her skin as a tall, dark figure loomed up in front of her in the very disturbing form of Aunt Laura’s hot-shot tycoon banker.

‘How are you feeling?’ he enquired politely.

‘Dopey,’ she replied, with a shy little grimace.

His dark head nodded in understanding. ‘Give yourself time to recover a little from the anaesthetic,’ he advised. ‘Then—if you feel up to it—they say you can go home.’

Home … That sounded good. So good in fact that she made herself sit up and slide her feet to the ground. It was only then that she realised what a poor state her clothes were in. Her jeans were scored with dust and tar from the road, and her blouse had managed to lose half of its buttons.

No wonder he threw his jacket over me, she thought wryly, making a half-hearted attempt to tidy herself. But it was difficult to look pin-neat after the kind of day that she’d had, she decided heavily. While this man, whose eyes she could sense were watching her so intently, still looked elegant and sleek and clean even though he had spent most of the day rescuing fallen maidens, abandoned babies, and—

‘Where’s Melanie?’ she asked sharply, unable to believe she had been so irresponsible as to not give the poor baby a single thought until now!

For the first time today, he suddenly looked cross. ‘I would have expected by now that you would trust me to ensure your child is perfectly safe and well taken care of,’ he clipped out impatiently.

‘Why?’ Claire immediately challenged that. ‘Because my aunt Laura works for you?’

Something made his broad shoulders flex in sudden tension, though what made them do it Claire had no idea, but she felt her own tension rise in response to it.

‘Just because you were gracious enough to pick me up and dust me off, then condescended to accompany me here instead of going off to Milan, that does not automatically win trust, you know,’ she pointed out, coming upright on decidedly shaky legs.

‘Madrid,’ he corrected her absently—as if it really mattered!

‘I don’t know you from Adam,’ Claire continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘For all I know you may be one of those weirdos that prey on innocent young females in vulnerable situations!’

A wild thing to say—a terrible thing to say considering what he had done for her today. Watching the way his elegant frame stiffened in affront, Claire was instantly contrite.

But as she opened her mouth to apologise he beat her to it—by retaliating in kind.

‘Young you may be,’ he grimly conceded. ‘What are you, after all—not much more than eighteen? And vulnerable you certainly are at the moment—one only has to look at your face to know that a relatively minor road accident was not enough to cause quite that amount of fatigue in one so young. But innocent?’ he questioned with cutting cynicism. ‘One cannot be innocent and give birth to a child, Miss Stenson. It is, believe me, a physical impossibility.’

Two things hit her simultaneously as she stood there absorbing all of that. One was the obvious fact that he had got her age wrong. And the other was his mistaken belief that Melanie was her daughter!

Had Aunt Laura not bothered to explain anything to him? she wondered. And who the hell did he think he was, standing in judgement over her, anyway?

‘I am not eighteen—I am twenty-one!’ she corrected him angrily. ‘And Melanie is not my daughter—she’s my sister! Our mother died, you see, just two weeks after giving birth. And if you hadn’t been so quick to send my aunt off to do whatever business you felt was more important to her than we are,’ she railed on, regardless of the clear fact that she had already managed to turn him to stone, ‘then maybe she would have had the chance to explain all of this to you, so you didn’t have to stand here insulting me! And my innocence or lack of it is none of your damned business,’ she tagged on for good measure.

At that point, and giving neither of them a chance to recover, the door swung open and a nurse walked in carrying Melanie.

‘Ah, you’re awake.’ She smiled at Claire, seemingly unaware of the sizzling atmosphere she had walked into. Stepping over to the bed, she gently laid the sleeping baby down on it. ‘She has been fed, changed and generally spoiled,’ she informed them as she straightened. ‘So you need not concern yourself about her welfare for the next few hours.’

‘Thank you,’ Claire murmured politely. ‘You’ve all been very kind.’

‘No problem,’ the nurse dismissed. ‘If you feel up to it, you can leave whenever you want,’ she concluded, and with a brisk squeak of rubber on linoleum was gone again—leaving a tension behind her that stuck like glue to Claire’s teeth and her throat, making it impossible for her to speak or swallow.

So instead she moved to check on the baby. As the nurse had assured her, Melanie looked perfectly contented. Her left hand went out to gently touch a petal-soft cheek while he looked on in grim silence.

‘I apologise,’ he murmured suddenly. ‘For the—altercation earlier. I had no right to remark upon either your life or your morals. And I certainly had no right to make certain assumptions about either you or your situation. I am, in fact, ashamed of myself for doing so.’

Quite a climb-down, Claire made note, nodding in acceptance of his apology. ‘Who are you?’ she then asked curiously. ‘I mean—what is your name? It seems crazy that we have spent almost half the day together and I don’t even know your name.’

‘Your aunt never mentioned me?’ he questioned.

Claire shook her head. ‘Only that she worked with the head of a merchant bank,’ she told him.

He seemed to need a few moments to take this information in, which Claire thought was rather odd of him. ‘My name is Andreas Markopoulou,’ he then supplied. ‘I am Greek,’ he added, as though he felt it needed saying.

Feeling suddenly quite painfully at a loss as to what she was supposed to do with his name now that she had it, all Claire could come up with was another small nod of acknowledgement.

Consequently, the silence came back, but it was a different kind of silence now as they stood there eyeing each other as if neither quite knew what to do next. It was all very strange, very—hypnotic, Claire thought hazily.

Then he seemed to give himself a mental shake and stepped up to the other side of the bed. ‘Maybe we should leave now,’ he huskily suggested.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, and bent with the intention of scooping Melanie up with her good arm.

But he stopped her. ‘I will carry her,’ he insisted, adding almost diffidently now that they seemed to be trying very hard not to tread on each other’s feelings, ‘Perhaps you would accept the use of my jacket again? The day is drawing in and it must be quite cold outside …’

A hesitant nod of agreement had him rounding the bed as he removed his jacket so he could place it across her slender shoulders, then he was turning to get Melanie. And without another word passing between them they made their way to the hospital exit.

Just as he had predicted, it was cold outside, but within seconds of them appearing his car came sweeping into the kerb just in front of them. As soon as the car stopped, the driver’s door shot open and a steely-haired short, stocky man in a grey chauffeur’s uniform stepped out.

Rounding the car’s shiny dark red bonnet, he touched his peaked hat in greeting and deftly opened the rear door, politely inviting Claire to get into the car.

Wincing a little because her bruised ribs didn’t like the pressure placed on them to make the manoeuvre, it was a minute or two before she felt able to take in the sheer luxury of her surroundings—the soft kid leather upholstery and impressive amount of in-car communications hardware.

It all felt very plush, very decadent. Very—Andreas Markopoulou, Claire mused wryly as the door on the other side of the car opened and the man himself coiled his impressive lean length into the seat next to her—without Melanie.

‘Be at ease,’ he said before Claire could even voice the alarmed question forming on her lips. ‘She is perfectly safe. See, I will show you …’

Reaching out towards his door panel, he pressed a button that sent the dark glass partition between them and the driver sliding smoothly downwards. Having to move carefully so it didn’t hurt too much, Claire sat forward a little so she could peer over the front passenger seat—where she found Melanie snugly strapped into a baby car seat fixed to the seat next to the beaming driver.

A car seat just for Melanie? ‘You really shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble for us,’ Claire mumbled awkwardly. ‘You’ve done more than enough as it is.’

‘It is nothing,’ he dismissed, sitting back and pressing the button that brought the partition window sliding up again.

Claire was edging herself carefully back into her seat when a sudden thought hit her. ‘That seat isn’t new, is it?’ she asked. ‘You have borrowed it from someone?’ Oh—please let him say it’s borrowed! she prayed fervently.

But the arrogant look he levelled at her spoke absolute volumes, and had Claire stiffening in dismay. ‘But the expense!’ she cried. ‘I won’t be able to pay you back!’

‘I was not expecting you to,’ drawled a man to whom money had obviously never been a luxury he couldn’t afford to toss away! And with a shrug that dismissed the whole subject as boring he turned his head to glance outside as the car slid into smooth motion.

But Claire couldn’t let him just dismiss it like that. It wasn’t right that he should fork out for anything for them! ‘I will have to ask my aunt if she will reimburse you,’ she decided stubbornly.

‘Forget it,’ he said.

‘But I don’t want to forget it!’ she cried. ‘I hate being beholden to anybody!’

Arrogantly, he ignored all of that. ‘Please fasten your seat belt,’ he instructed instead. Then, ‘Leave it,’ he advised when she opened her mouth to continue the argument, the sheer softness of his tone enough to still her tongue. ‘It is done. The seat is bought. Further argument is futile …’

Lowering her face, Claire began attempting to fasten her seat belt around her with fingers that were suddenly shaking badly. In all her life she had never been spoken to quite like that, even by Aunt Laura, who could be intimidating enough.

‘I can’t do this!’ she sighed after a few taut moments of hopeless fumbling that made her frustratingly aware of how incapacitated she was going to be with one hand rendered completely useless, and felt the tears that were too ready to appear just lately begin to fill her eyes again.

With a smooth grace, he leaned across the space separating them, took the belt from her trembling fingers and, carefully making sure that the belt sat low down on her body so that it missed both her ribs and her plaster-cast, he locked it into place.

He glanced up, saw the tears, and released a soft sigh. ‘Don’t get upset, because I have a tendency to cut into people,’ he murmured apologetically. ‘It is a—design fault in my make-up,’ he explained sardonically. ‘I dislike having my actions questioned, so I react badly. My fault—not yours …’

‘You should not have spent money on us without my say-so,’ Claire couldn’t resist saying despite the fact that she seemed to know instinctively that—half apology or not—he wasn’t going to like her resurrecting the argument.

Still, if he was angry, he managed to keep his voice level. ‘Well, it is done now.’ And although the remark was dismissive again at least he cloaked it in a gentler tone. ‘How is your wrist?’ he enquired, wisely changing the subject.

Glancing down to where the sling held the heavy plaster-cast against her slender body, she noticed an ugly swelling around the base of her thumb. ‘It’s OK,’ she lied.

In fact it was throbbing quite badly now. But then, so was her head—and her ribcage. Closing her eyes, she let herself relax back into the seat, feeling so tired, so utterly used up now that she had an idea that if she was left to do it she could easily sleep for a whole year.

But she wasn’t going to be able to sleep, was she? Instead she was going to have to come up with a way to take care of Melanie while her wrist was like this.

Out from behind the dull throb of her physical pain and her mental exhaustion her aunt Laura’s rotten suggestion reared its ugly head. It was enough to make her open her eyes, make her sit up straight as aching muscles knotted up with stress. Unaware of the pair of black eyes that were observing her narrowly, her anxious gaze went dancing around as if on a restless search for deliverance.

‘What’s wrong?’ he enquired levelly.

‘Nothing.’ She shook her head. For how could she tell him that his highly respected PA could be crass enough to want to give away one of her own nieces rather than help share responsibility for her? It was wicked, simply wicked.

Yet you said you were prepared to consider the option, Claire grimly reminded herself.

Her eyes grew stark, the tired bruising around the sockets becoming more pronounced as the weight of all her many problems began pressing on her once again.

Then other things began intruding on her consciousness. The fact, for instance, that the car was driving them through a part of London that was very familiar to her since she’d used to live around here until three years ago.

But that was a long way away from the East End district where she lived now. Frowning in puzzlement, she glanced around to find Andreas Markopoulou’s fathomless black eyes fixed on her watchfully.

‘This isn’t the way to my flat.’ She stated the obvious.

Those dark eyes didn’t so much as flicker. ‘No,’ he confirmed, adding smoothly, ‘This is the way to my home.’

His home … Claire repeated to herself, and tried to work out why he had used the words with the kind of emphasis that had set instincts firing out all kinds of warnings at her.

‘Your driver is going to drop you off first,’ she nodded, deciding that was what he had been implying.

But beside her the dark head shook. ‘We are all going there,’ he said, waited a few moments for his words to sink in—then added gently, ‘I am taking you both home with me.’

‘But—what for?’ she demanded frowningly. ‘Will my aunt Laura be there?’

There was a long pause when his eyes continued to hold hers but he didn’t answer. He has a beautiful face, she found herself thinking. Good bones and skin and nicely balanced features. It was a shame the whole was spoiled by the cold mask he wore over it …

Then she blinked, realising that he still hadn’t answered her but was just sitting there, watching her studying him, and by the sardonic gleam she could see lurking in his eyes he knew exactly what she was thinking but didn’t give a damn.

Not just cold, she thought suddenly, but proud of it. And she shuddered as if something unholy had just reached out to brush its icy fingertips along her body.

The car came to a stop. ‘We have arrived,’ he announced, and leaned over to flick free her safety belt.

Instantly her skin began to prickle, her heartbeat picking up pace as a burst of alarm forced her into taking avoiding action by pressing her body back into the seat.

‘Be calm,’ he murmured dryly as he carefully guided the belt back into its housing so it didn’t whip across her body. ‘You truly have nothing to fear from me.’

No? Claire wished she could believe that—an hour ago she would have believed that! But since then something about this man had altered subtly and what really frightened her was that she just didn’t understand what that something was!

Nikos, the chauffeur, was opening her door then, and offering to help her to alight. Feeling stubborn in the face of her own confusion, she ignored his outstretched hand and climbed out of the car under her own steam. But the effort took its toll, and she had to steady herself with her good hand on the bonnet of the car while her many aches and pains made their presence felt.

She knew this street, she realised, suddenly becoming aware of her surroundings. It was several streets up from the one where she used to live when her father was alive, though this part of Holland Park was a hundred times more exclusive.

But at least she knew where to run to if she needed to get away from here, she told herself. And with that consoling thought, she turned to watch the chauffeur release Melanie from her safety seat, while Andreas Markopoulou stood to one side of him, waiting to receive the baby into his arms.

The baby arrived, all cute and cosy wrapped in a shawl her mother had so painstakingly crocheted throughout her confinement. And, for some crazy, unexplainable reason, remembering that brought on a violent surge of possessive jealousy that made her want to reach out and snatch the baby from him!

Maybe he sensed her resentment, because he turned then, to glance at her sharply. ‘OK?’ he asked.

No, Claire thought. I am not OK. I want you to give me my baby sister then I want to go home, because every single instinct I possess is telling me I should not be going anywhere with you!

Aunt Laura—Aunt Laura … Like a chant devised to soothe the troubled spirit, she found herself using Aunt Laura’s connection to them both as an excuse as to why she was allowing herself to be taken over like this.

‘Let’s go …’ Her new guardian led the way towards one of the elegant town houses that stood in the middle of an elegant white-painted row.

The door fell open even as they arrived at it, a short plump lady with hair a similar colour to the chauffeur’s appearing in the opening with a warmly expectant smile on her face. The moment she saw Melanie she let out a soft cry of delight, clapped her hands together then opened them up in greedy readiness to receive the baby.

‘This is my housekeeper, Lefka,’ Andreas Markopoulou informed Claire as he dutifully placed the baby in the other woman’s arms. ‘As you can see from her expression, she is ecstatic to be given this opportunity to take care of the child while you are here.’

‘Oh, but—’ Claire began to protest, but even as the words began to form on her lips the housekeeper began speaking over the top of her, in what Claire had to assume was Greek. Then, without a by-your-leave to anyone, she turned and proceeded to disappear with Melanie into the bowels of the house!

‘Usually her manners are much better than that,’ Andreas Markopoulou dryly remarked as they watched the woman go. ‘No doubt she will recover them once her bout of ecstasy has subsided.’ Then, more formally, he invited Claire to enter his home.

The interior was more or less what she had expected—large and warm and beautifully furnished in a tasteful mix of modern and antique.

Light hands smoothly removed the jacket. Glancing up and around, she mumbled a wary, ‘Thanks,’ but felt uncomfortably lost without the jacket to hide in.

Leading the way across the square hallway, he opened a door and invited her to precede him through it. In silence she went, still telling herself that she was going to find her aunt Laura waiting there—needing to find her aunt Laura waiting there.

But, except for the obvious fact that this was a man’s very comfortable study—with its roaring log fire, light-oak-panelled walls and heavy oak furniture—the room revealed no sign of Aunt Laura.

Behind her, the door closed. She turned to confront him.

‘Where’s my aunt?’ she demanded.

Sleek black eyebrows shot up. ‘I do not recall saying that your aunt would be here,’ he replied, moving gracefully across the room to where a big solid desk stood with its top clear of papers.

Had he said it? Claire’s brow puckered up as she tried to remember just what he had said about her aunt, and found she couldn’t say for sure.

But the impression had been drawn, she was sure of it. ‘Then why have you brought us here?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘If it wasn’t to meet up with Aunt Laura?’

He had switched on a small laptop computer and was studying whatever had appeared on the screen while casually tapping at one of the keys—though his head lifted at the question, his dark eyes drifting up the full length of her then back down again in a way that raised every fine hair on her body. ‘I would have thought that was obvious,’ he replied, his attention already back on the computer screen again. ‘You are a mess, quite frankly,’ he stated bluntly. ‘And in no fit state to take care of yourself, never mind a helpless young baby. So, for the time being at least, you will stay here with me.’

‘But I don’t want to stay here!’ Claire cried, too horrified by the prospect to dress up her protest.

That brief grim smile of his that he liked to use so much registered her horror. ‘I wasn’t aware,’ he drawled, ‘that I was giving you a choice.’

No choice? Who did he think he was, for goodness’ sake? ‘It isn’t your problem.’ She flatly refused the offer. ‘We will manage somehow,’ she insisted with more confidence than she really felt. ‘My aunt—’

‘Your aunt,’ he interrupted, ‘is already out of the country. And since we both know that she would rather—break both wrists,’ he said, with a telling glance at Claire’s plaster-cast, ‘than be forced to play housemaid to anyone, then I think we can take her out of the equation, don’t you?’

Out of the country—out of the equation? ‘But it’s you who says where Aunt Laura goes!’ she pointed out confusedly.

He didn’t even deign to answer that. Instead he lost interest in whatever was written on the computer screen and snapped it shut then straightened to give Claire his full attention.

She was still standing where he had left her, looking pale, drawn, and totally bewildered. A short sigh whispered from him. ‘Look—why don’t you sit down?’ he suggested. ‘And at least allow me to call the kitchen and order you something to eat and drink. I have been with you for most of the afternoon but as far as I have seen you have only taken a couple of sips of water in all that time …’

As it was, she had already determined that she wasn’t accepting anything else from this man until she knew just what it was that was going on here, so the desire to tell him where to put his offer was strong.

But she was thirsty and cold, and at this moment she was ready to kill for something hot inside her stomach. ‘A cup of tea would be nice,’ she nodded. ‘Please,’ she added belatedly.

Then—seemingly because she had given in to one craving—she found herself giving in to another. While he began talking into the telephone, she turned to walk over to where two dark red velvet recliners sat flanking the blazing log fire.

Sitting down hurt. But then, just about every muscle she possessed was beginning to ache now, and the other thing she really wished for was a long soak in a piping-hot bath.

No chance of that, though, she thought, glancing dully at her plastered wrist. ‘Don’t get it wet,’ they’d said. ‘Tape a plastic bag around it when you bathe.’

But who taped the plastic bag? she asked herself dully, closing her weary eyes as her body sank into the softest velvet. And how did she undress herself, wash and dry herself? How did she manage all of those other little necessities that she’d taken so much for granted until today?

‘Claire …’ a deep voice prompted softly.

Her eyes flicked open. Had she been asleep again? She wasn’t sure. All she did know was that she felt warm and comfortable at last. As she turned her head against the back of the chair, her sleepy eyes met with fathomless dark ones.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he said. ‘But Lefka needs to know how Melanie likes her formula milk prepared?’

Melanie’s formula milk? she repeated sluggishly to herself. Oh, good grief! How could she—how could she have forgotten all about the poor baby—again?

Without thinking what she was doing, she jolted to her feet. ‘Aggh!’ she cried out, as pain went screaming round her system.

She had jarred her bruised ribs and she could hardly bear it!

Then he was right there beside her. His long-fingered hands slid around her narrow waist to offer support while her slender body shook with violent spasms as she stood there, half bent over, trying desperately to ride the storm.

‘You little fool!’ he muttered angrily.

‘Sh-shut up,’ she gasped, needing his reproof like a hole in the head right then.

Grimly, he was silenced. And for the next few minutes the only sound in the room was her fight with her own body. When it was eventually over, she wilted like a dying flower against his chest—then stayed there, feeling so utterly used up that it was a long while before she began to notice little things about him. Like the padded firmness of his breastplate acting as a cushion for her cheek. And the lean tightness of his waist where her good hand had decided to come to rest. He felt big and warm and very tough, and there was a faint spicy smell floating all around her. It was pleasantly intoxicating.

‘There is nothing of you,’ he grunted.

And broke the spell.

‘I’m all right now,’ she said, pulling carefully away from him.

He let her go, his hands dropping slowly to his sides while he continued to stand there at the ready—in case she did anything else just as stupid.

‘Melanie’s formula,’ she prompted flatly. ‘I didn’t bring any out with me.’ No formula, no bottles, no nappies, nothing. ‘I’ll have to go home.’

‘We have everything you will need right here,’ he assured her.

Now what was that supposed to mean? she wondered wearily, sensing another battle in the offing. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been out and bought the whole lot along with the car seat!’ she sighed out heavily.

He didn’t even deign to answer that. ‘I will take you to the kitchen so you can show Lefka what she has to do.’

It was like dealing with an armoured tank driver, she thought grimly. What he didn’t want to bother with, he rolled right over!

‘Lead the way,’ she said heavily, letting him have that small victory—for Melanie’s sake, she told herself as she followed him out of the study and down the hallway towards the rear of the house.

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.

Only one day? She paused to consider this with a small start of surprise. It was beginning to feel as if she’d spent a whole lifetime here with this strangely attentive, very intriguing and enigmatic man.

‘Why did you send my aunt away?’ she asked him.