CHAPTER SIX
KISSING HER HAD BEEN a mistake. Three hours later, watching with an air of impatience as she tried on jackets, he was fighting an instinct to offer his assistance. Not to put the jackets on her body but to remove them, as well as everything else she wore.
He’d undoubtedly be thrown out of the upmarket department store and he suspected it would be worth it.
He couldn’t have helped that kiss for a billion pounds. The second his mouth touched hers he realized it had been brewing for three long, aching years. Hell, he wanted her, and if her response in the car was anything to go by, she wanted it too. She’d been with enough men. Did it really matter if he added himself to the tally? Maybe it would be the way to finally get her the hell out of his head?
“I can’t decide,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “I’ll just get all three.”
And he was glad for her statement, because it was a timely reminder of just who she was. Of what he despised about her and why he’d brought her to Barnwell. It sure as hell wasn’t to slam his mouth possessively over hers.
It was to teach her to be sensible and low-key.
“Three?” He snapped. “Now I see how easy it is for you throw money away.”
She shrugged again, her eyes huge and innocent as she looked at him. “Just as well I have lots of money then.” There was something though in the dark edges of her eyes that made him wonder if she really felt that way. “And might I point out that if you hadn’t kidnapped me, I wouldn’t need to buy more clothes.”
The sales assistant raised her brows so Stavros had no choice but to smile reassuringly. But he leaned closer to Claudia and whispered, “I still haven’t decided when I’m going to let you go. And you are making it very easy for me to go back to Plan B.”
“What’s plan B?” She murmured with an assumed sense of nonchalance.
“Locking you up and losing the key.”
Was it an accident that he brushed his hips against her as he spoke?
Claudia didn’t know and didn’t much care. The effect was the same. Her pulse skyrocketed and she felt like she was in free fall. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to get back to Barnwell, but it was also what she feared most of all. Being alone with him wrought its own problems.
And yet they weren’t alone yet. Patrick and Marta were still at the estate – her chance for escape.
She tapped her credit card against the reader then entered her pin. Once the items were bagged, she reached for it but Stavros was there first, curling his fingers around the handles, adding it to the single shopping bag he held – a pale blue plastic with no discernible branding. “Allow me,” he growled – yes, growled – and she blinked at him.
“Not discovering a semblance of chivalry all of a sudden, are you?”
He flashed her a look of patronizing impatience. “Weren’t you in the car earlier?” He dropped his mouth close to her ear. “Did that seem chivalrous to you?”
A shiver ran down her spine and she couldn’t answer. Her mouth was dry.
“No. It didn’t.”
He stepped aside, putting some space between them. “Ready to go home?”
“No.” She shot him a warning look. “I’m not. I’ve been cooped up in your house for days and I’m not used to being so confined. I want to … wander.”
“Wander?”
“Yes.” She snapped. “Wander.” Her eyes lit up as they landed on a Starbucks across the street. “And I want a gingerbread latte.”
“You must be kidding?”
“Nope.” She shot one more look over her shoulder, all her attention focused on Stavros and making sure he understood how annoyed she was with him. She stepped out onto the street at the exact moment a motorbike came careening around the corner.
Stavros swore under his breath, pulling her hard, yanking her off the street, swearing once more as he thrust her away from him, onto the safety of the sidewalk.
It all happened so fast, but Claudia was frozen with fear. Her emotions had been pulled from pillar to post that morning and they were in overdrive now. She was shaking as she stormed back to Stavros.
“I saw the motorbike!” She lied. “You didn’t need to do that!”
“Oh, you saw it, did you?” He asked loudly, then made an effort to lower his voice. “You saw it and decided it looked like a good way to die? Do you have a death wish?”
Tears sparkled on her lashes and shook her head but she didn’t want to be sad. She wanted to be angry. She was furious with him. “I wasn’t anywhere near it.”
“Only because he swerved to avoid you.”
“Well, you made me so mad!” She shouted, pointing a finger into his chest. “You made me so mad!”
“Right back at you, but you do not see me roaming into traffic begging it to hit me.”
She bit down on her lip to stop from sobbing. It wasn’t completely successful. A sound of emotion flopped from her lips and she turned her face away from him. “Let me go.”
Stavros stared at her for a perplexing second before realizing he had indeed lifted his hands to her upper arms and was holding her still, holding her close to his body. He dropped his hands instantly, removing his touch.
Claudia looked both ways – twice – and then moved quickly across the cobbled street, breathing in deeply as she went. The familiar fragrance of the Starbucks coffee beans hit her and she smiled despite the angst that was travelling through her bloodstream.
“This is not coffee,” Stavros complained behind her.
She was too churned up to answer immediately. She pulled the door and spun around to him in one swift motion. “You can wait outside if it offends you.” She blinked her eyelashes innocently and then moved inside. The store was full of people, all wrapped in their winter woollies, festive and bright. Tinsel garlands were strung around the walls, baubles glistened in the lighting and carols were playing from the speakers.
Claudia joined the back of the queue and began to hum quietly to herself, unaware of the way Stavros was watching her, his whole face frowning. She shuffled forward, until she reached the counter. She pulled out a gingerbread man and turned to him, surprised at how close he was standing. She was surprised by the expression on his face as well, the way his glower spread from his eyes to his mouth and to all the flesh in between.
“Did you want one?”
He lifted one dark, thick brow and shook his head. “They are for children.”
“Isn’t that what you think I am?”
She reached the counter and ordered her drink and paid for the biscuit then moved to the side to wait.
“It is what you were,” he said, so quietly that she almost didn’t hear. She looked at him automatically, her eyes showing her confusion. “Now, you are a woman, and the innocence I wanted to honour is long gone.” He pressed a finger to her chin, lifting her face to his. “You are no child.”
And she wasn’t, but her maturity had nothing to do with what he was thinking. She rolled her eyes and stepped away from him, pretending interest in a special edition Starbucks bauble.
“Were you always like this?”
She didn’t look at him. Her heart was racing, her stomach flopping. “Like what?”
“Christmas obsessed.”
“Pretty much,” she said with a quiet nod and a shifting of her features that Stavros now knew spoke of secrecy. Of inhibitions he wished to shake loose.
“Since when?”
Her eyes flew to his face and there was a reserve in her manner. “Oh, since I was a child. I’ve always loved it.”
“Why?”
She frowned slightly. “What’s not to love?”
“But you seem particularly… taken.”
“Well,” she shrugged. “I suppose it’s just such a time of togetherness. For family and friends…”
“Irresponsible spending and getting hammered each night?” He interrupted, and then regretted it instantly when she immediately shut herself away again, visibly withdrawing from him.
“Whatever.” She replaced the bauble and turned her back on him, ostensibly to study the coffee machine. The baristas worked fast and her name was called only moments later. She stepped forward and collected her coffee, placing the lid on with care and then moving towards the door without once looking in Stavros’s direction.
But the second they stepped out onto the sidewalk, Claudia’s face shifted. She put a hand out, catching a single snowflake and she beamed from ear to ear.
“Oh! I didn’t know snow was forecast.”
“It wasn’t,” Stavros frowned, looking up at the bleak sky. “It will pass.”
“I hope not.” She moved further down the footpath, her face tilted upwards, her smile unlike anything he’d ever seen, for it was so genuine and happy.
“It’s just snow.”
“Mmm, but at Christmas? It’s a white Christmas.”
“Christmas is a week and a half away.”
“Okay, Ebenezer Scrooge. Whatever you say.” But her smile remained. Even Stavros’s grumpy demeanor wasn’t enough to suck the magic out of the sudden emergence of swirling white snow.
His car was parked in the middle of the city. They walked back to it in silence – his contemplative and hers joyous, so completely absorbed by the weather event that she barely noticed the man by her side.
He unlocked the car and surprised her by moving to the front passenger door and opening it for her. Claudia’s gaze jerked to Stavros’s.
“Chivalry,” he muttered, and she tilted a brow.
“Somehow, I doubt that.” She slid into the seat, her breathing labored as she waited for him to join her, knowing that it would be harder to ignore him in the confines of this car – the car in which they’d kissed.
She pressed her head back against the leather headrest and closed her eyes. And she could see it before her, the kiss, the way he’d held her head still, taking what he wanted from her.
He sat beside her and throttled the engine to life but didn’t drive off. Instead, he turned to face her.
“This is for you.”
Her heart turned over in her chest as he thrust the blue plastic bag towards her.
“What is it?” She fingered the bag, and something like panic filled her.
“Open it.”
She didn’t want to. Suddenly, the hope of a gift she might treasure, that she could add to all her others, evaporated. Within the innocuous plastic bag was a book.
Slowly, she lifted it out, holding her breath, hoping that the image on the front would reveal something of its contents.
No luck.
It was a simple black background with gold lettering. The font used was beautiful but swirling fonts were the nail in the coffin for reading. It was almost impossible at the best of times but with lettering like this, Claudia knew she had no chance of making out the title of the book.
She had blagged her way through hundreds of awkward interactions just like this. She could fake this one too. “Thank you, Stavros. You didn’t have to do that.” The acknowledgement was forced and she knew he must have been able to detect her reluctance.
She turned to face him and forced a smile, but it triggered an answering frown on his face.
“It’s only a joke,” he said softly, his eyes roaming her features questioningly.
“A joke?” Her pulse pounded through her like a raging torrent. Was it possible that he knew about her dyslexia after all? That he was making fun of it? The very idea slammed against her. Pain lanced her gut and her sense of self quivered.
Why did she care so much? Why was he the one person she couldn’t bear to have learn the truth?
“You think this is funny?” She whispered, when he didn’t answer. The book sat in her lap like a heavy anvil. She swallowed but felt her throat thicken with tears.
“Well, you cannot deny the similarities.”
Similarities? Claudia jerked her head to his in surprise and he took the gesture as an invitation to continue.
“Headstrong, willful, disobedient…” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, as though he expected Claudia to laugh. As though it was all a joke and she should find it funny.
She couldn’t and she didn’t.
“I see.” She didn’t. She stuffed the book into the car door’s pocket and stared resolutely out of her window, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She felt his eyes on her, she felt them as though they were beaming lasers into the back of her head, but still she didn’t move.
All she could do was think about the book and wonder what he had chosen to taunt her with? And feel like an absolute fool, yet again, for not being able to so much as read the title.
Functionally she was illiterate. And it didn’t matter how many teachers had told her she was smart in other ways, that her dyslexia just meant her brain was wired differently, she had never really believed it.
All she saw was the failing of her mind. She had tried so hard, and never been able to make her eyes translate what they saw into anything other than pretty shapes on a page.
“Claudia?” He asked, pulling the car out into traffic. “It was just a joke.”
“I know that,” she muttered, without looking at him. She couldn’t. She was afraid that she might cry and she didn’t want to do that. Not yet. Not until she was in the safety of her own bedroom.
They drove in silence but it was not comfortable nor companionable. It prickled with tension and questions. Questions she definitely didn’t want to answer. When he pulled to a stop at the side of the house, she undid her seatbelt and pushed out of the car without a moment’s hesitation. She didn’t run to the house, but she walked as fast as she could, her head bent, her manner not inviting his company.
“Claudia.” It was a stern reprimand she didn’t heed. She shouldered the door inwards, kicked off her shoes and moved down the hallway until she reached the stairs. She knew he was behind her but she didn’t stop.
She could barely breathe.
All of the embarrassment she’d felt at her failings were shredding through her. He’d made a joke. About her. A joke about her strong-willed nature and obstinacy. Maybe it had been funny? More likely, it wasn’t.
But she’d never know.
Because she couldn’t even read the damned book title.
“Claudia.” He was so close. Her fingers wrapped around the doorknob to her room and she pushed it inwards but he was there, his hand closing over hers, holding her still, preventing her from moving inside, from reaching sanctuary.
“What are you doing?” She demanded in her best, most haughty voice.
He stared at her, his frown one of puzzlement. “You haven’t read the play,” he murmured, running his thumb soothingly over the flesh of her inner-wrist. But it didn’t soothe her. It spread desire like wildfire, making her body stir and awaken in ways that were dangerous and new.
“I shouldn’t be surprised, given that I saw your report cards for English,” he teased. And it was the worst thing he could have said.
“Oh, go to hell.” She pulled away from him and stormed into her room, slamming the door behind her. Only he caught it before it landed in the door frame, and pushed it open once more, following her into her room.
“The Taming of the Shrew is a classic,” he said quietly. “And I felt there are similarities to our current predicament.”
She glared at him, her face pale, her eyes showing disbelief. “You do realise everything you say is making this worse?”
“I am getting that idea,” he said with a nod.
“Then stop talking.”
His eyes narrowed and he prowled towards her, his attention caught by her anger and the beauty of it. “You cannot see the funny side?”
“Of being called a Shrew?” She compensated, knowing that she wasn’t upset about the book he’d chosen so much as the fact he’d chosen to gift her a book. A simple, ordinary present that shouldn’t have resulted in a complete breakdown.
He shook his head, his lips compressed in frustration.
“I suppose you’ve called me worse!” She snapped, spinning away from him and stamping across the bedroom to the window that overlooked the swirling river.
She felt his presence in the room but she didn’t turn around again. She stared broodingly at the river, wishing he would leave, wanting him to go.
Needing him to stay.
“Claudia, I am not a man who apologises often,” he said softly. “But I’m doing so now. It was a silly, spur-of-the-moment joke. I was trying to lighten the mood after what happened in the car.”
She blinked rapidly, warning her tears not to fall. “And I said, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” His words were low and hoarse. “Where you are concerned, I don’t think I am capable of doing anything worth your gratitude.”
She turned around slowly, needing him to clarify his remark, but he was gone.
She was alone in the room, and finally, she let her tears fall.