LITMIR.BIZ

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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.’

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